Group items tagged

This blog about Open Data Developments in Asia analyses the recent state of Open Data adopted in Asia and highlights some of the 11 Asian countries participants that attended the Open Knowledge Conference in Geneva in 2012. Of the 11 countries that attended the conference, the author of the post focuses on the East Asian and Pacific countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and discusses their state and role in Openness. The author does a good job at providing statistics of the different countries in terms of the Worldbank Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), which analyzes the economic rankings of countries. The author then compares economic rank to that of openness, stating that countries low on the economic rank contribute little to no open data within their own countries or externally to other countries. Next, the author talks about the overall internet penetration in Asia as being only 27.5 percent and in that statistic, there is still a wide gap between North and South East Asia in terms of internet use and information distribution and acquisition from citizens and others. Moreover, the author continues to compare how many social, economical, political and cultural influence information distribution, contribution and acquisition in Asia countries. Openness is growing in the more developed Asian countries, but openness is limited, or even nonexistent, in developing (authoritative) countries. After reading this article, I've had a greater understanding of the current state of Open Data in Asia an the influences that contribute to enabling Openness. What I expected from the blog post or something that would've made the post even better could be some examples or projects of Openness or Open Data in Asia.

Emotional expression and linguistic style in online collaboration differ substantially depending on the contributors' gender and status, and on the communication network. This should be taken into account when analyzing collaborative success, and may prove insightful to communities facing gender gap and stagnation in contributor acquisition and participation levels.

lubajong and taylor_cole thank you for your comments. From my part I will add a critical evaluation of this resource as well. The talk pages of Wikipedia provide a rich source for researchers to study communication patterns. On Wikipedia talk pages they have found signals for status differences between groups of participants, notably between admins and ordinary contributors. Those findings support in general the theories of the researchers about status differences and communication style differences between managers and employees in firms. They have also found differences in communication style bases on gender, which also support their general theories about gender (which is a social construct). What I - as a Wikipedian insider - finds missing in the article is the selection bias. Wikipedia admins aren't appointed by Jimmy Wales or some other body. Admins are community selected. The exact process differs per language version. On the English Wikipedia admin selection is by a community consensus process. Future admins are selected who show the preferred communication style of admins by other contributors including existing admins. For me, the patterns in communication style do not explain the gender gap on Wikipedia. There is a gender gap in many language versions of Wikipedia, but not in all. The Armenian language version of Wikipedia is a notable exception, showing a gender balance in the conbtributor base. An explanation of that exemption requires further research. What taylor_cole notes about neutrality and bias is a valid point. People volunteer to write for Wikipedia, and volunteer in topic choice. My guess is that in general people will opt to write about something they like, care about, know about. A lack of diversity in contributors will naturally reflect in lack of diversity of topics. For example nerdy males will write about things male nerds like. In general females tend to be interested in other topics than nerdy males. A lack of topics covered in Wikipe

Levels of participation influences emotional expression and phrasing? has the function of sex and status of the taxpayer. 4 strands to study and find a result! Interesting!

"Just as important as learning these helpful tools, however, is unlearning and avoiding the most common pitfalls of common sense. Reminding us of where society is most vulnerable to those, Sagan writes: In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions.He admonishes against the twenty most common and perilous ones - many rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity - with examples of each in action"

The 20 fallacies: "ad hominem - Latin for "to the man," attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously) argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out) argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable. Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives) appeal to ignorance - the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to

Wonderful post, Kim! These are great guidelines alongside which to test ideas.

I think, its really an expensive and unnecessary experiments, if the attendance of Harvard University is low, then they have to come up with different rule to attract the interest of students. Cameras should be there for security, but not for surveillance.

wondering if this would be a different conversation if the cameras were just picking up heat signals so that the identity of the people could not be known but they could still be counted. The technology is pretty basic and it might even be more efficient than the way they're using them now.

Can't believe Harvard can do this thing. I think informations are sharing and revealing on internet or others more and more serious. Harvard shouldn't secretly photograph students, they should ask permission first.

Text from 2011, still extremely timely, about privacy. The author, professor of Law, deconstructs the "nothing to hide" argument that says that we should not be scared to disclose private activities or information when we do nothing wrong.

"With regard to individual rights,.... there exists a private domain in man which should not be regulated or violated. This realm constitutes what is deepest, highest, and most valuable in the individual human being." http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Younkins/Social_Cooperation,_Flourishing,_and_Happiness.shtml

Privacy off course matters.It is right that if I have not done anything wrong then why should I hide it. On other hand we can not share our family relationship information with anyone.

"Responding to rapid and steep increases in the cost of scientific journals, a growing number of scholars and librarians have advocated "open access" (OA) to the scientific literature. OA publishing models are having a significant impact on the dissemination of scientific information. Despite the success of these initiatives, their impact on researchers in the developing world is uncertain. This article analyses major OA approaches adopted in the industrialized world (so-called Green OA, Gold OA, and OA mandates, as well as non-OA information philanthropy) as they relate to the consumption and production of research in the developing world. The article concludes that while the consumption of scientific literature by developing world researchers is likely to be significantly enhanced through such programs, promoting the production of research in the developing world requires additional measures. These could include the introduction of better South-focused journal indexing systems that identify high-quality journals published in the developing world, coupled with the adjustment of academic norms to reward publication in such journals. Financial models must also be developed to decrease the reliance by institutions in the developing world on information philanthropy and to level the playing field between OA journals in industrialized and developing countries."

Provides a list of important skills and how those skills are embedded within the curriculum.

Thank you Kevin Stranack for sharing. Tony Bates ends with five questions: 1. Have I covered the main skills needed in a knowledge-based society? What have I missed? 2. Do you agree that these are important skills? If so, should universities explicitly try to develop them? 3. What are you or your university doing (if anything) to ensure such skills are taught, and taught well? 4. What roles if any do you think technology, and in particular online learning, can play in helping to develop such skills? 5. Any other comments on this topic - My answers: 1. Frustration tolerance and keeping a balance between work and private life is a necessary skill 2, The skill set mentioned is important, but more likely trained in college than in university 3. I do have a personal coach and a counseler, and I'm enrolled in #OKMOOC 4. The activities required in every module of #OKMOOC ask to reach out, connect, build relationships, Have you answered the feedback questions?

This question is really the elephant in the room in a lot of university programs, especially in the humanities. I myself was a doctoral student in the humanities before leaving because, as I eventually learned, there were essentially no employment opportunities and my skillset in today's economy was sorely lacking. But the old mantra that "we teach critical thinking" is become a worn excuse. Do we really need four years to teach people the skills to survive "out there"? How much of our specialized knowledge will really be useful outside of the academy? These are questions we just don't have the answer to, and I'm not sure there are many people willing to ask them. But more to the point, I didn't see anything in this link about the changing ways that millennials (I promise that I hate the term as much as anyone, but it's a useful one) are engaging with information, and how that is changing how they actually think. There have been arguments made that digital natives (again, a pretty terrible term) think about and process information in very different ways that have serious implications for contextualization and long-term research. I'm not saying that universities don't teach these things in their own ways, but it's an important issue that needs addressing. I know that the link talks about the important of knowledge management, but there's a huge difference between simply knowing how and when to access information and quite another to properly contextualize its place in a larger hierarchy (or web) of knowledge. I would argue *that* skill is the one that universities are best poised to provide, and maybe why we keep hearing talk about how undergraduate degrees are the new highschool diplomas.

It's unquestionable that Research4Life has had a significant impact in improving access to research information for communities in developing countries. I do have a number of criticisms about how the program is organized and delivered, however. 1. Publisher participation in the program is 'entirely voluntary', without 'a single contract (being) signed between any of the partners' (Aaronson, 2004), meaning that publishers can opt out at any point. This issue was highlighted in 2011 when Elsevier, Lipincott Williams & Wilkins, Springer and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, publisher of Science Magazine) withdrew access to over 2500 journals through the HINARI system. Following international attention, and widespread condemnation, publishers restored access, with Elsevier announcing that they were in discussions with the government in Bangladesh to transition towards a paid licensing scheme (Wise, 2011). 2. Countries that meet the eligibility criteria of the program (which are based on the World Bank's listing of Lower and Lower Middle Income Countries) are sometimes excluded. Take for example India or Pakistan- although these countries are in the lists of eligible countries, the publishers deliberately exclude participation to protect whatever business they may have in these countries. So although hundreds of institutions could benefit, they exclude access to protect the business they receive from a handful of institutions. 3. Access to content is delivered through a single username and password for each institution. This is problematic for librarians, as they are unable to ensure the security of the password (a well-meaning researcher may share the password with a colleague in another institution, violating the license agreement). Abuse of institutional accounts has severe consequences, and librarians are sent messages from Research4Life threatening to not only cut off the institution, but all institutions in their country if they

Research4life is a great program by committed government and non-government organizations dedicated to produce valuable researches that will improve the life of people. Librarians play an important role in assisting researchers find valid, current, relevant information in order to produce a reliable output or results that will help humankind's betterment of living.

Dr Jane McGonigal (a professional game developer) talks about the time spent playing video games (which approximates to the span of human evolution), and that this time has to increase to make any major changes to the world. I have selected this resource partially in relation to week 3's Clarke's lecture (and others), which talks about using our idle time to do something meaningful - participate in citizen science games, for example. Dr McGonigal's talk very much illustrates this point - except that it talks about solving global issues through indirect games, e.g. a World Without Oil online game simulates a world in which you have to survive oil shortage. Creator's research shows, that people maintain the skills and habits they have taken up after playing this intense game, which include making better choices for our changing environment. The only difference here from actual citizen science games is that Dr McGonigal's games are fictional (rather than providing direct data / input for actual scientific research), however, they empower people to influence global change, which is the topic of the other lectures this week, especially Morozov's thoughts about the power of internet and connectiveness to create "revolutions". Although Morozov has taken up a rather critical view, suggesting only those who want it, take the best from the Internet, Dr McGonigal's ideas might be what bridges the two - taking games, which are integral part of many people's lives, especially in the younger generation, and turning them into real "life schools" may help more people get the idea and the essential skills to "fix" their environments. In all honesty, this is a video I would watch again and again, and recommend it to anyone who would listen (and that doesn't happen often for me).

Gamification for learning - using game elements - sounds very promising. Prior to the internet, technology, there were board games or hands on projects - all with the intent to engage and interact with each other. So it is no surprise to me given the appropriate design/project that students can learn and solve real world problems. Letting students choose their persona and role also allows them to make their own future and take ownership for how they want to participate. Just like the original promise of multimedia training that was purported to replace the traditional classroom events and enable getting the "best" teacher recorded for all to have the same experience...I believe it was then thought that the learning experience needs o be "blended". Different techniques - online, face to face, etc.. This is not my field of expertise so these are just personal opinions. If the online game approach can be combined with face to face and tactile/outdoor activities, aka a blended approach - I think that might be very useful. I do also believe that design solutions should be encouraging win win situations to reinforce collaboration and the feeling that all can succeed. One question I might have is how do you measure success in learning?

Gaming promoters unfortunately for me have a commercial agenda and its always difficult to make that balance of pure learning and commercialization aspect

There's a lot to digest here, particularly if you want to read the whole report as well as the edited summary. I particularly liked the responses from JP Rangaswami: "The quality of real-time information that becomes available will take the guesswork out of much of capacity planning and decision-making......The net effect will be to reduce waste everywhere: in physical flows and logistics, in the movement of people and goods; in logical flows and logistics, in the movement of ideas and information; decisions will be made faster and better, based on more accurate information; prior errors in assumption and planning will be winkled out more effectively." And from Howard Rheingold: "We will live in a world where many things won't work, and nobody will know how to fix them." On a personal note, I can see there might be benefits with the IoT, particularly the use of sensors and actuators for monitoring and improving health, but will it put the final nail in 'privacy' and enable marketers to push their products and control my thoughts 24 x 7 through the pervasive use of wearable devices and biological interfaces with technology? Reading time: 60 mins

Does it still exist? Where do you live today? They can live in apartments? There are five hundred and eleven years ago, when our mother was Invaded Earth, some indigenous peoples living in different places: houses made straw, wood and clay. Each family had its full casa.Em 21st century some believe to be Indian Indian has to live in the respective housing (hollow), and in some villages there are still families who reside in this type of housing. However we know that the world revolves around globalization, indigenous and we (like everyone else) are predisposed to adhere to such technological advances if we deem it necessary to facilitate our life. The Brazilian society has changed greatly with respect to their homes, many living in buildings, or smaller house and still find riparian that make their homes on the banks of rivers. We also many indigenous peoples, living in their villages in houses of bricks, covered with shingles, or in homes made ​​of clay covered with straw or other Buriti palm. Still have Indians who live in owned or rented large apartments in big cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. As each country or region has its typical form of housing, and seek to improve the comfort of your family, so we are indigenous peoples, but the culture remains alive regardless of residence or the place where they live or are. What makes the Indian being Indian is not in the house yes, but tradition and ritual that revives every day, the strongest memories passed on from parents to children is in hollow, townhouses or apartments, once Indian always an Indian.

This piece is related to the idea of open knowledge in that it deals with one professor's year-long experiment with synchronous teaching over a Skype connection. While the professor felt that it worked better and more seamlessly than anyone could have imagined, he remains unsure as to whether telepedagogy has a place in our traditional academic settings. While a bit different in scope, idea and execution than a mooc, it is another example of new ways in which traditional learning is giving way to 21st technology. Video conferencing is now an every day part of most businesses, and here is an entire semester's class being "phoned in" via Skype. As the article points out, its usefulness in a traditional setting is up in the air. Yet there would seem to be an obvious utility in bringing this give and take classroom setting to remote locations that might have internet access but not easy access to schools or specific professors. Yet another way to make knowledge or the access to knowledge more open.

Great post .. Well I think it may take time for people to adapt into the digital situations.. And in developing counties situation is even worst than that.. not only with skype , online at all would not work because people think and so use to the didactic pedagogy. All the things are centered with in the teachers presence..

Seen on Open Knowledge Foundation "Recently Brazilian government released the Kit de Dados Abertos (open data toolkit): The toolkit is made up of documents describing the process, methods and techniques for implementing an open data policy within an institution. Its goal is to both demystify the logic of opening up data and to share with public employees observed best practices that have emerged from a number of Brazilian government initiatives. The toolkit focuses on the Plano de Dados Abertos - PDA (Open Data Plan) as the guiding instrument where commitments, agenda and policy implementation cycles in the institution are registered. making it a state policy and not just a transitory governmental action. It is organizsd to facilitate the implementation of the main activities cycles that must be observed in an institution and provides links and manuals to assist in these activities. Emphasis is given to the actors/roles involved in each step and their responsibilities. Is also helps to define a central person to monitor and maintain the PDA. The following diagram summarises the macro steps of implementing an open data policy in an institution - See more at: http://blog.okfn.org/2014/10/07/branzilian-government-develops-toolkit-to-guide-institutions-in-both-planning-and-carrying-out-open-data-initatives/#sthash.kNvTB6nC.dpuf and http://kit.dados.gov.br/

I presented this paper to a conference in South Africa in 2005, and it was described as "too radical" by the top leaders in libraries in South Africa who attended. :) So am rather happy that my vague perceptions and musings about the emerging trends have been vindicated today. "This paper will focus on another aspect that is integrally linked to the ability to access literature and information - that of cost and economics. Both the broader macroeconomic context and the more focused microeconomic (South African) environment will be referred to. We will examine the assumption that the economic development of a nation is linked to the ability to access information and test whether this is a valid assumption. From there, we will take a brief look at the issue of the cost of books, specifically in South Africa. The advent of the electronic revolution and the many paradigm shifts that the Internet and electronic media have initiated and the effects on the publishing industry, will be outlined. We will explore the "information as commodity" paradigm and briefly look at the related Copyright and Intellectual Property developments before weaving these seemingly disparate threads together to form a picture of innovative solutions that have arisen in response to the information access crisis in South Africa. These solutions have arisen from the popular notion that information should be freely available for societal good, rather than commodified. Finally, we will ponder the effect that these solutions may have on the traditional book publishing industry in South Africa."

Thank you all, very much, it is quite a new experience for me to have the paper well received. :)

Thank you for sharing this. I really appreciated the non-North American context. I grew up in the States, and am working on my Master's degree in Canada, so it's really easy to get caught up in always looking at these issues from the North American point of view. Seeing papers like this really help to confirm how global these issues are, and cement their importance in my mind.

This site explains why people choose to illegally downloads, even if some people know that they are breaking the copyright law.

Interesting read as I'm guilty of illegally downloading/streaming TV and music. Very surprised to see that the rich are the ones who illegally download on a regular basis.

"I'd have to wait too long to see it on TV" is the reason I hear the most about when it comes to illegal downloading. Those people generally do make an effort to watch it when it does officially come out on TV though, to off-set their piracy. The way companies will show something in one country and then sit on it for five months before letting someone in another country watch it seems silly to me at this point, though. Yes digital piracy is illegal, but it seems to be getting to the point of the Prohibition Era in the United States: yes, it's illegal, but everyone's doing it anyway. I think somebody's going to need to change things up here, and it seems doubtful that the companies producing these shows can alter the cultural norms without a lot more work than it seems they're willing to put in.

Beware of impostors: Research has shown that 'citizen journalism' is no replacement for the real thing. Photo: Michael Fitzjames "Citizen journalism is an oxymoron," says Rakhal Ebeli, managing director of Melbourne-based news bureau Newsmodo. "I mean, how can someone who is not a journalist be a journalist?" I am adding this not that I am in agreement but its an example of negativity towards this area.

I think that this article does a good job of discussing some of the "darker" aspects of citizen journalism. It distinguishes how citizen journalism often deals with trying to change public opinion, whereas traditional journalism, in theory at least, aims to be objective and truth-based. While it is a large stretch to call traditional journalism "truth-based," there are typically certain measures in place to promote accuracy, such as fact checking, review, etc. I like how this article supports the professional integrity and need for trained, educated journalist, comparing "citizen journalism" to "citizen-pharmacy and crowd-sourced obstetrics." While there is certainly value in IndyMedia and citizen journalism, the flip side is that information distributed in this manner is not by any means guaranteed to be accurate or fair.

I am a professional journalist (Bachelor and master degree in Journalism) and I can tell you that a journalist that works for a media is not truth-based, accurated or with professional integrity. A professional journalist is an employee in a company with economical, policital and social interests supported by the content that is being published. I have the content of my articles changed from my managers in order to "match" the diary interests. And what was finally published was far from being truth (then I denied to put my name in the article, but it was still published). So citizen journalism might include emotions, prejudices and non contrasted impressions from citizens, but are still free and natural. I am totally towards citizen journalism.

"So what does knowledge mobilization mean for education? It asks us to reimagine what it means in exchanging knowledge. It requires us to embrace being open and unselfish in our learning and knowledge exchange. It requires admitting that a large part of what continues to happen in our world isn't good for our students, our teachers, our communities - or our world. It means creating change in our education systems or risk the return to the tragedies of the early 20th century."

More about KMbeing: http://www.knowledgemobilization.net/

"...we need to recognize you can't kill the instinct the technology produces. We can only criminalize it. We can't stop our kids from using it. We can only drive it underground. We can't make our kids passive again. We can only make them, quote, "pirates." And is that good?" - Larry Lessig This is a great talk about the free use of materials to make something new. The crux of Mr Lessig's argument is that every time a "kid" remixes a song with a video they are committing a criminal act. By doing this the law is making their free expression criminal. He shows three great examples of this starting at 8:29 in the video. He suggests that by using Creative Commons materials, we can avoid being criminals, and by doing this we can break the cartel of the RIAA and others. He uses the example of BMI causing the downfall of ASCAP. You can see this at 4:55 in the video. Here is the quote: "Finally. Before the Internet, the last great terror to rain down on the content industry was a terror created by this technology [Shows a picture of a broadcast radio antenna]. Broadcasting: a new way to spread content, and therefore a new battle over the control of the businesses that would spread content. Now, at that time, the entity, the legal cartel, that controlled the performance rights for most of the music that would be broadcast using these technologies was ASCAP. They had an exclusive license on the most popular content, and they exercised it in a way that tried to demonstrate to the broadcasters who really was in charge. So, between 1931 and 1939, they raised rates by some 448 percent, until the broadcasters finally got together and said, okay, enough of this. And in 1939, a lawyer, Sydney Kaye, started something called Broadcast Music Inc. We know it as BMI. And BMI was much more democratic in the art that it would include within its repertoire, including African American music for the first time in the repertoire. But most important was that BMI took public domain works a

The year I graduated high school, the media was overrun with speculation about a new technology set to shake the foundation of the world. What was it? We weren't told, exactly. All we knew was that code name "IT" was so revolutionary that we would have to rebuild our cities from scratch.

It is interesting that whenever a new innovation is introduced, the current one is declared dead before its final time arrives. Books in whatever format are appealing to different audiences for various reasons. To think that the introduction of e-books was going to lead to a declaration of war on printed books is laughable. Books will be with us for as long as we are still in this world. Does format matter? only time will tell.

Long back Lancaster wrote about paperless society but still we are heavily depending on paper only. Technology has fast evolved. First we talked about e-libraries then virtual libraries and now contemplating cloud based libraries. Many technologies have come and gone but paper is still ubiquitous.

"Logan Laplante is a 13 year-old boy who was taken out of the education system to be home schooled instead. Not only was he home schooled, but Logan had the ability to tailor his education to his interests and also his style of learning, something traditional education does not offer." I realise this article (and the video on which the article is based) does not fall neatly into any category we've studied yet, though I hope many of you may find it as interesting and inspiring as I have. At core, this is about "hacking" the educational system. As Logan explains, his methods can be applied in mainstream schooling (or indeed for anyone interested in lifelong/lifewide education). There's also the element of "participatory culture" embedded in the production of this video: Logan is sharing his experiences, allowing others to comment and contribute so that he might learn as others are learning from him.

This is a truly amazing talk, I was especially pleased to discover your post since I was just about to share a talk that speaks to many of the same issues! My shared video talks about how schools simply aren't made for boys - for many reasons - and what should be done to reengage them in education. (You can check it out here, if you're interested - https://groups.diigo.com/group/okmooc/content/gaming-could-the-ultimate-tools-to-re-engage-boys-in-education-12782090) The part about "writing about butterflies and rainbows" quite literally made me chuckle, here's why: (from my video) "Boy comes home from school, and he says, "I hate writing." "Why do you hate writing, son? What's wrong with writing?" "Now I have to write what she tells me to write." "Okay, what is she telling you to write?" "Poems. I have to write poems. And little moments in my life. I don't want to write that stuff." :) The boy then goes on to saying "I want to write about video games. I want to write about leveling-up. I want to write about this really interesting world. I want to write about a tornado that comes into our house and blows all the windows out and ruins all the furniture and kills everybody." ...which is one of the main points of "hackschooling" -writing through experiences & interests. Also, speaking from personal experience as someone who also left a diploma behind, I can confirm that leaving a rigid non-functional study environment for an open world of possibility can be the best thing you can ever do. All in all - thumbs up for sharing the talk!

Thanks for sharing - what an inspiring talk. Many of his lessons are just as valuable for adults, who often seem to lose any sense of creativity after settling in to their lives, careers, and relationships. FYI - my wife and I have done some limited homeschooling with one of our kids who really doesn't thrive in traditional school settings. I wish we could have done more, but at the very least I encourage each of our kids to explore other ways to learn to either supplement (or question) what they are learning in school. Traditional education just isn't supportive of creative thinking and creative thinkers.