title: Against epistocracy

authors: Munn, Nicholas

abstract: There has been a recent resurgence in epistocratic arguments against our democratic institutions. Jason Brennan (2009, 2011, 2016) is a popular representative of the approach. Here, I criticise Brennan’s account and offer an alternative analysis of modern democratic societies. I argue that Brennan has not shown that the currently enfranchised are relevantly incompetent such that they ought to be excluded from the franchise. Further, even had he shown this, his proposed solution suffers from the same injustices he diagnoses in democracies. I consider an alternative means of embracing a restrictive franchise.

text: Against epistocracy There has been a recent resurgence in epistocratic arguments against our democratic institutions. Jason Brennan (2009, 2011, 2016) is a popular representative of the approach. Here, I criticise Brennan’s account and offer an alternative analysis of modern democratic societies. I argue that Brennan has not shown that the currently enfranchised are relevantly incompetent such that they ought to be excluded from the franchise. Further, even had he shown this, his proposed solution suffers from the same injustices he diagnoses in democracies. I consider an alternative means of embracing a restrictive franchise.

year: 2018

title: Mining meaning from Wikipedia

authors: Medelyan, Olena

subjects: Wikipedia

abstract: Wikipedia is a goldmine of information; not just for its many readers, but also for the growing community of researchers who recognize it as a resource of exceptional scale and utility. It represents a vast investment of manual effort and judgment: a huge, constantly evolving tapestry of concepts and relations that is being applied to a host of tasks.
This article provides a comprehensive description of this work. It focuses on research that extracts and makes use of the concepts, relations, facts and descriptions found in Wikipedia, and organizes the work into four broad categories: applying Wikipedia to natural language processing; using it to facilitate information retrieval and information extraction; and as a resource for ontology building. The article addresses how Wikipedia is being used as is, how it is being improved and adapted, and how it is being combined with other structures to create entirely new resources. We identify the research groups and individuals involved, and how their work has developed in the last few years. We provide a comprehensive list of the open-source software they have produced.

text: Mining meaning from Wikipedia Wikipedia is a goldmine of information; not just for its many readers, but also for the growing community of researchers who recognize it as a resource of exceptional scale and utility. It represents a vast investment of manual effort and judgment: a huge, constantly evolving tapestry of concepts and relations that is being applied to a host of tasks.
This article provides a comprehensive description of this work. It focuses on research that extracts and makes use of the concepts, relations, facts and descriptions found in Wikipedia, and organizes the work into four broad categories: applying Wikipedia to natural language processing; using it to facilitate information retrieval and information extraction; and as a resource for ontology building. The article addresses how Wikipedia is being used as is, how it is being improved and adapted, and how it is being combined with other structures to create entirely new resources. We identify the research groups and individuals involved, and how their work has developed in the last few years. We provide a comprehensive list of the open-source software they have produced.

year: 2009

title: Tā Pikitia Hei Āwhina Kōrero  Collaborative Drawing and Storying

authors: Kururangi, Aorere Helen Mary

subjects: collaborative drawing and storying

abstract: Creating a Māori medium context for beginning learners of te reo Māori to converse in genuine dialogue, was a real challenge for our mainstream bilingual unit. This study involved six Year 3-5 primary school students working in two groups of three. The bilingual unit is in a contributing school in an urban setting.

The teacher, a second language learner herself, found students seldom initiated any spontaneous Māori dialogue and tended to respond only to questions or formal teacher initiated direction. So the project sought to develop and explore the approach Tā Pikitia hei āwhina kōrero or Collaborative Drawing and Storying, to improve Children's Oral Language Acquisition in Māori, using a socially responsive approach (Glynn, Wearmouth,  Berryman, 2006)
 
This method encouraged students to initiate, respond and share their own learning in a social and interactive community of learners. The method also allowed students the freedom to generate conversations about their own interests, ideas and background experiences without teacher intervention or direction. The only requirement was me kōrero Māori i nga wā katoa (speak Māori all the time). A collaborative picture was created as each group of students quickly illustrated their ideas on a large piece of paper.

 Each student was pre tested and post tested using the Aromatawai Reo A Waha  - Kia Tere Tonu  (Berryman  Langdon, 2001).This test assessed each student's Māori vocabulary knowledge and their ability to speak spontaneously about a familiar item. The daily conversations created by each student group involved Tā Pikitia hei āwhina  kōrero was recorded on tape, then transcribed verbatim each day to assess changes over time. 

 Student ownership of the learning and their positive participation resulted in improved language outcomes. At the end of the ten week period there were encouraging gains in the post test, Aromatawai Reo A Waha - Kīanga or spontaneous phrases students were able to generate. Furthermore an improved ability to focus on an oral task, and improved engagement by the students were unexpected positive outcomes of this easy to implement activity.

text: Tā Pikitia Hei Āwhina Kōrero  Collaborative Drawing and Storying Creating a Māori medium context for beginning learners of te reo Māori to converse in genuine dialogue, was a real challenge for our mainstream bilingual unit. This study involved six Year 3-5 primary school students working in two groups of three. The bilingual unit is in a contributing school in an urban setting.

The teacher, a second language learner herself, found students seldom initiated any spontaneous Māori dialogue and tended to respond only to questions or formal teacher initiated direction. So the project sought to develop and explore the approach Tā Pikitia hei āwhina kōrero or Collaborative Drawing and Storying, to improve Children's Oral Language Acquisition in Māori, using a socially responsive approach (Glynn, Wearmouth,  Berryman, 2006)
 
This method encouraged students to initiate, respond and share their own learning in a social and interactive community of learners. The method also allowed students the freedom to generate conversations about their own interests, ideas and background experiences without teacher intervention or direction. The only requirement was me kōrero Māori i nga wā katoa (speak Māori all the time). A collaborative picture was created as each group of students quickly illustrated their ideas on a large piece of paper.

 Each student was pre tested and post tested using the Aromatawai Reo A Waha  - Kia Tere Tonu  (Berryman  Langdon, 2001).This test assessed each student's Māori vocabulary knowledge and their ability to speak spontaneously about a familiar item. The daily conversations created by each student group involved Tā Pikitia hei āwhina  kōrero was recorded on tape, then transcribed verbatim each day to assess changes over time. 

 Student ownership of the learning and their positive participation resulted in improved language outcomes. At the end of the ten week period there were encouraging gains in the post test, Aromatawai Reo A Waha - Kīanga or spontaneous phrases students were able to generate. Furthermore an improved ability to focus on an oral task, and improved engagement by the students were unexpected positive outcomes of this easy to implement activity.

year: 2008