Digital technologies in the public-health response to COVID-19

Digital technologies are being harnessed to support the public-health response to COVID-19 worldwide, including population surveillance, case identification, contact tracing and evaluation of interventions on the basis of mobility data and communication with the public. These rapid responses leverage billions of mobile phones, large online datasets, connected devices, relatively low-cost computing resources and advances in machine learning and natural language processing. This Review aims to capture the breadth of digital innovations for the public-health response to COVID-19 worldwide and their limitations, and barriers to their implementation, including legal, ethical and privacy barriers, as well as organizational and workforce barriers. The future of public health is likely to become increasingly digital, and we review the need for the alignment of international strategies for the regulation, evaluation and use of digital technologies to strengthen pandemic management, and future preparedness for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases

Lunch Tutoring in One High School’s Regular Daily Schedule: A Policy Advocacy Document.

This project discusses capacity-building steps for reconfiguring a school culture as a learning community that values the potential of student and teacher school day time for effective, beyond the classroom, academic support. Stakeholders efficiently leverage all available time for highly engaged, innovative learning in a variety of interconnected contexts as a means for improving student-learning gains. The proposed policy centers on an initial pilot implementation of lunchtime tutoring, yet furthermore, the policy overall provides a way of looking at the school day as a valued time resource that has the potential to support student achievement success within an interconnected, flexible, time-valuing culture of learning

Ethics of quantification or quantification of ethics?

Something can be gained by looking at common ethical features of different instances of quantification. While ethics of algorithms is perceived at present as an urgent issue, similar concerns can easily be associated to the use of metrics, of statistical inference, and of mathematical modelling. By reviewing these common features, strategies of resistance can be imagined to cope with computational dystopias, metrics fixation and numerical abuse.publishedVersio

An Evaluation of Equity and Access for All Students in a School District\u27s Career and Technical Education Programs

There is a great deal of research regarding the need for equity and access in Career and Technical Education (CTE); however, very little research exists acknowledging strategies to achieve it. The purpose of this study was to evaluate equity and access in CTE programs, as well as to determine any barriers to CTE program enrollment, participation, and completion faced by students identified as economically challenged, students with disabilities, or English language learners. The context of this inquiry was high school CTE programs in one school district in the United States of America. My study demonstrates both qualitative and quantitative data that reveal what CTE teachers were doing in their 21st century classrooms to provide equity and access for all students, and it further acknowledges any barriers that those teachers identified

Accountability and neglect in UK social care innovation

Accountability structures in social care are critical. They facilitate democratic decision-making, responsibility and the equitable distribution of benefits. This study examines how innovation and technology is implicated in such structures. In the UK, innovation and technology researchers have predominantly imagined care as service provision, with accountability structured through paternalistic and technocratic configurations of people, materials and knowledge. Aligning with incumbent policy and interests, these structures neglect significant groups of actors and issues, with implications for ongoing vulnerabilities in the sector. This study empirically identifies diverse possibilities for how innovation could reconfigure accountability structures in inclusive, participative and less neglectful ways

Ethical decision-making under high-stakes testing

In this research project, it was found that the pressure to meet accountability standards have intensified. The pressure to conform to testing curriculum created ethical dilemmas over the focus on curriculum or on test preparation. Educators are increasingly placed in an ethical dilemma of knowing what is needed to meet students\u27 needs but rendered unable to meet those needs because of demands to conform to testing expectations under the new accountability system

Teaching End-User Ethics: Issues and a Solution Based on Universalizability

The ethical aspects of computing are increasingly being taught and written about in professional information systems education in universities. However, the ever-increasing role and use of computer technology means that computer ethics education related to computing is also necessary for non-professional/non-major computing/information systems students. Owing to the differences between professional and non-professional education, end-users need a different computer ethics program. First, this paper explores some of the issues (goals, challenges and problems to overcome) in end-user ethics teaching. Second, it proposes a solution based on the concept of universalizability. Third, the paper argues that the universalizability thesis is a proper tool for end-user education. Finally it demonstrates, with the help of three cases, how the solution chosen can be used to solve the issues identified and to educate end-users