I discuss his key idea: that systemic thinking is a liberal art, and I explain a corollary idea, that textbooks suck
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RoboRally - 4 views
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This might be good for introducing programming without needing to touch a computer. I've students who aren't initially engaged by jumping into programming with a computer even with something like Scratch. Maybe this is a way to get them in the correct mindset first. When I first found this, I hoped there might be program cards that required using loops or variables but from looking at the game rule book that does not appear to be the case. It appears that movement is the only command types, which can result in automatic laser firing or bumping another robot. Still seems like a good game though.
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Practical Problem-Solving - 4 views
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"Business and the media are constantly screaming that problem solving skills and creative thinking are the keys to innovation and success (and the beat the robots trying to take your job), yet many teachers feel that the skills and opportunities to develop them are often an add-on, an after thought, or taught in isolation during special activities, like a STEM week. Even these activities have a particular expected method which the pupils must 'discover', rather than completely new and unique solutions. How can we develop the skills to help our pupils think of the unexpected?"
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Busting the myths of AI in education - 0 views
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"When you mention Artificial Intelligence (AI), you're likely to get a variety of responses ranging from the fear that robots will take over our jobs - and our lives - to the conviction that it will transform our future for the better. Now that AI is becoming an integral part of organisations such as NASA, the NHS and even your local council, is it time for education to embrace the power of AI? I believe that it is. While algorithms will never be a substitute for a good teacher, there are some exciting new ways that AI can help schools to spot patterns of progress, or identify pupils who are having difficulties with their learning."
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The independence of independence by @SarahLWilliam11 - 0 views
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"Independent learning is something that has to be instilled in a student from the moment they interact with you. Independent learning affords them independence in everything that they do and will do. Some might think that if the above is promoted far too much then surely there will be no requirement for teachers? I suppose soon everyone will be taken over by robots and we will all grow gills and live under the sea! It is farcical to suggest that students don't need teachers. Without my teacher telling me how fabulous learning is and how getting an education will open so many doors for me, I wouldn't be where I am today. I am so proud of what I have achieved considering I was told I was 'not academic'."
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Double Robotics - Wheels for your iPad - 25 views
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The virtual presence ishere. This set of wheels, stand, and extending arm turns your ipad into a virtual you. So, for $2K you can have a presence at a location and facetime into the classroom. The price is $1999 but there are applications for this. "Double is the simplest, most elegant way to be somewhere else in the world without flying there. The minimalist design and intuitive touchscreen controls allow you to freely move around without inconveniencing others. You can stay at eye level, whether sitting or standing, by adjusting your height remotely, which makes conversations fluid and real. Retractable kickstands will automatically deploy to conserve power when you are not moving around. Efficient motors and lightweight design give Double the ability to last all day without recharging the battery."
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shared by Ed Webb on 26 Apr 12
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Alan Kay, Systems, and Textbooks « Theatrical Smoke - 2 views
wedaman.wordpress.com/...lan-kay-and-why-textbooks-suck
education learning systems LiberalArts gaming
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the story of the last few hundred years is that we’ve quickly developed important ideas, which society needs to have to improve and perhaps even to continue to exist, and for which there are no pre-existing, genetically created categories. So there’s an idea-receiving capacity gap.
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Education’s job should be, says Kay, to bridge this gap. To help, that is, people form these necessary new idea-receiving categories–teaching them the capacity for ideas–early on in their lives, so that as they grow they are ready to embrace the things we need them to know. Let me say that in a better way: so that as they grow they are ready to know in the ways we need them to know.
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cultivate the ability to conceive of, work with, create, understand, manipulate, tinker with, disrupt, and, generally, appreciate the beauty of systems
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a game, or a simulation, thought of as a thing we might create (rather than a thing we only act within), is a visceral example of systems thinking
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It’s the Flatland story–that we need to train our 2D minds to see in a kind of 3D–and Kay’s genius is that he recognizes we have to bake this ability into the species, through education, as close to birth as possible.
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Systems thinking is to be conceived of as a platform skill or an increased capacity on top of which we will be able to construct new sorts of ideas and ways of knowing, of more complex natures still. The step beyond seeing a single system is of course the ability to see interacting systems – a kind of meta-systemic thinking – and this is what I think Kay is really interested in, because it’s what he does. At one point he showed a slide of multiple systems–the human body, the environment, the internet, and he said in a kind of aside, “they’re all one system . . .”
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The point is to be able to see connections between the silos. Says Kay, the liberal arts have done a bad job at “adding in epistemology” among the “smokestacks” (i.e. disciplines)
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What happens when you’re stuck in a system? You don’t understand the world and yourself and others as existing in constant development, as being in process; you think you are a fixed essence or part within a system (instead of a system influencing systems) and you inadvertently trap yourself in a kind of tautological loop where you can only think about things you’re thinking about and do the things you do and you thus limit yourself to a kind of non-nutritive regurgitation of factoids, or the robotic meaningless actions of an automaton, or what Kay calls living in a pop culture
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A downside of being epistemologically limited to thinking within a system is that you overemphasize the importance of the content and facts as that system orders them
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Home / Welcome - The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Discovery Book - Companion Website - 13 views
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ASCD - 0 views
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first 60 seconds of your presentation is
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Summers and other leaders from various companies were not necessarily complaining about young people's poor grammar, punctuation, or spelling—the things we spend so much time teaching and testing in our schools
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the complaints I heard most frequently were about fuzzy thinking and young people not knowing how to write with a real voice.
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There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively it almost freezes them in their steps.”
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half-life of knowledge in the humanities is 10 years, and in math and science, it's only two or three years
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“People who've learned to ask great questions and have learned to be inquisitive are the ones who move the fastest in our environment because they solve the biggest problems in ways that have the most impact on innovation.”
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developing young people's capacities for imagination, creativity, and empathy will be increasingly important for maintaining the United States' competitive advantage in the future.
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The three look at one another blankly, and the student who has been doing all the speaking looks at me and shrugs.
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The test contains 80 multiple-choice questions related to the functions and branches of the federal government.
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Let me tell you how to answer this one
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Each group will try to develop at least two different ways to solve this problem. After all the groups have finished, I'll randomly choose someone from each group who will write one of your proofs on the board, and I'll ask that person to explain the process your group used.”
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a lesson in which students are learning a number of the seven survival skills while also mastering academic content?
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students are given a complex, multi-step problem that is different from any they've seen in the past
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ncreasingly, there is only one curriculum: test prep. Of the hundreds of classes that I've observed in recent years, fewer than 1 in 20 were engaged in instruction designed to teach students to think instead of merely drilling for the test.
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. It is working with colleagues to ensure that all students master the skills they need to succeed as lifelong learners, workers, and citizens.
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I have yet to talk to a recent graduate, college teacher, community leader, or business leader who said that not knowing enough academic content was a problem.
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College and Work Readiness Assessment (www.cae.org)—that measure students' analytic-reasoning, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and writing skills.
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I conducted research beginning with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether U.S. schools are teaching and testing the skills that matter most.
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“First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “We can teach them the technical stuff, but we can't teach them how to ask good questions—how to think.”
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This is a great aspect of project based learning. Although when we allow students to have individual research topics, some teachers are frustrated because they cannot "can" their approach (especially tough if the class sizes are TOO LARGE,) students in this environment CAN and MUST ask individualized questions. This is TOUGH to do as the students who haven't developed critical thinking skills, whether because their parents have done their tough work for them (like writing their papers) or teachers have always given answers because they couldn't stand to see the student struggle -- sometimes tough love means the teacher DOESN'T give the child the answer -- as long as they are encouraged just enough to keep them going.
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“I want people who can engage in good discussion—who can look me in the eye and have a give and take. All of our work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well with other
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Last Saturday, my son met Bill Curry, a football coach and player that he respects. Just before meeting him, my husband reviewed with my son how to meet people. HE told my son, "Look the man in his eyes and let him know your hand is there!" After shaking his hand, as Mr. Curry was signing my son's book, he said, "That is quite a handshake, son, someone has taught you well." Yes -- shaking hands and looking a person in the eye are important and must be taught. This is an essential thing to come from parents AND teachers -- I teach this with my juniors and seniors when we write resumes.
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how to engage customers
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Engagi ng customers requires that a person stops thinking about their own selfish needs and looks at things through the eyes of the customer!!! The classic issue in marketing is that people think they are marketing to themselves. This happens over and over. Role playing, virtual worlds, and many other experiences can give people a chance to look at things through the eyes of others. I see this happen on the Ning of our projects all the time.
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the world of work has changed profoundly.
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Over and over, executives told me that the heart of critical thinking and problem solving is the ability to ask the right questions. As one senior executive from Dell said, “Yesterday's answers won't solve today's problems.”
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I say to my employees, if you try five things and get all five of them right, you may be failing. If you try 10 things, and get eight of them right, you're a hero. You'll never be blamed for failing to reach a stretch goal, but you will be blamed for not trying.
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risk aversion
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He says risk aversion is a problem in companies -- YES it is. Although upper management SAYS they want people willing to take risks -- from my experience in the corporate world, what they SAY and what they REWARD are two different things, just ask a wall street broker who took a risky investment and lost money.
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Is Google Making Us Stupid? - 0 views
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A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.
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Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.
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He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).
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And because they would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” they would “be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant.”
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emotionlessness that characterizes the human figures in the film, who go about their business with an almost robotic efficiency. Their thoughts and actions feel scripted, as if they’re following the steps of an algorithm.
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PicoCricket - Invention kit that integrates art and technology - 0 views
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Picocricket is aimed at primary schools, age 8 and up. From the same people who created Scratch. Combining Art & Robotics to spark Creative Thinking. Not free.
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A PicoCricket is a tiny computer that can make things spin, light up, and play music. You can plug lights, motors, sensors, and other devices into a PicoCricket, then program them to react, interact, and communicate.
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shared by Ruth Howard on 20 Feb 10
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HP Invents a Central Nervous System for the Earth | Inhabitat - 4 views
www.inhabitat.com/...l-nervous-system-for-the-earth
all_teachers administrator digitalcitizenship science math technology middleschool elementary edu_news
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HP has just unveiled an incredibly ambitious project to create a “Central Nervous System for the Earth” (CeNSE) composed of billions of super sensitive, cheap, and tough sensors. The project involves distributing these sensors throughout the world and using them to gather data that could be used to detect everything from infrastructure collapse to environmental pollutants to climate change and impending earthquakes. From there, the “Internet of Things” and smarter cities are right around the corner.HP is currently developing its first sensor to be deployed, which is an accelerometer 1,000 times more sensitive than those used in the Wii or the iPhone – it’s capable of detecting motion and vibrations as subtle as a heartbeat. The company also has plans to use nanomaterials to create chemical and biological sensors that are 100 million times more sensitive than current models. Their overall goal is to use advances in sensitivity and nanotech to shrink the size of these devices so that they are small enough to clip onto a mobile telephone.Once HP has created an array of sensors, the next step is distributing them and making sense of all the data they generate. That’s no easy task, granted that a network of one million sensors running 24 hours a day would create 20 petabytes of data in just six months. HP is taking all that number crunching to task however, and will be harnessing its in-house networking expertise, consulting, and data storage technologies for the project.The creation of a global sensor system would be an incredible breakthrough – it could make our cities more efficient, save lives, and enable us to better understand, track, and combat climate change. As HP Labs senior researcher Peter Hartwell has stated, “If we’re going to save the planet, we’ve got to monitor it“.+ CeNSEVia Fast CompanyLead photo by Margie Wylie Comments RSS Comments RSS digg_url = 'http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/18/hp-invents-a-central-nervous-system-for-the-earth/'; digg_title = 'HP Invents a Central Nervous System for the Earth'; digg_skin = 'compact'; email this tweetmeme_url = "http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/02/18/hp-invents-a-central-nervous-system-for-the-earth/"; tweetmeme_style = "compact"; facebook this Related Posts
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Legal Experts on How Murdoch's Threats May Impact "Fair Use" Doctrine | BNET Media Blog... - 2 views
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Media industry titan Rupert Murdoch’s explicit threats this week to block Google from searching his content sites, and to sue the BBC for its use of content he says is “stolen” from his sites got me to wondering whether the head of News Corp. has, in fact, any basis in the law for launching these calculated attacks at this time and in this manner.
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Therefore Google’s caching of his content would make it free even as he’s trying to charge for it
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So basically, Google is taking something he wants to charge for and making it free. But my question is, if he wants to charge for it, shouldn't it be bedhind some sort of firewall or is it Google's job to see which sites it is allowed to index? Aren't there certain protocols that make the Net what it is? Certain standards? Isn't one of those the open indexing or crawling of unprotected sites? I'm not sure but hoping someone will respond.
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Excellent overview of Rupert Murdoch's taking on of Google and that they should not index his sites, even though he can easily opt out of indexing, that they are somehow demonetizing his work by searching since he wants to "reduce his audience to those who will pay" not "increase his audience." This is a fascinating read and case study for those following Fair Use.
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