Social Media, who Cares? A Dialogue between a Millennial and a Curmudgeon

This is a dialogue between a curmudgeon and a millennial regarding the import of social media for education and for educational research. The dialogue emerged out of conversations the authors have had with policy makers, researchers, and practitioners over the last three years regarding the impact of social media on education (see teachersinsocialmedia.org). It was presented in the context of Kenneth Frank's research group meeting January 4, 2018. The topics covered include a broad understanding about what social media are and how they relate to teaching and curriculum; understanding about social media as a data artifact; a discussion about how social media platforms shape the interactions of participants; the quality of resources available on social media; why teachers engage in using social media; the lack of research on social media; and how social media may give teachers more power relative to the status quo. We invite you to follow along as these topics emerge in the authentic flow of a conversation. There are opportunities for reader participation on Twitter.

A cohort is not representative of humanity

In the freshly published research letter, Dong, Milholland, and Vijg (DMV) reported that they found strong evidence for a limit to human lifespan. Analyzing data from International Database on Longevity, they found that the yearly maximum reported age at death (MRAD, i.e. age at death of the world’s oldest person died in a specific year) stopped increasing from the mid-1990-s reaching a plateau at around 115 years. Even though the authors acknowledge that the data on “the supercentenarians … are still noisy and made of small samples”, they feel safe to conclude that “the results strongly suggest that the human lifespan has a natural limit”. I argue that the results and conclusions of the study are likely to be caused by just a data artifact, and that they are hardly generalizable for the humanity.

The Case of Sharp Velocity Transitions in High Vertical Wind Shear When Measuring Doppler Velocities with Narrow Nyquist Intervals

An investigation was launched following unexpected observations of step-function transitions in Doppler velocities from scanning radars in regions of high vertical wind shear. It revealed that, if wind velocity transitions are sufficiently sharp and strong, then the measured velocity at each pulse repetition frequency undergoes an unusual smooth transition, from being in the right Nyquist interval to being in the wrong one. Hence, when these velocities are dealiased, a step function in velocity appears at the transition between where velocities were aliased and where they were not. The extent and the impacts of this data artifact are considered.

Martian Boneyards

This paper reports on research of a game designed for scientific inquiry in a new and publicly available massively-multiplayer online environment (MMO). Educators and game designers worked together to create a highly immersive environment, a compelling storyline, and research-grounded tools for scientific inquiry within the game. The designers also played characters within the game that allowed them to deliver an evolving and responsive game narrative while also serving as participant observers for the research. Researchers integrated these observations with survey data, log data, artifact review, and interviews, to provide a broad picture of the player experience and the gaming environment. This study provides evidence that sustained scientific inquiry can be nurtured in an MMO game and that gamers’ relationships with characters in the game and other players may help facilitate that inquiry.