Crop+Circles+Workshop+-+Session+3

**Session 1**

 * Session 2**
 * Session 4**
 * Session 5**
 * Briefcase Files**

The overall consensus was that some of her answers were difficult to remember, because they were a little confused and at times contradictory.
====The students felt that they would have remembered clear and consistent answers more accurately - an interesting insight into how effectively we can process complex, unexpected, or unfamiliar experiences and information.==== ====The students agreed that an eyewitness account from a 5-year-old would be considered highly unreliable, but that if it were independently corroborated (there were some interesting connections made with police procedures!)====

it would be considered more reliable. Mrs Stedman’s testimony was unanimously agreed to be the pinnacle of reliability.
=The Julia Set, 1996= Source: http://www.lucypringle.co.uk || Source: http://cropcircleessences.com || ====Next we discussed our first reading, which involved eye-witness accounts of the appearance of the [|‘Julia Set’]crop formation near Stonehenge.==== ====The students’ reaction to this was very positive. Although they agreed that there was a possibility that both the pilot and the Stonehenge security guard in the account might simply have initially failed to notice the crop formation,====
 * [[image:jukia set1 width="573" height="392"]]

they found the account very convincing.
====Interestingly, when we examined this reaction further, the reasons given were that the article was well-written, didn’t mention aliens as a possible explanation, and didn’t appear to have an ‘angle’ which it was pushing.==== ====We thought further about this apparent lack of bias, and the students agreed that the article’s author was coming from the position of believing, and wishing the reader to believe, that the formation was certainly not the====

//I have noticed this in relation to another article we have touched on in an earlier session, and we will address this in next week’s discussion. - Michelle Bennie]//
Source: http://fractalenlightenment.com ||
 * [[image:ET banner]]

====Whenever the issue of extraterrestrial life ‘crops’ up in these discussions, the students are very keen to pursue this, and to discuss the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, whether alien lifeforms might contact us, what they might think of us…====

and that it isn’t simply the stuff of comic books and movies, the students still seem to perceive it as ‘non-scientific’ and somehow out-of-bounds in their crop circle investigations.
Source: [|Balls of Light - Eyewitness Account] || Source: http://www.bltresearch.com || Source: http://www.bltresearch.com || Source: http://ufologie.patrickgross.org ||
 * [[image:crop circle balls of light width="297" height="251"]]

Our second reading states that it is written by “one of the few people to have had a paper published on crop circles in a peer-reviewed scientific journal”.
====It argues that changes to the nodes in the crops within crop formations, together with eyewitness descriptions of ‘balls of light’ present at the sites of formations, suggest that crop formations are the result of heat,====

There was an animated discussion about ways of establishing the reliability of sources.
====The students were all certain that Wikipedia is an unreliable source (perhaps this is discussed in classrooms?). I suggested that this might depend on the sources being cited in a particular Wikipedia entry,====

and we discussed the concept of peer-reviewed articles, and the credentials that might be required of a suitable peer reviewer.
====The students felt that the number of sources which agreed should be an indicator of reliability (not necessarily my experience of the internet!), and that double-checking against a different website might be a good check.====

I introduced the notion of vanity publishing, but interestingly the students still felt that typesetters and printers, etc would not print a book unless they were convinced of its merit.
====I found it fascinating that the printed books which many might now argue are outdated hold this position of respect in the minds of students who perhaps feel there are few other true tests of merit available in a world of electronic data of uncertain worth.====

The students discussed the social reading forum Wattpad, and the fact that there is no quality control, other than the ability to complain about offensive content.
Source: http://humansarefree.com || Source: www.strangerdimensions.com ||
 * [[image:crop circles wiki 1 width="219" height="339"]]

Binary Code Example ||

as was the fact that the ‘reply’ was contained within the crop formation.
Source: ||
 * [[image:geology crop circle]]