Posts from — October 2009

ScienceCopenhagen, the YouTube channel offering that snappy and yes, sexy video that promoted the study of science recently announced The Moving Science 2010 Film Contest. The Videoer fra Det Naturvidenskabelige Fakultet (the Faculty of Science) at the University of Copenhagen gained a large web presence with the release of “The Power to Create.”

From its creativity and wondrously apt music to its brevity, every aspect of that little gem caught folks attention. Yet, to traditional academics, the ones who believe the world thrives way too much on packaging, the idea of using a hip video to sell the study of science has to be seen as an enormous step in the wrong direction.

In fact, two of the other posts on the YouTube channel, likely appealed only to, well the generation that just might be heading off to college in the near future. But they reveal a creative flair that has to appeal to the young man or woman who has previously been thinking that majoring in science represents the uncoolest of possible choices.

Indeed, in what appears to be a direct push to change that view, there is the classic beer bottle domino line called Cafeen Domino as well as another clever little video that features a young woman (with another wondrous track of music) using a urinal. We would have to think those did not sit well with the traditionalists either.

Moving Science 2010 Competition

To compete for a significant number of prizes, movie producers must produce a video shorter than five minutes. In fact, the recommendation is for a length of 10 to 120 seconds. Prizes are gift certificates for IT, music or video related equipment, with the top prize being 15,000 DKK or about $3,000.

To enter, you must produce a film about one of three things: why one should study science or what science can lead to in later life or the most specific, the studying of science at the University of Copenhagen. The competition is open to anyone, students as well as non-students, and virtually any movie format is acceptable.

It can be an advert, a sketch, a song, a documentary or even viral film. Movies can be shot on a cell phone, webcam or regular video camera and may of course include a killer soundtrack as long as copyright is properly dealt with.

Seven different subject categories are available: a free form category as well as videos that would feature topics related to the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematical Sciences, Geography and Geology, Computer Science and Exercise and Sports Sciences.

And as for inspiration, the site offers the three gems we have already noted plus these other ingenious little YouTube stalwarts.

For more on the deadlines, specific prizes and submission details, visit The Moving Science 2010 Movie Competition and click on the various sub links noted.

Children Largely Surf the Web Unsupervised.

Ofcom recently published an interim report on media use by UK children. The details include some very interesting results that we would suspect mirror that of American children.

The report takes an in-depth look at the various media used by children ages 5-15 (computers, game consoles, cell phones, etc.), where and how frequently they use the media, and the e-safety measures imposed by parents. The results are then broken out in various tables according to age, sex and household income.

The first critical general trend to note is that access to media, be it via television, the internet or other sources, continues to increase. While actual use varies, the two other most noteworthy trends include children using the internet at ever-younger ages but that their preference for television drops off with age.

The first somewhat troubling result is that more than a third of 12-15 year-olds now have internet access in their bedrooms. Yet, just under half of the parents have implemented internet filtering or parental controls, leaving nearly 60% of youngsters in the 12-15 age group to use the internet unsupervised.

A second troubling trend is that one in six users aged 5-7 are also mostly left to use the internet unsupervised as well. According to the survey results, most parents “say that they trust [their] child to use the internet safely.”

As for utilizing parental filters for cable television or the internet, a significant number of parents (one in eight) did not know how to set such controls or were unaware that such controls existed.

While there continues to be strong advice for a different set of expectations, one that features televisions, computers and game consoles located in the family room, it would seem parents are giving in and allowing these media to migrate to their child’s bedroom.

Such results likely reinforce the notion that schools must do more in the way of educating children and their parents regarding media literacy, especially basic internet safety measures. In fact, the report may well indicate that parental education may well be the greater priority.

The full report can be found online (PDF) along with an annex (PDF) of the top fifty sites visited by UK children.

Are you still new to the Twitter process? Ever wondered if that Tweet-texting your son or daughter was doing would ever amount to anything useful?

Well, now you just may see some possible value in what that college-age son or daughter has been up to. Given our love for all good things free, we could not help but point folks in the direction of CollegeScholarships where the site supporters are offering $14,014.00 in scholarships for the best in Tweeting.

It is a contest that would make any English teacher proud, as in how can one say something extremely profound in just a few words. Given that “Twitter is Connecting the World,” the assignment is simple, “in 140 characters or less, write a Tweet highlighting how we can use Twitter to improve the world.”

OK, so it’s not so easy.

But it is a helluva an idea backed by some serious generosity.

And yes, it looks like there just might be a theme here: the total prize money, $14,014.00, seems to highlight a certain three-digit number.

The details on the 140 Scholarship can be found here.

Sometimes you read a report and your response is “but of course!” However, before you read it, you actually may have thought differently.

Such is the case with the study Estimating The Payoff Of Attending A More Selective College: An Application Of Selection On Observables And Unobservables. The focus of the study is “On the Payoff to Attending an Elite College” and the basic findings are straight out of the textbook:

“Students who attend colleges with higher average tuition costs or spending per student tend to earn higher incomes later on.”

Such findings often lead to yet another textbook response – if accepted at an elite school, you should attend. After all, the name recognition of the school and its overall prestige will more than compensate for the additional costs of attendance.

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

The general consensus today is that it pays to get a college degree. In addition, the general consensus today is that the quality of education varies from one college to another.

Given the above data regarding career earnings, parents and students often take some liberty regarding basic cause and effect. Because elite colleges have a stronger reputation and graduates from these more expensive institutions tend to earn more money, the belief is that the college is somehow the critical factor in future success and earnings.

According to this study, the problem with this logic is that it is not one of cause and effect. Instead, the findings note that the students who attend selective schools are likely to have higher earnings potential for the very same reasons that they were admitted to the more selective schools in the first place.

So to get at the heart of the question, Stacy Berg Dale and Alan Krueger tried two novel approaches to answering the question, “Does the school make the student? Or does the student make the school?”

The researchers used data from the College and Beyond Survey to examine more than six thousand students who were accepted and rejected by a comparable set of colleges in 1976. They contrasted that information with the labor outcomes of those students in 1995. In this instance, they were looking at the students who had the same menu of school choices yet some chose to attend more or less selective schools.

In addition, the researchers compared this data to that of the National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972. In this instance, the researchers sought to estimate the impact on students’ earnings when compared to the average SAT scores of all the schools the students applied to and the average SAT score of the school they attended.

School Selectivity Immaterial

The results – school selectivity is enormously overrated and does not necessarily pay off in a higher income over time.

“Students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges,” the researchers concluded.

In simplest terms, a student accepted say to Brown but rejected by Yale (perhaps their first choice) sometimes goes on to attend their own state university. In such instances, the student in question still might well achieve significant earning power.

In fact, when it comes to the best predictor, the researchers found the average SAT score of the schools students applied to but did not attend was a much stronger predictor of students’ subsequent income than the average SAT score of the school students actually attended. This big fish in a small pond view is often dubbed the Spielberg Effect (famed movie director Stephen Spielberg was rejected by two upper echelon film schools, USC and UCLA and ultimately attended Cal State Long Beach).

In a nutshell, the findings are most obvious. A student’s motivation and desire to succeed are far more important than the average academic ability of the other students around them.

However, we must recognize the authors do offer some speculation that tuition may indeed affect future earnings. The reason that this could well be part of the equation is that schools with higher tuitions can offer more resources and therefore, the potential of a higher quality product. But the researchers point not just to overall cost but to the resources schools devote to instruction.

And there is in fact one instance where the cost of an elite college does seem to matter. No matter what measurement of college quality is used, students from disadvantaged backgrounds record the greatest gains from attending an elite college.

The abstract is available online.