Group items tagged

In 2004, autistic savant Tammet reeled off 22,514 digits of pi from memory, setting a European record. How did he achieve such a feat? Is an autistic mind different from others? Yes and no. Tammet explains that the differences between savant and non-savant minds have been exaggerated; his astonishing capacities in memory, math and language are neither due to a cerebral supercomputer nor any genetic quirk, but are rather the results of a highly rich and complex associative form of thinking and imagination. Autistic thought, he argues, is an extreme variation of a kind that we all do, from daydreaming to the use of puns and metaphors.

Jenkins interviews Halverson about his new book "Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America." "The authors offer sage new proposals for how we might deal with the apparent tensions and incompatabilities between education as it has been conducted in this country and the new media landscape as it is lived beyond the schoolhouse gates."

Interesting results of California's open source text book initiative.. Other references: http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/12225/ and http://about.ck12.org/