A Look Into The Future Of Wireless Brain-Computer Interfaces.

 

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) or what some call the mind-machine interface is a system of connecting a human brain through wires or wirelessly to a machine in order to generate signals from the brain, transmit them to a computer and through a bidirectional information flow mechanism allow the computer to control motor functions of the human brain.

The idea of a mind-machine interface was popular in the 1970s but it was not until the 1990s that prosthetic devices that were attached to the brain appeared to be viable. One of the concepts behind these mind-machine devices is to capture the electrical activity of the brain through electroencelography (EEG), transmit them to a machine and then the machine generates signals that are able to control the functioning of the brain. Professor Jacques Vidal of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is credited with inventing the first BCI machine. This concept has been applied in neuroprosthetics which is the use of artificial devices to replace the function of impaired nervous functions and brain related problems.

Thanks to this inventive and innovative approach, many persons who have lost their vision, motor movements, and other body functions such as in paralysis, can be able to live normal lives using these machines. A breakthrough in BCI devices and neuroprosthetics was accomplished in 2009 when Alex Blainey, an independent researcher living in the UK, was able to control a 5 axis robot arm using the Emotiv EPOC. These devices could help even someone who has lost control of their spinal cord through a disease or injury to regain full movement .

One drawback though was that not only do they require wires but they can generate energy in the brain of recipients. A wired BCI device can limit the movement of the person on whose brain it is implanted. They would not be free to move at ease. While a BCI device generating enormous energy could do harm to the person on whom it is implanted.

Now, these challenges could be a thing of the past as research has suggested that neural implants in the brain could be done wirelessly while generating just one-tenth of the power of existing devices.

A team of electrical engineers and neuroscientists from Stanford University successfully created a breakthrough device that could give recipients a wider range of movement while not exposing them to harm through the heat generated by the implanted device. To test their data, they tried out their experiment on three nonhuman primates and one human participant in a clinical trial. Then while the subjects performed several movements by communicating with the computer using their brains, the researchers took extensive measurements. The results of the research validated the hypothesis from the researchers that a wireless device for neuroprosthesis was possible and commercially viable while using less power.

Only time would tell when the actual device would be built that would actually achieve the goal of the research: a mind-machine device that was safe yet wireless. The future of wireless brain-computer interfaces is just within reach.

How To Do Python Keyword Arguments Like An Expert

It is a little daunting for people who are new to python or transitioning to python from other languages to understand how keyword arguments work when compared to positional arguments. I will succinctly explain each of them here and show you how to use keyword arguments like a pro in no time.

Arguments in python are parameters that are passed to functions. When a function is called, a scope is created for the function with the arguments bound to the parameters within that scope. The argument could be a variable, value or object that is passed to the function (or method) as input.

There are two types of arguments that could be passed to python functions. They are positional arguments and keyword arguments.

Positional arguments are arguments that need to be included by the caller in their proper position or order in the function definition. Let’s take the complex() built-in function as an example. The syntax is complex([real[, imag]]) where the first argument is the real number and the second is the imaginary number. In complex numbers, the position is very important. A complex number with real 2 and imaginary number 3 is written as 2 + 3j. If the order is mistaken, then you have a different complex number. You need to note this when using the complex function. For example take this code sample below:

 

You can see from running the code that I interchanged the 2 and 3 just to show you how positional arguments work. When you change the position of the arguments, you get a different result. You must give the function the same number of arguments as is defined in the positional arguments, else it will return an error.

But there are times when you want to pass a sequence of arguments, such as an iterable to the function, then you can use the * operator to do this. Notice that I used this * operator in line 6 in the code below. This unpacks the iterable and passes each of the items in the iterable to the function in order.

 

What are keyword arguments?

Keyword arguments, as the name denotes, are arguments that are passed with a key=value syntax. That is a key first, an = sign, and then a value. Unlike positional arguments, the position of parameters or the order does not matter. You can state the arguments in any order you like. What matters are the names of the keys. In fact, when you pass a keyword argument, python creates a dictionary of key=value pairs for the arguments and inserts it into the function appropriately.

Let’s take an example using our complex function again.

 

You can see from line 1 and 3 that I interchanged the positions of the arguments while specifying their key=value pairs and it gave me the same object.

Keyword arguments can seem odd as we go on to take more complex examples, but I want you to know that as you practice with it, it would become more natural and you would love using them. They have advantages.

In python documentation, the phrase "keyword argument" is often shortened to kwargs. So when you see such shorthand know that it signifies keyword arguments.

What are the advantages of using keyword arguments.

1. With keyword arguments, we can leave off some of the arguments and the default is used for those that are left off.

Notice that in line 4 first_name was not given to the function and I asked it to use the default. In line 5, I did not pass any argument at all, instead it just used the default.

2. If we want to achieve readability in passing arguments, we can rearrange the arguments to make them readable.

The ability to rearrange the arguments at your willing makes you creative and provides code you can understand in the future.

3. Objects that are being passed to the function are clear to use when we are passing them.

Since we are using their names to pass them, we understand what we are doing in case we need to debug or read the code in the future. Consider these two lines for passing arguments to the complex function, which do you think is more readable?

 

Line 1 and line 3 creates the same object, but you must agree with me that line 3 is more readable because looking at the keys you can easily know what object you are passing to the function.

Now that we have a basic idea of keyword arguments and how they are used in python, let us illustrate some more features of keyword arguments with more examples.

Keyword arguments and examples

One example of a built-in function that requires a keyword argument in python is the sorted function. After the first iterable, every other argument that is passed to the function must be a keyword argument. In the code below, I tried reversing the sort order without passing a keyword argument of reverse=True and it returned a TypeError.

 

There is a handy technique that comes in handy when you want to require that all your keyword arguments be named while having the ability to pass on arbitrary positional arguments. That is mixing positional and keyword arguments at the same time. When the positional arguments are more than one, you can use the *parameter statement (where parameter is a variable, value or object) to specify this. Remember, as I said before, when stating a keyword argument with a positional argument, the moment you insert a keyword argument in the parameter list, any other argument that comes next must be a keyword argument.

Let’s take this summing function as an illustrative example. It sums all the numbers passed starting from 1 as default. Notice that I did not pass the parameter, initial, as argument, because I wanted to use it as default. You can experiment with it. What if you want to make the initial starting point 2 or 3? What sum would it return?

 

Also, to take our knowledge one step further, what if you don’t want to specify any positional arguments but you want an arbitrary number of keyword arguments. You use the statement **kwargs. You must have seen this often in the python documentation. What python does when it sees this in the function definition is to create a dictionary with the key=value of the passed in parameters. Let’s illustrate this with an example.

 

When using the **kwargs statement, order matters to the python interpreter. It will evaluate all the keys according to the order that they were passed.

I encourage you to use keyword arguments often. They give beauty to your programs. If you are not familiar with them, when writing any function ask yourself: can I use keyword arguments for this and make it more readable? It would solve you a whole lot of headache in the future.

The Next Big Thing About the Cerebellum Might Open Frontiers In Understanding The Brain

The cerebellum, which in Latin means “the little brain,” is at the hindbrain in all vertebrates. North of the cerebellum is the cerebral cortex which forms its outer layer. Formerly, due to its folding nature, the cerebellum was thought to be smaller than the cerebral cortex and so not much involved in as much activities in human behavior and cognition as the cortex. But recent research has disproved that point.

The cerebellum as earlier said was thought to be smaller because it is arranged in hundreds of folds which make it look small in surface area but researchers using ultra-high-field MRI imaging together with specialized software have found that the surface of the cerebellum is much larger than was believed. It was even found to be even bigger than the cerebral cortex. It is now said to be approximately more than 80 percent of the cerebral cortex.  

This research would now open the way for more research into the benefits of the cerebellum for human behavior and cognition. This is because since the cerebellum is bigger than the cortex, it shows that human evolution is more advanced than other vertebrates, even those closer to man like the macaque monkeys. Therefore, it will help us to understand how over the years man has adapted better than other vertebrates to the environment and has used the advantage afforded it by a bigger cerebellum to develop advanced levels of cognitive abilities.

The researchers also found that while the cerebral cortex was well arranged and the body parts they were controlling well defined, that is not the case for the cerebellum. The cerebellum receives information from disparate parts of the body in a random manner. That means, areas for coordinating the shoulder could lie side by side with areas coordinating the foot. This gives humans the advantage over other animals of coordinating different body parts all at the same time from one central location, enhancing efficiency.

Also, the researchers found that the cerebellum must have a higher role in controlling emotional responses more than was earlier thought. It is established that the cerebellum is involved in movement-related functions, but this study also delved into the study of damaged cerebellums and found that people with such challenges had problems understanding their emotions. But further research has to be done in this area.

In the coming years, with the results from the MRI study, researchers will be able to better understand how the brain works and not confine their knowledge to thinking the control of body functions is limited to specific areas of the brain. Mapping the cerebellum will be an interesting new frontier for scientific advancement and further understanding of the human body.

Expectations And Realities Of Python Lists And Dictionaries

Have you ever got stumped when you tried assessing an item in a list or dictionary because you received a result which you never expected? Some would say they found a bug. Truly, that bug rests in the fact that you did not understand the subtleties between types when using a list or dictionary.

Take this little program that shows the subtleties in accessing items in a dictionary.

The dictionary has three items, with the keys being ints and the values as strings. That is the first difference you should notice. This is just illustrative because keys of dictionaries can also be any immutable type. On line 3, I asked the interpreter to tell me if 10, int type, was a key, and if ‘10’, string type, was a key. It says True for the former and False for the latter. This is a problem I encounter while teaching on a daily basis. Many persons tend to confuse the int for the string and vice versa. They are different values.

Then comes accessing the items in the dictionary. On line four, I inserted 10 as the key to the dictionary. Note this: as key and not the index. Python reported the string, ten, as I expected. But notice what happens on the line 5 when I used the string ‘10’ as the index. Python gave a KeyError.

So, this shows that types really matters when you are accessing dictionaries. The same goes for lists.

How to find items in a list and dictionary.

Imagine we have a list of names.

When you run it, you should notice that the int 1 is not in the list. I could have used some other value, maybe ‘one’ or maybe ‘Rose’ but the "in" operator shows us whatever is in the list. One problem I have encountered with most of my students is that they don’t understand the subtleties of the in operator. What I always tell them is to consider it as going through each item in the list and looking for a match. If it returns a match, it returns True, and if not it returns False.

Now, what if we mistake an int for a string or vice versa in the list. Let’s take another list. This time of years.

If you run it, what it prints out is:

2019 in list.
2019 is not in list.

What is going on? It’s just simple. The items in the list are strings but on line 10 we gave it an int. So, when programming you have to be very careful not to be carried away and confuse an int for a string and vice versa.

What about indexing and keys.

What we expect is that when we give the interpreter something like variable_name[index] when it is an iterable, we should expect to get an item in return. But what item we get depends on the data structure we are using. If variable_name is a list, we will get an item in the list with that index. But if variable_name is a dictionary, what we get is a value of the key, index.

That gets many people confused sometimes. Well, it is all about knowing that lists and dictionaries are arranged differently. A list contains references to items of value and each item is indexed from zero. For example, let’s take our list of names again.

names = ['david', 'michael', 'daniel']

The list has three items which are referenced through an index. 'david' is at index 0, 'michael' is at index 1, and 'daniel' is at index 2. So, we can access the items through the indices. For example this command, names[0] will return david, while names[2] will return daniel.

But this is different with dictionaries. Let’s take a dictionary of ints as keys and strings as values for example.

num_dict = {10 : 'ten', 20 : 'twenty', 30 : 'thirty'}

If we run the statement num_dict[0] we will get a KeyError. You know why? Because dictionaries accesses its values based on the keys and 0 is not a key in the num_dict dictionary. So, don’t confuse this with that of lists. To access the second item in the dictionary which is ‘twenty’, we need to get it through its key, and the key is an int, 20. So we run the statement thus: num_dict[20] which returns ‘twenty’.

Note that keys of dictionaries can only be immutable types, including sets, while values for dictionaries can be of any type.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you like receiving more solved problems like this from this blog, just subscribe and it will be sent to your inbox the moment I publish a new article.

How to find a match when you are dating floats in python

Have you ever wondered how to do things the easy way when dealing with strings? Maybe you want to match some strings and you get stomped.

For example, take this hackerrank.com challenge. The challenge says that given a string, find out if it is a float where floats have the following requirements:

1.Number can start with +, -, or . symbol. 
2.Number must contain at least one decimal symbol
3.Number must have exactly one . symbol
4.Number must not give any exceptions when converted using the float(N) expression where N is the string. 

Now, those are some requirements. We could code this literally in python but it would be unbeautiful and illogical. That is where the beauty of regular expressions come to play.

What are regular expressions?

A regular expression, sometimes denoted as regex, is a sequence of strings that defines a search pattern. For example, if you want to search for the word ‘bat’ in battered, you could use ‘bat’ as a regular expression. Therefore, for the challenge above, we would be using regular expressions to solve it simply and beautifully.

Introduction to python regex.

You can get the full details of the use of python regex at the python regex documentation page here.

But I will just briefly cover the main points.

In python, regular expressions can be composed of metacharacters and also the ability to do repetitions on characters.

First the metacharacters.

The basic metacharacters are:

1. [ ] which is the set metacharacter. Anything within the [] character class will be included in the search. For example having [mnc] means to search for the occurrence of an m, n, or c in the original string. This metacharacter can also be a range. For example [a-c] means to match the set of characters between a and c. if denoted by [a-z] that means to match any lower case character.
2. Complementary to the above is the complement of the set, [^ ]. This means that anything within this complementary set should not be included in the search. For example if you get [^ cab] it means when searching do not include the lower case letter c, a, or b in the search.
3. \d is the metacharacter that says search only decimal digits. It is equivalent to [0-9]
4. \D says match any non-digit character. It is equivalent to the complement set, [^0-9]
5. \s says match any white space while \S is the complement that says do not match any whitespace.
6. \w says match any alphanumeric character while \W says do not match alphanumeric characters.

Now, let’s talk about repeating matches.

There are four symbols for match repetition.

1. * metacharacter says that the preceding character matches zero or more time. That means you can match it 0, 1, 2 etc infinite times. For example do*g will match dg, dog, doog, doooog, etc. Now you get it.
2. + metacharacter says match the preceding character one or more times. Note its difference from *. That means it can match 1, 2, 3 etc times to infinity but can never match 0 time. Examples are for the above again, if we have do+g it will match dog, doog, dooog etc but not dg. Get it?
3. ? metacharacter says match one or zero times. It is called the optional repeating character. For example having da?d will match dd and also match dad and nothing else.
4. Now the last repeating character is {m,n} character. It says match the preceding character at least m number of times and at most n number of times.

Now, I believe that is what we need to start building our matching pattern.

From our challenge above we say we have a date with floats. Let’s build a matching pattern from a string that fulfils starting from +, - or . symbols. Then has at least one decimal symbol and exactly one . symbol. That gives us the following regex pattern:

pattern = r'[+\-]?[0-9]*.{1,1}\d+'

Let's explain the pattern slowly. [+\-]? says that the float could start with optional + or -. Notice that we backslashed the – because this would make python to recognize the character. If we didn’t backslash it, python would think it is a range because it is within a set metacharacter, [ ].

Next is [0-9]?. This pattern says that any digit can occur zero of more times where it starts or does not start with + or -. Notice that we left off the . character in the first space. This is because if a float starts with the period, ., character, then it would not have any digit. So, that is why the period is coming after the digit.

The .{1,1} says that we will have at least and at most 1 period character. That is exactly one. Then the pattern says that it ends with a digit. There must be at least one digit. That is what the ending pattern, \d+, means. Notice that I interchanged [0-9] and \d. I just wanted you to realize that they are the same patterns.

One tool that you can use to build your regex patterns is found at regex101.com. This is a great site for using regular expressions. It has all the tools you need to understand regular expressions.

Now that we have created the regular expressions according to the challenge above, let us test it to see that it works. To do so, I compiled the pattern and created a comparison_list for the list of strings we want to check the pattern against. Then using a for loop I went through each of the items in the list looking for matches.

You would notice that the challenge involves casting the string to a float. I did not put that into the regex because that is not the function of regex but in the try block there is a conditional that checks for that.

Here is the code for the challenge.

You could create your own test suites and check out how your skill with regular expressions. They are a fun way to code. For other methods of the python regex, you could check out this post on python re match and python re search.

You could download the script for the solution here. Enjoy your date with regular expressions and floats.

Cubing the Fibonacci sequence using a map and lambda function in python

In this article, I will show how you can use the map and lambda function. We will be using a Fibonacci sequence to demonstrate this. The task we will be carrying out is to produce a Fibonacci sequence and then apply map to it in order to cube it while utilizing a lamda function. We will be introducing each of them in turn.

First, the Fibonacci sequence.

The Fibonacci sequence was discovered by an Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci. The sequence goes in the form 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34,... Take a good look at the sequence and you will notice something. You will notice that from the third term, you need to sum the previous two terms to get the third term. That is $a$₂, which is 1, is the sum of $a$₁ and $a$₀. The general formula for each nth term is: $A$_n= a_n-1 + a_n-2and the first two terms are given as $a$₀ = 0 and $a$₁ = 1.

So, let’s generate some code that will give us the Fibonacci sequence.

In the Fibonacci(num) function, we used a recursive definition for the Fibonacci function. As you can see from the last return, we called the Fibonacci function twice, asking it to sum the return values of the two previous calls.

Here is the code:

Now, we will create a list of the sum of any number of Fibonacci functions. For example, if we want to generate a list of the first n Fibonacci function, we would use the following code:

You will notice from the code above that I created a for loop that calls the Fibonacci function for each number we want to return. If you print the list, you will get the value for each Fibonacci number and all arranged in the list. For example, if we wanted to create a list of first five Fibonacci numbers the list, n_list, when printed, gives [0. 1. 1. 2. 3].

Now that we have our Fibonacci list ready. What we do next is use the map function to cube each element in the list. To carry out this cubing, I will use a lambda function.

But first, what is a map function?

A map function applies a given function to each element of an iterable such as a list, set, tuple etc. The syntax for the map function is map(function, iterable, …). This shows that the map can take more than one iterable. For example, let the function be a square function. We want to apply the square function to each element of the list [1,2,3,4].

This is how we would do it. First we write the square function and then use it as the function parameter in map, then insert the iterable as the second parameter in map. Here is the code:

The output from the above is:

[1, 4, 9, 16]

All the numbers squared. Used on its own, the map function will give you a map object. So, in order to print it out, I had to cast the map object to a list using list(map(square, the_list)). You could even cast it to a set or any iterable if you want. Note that this map function is not used in our task. It is just an illustration. The one we use will come below.

Now that we have our map function set out, what about the lambda function.

The lambda function definition

A lambda function is a simple function. It is a function having no name. You know that normally you would define functions with a name, but for lambda functions you just want to return a value without defining a function. A lambda function can take any number of arguments but it has only one line or expression that it returns. I love lambda functions whenever I want to write a one-liner function. The square function above could have been done using a lambda function.

The syntax for a lambda function is: lambda x, y : expression, where x and y are parameters. The expression is any valid operation on the parameters. You use only one line for it.

So, let’s go back to our task for today. We want to take the Fibonacci numbers list and cube every item in the list. We have already created the Fibonacci numbers list above. Now, how do we cube it combining a map and lambda function.

I will use just this one-liner.

From the lambda function above you can see that I used x as the parameter and the expression was that each x should be raised to power 3 or cubed. So, what the map function and lambda function is saying in essence is that take each item in n_list and then raise it to be power of 3 (or cube it) with map making sure we walk through each element in n_list. Map produces a map object and this object is then cast into a list using the list function and the value is referenced by cubed_fib which was then printed in the next line.

That is all for our task for today. If you want to keep on reading of other tasks I will be producing, just subscribe to this blog using the email subscription form above.

Here is the full code for the task:

For those of you who would like to have the file, you can download it here.

[Cartoon] Indiscretion: Bad taste coupled with bad judgment!

Often, we find ourselves saying or doing things that we’d regret later. When an act or speech is not acceptable in relationships, business contracts, religious gatherings etc because it or they run counter to what is acceptable by society, it is generally classed as an indiscretion.

Indiscretion in life is generally used as examples easily rather than in other areas. For example, we can all quickly remember when we young that thoughtless remark made in front of our parents or people older than we are etc. Indiscretion in other areas like business could be costlier though than any in life.

The cartoon below is one. The indiscretion could cost a marriage and relationship, including trust, respect and love.

What can you say about it? Add your suggestions and notes in the comments box below, or join me on a Facebook group, mypallys. You can join on Whatsapp by writing your phone number on the comments box below!

[Video] Top youtube video for week of April 25: It's all about The Calbuco Volcano in Chile

On Wednesday, April 22, Calbuco Volcano in Chile erupted. The last time it did so was in 1972, about 42 years ago. Thousands of people have been evacuated from Ensenada, a town in the foothills of the volcano both on the first day of its eruption and also on Thursday, when Calbuco erupted a second time.

Youtube videos was rife with Chileans posting videos of the eruption. Smoke and ash were sent to the air like a scene from an apocalyptic film. It’s so wonderful, although the catastrophe isn’t. News reports that the immediate concerns are that the ash could contaminate nearby water sources and also cause respiratory problems.

I picked one of the trending videos from youtube, this, with 5,604,176 viewers, 12,158 likes and 622 dislikes. As you watch, you’ll be left pondering what power and secrets lie beneath the depths of the earth. I was whoops! This is my mythical!

Explosión volcán calbuco by Rodrigo Barrera

Integrating Educational Technology 2:Considerations parents and educators should make before going virtual.

Education should provoke critical thought for the learning process to win. Technology should enhance teacher proficiency for easy adoption. Education should be an active process. Technology should make the activation cheap in both time and money.

The value of educational technology is enormous but the risks when handled badly is much more. So, what are the considerations before going the way of integrating educational technology?

1. How comfortable is the teacher with the said technology?

Parents should consider this question before allowing their children to be part of any virtual education program. The teacher or institution involved should be ready to show proof that they are well trained in the use of technology and the use is accepted in current educational pedagogy.

We want our children to be digital natives



Credit: Juan Cristóbal Cobo on Flickr

2. What skills will the use of technology introduce that the traditional classroom does not already?

Or, in brief, what does the teacher or school belief technology will add in way of learning and skills acquisition that their current traditional classroom based settings does not? The parents should also consider the cost of such benefits before making a decision.

3. Will the school or teacher be consistent in his practice?

When the integration of technology in teaching is not consistent, it demonstrates a lack of preparedness. Preparedness involves taking notice of network access, software, learning management systems, lesson plans, assessments and systems of administration, in such a practice. When all these resources are not harmonized and in place, integrating technology into learning becomes a stop-go affair and impacts on students’ learning.

4. How much experience does the teacher or institution have?

It will be beneficial if the touted experience is validated by a certificate. Experienced teachers are more creative in the use of technology. They can adapt to student changing needs better, as well as adapt their teaching resources when necessary.

5. Will the computers come cheap?

This is the question of the cost of the integration. Parents and teachers should count the cost of resources to be used: devices, software, licensing, intellectual property etc and make sure that none of these should serve as a hindrance to the implementation of technology as a method or platform for teaching. It is expected though that an experienced teacher or institution should have taken these into its business plans before launch.

6. Will it be a fulltime affair or blended learning environment?

Blended learning environment is where some of the teaching and learning previously carried out in the classroom is now done online or using technology, while learning also takes place in the classroom simultaneously. A parent should consider if his/her child is ready for fulltime online learning or if not, whether blended learning will be better. This decision most times depends on the policies of the education authority that covers the district, the ability to pass tests and exams, especially state-wide tests and exams, as well as if the child will be carrying out such learning alone or with other students.

7. How much support will the parent or institution offer?

Online learning is a novel experience for many students, although in western countries it is slowly becoming the norm. Parents and educators who are thinking of integrating technology into their children’s learning should be ready to give them needed support. They should access the child’s records regularly, tracking his/her progress and the teacher’s teaching methods. They should also apply for a sit-in to a teaching session when the time permits.

Attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about integrating technology into education varies. One point every stakeholder should keep in mind is – student outcomes. How much of student learning will be enhanced? How can this be verified? That should be at the mind of all parents and educators whenever a decision is made for technology in education.

Previous: Integrating Educational Technology 1: Making sense of the promise of educational technology.

Integrating Educational Technology 1: Making sense of the promise of educational technology.

Digital technology such as smartphones, Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones and Web 2.0 technologies have changed the way information is accessed and viewed. It has also changed the way education is conducted. As student population increases faster than teachers with expertise in pedagogy and practice, it is expected that education will face budget constraints in the near future. One proffered solution to this problem is integrating technology into education. Examining and accessing the now familiar cliché that education should be able to enhance student learning and teacher training and expertise is then pertinent.

In a recent paper on the “technology effect”, authors Clark, Robert and Hampton state that people have been influenced to believe technology will work when in particular they do not understand how it will work, or how to make it work. This could lead to flaws in decision making.

Education is a serious issue both in government and private quarters. The budget for education is worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally; private spending for education show how much importance it is placed in society. When one considers educational technology, you’ll realize that the promise of technology is its potential for liberating teaching from the constraints of place and time. Hence, virtual education, online learning or e-learning is being put forward with the intent of influencing both parents and educators that integrating technology in education is a cure-all for many ills that afflict current practices in education.

The question remains: can technology solve all the problems in education?

Anywhere, Anytime - Technology's edge

Credit: Jeff Peterson on Flickr

The marriage between education and technology has its roots at conception. The aim and objective of education is to enhance learning and teaching and in doing so, creating channels for information access and provision. Technology is a tool for adding value to those channels.

Technology can transform a classroom into a dynamic, active learning environment. Outdated models of teaching and learning placed the teacher as the “star” of the classroom; current models of teaching place the student at the center of learning. For teaching and learning to be equivalent, students must be active participants in their own education. The goal should be student engagement, not rote learning. Yes, technology has the potential for that. I am subscribed to www.edmondo.com, an online professional teacher learning community. The site has tools for enhancing student active learning like polls, forums, quizzes, games etc.

Technology also offers economies of scale and mass customization. An example in point is www.khanacademy.org. Maths and science learning can be delivered, instantaneously or by schedule, to literally thousands of students at the click of a mouse. Web 2.0 tools, such as Instant Messaging, have also been developed that support and enhance student-instructor communication, as well as creating communities of students for interaction and collaboration.

One key component of any educational method is the ability to encourage differentiation, or the support for diverse needs and capacities of students, through teaching and assessment, so that students are given more control and potential to deeply understand the information being presented.

There are so many web-based collaboration tools that can increase cooperation and teamwork amongst students and teachers, therefore, making teaching and learning more efficient and productive. A recent study concluded that when children play games that enhance synchrony, it makes them more collaborative and empathic. If you visit game sites like www.abcya.com as well as www.bitstripsforschools.com, a cartoon network for classrooms, you will find lots of opportunities for such.

Technology is not a cure-all to end all the ills of inexpert teaching and pedagogical practice. Without adequate teacher training in the use of technology, access to technology tools does not provide any value. That is why parents have to be careful when being sold on the idea of virtual education or e-learning.

It has been found that technology could create obsession in children, especially the use of smartphones and iPads. Rather than generating positive attitudes and enhancing the self-efficacy of students, it could end up creating a lonely, withdrawn student, who sees educational technology as a diversion from daily living. Powerpoint is a case in point. It has been denounced for its detrimental impact on “dialogue, interaction and thoughtful consideration of ideas.”

Another criticism leveled against online learning is that it makes cheating and passing easy. Answering a quiz without a teacher looking behind your shoulders, it is asserted, encourages a culture of cheating. It is also claimed that only motivated and mature students are fit for online learning, or it is possible for students in need of remediation, not for high achieving students.

Whatever the pros and cons are when making decisions on virtual education, parents and educators intending on integrating technology in their children’s learning should first of all consider what their basic objectives are. On a casual Google search, one can find lots of sites offering virtual education through learning platforms called learning management systems (LMS). The focus should be on increasing student outcomes, and not on any perceived benefits.

That brings this discussion to the second part: Integrating Educational Technology 2:Considerations parents and educators should make before going virtual.

What can social insect colony parasite, Maculinea species, learn from illegal immigrants?

The life of an illegal immigrant is fraught with apprehension. When caught, he/she will be imprisoned and thereafter extradited. So much time, money and effort seeking for greener pastures gone down the drain. Some have even died in the process. To survive and succeed, illegal immigrants have allowed themselves to be exploited financially, mentally and physically. The same fate could be faced by a species of Maculinea butterflies, a predatory parasite on ant colonies, the Maculinea arion.

Ants are social insects. They live in colonies with a queen ant that ensures the generational continuation of the species by giving birth to young ones, a group of worker ants who are sterile females that produce the food for the colony, defend the colony and the young. Then, there are the unfortunate male ants whose only purpose is to mate with the queen and die after a mating ritual. An ant colony is one of the most organized social structures in insects of order Hymenoptera.

There is another group of winged insects, butterflies, order Lepidoptera, who produce larva like the ants. Like I said unlike ants they are winged. One family, the Maculinea butterflies have learnt how to depend on or parasitize the ants. How does the Maculinea do this?

Maculinea can't do this, or they'll be caught!

Credit: latimesblogs.latimes.com

A Maculinea lays its eggs on plants where you are likely to find an ant colony. These eggs later mature to the larval stage. When the larva falls off, it looks to the ant colonies for nutrition by corrupting the communication signals which the ants use to organize their social life in order to gain access to the colony.

The butterfly larvae hack so perfectly at the gates of the ant colony to be accepted. There are two types of larvae. Those that are socially accepted, or what are called cuckoo parasites, and those that when they have been accepted into the ants colony, go into hiding and look for opportunities to feed on the young ants, or broods, when no one is looking, the predatory parasites.

What is most interesting about these butterfly hackers is that the successful hackers are the cuckoo parasites. They emit a sound like the queen ants and become accepted by the ant colony, are treated and feted like queen ants. In brief, they achieve a high social status in the ant colony. One such butterfly is M. alcon. The predatory parasite butterflies cannot achieve this because the sound they have hacked into can only give them a gate pass into the ant colony and not social acceptance.

So, how does the predatory parasitic butterfly, M. arion, survive? Possibly by subterfuge - sneaking on broods at inopportune moments or conniving with defense worker ants to be exploited – notably, living off its wits. That wouldn’t be for long though. When found out, they would possibly be eaten or killed.

A predatory parasitic butterfly like M. arion can learn so much from illegal immigrants who have known how to evade the police. Who will do the teaching is the unanswered question.