danaleeling

If a category in Moodle contains items with different total possible points, the ability to drop the lowest grade is disabled.  In the above image there are learning outcomes attached to the assignments. The learning outcomes are scored based on the number of ratings. There are four ratings being used: optimal, sufficient, suboptimal, and no evidence. Moodle automatically assigns points to ratings in a monotonic sequence. Four rating, four points maximum.  Because the assignment are 30 points and the outcomes are four, dropping the lowest is disabled. One might reason that not including the outcomes in the aggregation would resolve this issue. In the above the outcomes are no longer included in the grade aggregation. But dropping the lowest remains disabled. The code underneath the gradebook still sees the four point student learning outcomes.  One option is to use subcategories. Moving the assignments into one category and the learning outcomes into another restores the ...

Upon uploading a video , YouTube now transcribes the audio, runs that transcript through Gemini, and then produces prompt suggestions as questions in a dialog box at the upper right. The dialog box appears if one clicks on the Ask dialog below the video. The video title and description are now trimmed to half the video width to accommodate the Ask dialog. This is not a feature I enabled. This happened automatically after uploading my video. ​ Some sources online indicate that a related or similar feature may have been made available to YouTube Premium users a year ago. At Google I/O roughly two weeks ago Sundar Pichai said "It's been 10 years since we pivoted the company to be AI first. We knew how profound it would be to advancing our mission."  I have seen a video clip with outtakes from Google I/O that indicate that a related feature, Ask YouTube, is new. As I do not recall seeing the Gemini Ask prompt in previous uploads, I take this to be a server side update that...

"Future jobs depend on being better than AI" Born after the advent of LLM AI he will grow up in a world infused with AI and will never have known a time before AI.  What if humans cannot be better than AI? What future jobs can humans do in a world where humans cannot be better than AI? Watching a presentation on education in this age of AI the presenter recommended aligning education with future employment where humans are better than AI. The presenter also recommended having students analyze AI where responses had gaps and cracks. The history of science and religion teaches that a God of the gaps is problematic. AI is in its infancy, the hallucinations, gaps, cracks, and errors will shrink if not disappear. An OpenAI internal model just solved an open problem in discrete geometry through reasoning, not brute force. AI will correctly solve any mathematics problem. Why would humans need to spend decades learning to do something that AI has learned to do in a frac...

In Nature Volume 652 from 16 April 2026 on page 543 Chris Bivins argues that the world needs more taxonomists. One particular line in the article caught my attention, "But when I find a fungus that lacks a name, I can still hold it, examine it under a microscope, compare it to known species and begin the work of description. An LLM cannot. It has no access to the physical world, only to text."  That LLM's only have access to text is simply not true. LLM's are now quite proficient at image analysis. Give the LLM images of known fungal species and the LLM can begin the work of description, potentially highlighting similarities and differences to known species. I gave Google Gemini app this image: And the prompt "Describe this photo along with the likely identification of the organisms in the photo." The response started at the blue diamond: This image captures a close-up look at a brush-footed butterfly resting amidst lush green foliage. Visual Description The...

SC 130 Physical Science is centered on four course level learning outcomes: Explore physical science systems through experimentally based laboratories using scientific methodologies Define and explain concepts, theories, and laws in physical science. Generate mathematical models for physical science systems and use appropriate mathematical techniques and concepts to obtain quantitative solutions to problems in physical science. Demonstrate basic communication skills by working in groups on laboratory experiments and by writing up the result of experiments, including thoughtful discussion and interpretation of data, in a formal format using spreadsheet and word processing software. The course is philosophically centered on science as an emergent truth that arises from experimentally observed data. Hence course learning outcome number three refers to generating mathematical models, not to being given mathematical models.  In this respect the course is guided by Galileo's observation...

A plant list spreadsheet is used to edit the plant list from term to term. The plant list is only a reference for use in the field allowing for notes on late arriving students. The answer sheet is a grid of 24 blanks. A printed class list was used for attendance. Spare answer sheets were in a plastic grocery bag tied to a belt loop. The Tripltek was not brought along allowing for a hands free walk. A set of language tables in a spreadsheet cross references some of the plants and languages. A class flora is kept in iNaturalist . Weather would cancel the final. The arrival of a cruise ship with many German tourists, some of whom visited Nan Madol, coincided with rapidly deteriorating weather conditions. By 16:00 the sky dark like 18:00 and heavy rain was falling. Roads across the island flooded. Just after 16:00 thunder rolled through the sky. The final could not be conducted. Those present were awarded 24 points for showing up under the conditions. No photos taken.