Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Togian islands days 8-10
Friday, February 24, 2023
Togian islands, days 5-7
Second dive was another beautiful wall on an atoll. We went straight down to 75 feet and could have gone to at least 200! I got low on air after 45 minutes. I wanted more time, so I think I'm going to change back to the full size tank. I've been using the smaller 63 cubic inch? Tank because I like the smaller size and I'm good on air. I'm used to coming up with 1000-1200 psi when everyone else is at 500. With this tank, I'm right with them and maybe even less.
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Book report
- Caleb's crossing
- City of girls
- AI superpowers
- To kill a mocking bird (in preparation for seeing the play next month)
- Kite runner
For example, from AI Superpowers
During in-class teaching, schools will employ a dual-teacher model that combines a remote broadcast lecture from a top educator and more personal attention by the in-class teacher. For the first half of class, a top-rated teacher delivers a lecture via a large-screen television at the front of the class. That teacher lectures simultaneously to around twenty classrooms and asks questions that students must answer via handheld clickers, giving the lecturer real-time feedback on whether students comprehend the concepts.
During the lecture, a video conference camera at the front of the room uses facial recognition and posture analysis to take attendance, check for student attentiveness, and assess the level of understanding based on gestures such as nodding, shaking one's head, and expressions of puzzlement. All of this data—answers to clicker questions, attentiveness, comprehension—goes directly into the student profile, filling in a real-time picture of what the students know and what they need extra help with.
But in-class learning is just a fraction of the whole AI-education picture. When students head home, the student profile combines with question-generating algorithms to create homework assignments precisely tailored to the students' abilities. While the whiz kids must complete higher-level problems that challenge them, the students who have yet to fully grasp the material are given more fundamental questions and perhaps extra drills. At each step along the way, students' time and performance on different problems feed into their student profiles, adjusting the subsequent problems to reinforce understanding.
In addition, for classes such as English (which is mandatory in Chinese public schools), AI-powered speech recognition can bring top-flight English instruction to the most remote regions. High-performance speech recognition algorithms can be trained to assess students' English pronunciation, helping them improve intonation and accent without the need for a native English speaker on site.
From a teacher's perspective, these same tools can be used to alleviate the burden of routine grading tasks, freeing up teachers to spend more time on the students themselves. Chinese companies have already used perception AI's visual recognition abilities to build scanners that can grade multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank tests. Even in essays, standard errors such as spelling or grammar can be marked automatically, with predetermined deductions of points for certain mistakes. This AI-powered technology will save teachers' time in correcting the basics, letting them shift that time to communicating with students about higher-level writing concepts.
Finally, for students who are falling behind, the AI-powered student profile will notify parents of their child's situation, giving a clear and detailed explanation of what concepts the student is struggling with. The parents can use this information to enlist a remote tutor through services such as VIPKid, which connects American teachers with Chinese students for online English classes. Remote tutoring has been around for some time, but perception AI now allows these platforms to continuously gather data on student engagement through expression and sentiment analysis. That data continually feeds into a student's profile, helping the platforms filter for the kinds of teachers that keep students engaged.
Almost all of the tools described here already exist, and many are being implemented in different classrooms across China. Taken together, they constitute a new AI-powered paradigm for education, one that merges the online and offline worlds to create a learning experience tailored to the needs and abilities of each student. China appears poised to leapfrog the United States in education AI, in large part due to voracious demand from Chinese parents. Chinese parents of only children pour money into their education, a result of deeply entrenched Chinese values, intense competition for university spots, and a public education system of mixed quality. Those parents have already driven services like VIPKid to a valuation of over $3 billion in just a few years' time.
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Day 4: Whale Sharks
Garantolo whale sharks and nice reef - Mom should like it here. |
What we don't see is any bigger fish. No snapper, no grouper, no sharks, no barracuda. Overfishing has depleted the area.
On the boat, days 1-3
The first order of business on board the Mermaid 1 was to take off your shoes. Get welcome drink-fruit juice because we're going on one dive later.
Dinghy takes us to dive site. Gorgeous reef, clear water. Lettuce coral, plate coral, table coral. Anemones are so healthy. I'm using a smaller tank, less cumbersome but also less air. I'm used to coming up with 1,000 lbs, now 500. Using 6kg of weight: 12 lbs. water is 83 degrees. Just wearing my 2-3 mil wetsuit.
Friday, February 17, 2023
Muck Diving in Lembeh
When I first heard of Muck diving I wondered why anyone would want to dive in the muck? Well, now I know, but I'm still not a fan. The Sulawesi area of Indonesia is known for it's biodiversity. There are more different kinds of critters here than just about anywhere in the world, and many of them are underwater. Also, many of them are tiny. They are sought after by people who like taking macro photography. You might find them in the corals, or sea fans, but you also find them in the black sand and the 'muck.'
I was so excited to see a seahorse!! It is one of those critters that are often found in the "muck." I'd only seen one other in my entire 40 year diving career. On the next dive, we saw 3 of them! To see some of the macro photography from others in our group, check out Anna's shared photo album. - some amazing photography. Keep in mind most of the critters you see there are less than 1 inch in size.
We stayed at the Lembeh dive resort, which was heaven.
Lembeh Dive Resort - dive shop, camera shed, gear shed, right next to the dive boats waiting to take us Muck Diving. |
Our room, down the garden path, up on the second floor |
Inside our room at Lembeh Dive Resort |
To give you some idea of where we are |
It was a beautiful resort with delicious food. We each got a stall in the dive gear shed where we stored our gear in between dives. The staff would see to it that our tanks were set up and on the boat so all we had to do was put on our wetsuits and show up. The water is a wonderful 83 degrees. I was a little worried about climbing back up the ladder on these boats, but it turns out that they would let you take off your BC and tank in the water and they would haul that on board, so all you had to do was get yourself back on. Easy peasy.
Apres dive relaxation |
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Your health is everything
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The porch at our room in the jungle - Thalassa Dive Resort |
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
To sleep, perchance to dream
Saturday, February 11, 2023
What a difference a space makes
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