Can Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein be read as an early research ethics text?
Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url
1More
Speed reading pacer - 71 views
-
A simple site where you can paste text and the site will help you speed read the text by highlighting sections. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools
9More
Can Mary Shelley's Frankenstein be read as an early research ethics text? | Medical Hum... - 7 views
-
-
-
Frankenstein is an early and balanced text on the ethics of research upon human subjects and that it provides insights that are as valid today as when the novel was written.
-
Mary Shelley conceived the idea for and started writing Frankenstein in 1816 and it was first published in 1818.1 In its historical context, the earlier 17th and 18th centuries had seen the early signs of the rise of science and experimentation. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) had laid the theoretical foundations in his “Great Insauration”2 and scientists such as Boyle, Newton, and Hooke developed the experimental methods. Sir Robert Talbor, a 17th century apothecary and one of the key figures in developing the use of quinine to treat fevers, underlined this: “the most plausible reasons unless backed by some demonstrable experiments seem but suppositions or conjectures”.3
- ...5 more annotations...
-
The 18th century saw the continued construction of foundations upon which all subsequent medical experimentation has been built.
-
Lady Mary Montagu promoted smallpox vaccination; its proponents experimented on prisoners to study its efficacy, and James Jurin, the secretary of the Royal Society, developed mathematical proof of this in the face of ecclesiastical opposition.4 Many of the modern concepts of therapeutic trials were described although not widely accepted. Empirical observation through experimentation was starting to be recognised as the tool that allowed ascertainment of fact and truth. An account of Dr Bianchini’s experiments on “Le Medicin Electrique”, reported to the Royal Society explains that “The experiments were made by Dr Bianchini assisted by several curious and learned men … who not being able to separate what was true … determined to be guided by their own experiments and it was by this most troublesome though of all the others the most sure way, that they have learned to reject a great number of what have been published as facts.”5
-
Similarly, Henry Baker’s report to the Royal Society, describing Abbe Nollet’s experiments, outlined the need for comparative studies and that “treatment should not be condemned without a fair trial”6 and a Belgian doctor, Professor Lambergen, describing the use of deadly nightshade for the treatment of breast cancer wrote “Administration of this plant certainly merits the attention of the medical profession; and surely one may add entitles the medicine to future trials … nevertheless the most efficacious medicines are such if its efficacy by repeated trials be approved.”7 In the mid 18th century James Lind conducted the first controlled trial to establish a cure for scurvy and his Treatise on the Scurvy contains what could be seen in modern terminology as the first “review of the current literature” prior to a clinical trial.8
-
Her motives for writing Frankenstein are more difficult to define. In her introduction to the 1831 edition she writes that she wanted her work to … speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name … (p 7, p 8)
-
The 1818 preface, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, indicates a deeper purpose. He wrote that the story recommends itself as it “…affords a point of view on the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield…” (p 11) and that “…I am by no means indifferent to the manner in which ... moral tendencies (that) exist in the sentiments of characters shall affect the reader…”(p 12).
8More
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/mar09/vol66/num06/Plagiarism_in... - 0 views
-
Teachers who wish to prevent plagiarism should devote extensive instruction to the component tasks of writing from sources
-
instruction should focus on
-
summarizing sources
- ...5 more annotations...
-
Instructional materials like these imply that teachers can stop inappropriate use of sources through three strategies: (1) teaching students from early grades the nuts and bolts of crediting all sources they use; (2) designing plagiarism-proof assignments that spell out how works should be cited and that include personal reflection and alternative final projects like creating a brochure; and (3) communicating to students that you're laying down the law on plagiarism ("I'll be on the lookout for this in your papers, you know").
-
Any worthwhile guide to preventing plagiarism should Discuss intellectual property and what it means to "own" a text. Discuss how to evaluate both online and print-based sources (for example, comparing the quality and reliability of a Web site created by an amateur with the reliability of a peer-reviewed scholarly article). Guide students through the hard work of engaging with and understanding their sources, so students don't conclude that creating a technically perfect bibliography is enough. Acknowledge that teaching students how to write from sources involves more than telling students that copying is a crime and handing them a pile of source citation cards.
-
That pedagogy should both teach source-reading skills and take into consideration our increasingly wired world. And it should communicate that plagiarism is wrong in terms of what society values about schools and learning, not just in terms of arbitrary rules.
-
through formal education, people learn skills they can apply elsewhere—but taking shortcuts lessens such learning.
-
communicate why writing is important. Through writing, people learn, communicate with one another, and discover and establish their own authority and identity. Even students who feel comfortable with collaboration and uneasy with individual authorship need to realize that acknowledged collaboration—such as a coauthored article like this one—is very different from unacknowledged use of another person's work.
30More
shared by anonymous on 04 Sep 11
- No Cached
Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com - 70 views
www.nytimes.com/...-faces-questions-on-value.html
technology schools change critique measurement effectiveness integration
shared by anonymous on 04 Sep 11
- No Cached
-
When it comes to showing results, he said, “We better put up or shut up.”
-
Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.
-
how the district was innovating.
- ...24 more annotations...
-
district was innovating
-
there is no good way to quantify those achievements — putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again
-
“We’ve jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we’re doing. This might just be the new bandwagon,” he said. “I hope not.”
-
$46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.
-
If we know something works
-
it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training
-
The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.
-
Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.
-
-
“It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”
-
“Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”
-
that computers can distract and not instruct.
-
“They’re inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it,”
-
The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered “True,” 70 percent “False,” and 6 percent didn’t know.
-
rofessor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.
-
engagement is a “fluffy
-
term” that can slide past critical analysis.
-
creating an impetus to rethink education entirely
-
-
guide on the side.
-
Professor Cuban at Stanford
-
But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint
-
“There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page,” she said. “It’s intimate.”
-
Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.
-
This is big business.
-
“Do we really need technology to learn?” she said. “It’s a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot.”
-
Shallow (still important) analysis of the major issues regarding technology integration in schools.