Education Notebook

Computer courses

given credits heft

Arkansas eighth graders can take computer science and computing courses — if offered by their schools — for high school graduation credit, as the result of state Board of Education action last week.

Most courses offered in grades kindergarten through eight do not count as graduation credit.

The Education Board authorized the awarding of graduation credit to eighth graders for the following:

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning — Year 1

• Computer engineering — Year 1

• Cybersecurity — Year 1

• Data science — Year 1

• Game development and design — Year 1

• Mobile application development — Year 1

• Networking — Year 1

• Programming — Year 1

• Robotics — Year 1

Principal receives

’20 national award

Shavon Jackson, principal of Crawford Elementary School in the Russellville School District, was one of 10 principals in the nation to be named a Terrel H. Bell Award winner in 2020.

The Terrel H. Bell Award recognizes outstanding school leaders and the vital role they play in guiding students and schools to excellence, frequently under challenging circumstances. Principals are nominated by their school communities during the final stages of the National Blue Ribbon Schools application process.

Bobby E. Lester, director of federal programs for the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, highlighted Jackson and the Bell Award along with other federal education awards at a recent meeting of the Arkansas Board of Education.

Jackson is a former high school teacher who has led the 350-pupil kindergarten-through-fourth grade Crawford Elementary since 2017. During her tenure, the school’s state-issued letter grade has moved from a D to a B.

In addition to honors for the principal, Crawford Elementary is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a Blue Ribbon School for closing the achievement gap between subgroups of students.

That Blue Ribbon Award was announced in September for Crawford, as well as for Bernice Young Elementary School in the Springdale School District; Jefferson Elementary School in the Little Rock School District; Saint Joseph Catholic School in Fayetteville in the Diocese of Little Rock; and Eudora Elementary School in the Lakeside School District in Chicot County.

Chamber reveals

educator of year

Quynci Williams, assistant principal at the Pulaski County Special School District’s Sylvan Hills High School, has been selected as the 2020 Sherwood Educator of the Year by the Sherwood Chamber of Commerce.

The honor is a community-centered award process. The Sherwood Chamber accepts applications from the community through social media and local media. Nominations are submitted directly to the chamber and reviewed by a committee of community members and local businesses. The winner is selected by this committee and recognized at the annual Sherwood Chamber Banquet.

“I often state that educators must continually monitor and adjust,” Sylvan Hills High Principal Tracy Allen said. “Ms. Williams has exemplified that this past year with the changes and pivots experienced due to the pandemic and the changes in her work description. Ms. Williams always rolls up her sleeves and attacks the day, and our school and community are the benefactors from her tireless efforts.”

Board moves up

regular meeting

The Little Rock School Board is meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, a week earlier than is typical, because the district is observing spring break vacation the week of March 22-26.

Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore is asking the board to vote at the session on plans for Hall STEAM Magnet High School, which has an enrollment of less than 400 this year in a building that can house as many as 1,000 students.

The recommended plan is for the district to commit to continue the science, technology, engineering, art and math programs started this school year at Hall for at least three more years.

Poore has also talked of establishing a stronger connection between Hall and Forest Heights STEM Academy to form a more coordinated pre-kindergarten-through-12th-grade program. The campuses are fairly close, in neighborhoods on each side of North University Avenue.

Poore said that coordination would allow for unprecedented staffing efficiencies in a district that has seen an overall enrollment decline, which has the potential to decrease state funding for the system.

Published at Sun, 14 Mar 2021 10:07:30 +0000

Facebook announces a new AI that can automatically learn audio, textual, and visual …

In this fast-moving world, Facebook is a strong platform that continuously shows new features. Now, Facebook has taken its part in efforts in the development of machines that can learn like humans. Facebook has taken its initiative in a project called Learning from Videos.

This project uses artificial intelligence to understand, learn and master textual, audio and, video representations in a video that is available on Facebook. Facebook is a platform that contains videos from the entire world, hence learning from the videos from every country will strengthen the core of artificial intelligence. This will help AI to adapt to the fast-moving world and to adapt to different cultures, regions, languages and, other components from the videos posted on Facebook. According to Facebook, this AI learning from Videos is an extensive effort of constructing machines that can learn like humans. If the AI system can mimic learning and recognizing places, things, and other material just as humans do it will be very useful for this advanced world full of new technologies.

Learning from Videos has its advantages for Facebook as it helps Facebook to analyze user’s likes, dislikes, interests, preferences and, another type of content related to user’s preferences. It also helps in content recommendations and policy enforcement.

Learning from Videos is a difficult task for AI systems as it may have many complications in understanding speech and language due to different background noises in the videos, yet in its early stages, AI system has shown a positive attitude in learning different stuff from the videos. AI system already has control to increase the Instagram Reels recommendations according to the user’s preferences. It has also shown positive results in speech recognition which makes it easier for Facebook to detect hateful words in videos.

One more possible feature related to artificial intelligence is the usage of AR glasses that will allow to find out digital memories and will surface those memories. This is a work in progress and primarily Facebook is working to make its own augmented reality or AR glasses.

In all of this progress and working, Facebook has assured that the company is safeguarding the privacy of all the users present on the platform. It will maintain a strong privacy structure and enforce privacy policies in all of their work including the AI infrastructure.

Although, the project of Artificial Intelligence is in its early stages yet it has proved to be fruit-bearing and has provided positive results till now. Therefore, it can be assumed that this project will be beneficial for the upcoming fast-paced world based on technologies.

Photo: Reuters