The Good Kind of Problem, Getting Personal, and Taking Things Serially: this week on Fresh Powder

A Good Problem

Fake news is hard to deal with, but it’s a thing, and it’s going to be a thing for the foreseeable future. So it’s super important to teach kids how to spot it, right? Fifth grade teacher Scott Bedley turned finding fake news into a game, and it was so effective that the kids won’t stop fact-checking him, now. And they don’t want to quit playing the game. It’s easy, they’re learning, and in the process, these kids are becoming savvy news consumers. It’s wins all around. And getting fact-checked by a group of fifth graders? That’s a good problem to have.

Personalized Learning

Personalized learning–– that is, individually tailored classroom instruction–– is becoming a thing, and Rhode Island is taking the reins when it comes to testing the practice. The idea is that education will be calibrated to each individual student’s needs, interests, learning style, pace, and so on. In theory, personalized learning will translate into greater educational efficacy for a larger number of students. Right now, they’re looking for the right combination of technology and traditional teaching techniques that will make the personalized learning model feasible. It’s pretty cool, and it’s probably the wave of the future.

Serial Solutions

In Eugene, Oregon, there’s a problem with homelessness. At The Register-Guard, Eugene’s local newspaper, they’re taking the problem super serially. That is, they’re writing about homelessness in a series of editorials dedicated to the subject. It’s a broader approach than a one-shot story, and it offers a platform for ideas and solutions. Actually, it’s called “solutions journalism,” and it’s a thing. The serial editorial structure allows writers to analyze a topic from different angles. It’s a pretty cool way to approach a problem that needs an answer, and that’s neat.

Automated Offense System

Last week, we learned that huge advertisers were pulling away from Google and You-Tube because their ads were appearing next to dubious content. This week, we get to learn what Google is doing about it! First, they’ve added more controls, so advertisers can opt to appear next to certain types of content and not others. But, they’re also trying to train computers to recognize offensive content (basically, they want computers to be offended on our behalf) in order to, someday, eliminate the whole problem. It’s kind of funny and kind of cool, and it will be super interesting to see how successful the whole project is in the long run.

This also happened last week: It’s April, and viewing recommendations abound (in case you’re not into being outside). But if you’re not looking for a committed relationship with a TV show right now, here’s a low maintenance photo list of office workers being witty.