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This text explores the concept of technological singularity, envisioned as a hypothetical future where a sudden leap in artificial intelligence capabilities enables it to surpass human intelligence. Three parts make up this text. The first describes the context and historical trajectory of the technological singularity. The second takes a critical look at the arguments in favor of the technological singularity and its scientifically like façade. It argues that, like many pseudoscientific claims, proponents of the technological singularity often employ scientific language to lend credibility to speculative and unfounded predictions about the future. Counterarguments are rooted in the fundamental principles that guide rigorous scientific inquiry. The last part examines the intentions of the proponents of the technological singularity and the consequences of their actions. It calls for caution regarding the true motives of these so-called messiahs of technological singularity and highlights the risks posed to the survival of critical thinking. Consequently, it raises reflections on establishing a balance between science, work, and society to ensure that technology genuinely serves humanity without compromising the ethical foundations that guide it.

Keywords: Singularité technologique, Technological singularity, artificial intelligence, intelligence artificielle, human intelligence, intelligence humaine, principes scientifiques, scientific principles, ethics, éthique

Online learning environments tend not to provide the social and pedagogical cues of physical classrooms, so evaluating student engagement and emotional states in real time becomes challenging. Current methods depend mainly upon facial expression recognition or textual sentiment analysis, constraining the depth and accuracy of behavioral interpretation. This research suggests a multimodal learning analytics framework that combines visual and textual data to infer learner emotions and engagement for improving the interpretability, responsiveness, and pedagogical value of learning analytics systems in digital education. Two datasets were created: (a) a facial expression dataset of 10,000 grayscale images annotated over five emotion categories and (b) an engagement dataset of 4,000 images annotated according to behavioral indicators. Concurrently, 1,667 learner feedback responses from massive open online courses were prepared for sentiment analysis. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were used for emotion and engagement classification, and a fine-tuned BERT (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers) model for sentiment analysis. A rule-based integration engine combined outputs to create multidimensional behavioural typologies. The CNN models reached >92% validation accuracy for both emotion detection and engagement detection tasks, whereas the BERT sentiment classifier achieved F1 = 0.87 and 88.1% accuracy. The multimodal integration procedure identified four unique learner behavior typologies (e.g., students who were cognitively engaged but visually disengaged). The framework offers an accurate, interpretable, and scalable real-time learning analytics solution. Compared with previous methods, it overcomes significant limitations and offers a useful resource for facilitating adaptive, data-based instruction interventions, especially in online and health science education.

Keywords: health science education, learning analytics, sentiment analysis, emotion detection, BERT, engagement typology, cognitive presence, multimodal AI

The texts of primary and secondary school students show a high proportion of written errors related to punctuation (Boivin and Pinsonneault, 2018, among others). Yet punctuation instruction often offers students only limited opportunities to improve their control of sign usage in a writing context (Riverin and Dufour, 2018). This article presents a quasi-experimental study involving 16 French classes from cycle 3 of primary school and cycle 1 of secondary school in Quebec (age 10 to 13). Students in the experimental groups carried out a sequence of 20 activities implementing three innovative didactic devices, designed during a first phase of the research, in collaboration with the participating teachers. The aim was to improve punctuation and syntax in writing. We will present results drawn from the analysis of short texts written at pre-test and post-test (two texts at each time: one descriptive and one narrative) in the experimental and control groups, in relation to success variables in segmentation into graphic sentences (capital letter & full stop), and in punctuation within graphic sentences and syntactic sentences (clauses, i.e. subject + predicate (+ sentence adverbial(s)), for some comma usage rules.

Keywords: ponctuation, punctuation, syntax, syntaxe, recherche quasi-expérimentale, quasi-experimental study, compétence à écrire, writing competence, primary and secondary school students, élèves du primaire et du secondaire

Objective – This work explores potential factors that may contribute to a librarian becoming a highly productive researcher. An understanding of the factors can provide evidence based guidance to those at the beginning of their research careers in designing their own trajectories and to library administrators who seek to create work conditions that contribute to librarian research productivity. The current study is the first to explore the factors from the perspective of the profession’s most accomplished librarian-researchers. Methods – This exploratory and descriptive study recruited 78 academic librarians identified as highly productive researchers; 46 librarians participated in a survey about their professional training and research environments, research networks, and beliefs about the research process. Respondents supplied a recent CV which was coded to produce a research output score for the past 10 years. In addition to fixed-response questions, there were five open-ended questions about possible success factors. All data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and tests of significance correlations. Results – Accomplished librarian-researchers have professional training backgrounds and research environments that vary widely. None is statistically associated with research output. Those with densely connected networks of research colleagues who both know each other and do research together is significantly related to research output. A large group of those identified in the research networks are “both friend and colleague” and offer each other reciprocal support. In open-ended questions, respondents mentioned factors that equally span the three categories of research success: individual attributes, peers and community, and institutional structures. Conclusion – The authors found that that there are many paths to becoming an accomplished librarian-researcher and numerous factors are conducive to achieving this distinction. A positive research environment includes high institutional expectations; a variety of institutional supports for research; and extrinsic rewards, such as salary increases, tenure, promotion, and opportunities for advancement. The authors further conclude that a librarian’s research network may be an important factor in becoming an accomplished librarian-researcher. This finding is supported by both the research network analysis and responses to open-ended questions in which collaboration was a frequent theme.

This study explores the experiences of 70 Tibetan refugees in India (28 male, 42 female; mean age = 30.90 years; SD = 8.11) during the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of their stress, financial anxiety, perceived discrimination, dark future expectations, and resilience. Older, married, and working refugees experienced more problems but higher resilience. Female refugees reported more nervousness and stress than male refugees. Financial anxiety and dark future expectations predicted higher stress. Overall, the findings show low to moderate levels of mental health issues and high resilience among Tibetan refugees during the pandemic and highlight the importance of cultural beliefs and practices in maintaining good mental health and resilience.

Keywords: refugee, perceived stress, resilience, COVID-19, Tibetan

While considerable research exists on bullying in P-12 schools, few empirical studies address bullying and gifted students. Moreover, the field of Gifted, Talented, and Creative Education lacks single construct studies on covert aggression and gifted students. Also known as relational aggression, covert aggression purposefully manipulates relationships and damages reputations through less obvious or hidden forms of bullying. This exploratory study in a Midwest state analyzed quantitative and qualitative data gathered from 27 gifted adolescent girls on covert aggression instances with intellectual and non-exceptional female peers during 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Participants tallied incidents of covert aggression, provided short written comments, and participated in structured group interviews. Of 1037 incidents, covert aggression occurred most prevalently during 7th grade. Participants indicated fewer incidents with their intellectual peers than with non-exceptional peers. Academic topics of intelligence, grades, and name calling formed a cluster of incidents most frequently experienced with intellectual and non-exceptional peers. Participants attributed covert aggression to their differentness from non-exceptional peers. Covert aggression topics of intelligence and grades with intellectual peers seemed linked with negative aspects of competition. Participants found support from intellectual peers at school who provided empathy for their advanced abilities. Prevalence and subjective experience results from both groups indicated gifted adolescent girls encounters with covert aggression impeded development of their giftedness and full inclusion in secondary school environments. Peer support groups that recognize covert aggression behaviors and practice intervention strategies might ameliorate its harmful effects and improve the social-emotional wellness of gifted adolescent girls.

Keywords: Covert aggression, Relational aggression, Bullying, Gifted girls, Adolescents

Best practices in the development of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) agree that the more involved the student, the more involved the parents, and the more successful the student will be. In doing so, the collaborative practice fostered during the IEP cycle must maximize the active participation of the student and his or her parents. Although these recommendations are not new, their implementation remains challenging. Thus, this article presents the results of an intersectoral collaborative exploratory research study that we have entitled M-XITY. This study follows the initiative of field actors in a school wishing to strengthen active student participation through a more collaborative practice during the IEP cycle. Thus, a Numer-Active IEP device and a selection of collaborative practice skills to be mobilized during the IEP cycle show how student agentivity can be fostered. These two strategies presented in this article will be tested jointly during the second year of the project. They aim at improvement in various aspects as well as the recognition and urgency of, for example: using the IEP as a pedagogical rather than administrative tool; developing practices and strategies that allow the student to demonstrate self-determination and agenticity during the phases of the IEP cycle; and strengthening collaborative practices between the student, parents, and school and health and social service providers

Keywords: collaborative practice competencies, compétences de la pratique collaborative, collaboration école-famille, school-family-community collaboration, agentivité, agency, numérique, digital technologies, plan d'intervention, intervention plan

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the Russian media ran what I propose to call a simulation of “non-invasion”—a spectacle aimed to distance Russia from the war. This essay explores activist art resistance against this simulation. Specifically, I discuss three art projects that were staged during the first, most violent year of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: Mariia (Maria) Kulikovs'ka’s performance at “Manifesta 10” in St. Petersburg, Serhii Zakharov’s guerrilla installations on the streets of occupied Donetsk, and Izolyatsia’s #onvacation occupation of the Russian pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. These art projects, I argue, not only attacked the simulation from the outside as independent entities, but, by penetrating the simulation on site and online, they disrupted it from within. I offer three reasons to support this claim. First, these art projects superimposed images of the invasion over the physical sites where the “non-invasion” simulation dwelt and, in this way, not only made the war visible but also produced “a glitch in the matrix” effect—a conflict within the simulation visual regime that was inconsistent with its concealment function. Second, they “hailed” (in Louis Althusser’s terms) actants of the simulation as subjects of Putin’s regime, provoking suppressive reactions that proved Russia’s participation in the war—which the simulation, thus, failed to downplay. And third, with carefully orchestrated strategies of online outreach to the public, these art projects attached themselves to the media dimension of the simulation, making the simulation’s media proliferation work against itself.

Keywords: activist art, art resistance, simulation, “non-invasion”, media war, Russian-Ukrainian conflict