John Ferrier
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suvartula.bsky.social
John Ferrier
@suvartula.bsky.social
120 followers 71 following 10 posts
He/him. Retired UK civil servant.
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Reposted by John Ferrier
rufflemuffin.bsky.social
Censorship today is quiet: institutions hesitate, teachers are pressured, events disappear.

This year, I was banned from speaking at a primary school about Section 28. In 2025(!)
December 15, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by John Ferrier
asls.org.uk
John Maclean (1879–1923), socialist & Red Clydesider, was born #OTD, 24 August

Listen to Hamish Henderson’s “The John Maclean March”, sung by Dick Gaughan (1972)
✊
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uAs...
Dick Gaughan - John MacLean March
YouTube video by cobrolchain2
www.youtube.com
August 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Reposted by John Ferrier
privatechand.bsky.social
Ed tech is bottom of the barrel for enshittification (in part because of how university procurement works). Canvas was all in on “predictive analytics” a while back, to offer graders predictions on student outcomes based on…racism. Then its Zoom interface became a surveillance tool. Color me shocked
louiseseamster.bsky.social Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · Jul 19
Out of curiosity I wanted to know how the massive LMS Instructure (company that runs Canvas) is using the massive amounts of data it collects on students.

Oh.
(This article is nominally not a press release?)
www.forbes.com/sites/rayrav...
As more becomes known about individuals more and more data about learner journeys and the alignment of courses to skills and skills to careers, Instructure will become increasingly capable of providing optimal pathways for students. Moreover, by combining learning management system, student work repository, transcripts, and credentialling services through the integration of products such as Portfolium, Parchment, Scribbles, and Concentric Sky, Instructure will be able to provide students and prospective employers with deep longitudinal insight into capabilities and qualifications. Rather than just being able to provide information about course outcomes, as with the traditional transcript, Insturcture could make available the entire student data set leading to that outcome. This would make it possible to distinguish between the student earning a “B” in a course who started rough but was a solid “A” for the last month of the course, and the “B” student who started strong but grew progressively weaker as the course progressed. One struggles to diferentiate between such students when reviewing traditional academic records, but it will become clear as more data is available. As the data set grows, developing AI-enhanced interfaces into the data will become increasingly important to help viewers find precisely what they are looking for. One can easily imagine a world where the degrees become less valuable than the incremental steps recorded en route to the degree. This would move the ultimate stamp of approval on the finished product (students) from the supplier’s (university) quality control staff (faculty, registrar) to that of the buyer (potential employer), who could use the AI to make find exactly what they are looking for independent of the grades assigned. As this happens, students may find themselves with many more choices on how to meet a prospective employer’s requirements than simply going to a name-brand university and majoring in a pre-approved subject. The ultimate democratization of education may reside not in its universal availability but in its deinstitutionalization. If this comes to pass, we may find that the fabric of our lives is Canvas.
July 20, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by John Ferrier
duyguyildirim.bsky.social
So looking forward to it!
☕️🌴🦂🌸
May 17, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by John Ferrier
danmud.bsky.social
As if I couldn't love Edwyn more. And yes, the Sparks story is brilliant. Support The Quietus!
March 16, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Reposted by John Ferrier
hpsvanessa.bsky.social
These are extremely problematic (and fundamentally misleading) dog whistle hot takes from someone who has a professorship in ecology at a major European university. If he’s your colleague, maybe have a word? & if you’re choosing reviewers for grants or papers… is he a fair judge?
Post from Hans Henrik Bruun (hhbrun.bsky.social) reading “To claim that a person has deeper insights into how ecosystems work due to their skin colour or ethnic origin is fundamentally racist” Post from Hans Henrik Bruun (hhbrun.bsky.social) “I see new ecology papers about "indigenous knowledge" coming out al the time. And I wonder why so many academics seem to prefer wokeness over science.”
January 12, 2025 at 8:51 AM
suvartula.bsky.social
The thing is, there is generally a known, stable, finite number of monkeys.
susanorlean.bsky.social Susan Orlean @susanorlean.bsky.social · Dec 27
My New Year resolutions:
December 27, 2024 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by John Ferrier
victoriajanssen.bsky.social
#Hopepunk #sapphic #spaceopera What happens after rebel guerillas fight a fascist empire...but cannot win? A trilogy of novellas about choosing hope, recovery, building community, and working towards a new life on the utopian planet Refuge. #cozy #specfic #sf 💙📚 🌈📚🪐

books2read.com/rl/aplaceofr...
3 books in a boxed set; volume 1 features a beautiful Black woman with a shaved head, against a blue background featuring a spaceship and a planet.
December 26, 2024 at 4:22 PM