Re:Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook
by DEADBEEFC0FFEE on Monday March 25, 2019 @03:50AM
(#19480884)
Recommendation engines don't teach, they provide opportunities. That could be useful as a learning approach, if layer on to a tech-tree /leveling learning path.
The analogy with conspiracies is flawed, pretty sure Google and Facebook don't first link to the basics of conspiracies, and then move on from there.
Re:Mathigon – an interactive, personalized mathematics textbook
by CoolGuySteve on Monday March 25, 2019 @03:47AM
(#19480877)
I’m pretty sure you can make the same case about things taught in the US about vast swathes of American history like Christopher Columbus, the Louisiana purchase, the pilgrims, etc.
I’m not even American but I’ve noticed the bar’s pretty low after living here for years.
On one hand, we probably shouldn’t be making pedagogical policy based on the most gullible in our society, but on the other, everyone is gullible when they’re young and many continue to be so afterwards.
Are they really though? I have found that when I start probing people’s weird conspiracy theories picked up from blogs/facebook (or even more mainstream partisan disinformation picked up from newspaper op-eds or think tank whitepapers), they are quite shallow and unsophisticated, typically papering over gaping holes in basic knowledge.
“Teaching” a bunch of made up bullshit has much lower standards and requires a lot less effort (for both teacher and pupil) than teaching about complex real-world structures even to a level of basic competence, let alone serious expertise.