Hapgood

Mike Caulfield's latest web incarnation. Networked Learning, Open Education, and Online Digital Literacy

Mike Caulfield

  • We Built the Pineapple, Not Pearson.

    This article makes some excellent points about “Pineapplegate”. On the whole the incident reflects more poorly on our media and public debate than it does on Pearson.  There’s so much wrong with the way that we test students in American education, but smirking at a trippy test question fixes none of it, and denies some… Continue reading

  • You are the “product” at your local bar as well

    I’ve been thinking about this a long time, but a recent tweet by @dkernohan made me think I should throw it up somewhere. There’s a saying that if you are not paying for something like Facebook, that you aren’t the customer — you’re the product. And I think this is true in many ways. But… Continue reading

  • WordPress eTextbooks

    There’s been radio silence the past couple weeks because I’ve been spending my free time writing this WordPress-based eTextbook on Quantitative Literacy. There’s lots to be said about this, I suppose, but one of the things worth mentioning is what a pleasure it has been to author in this way. I’d love to tweak the… Continue reading

  • Quantitative Reasoning MOOC Update

    (Yeah, I finally used the ‘M’ word…) As some of you know, I’ve been working the past three or four months on getting a MOOC on Quantitative Reasoning up and running for Spring 2013.  Jim and Tim and I are in discussions on how this might work at this point, and the current plan is… Continue reading

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  • A Note on Farm Share and Subgroups

    As we say in the COMPARABLE checklist, the story is often somewhere in the edges. Take this chart of the proportion of a food dollar which goes to the farmer vs. post-farm activities. At first it seems to show declining farm revenue as the the market bill (which includes everything from transportation to preparation) climbs:… Continue reading

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  • Comparison of the Day: SIDS and Prone Sleeping in Norway

    This is a really sad chart: the incidence of SIDS (“crib death”) in Norway plotted out against the rise and fall of parents that put their children to sleep on their stomach. (Which was what they told you to do for a long time). As you can see, there was not only a correlation with the rise… Continue reading

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  • Mental Experiments and the Mancovery

    This is the new story out — it’s a mancovery! From Bloomberg: Men, who lost more than twice as many jobs as women during the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, have landed 88 percent of the non-farm jobs created since the recession ended in June 2009. The share of men saying the economy… Continue reading

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  • When Percentages Go Wrong

    A poor man said to a rich one: “All my money goes for food.” “Now that’s your trouble,” said the rich man. “I only spend five percent of my money on food.” (From a Sufi tale, recounted here.) Percentages are a really helpful tool, obviously. But raw numbers can matter too. Continue reading

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  • Comparison of the Day: Conservative vs. Liberal Trust of Science

    From Kevin Drum’s Chart o’ the Day: Lots of interesting stuff going on there. Notice, in particular, how the trust in science falls off a cliff for moderates in the 70s. It’s also fascinating that conservative trust in science used to be as high (if not higher) than that of liberals 40 years ago. This is still… Continue reading

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  • Comparison of the Day: CFL vs. Incandescent Mercury Pollution

    From EnergyStar.gov: Lifecycle impact is an invaluable tool in making fair comparisons.  It’s easy, for example, to get hung up on the small amount of mercury in a CFL bulb, a percentage of which can escape into the environment if the bulb is crushed in a landfill. But the biggest contributor to mercury pollution is coal-fired plants, which… Continue reading

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