What happened when a school in Los Angeles gave a sixth grader an iPad for use throughout the school day? "He used the iPad during school to watch YouTube and participate in Fortnite video game battles," reports NBC News.

His mother has now launched a coalition of parents called Schools Beyond Screens "organizing in WhatsApp groups, petition drives and actions at school board meetings and demanding meetings with district administrators, pressuring them to pull back on the school-mandated screen time."


Los Angeles Unified is the first district of its size
to face an organized — and growing — campaign by parents
demanding that schools pull back on mandatory screen time. The
discontent in Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district
in the country, reflects a growing unease nationally about the amount of time children spend
learning through screens in classrooms. While a majority
of states prohibit children from using cellphones in class, 88%
of schools provide students with personal devices, according to the
National
Center for Education Statistics, often Chromebook laptops or iPads. The parents hope getting a district
that has over 409,000 students across nearly 800 schools to change
how it approaches screen time would send a signal across public
school districts to pull back from a yearslong effort to digitize
classrooms....


[In the Los Angeles school district] Students in grade levels as low as
kindergarten are provided iPads, and some schools require them to
take the tablets home. Some teachers have allowed students to opt
out of the iPad-based assignments, but other parents say they've
been told that they can't. Parents can also opt their children out
of having
access to YouTube and several
other Google products... The billion-dollar 2014 initiative to
give tablet computers to everyone became
a scandal after the bidding process appeared to heavily favor
Apple, and it faced criticism once it became clear that students
could bypass security protocols and that few
teachers used the tablets. Currently, the district leaves it up
to individual schools to decide whether they want students to take
home iPads or Chromebooks every day and how much time they spend on
them in class...

Around 300 parents attended listening sessions the district held
last month about technology in the classroom. Nearly all who spoke
criticized how much screen time schools gave their children in class,
pointing to ways their behavior and grades suffered as students
watched YouTube and played Minecraft... Several also asked district
officials to explain why children as young as kindergartners were
asked to sign
a form to use devices in which they promised they would honor
intellectual property law and refrain from meeting people in person
whom they met online. "Is it possible for children to meet people
over the internet on school-issued devices?" one father asked. The
district officials declined to answer, saying it was meant to be a
listening session.

In 2022, Los Angeles Unified started requiring students to complete benchmark assessments on educaitonal software i-Ready, the article points out, which generates unique questions for each students. "But parents and teachers are unable to see what children are asked, in part because the company that makes the program considers them proprietary information..."

One teacher says his school's administartors are requiring him to use i-Ready even though it doesn't have any material for the science class he's actually teaching. He's also noticed some students will use answers from AI chatbots, bypassing the school's monitoring software by creating alternate user profiles. But the monitoring software company suggests the school misconfigured their software's settings, adding "More commonly, when students attempt to bypass filtering or monitoring, they do so by using proxies."


Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

To build three-wheeled, solar electric vehicles, Aptera has now launched its "validation" vehicle assembly line, reports the San Diego Business Journal.


"The validation line will set a technical foundation for the company's eventual low-volume assembly line, ensuring that manufacturing processes are optimized and refined, particularly for the company's composite body structure."



To date, Aptera has produced three validation vehicles, two of which are in use driving around the San Diego region, with plans to build another 10 in the coming weeks as progress continues on the validation manufacturing line. "You learn things when you start to put miles on vehicles, putting 10s of thousands of miles on these validation vehicles and learning a lot from the durometer of the suspension, ride quality, spring rates and braking pressure," Aptera co-founder and co-CEO Chris Anthony said. "We've been able to incorporate a lot of the usability stuff back, but also, just as we've gone through the process of building these, a lot of order-of-operation stuff that's educated us on what's going to make for the best initial assembly lines," he added....

Aptera made its public debut on October 16, with the company's executive team participating in the Nasdaq closing bell ceremony that evening. Shares of SEV have hovered between $6.50 and $8.50 for much of the company's first month on the exchange. The company's equity line of credit also took effect in mid-November... expected to aid in Aptera generating at least a portion of the $65 million the company has said it will need to complete validation manufacturing and begin low-volume production for customers. Aptera previously raised some $135 million from more than 17,000 investors in what the company touts as the most successful crowdfunding effort of all time, but Anthony argued Aptera will soon need to invest larger sums of capital to scale its production needs.

"Publicly listing the company gives us a lot more funding mechanisms to get into production," he said. "So just having access to the public markets, public liquidity and the kind of instruments and tools that banks offer to public companies, it just seemed like now is the right time." Alongside the IPO, Aptera made its formal transition to a Public Benefit Corporation, giving the company a legal obligation to consider its effect on employees, communities and customers in addition to the profit motives of its shareholders.
California's state government also awarded Aptera $21 million "to support its push toward scaled manufacturing," the article points out.

It also notes that Aptera's vehicles "are technically classified as motorcycles rather than standard passenger cars, presenting a potentially cheaper alternative for consumers on the hunt for an electric vehicle."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What happened when a school in Los Angeles gave a sixth grader an iPad for use throughout the school day? "He used the iPad during school to watch YouTube and participate in Fortnite video game battles," reports NBC News.

His mother has now launched a coalition of parents called Schools Beyond Screens "organizing in WhatsApp groups, petition drives and actions at school board meetings and demanding meetings with district administrators, pressuring them to pull back on the school-mandated screen time."


Los Angeles Unified is the first district of its size
to face an organized — and growing — campaign by parents
demanding that schools pull back on mandatory screen time. The
discontent in Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district
in the country, reflects a growing unease nationally about the amount of time children spend
learning through screens in classrooms. While a majority
of states prohibit children from using cellphones in class, 88%
of schools provide students with personal devices, according to the
National
Center for Education Statistics, often Chromebook laptops or iPads. The parents hope getting a district
that has over 409,000 students across nearly 800 schools to change
how it approaches screen time would send a signal across public
school districts to pull back from a yearslong effort to digitize
classrooms....


[In the Los Angeles school district] Students in grade levels as low as
kindergarten are provided iPads, and some schools require them to
take the tablets home. Some teachers have allowed students to opt
out of the iPad-based assignments, but other parents say they've
been told that they can't. Parents can also opt their children out
of having
access to YouTube and several
other Google products... The billion-dollar 2014 initiative to
give tablet computers to everyone became
a scandal after the bidding process appeared to heavily favor
Apple, and it faced criticism once it became clear that students
could bypass security protocols and that few
teachers used the tablets. Currently, the district leaves it up
to individual schools to decide whether they want students to take
home iPads or Chromebooks every day and how much time they spend on
them in class...

Around 300 parents attended listening sessions the district held
last month about technology in the classroom. Nearly all who spoke
criticized how much screen time schools gave their children in class,
pointing to ways their behavior and grades suffered as students
watched YouTube and played Minecraft... Several also asked district
officials to explain why children as young as kindergartners were
asked to sign
a form to use devices in which they promised they would honor
intellectual property law and refrain from meeting people in person
whom they met online. "Is it possible for children to meet people
over the internet on school-issued devices?" one father asked. The
district officials declined to answer, saying it was meant to be a
listening session.

In 2022, Los Angeles Unified started requiring students to complete benchmark assessments on educaitonal software i-Ready, the article points out, which generates unique questions for each students. "But parents and teachers are unable to see what children are asked, in part because the company that makes the program considers them proprietary information..."

One teacher says his school's administartors are requiring him to use i-Ready even though it doesn't have any material for the science class he's actually teaching. He's also noticed some students will use answers from AI chatbots, bypassing the school's monitoring software by creating alternate user profiles. But the monitoring software company suggests the school misconfigured their software's settings, adding "More commonly, when students attempt to bypass filtering or monitoring, they do so by using proxies."


Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While Netflix hopes to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $72 billion, CNBC reports a senior official in America's federal government said the administration was viewing the deal with "heavy skepticism. And that's not the only hurdle:

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount, in a letter to lawyers for Warner Bros. Discovery [WBD], had warned that a sale to Netflix likely would "never close" because of regulatory challenges in the United States and overseas. "Acquiring Warner's streaming and studio assets 'will entrench and extend Netflix's global dominance in a matter not allowed by domestic or foreign competition laws,' Paramount's lawyers wrote," the Journal reported.

Paramount "is now weighing its options about whether to go straight to shareholders with one more improved bid," CNBC reported Friday, "perhaps even higher than the $30-per-share, all-cash offer it submitted to Warner Bros. Discovery this week."

And CNBC reported Friday that the review by America's Department of Justice "can take anywhere from months to more than a year."
Netflix said Friday it expects the transaction to close in 12 to 18 months, after Warner Bros. Discovery spins out its portfolio of cable networks into Discovery Global... As part of the deal, Netflix has agreed to pay a $5.8 billion breakup fee to Warner Bros. Discovery if the deal were to get blocked by the government.


Netflix's planned move is already drawing high-powered criticism, reports CNN:

"The world's largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent. The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers...." the Writers Guild of America union representing Hollywood writers.
"Producers are rightfully concerned... Our legacy studios are more than content libraries — within their vaults are the character and culture of our nation." — The Producers Guild of AmericaThe deal raises "many serious questions" about the entertainment industry's future, "especially the human creative talent whose livelihoods and careers depend on it." — SAG-AFTRA, Hollywood's biggest actors union
"This is not a win for consumers. Netflix has already aggressively raised prices, increased ad load, and stopped people from sharing passwords. Absorbing a competitor with strong content will only lead to its service becoming more expensive and give consumers less choice." — Ross Benes, a senior analyst at eMarketer, told CNN. [Benes also thinks this could mean fewer companies spending heavily on movies and TV shows. "This contracts the industry."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The drivers and teams report back on the final Qualifying of the season at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from the Yas Marina Circuit.

Lewis Hamilton was left to rue a third successive Q1 elimination on Saturday night, with the Ferrari driver narrowly failing to make it over the first Qualifying hurdle in Abu Dhabi.

Max Verstappen secured an extremely important pole position for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, beating Standings leader Lando Norris and the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri to set the stage for an exhilarating title decider.

George Russell downplayed Mercedes’ chances of progressing to the podium in Abu Dhabi as he once again found himself on the outskirts of the top-three fight, settling for fourth place in Qualifying.

Max Verstappen piled even more pressure on his McLaren rivals in the battle for the 2025 title as he delivered a blistering lap to take pole position for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. With Lando Norris starting alongside on the front row and Oscar Piastri just behind in third, there's still so much to play for in the season finale. Here are the best facts and stats from a pivotal Qualifying session at the Yas Marina Circuit...

Lando Norris admitted that he was “disappointed” to not take pole position for the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but the Briton vowed to try to win as he looks to claim a maiden World Championship.

Oscar Piastri was satisfied with his efforts during the final Qualifying session of the season in Abu Dhabi, feeling that third on the grid represented “more or less what we had” after a low-key start to the weekend.

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2. Lando Norris (McLaren), 3. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

In de aanloop naar de Olympische Winterspelen is het spannend op de lange afstanden bij de mannen, zo bleek dit weekend opnieuw in Heerenveen. Maar de Nederlandse schaatsers, traditioneel dominant op de vijf en tien kilometer, hebben het moeilijk.

Télépopmusik is een Franse band met drie bandleden: Fabrice Dumont, Stephan Haeri en Cristophe Hertier. Hun bekendste nummer is Breathe, gezongen door Angela McCluskey van het album Genetic World uit 2001.

Het nummer zullen de meeste mensen wel kennen, van een autoreclame, een verzekeringsreclame, tot aan whatever reclame want als we het dan hebben over overkill…

Het nummer luistert makkelijk, ontspannen maar meer interessant is het filmpje. De videoclip voor Breathe werd in 2001 opgenomen in Hollywood, Los Angeles. De regie was in handen van Jordan Scott, dochter van filmregisseur Ridley Scott, Bladerunner, Gladiator.

We zien in het gezelschap van mooie mensen 1 man met een hemd die wat buiten dit gezelschap valt qua lichaamsbouw en gelaatsuitdrukking, en een vrouw met zwarte hoed en hakken, die de leider lijkt te zijn van dit gezelschap. Zij overziet het gebeuren. De man vangt een monarchvlinder en houdt deze gevangen in zijn hand, valt dan in slaap en droomt van technologie, een desolaat landschap en menselijke natuur, korenvelden.

Een meisje ziet het moment dat hij de vlinder vangt en wordt boos, loopt naar de man en vergiftigd (?) zijn drankje, met toestemming van de vrouw met de zwarte hoed.

Zo gezien lijkt het alsof het dit meisje haar toekomst wilt beschermen, de vlinder wilt bevrijden, de natuur veilig wilt stellen,  ware het niet dat op de rug van het meisje iets mechanisch staat afgebeeld.

Is het industrie meisje vs natuur man met vlinder waar industrie onze wereld vergiftigd ? Is het meisje de toekomst, maar een technologische, aangestuurd door ? Is de man slaaf van een ratrace, technologie en helpt het meisje hem daarvan los te komen ?  Of zijn het zomaar wat beelden die mij wakker houden omdat ik er teveel achter zoek ?

Ik heb online de betekenis geprobeert te vinden, maar nope.

Iemand nog een 4e interpretatie om mij helemaal wakker te houden ? 

Enjoy

 

 

Social

Traditie! Kamervoorzitters mogen na afloop van hun termijn een kunstenaar aanwijzen voor een mooi portret in de Rooksalon van het Kamergebouw. Tom Staal vroeg derhalve aan de Beste Veurzitter die we Heul Kort hebben gehad (Martin Bosma) of hij al een kunstenaar op het oog heeft. Nee, dus. Waarop wij in de Wayback Machine maar weer eens een FEAUTEAUF*CK in ons Stamcafé hebben opgetuigd. Dat was vroeger allemaal knippen painten pritten, tegenwoordig draait dat vooral om het juiste promptje bij uw favoriete AI-boer. Ze kwamen bij Bosjes, we hebben de voorselectie gedaan. Kies uw winnaar! Onze tip aan Martin: probeer het eens bij Jan Okke Beerda.

Mosterds voorbeeldplaatje

Pim

Martin

F

Mirjam Vissers

RollingStonesFan3000

Z-Side

Jelle

Erwin

Michael

Gialts tripliek deel 1

Gialts tripliek deel 2

Gialts tripliek deel 3 (prachtig Gialt)

Sjoerd

Jasper

Tijmen

Trainer Robin van Persie heeft voor het thuisduel met PEC Zwolle gekozen voor Gonçalo Borges op de linksbuitenpositie. Daarnaast heeft aanvoerder Sem Steijn zijn basisplaats nog niet teruggekregen.

Op de Rotterdamse Wilhelminapier is de bouw van De Sax gestart. Deze 182 meter hoge dubbele woontoren gaat, moet het op één na hoogste gebouw van de Benelux worden, op de Zalmhaventoren na. Toch is niet iedereen blij: "Het centrum wordt niet alleen hoger, maar ook hoogmoediger."

LUBLIN (ANP) - Zwemster Marrit Steenbergen heeft bij de Europese kampioenschappen kortebaan in het Poolse Lublin overtuigend de titel op de 200 meter wisselslag gewonnen. Steenbergen verbrak met 2.01,83 het meer dan tien jaar oude Europees record van Katinka Hosszu uit Hongarije.

Het zilver was voor de Ierse Ellen Walshe (2.04,78), Anastasia Gorbenko uit Israël pakte het brons (2.05,32).

Voor Steenbergen is het haar zesde medaille dit EK en de vierde gouden. De 25-jarige Nederlandse pakte donderdag goud op de 200 meter vrije slag en de 100 meter wisselslag. Met de estafetteploeg won ze ook goud op de 4x50 meter vrije slag bij de vrouwen.

LONDEN (ANP/AFP) - De Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky reist maandag naar Londen, voor een gesprek met een aantal Europese leiders. Dat meldt de Franse president Emmanuel Macron op X. Ook de Britse premier Keir Starmer en de Duitse bondskanselier Friedrich Merz schuiven aan bij het overleg over de onderhandelingen die de Oekraïners houden met de Amerikanen.

"Oekraïne kan op onze blijvende steun rekenen", schrijft Macron. Hij benadrukt dat de zogenoemde Coalition of the Willing bereid is om Oekraïne veiligheidsgaranties te geven. "Zonder die garanties kan er geen stevige en blijvende vrede komen. Want in Oekraïne staat ook de veiligheid van heel Europa op het spel."

De Oekraïners en de Russen zijn in gesprek met de Amerikanen, die een vrede proberen te bemiddelen. De Europeanen zijn daar niet direct bij betrokken en praten vooral met de Oekraïners. De Europese leiders zijn volgens diplomaten bezorgd dat de Verenigde Staten een ongunstige deal voor Oekraïne zullen sluiten en dat Europa daar niet bij betrokken wordt.

De Oekraïense onderhandelaars zijn al enkele dagen in Miami om te praten met de Amerikaanse gezant Steve Witkoff, maar zaterdag belde Zelensky ook zelf in bij het gesprek. Het overleg was "inhoudelijk en constructief", schreef hij op Telegram. "Oekraïne is vastberaden om met de Amerikanen te blijven samenwerken om echte vrede tot stand te brengen." Volgens de Oekraïense president zijn ze het eens over wat de volgende stappen in het vredesproces zouden moeten zijn.

HEERENVEEN (ANP) - De Amerikaanse schaatser Jordan Stolz heeft bij de wereldbekerwedstrijden in Heerenveen een flinke tik uitgedeeld aan Jenning de Boo. Stolz reed het baanrecord van De Boo (1.07,08) uit de boeken met 1.06,38. De Duitser Finn Sonnekalb werd met 1.07,41 tweede. Tim Prins pakte het brons met 1.07,49.

Stolz opende sneller dan De Boo. In de binnenbocht na de kruising van de eerste volle ronde kwam hij daarna hard onderdoor en nam ruim afstand van de Nederlander, die met 1.07,60 als vierde eindigde. Prins was in de slotrit nog nipt sneller dan De Boo en pakte de laatste podiumplaats.

Kjeld Nuis kwam al in de eerste rit in actie. De 36-jarige schaatser reed 1.07,83 en zag vervolgens de 18-jarige Duitser Finn Sonnekalb onder die tijd duiken. Wereldkampioen Joep Wennemars reed 1.07,75 en bleef Nuis daarmee voor op de zesde plaats. Nuis werd zevende.