Coolest teacher ever... yep

Imagine this setting and such a cool learning environment to study maths... or whatever?

Real problems and Common Knowledge

The problem with real problems, is who gets to define what those really are.

How to minimize the impact of lobbies taking advantage of public money unless the outcomes respond to public real benefits?

How to foster the networks and ideas that could either "respond to real problems with simple solutions that can evolve with time" ?

I came across this ScienceBlogs and it brings forth interesting points to reflect and think on examples. The heading of the blog is Common Knowledge.

The case of digital public TV in Spain now open to private entities for marketing sports and entertainment by business groups that contribute to soccer becoming almost a religion in some countries, could be one case to follow closely. What kind of role model(s) are the leaders and administrators of public funds offering the young? And what mass media are offering here today makes you hope that more and more kids may prefer to entertain themselves with video games and other informational skill building activities, via web or other, building their own social media networks and learning something of value along the way.

The integration between soccer, media and business, the trade with professionals and all the publicity that goes with it, I fail to understand how any of that should be subject to public interest, and draw laws that benefit any. It may be not as bad as pushing a stupid war move following lousy decision making in international centers, but it's also not heading in the right direction.

Moving on to another hot subject drawing amazing amounts of public funds and attention, in Asturias as in the US: public health systems: standards, administration and information. What is public, what isn't, and how to better integrate both with fair policies and rules. Not an easy subject by all means, where the mesh of standards, underlying assumptions and beliefs, not to mention the private interests are highly complex. Yet, we tend to expect simple positive outcomes, responding to what multiple opposed players define as "real problem", and that they are implemented fast.

My chosen take away of all this from the above quoted post by John Wilbanks, dated August 5, 2009,

"the real issues underpinning what it would take to generate real disruptive innovation in health technology and health costs."

"If we're going to bring that level of innovation potential to health IT, we need to keep the lessons of the simple standard in mind. Because right now, if you're a bright young entrepreneur, you don't get into health IT. And the lack of not just standards, but the right kinds of standards, is the first barrier we have to knock down to change that reality."

Mind Blowing Thinking Tools

Another example of what is going on across borders ... superseding traditional media filters, traditional education restrictions and limitations, and a lot more... learning with new tools... in action: the E-Learning Journeys, by Julie Lindsay.

Changes in educational tools (a.k.a to some of us as "thinking tools" ) can get messy: we know how to institutionalize things all right building gigantic structures involving many rules, but we seldom have a smooth process to assess needed changes nor do we have the means, to implement them smoothly. Cultural changes whatever they may be... tend to disturb on-going routines that make us feel safe (even when an announced tsunami is bound to happen...).

Interesting notes from the 5th Episode of the ISTE Eduverse Talks.... go watch!). Listen to the story of the kids in the rural school (US but we could extend this to any other place), informing their teacher that according to their very real conversations with kids from other places they didn't know (and will probably never visit but now they have the means to get to know via interactive social media platforms...), some of the information provided by the traditional media and printed matter they were studying... wasn't .. how can we put this... accurate? ... to-date ... properly informed?

Components to think about: the infrastructure to enable this, acting leaders like Julie to show & educate the way letting others go do..., respect for dissent and learning from others across conversation (usual filters), the will, the space and time but also the tools to allow creativity in the classroom, the patience to learn from growing the learning experience by seeding the rules and coaching the learning process throughout the many mistakes that will inform the learning...

Furthermore we need to learn how to "grow" the freedom of mind to allow learners to explore and develop their own paths and ways to achieve given milestones... above all: listen... like Julie does... meaning: really pay attention to whatever the findings may be. If you don't listen and pay attention to your students... don't expect them to pay attention to you. If you play the game of heteronomy, don't expect responsibility and autonomy ... which game do you really want to play?

Heinz von Foerster informed meme with a slight variation: if you want to learn and know more... learn how to act... learn how to learn and which tools you need to explore ...and adjust. He defined cognitive homeostasis as stable realit(ies) recursively informed by certain "thinking paths". Put in simpler terms, heteronomous re-enforcing structures demand that we generate a great Spanish tortilla ... without allowing anyone... to break any eggs.

Are any of the current Bologna informed (and misinformed) rumblings in the Spanish educational system, even aware of any of this?... do they even know what is at stake? ...are we paying attention to the digitally informed generations that will have to live throughout whichever cathedral of given rules we decide to change or NOT change locally speaking? I don't think so.

More on Collaboration and New Media

Howard Rheingold's multiversed drive(s) to promote collaboration and learning by doing... once again, paving the way for us to explore and expand the "social knowing" scenario with new tools.


via Howard Rheingold vblog Watch "Vernacular Video in Culture and Education" on blip.tv


Quote:

"Vernacular is a fancy word for informal. When local languages like Italian and French broke away from Latin, which remained a formal liturgical language, they were called vernaculars. In regard to video, vernacular refers to the emergence of millions of video producers and an informal, even conversational genre of video production."

Howard announces possible changes in education with collaborative learning and "augmented" info-communication systems becoming "every day speech". In his book: Tools for Thought, he announced how "computers amplified thought and communication" to enable new ways of organizing our work and social activities.

In another scenario amongst Asturian multi-versed environments, our higher education discourse remains fixated and embedded in printing mode and linear thinking, as the one and only way to go. Don't get me wrong: I'm having the time of my life here.

At UNIOVI we are living exciting times with a strong proposal for "change" by the current administration, massively voted last year by students, academics and university personnel. Walking the talk is much harder to attain, and therein lies the challenge.

Indeed, when users don't take themselves to be "users", and their thinking remains framed within maps of reified knowledge, as was the case with liturgy and the era of the scribes, when there is only one way to express new ideas, it ensures that any newcomer keeps doing "more of the same". Without negating the positive aspects of such a practice, the tradeoff is: it allows academia to remain "shielded" within an authoritative comfort zone, that will most likely bar any new ideas from emerging. In such learning mode all the power lies in the formulation and the enunciate, there is little room for evolutionary conversation to take place. We might keep adding years to the annual celebration banners of a 400+ year old school in Asturias, but don't expect much collaboration and change, meaning: creative innovation to emerge. (...emerge it will, but it will thrive, network and move out ASAP, as has been the constant with several generations of students).

As friend Martin used to quote: "para comer tortilla ... hay que romper los huevos". And this also goes for the students battling to keep the academic feud in place. (Yes, you read that all right). Salvador Minuchin dixit: "beware of those who want to protect... little negotiation and learning and lots of dis-enabling and evasion might be taking place".

A vision of 200 years

Thinking 200 years ahead, a Dutch team is already working to reduce the risk of floods in areas of the Netherlands, which lie mostly below sea level. The video is informative.



Via Wired Magazine. Post dated Dec. 12, 2008, read Dec. 28.

Smart Bird

I wrote this post in 2004 when I started blogging. Things have changed quite a bit since then, so it needed a few twitches here & there.

Sometime in the '90s I stumbled upon incredibly inspiring thoughts spread around by Allan Wilson, Professor at University of California at Berkeley. Professor Wilson had established three conditions, which were necessary for a species to improve its abilities in a given environment:

i) the members of the species must flock and move around in herds, rather than sit individually in isolated territories

ii) some of the individuals must have the potential to invent new behaviours and skills

iii) the species must have an established process for transmitting a skill from the individual to the entire community, through direct communication

The story of the different birds. Via the works of Arie de Geus probably triggered other ideas that had been informed in study and work exploring constructivism and systems' thinking a the university, but let's get back to the story of the bird(s).

Two species of birds living in England had a very different approach to learning and sharing socially: the titmouse and the red robin. Both took advantage of the old milk bottles that were left uncapped by the milkmen, to sip a bit of the cream that floated on top of the milk.

Changes in the milking business brought a technology to cap the bottles with seals, which had contrasting effects on the two populations of birds. The titmouse population learned how to pierce the new seals that capped the milk bottles, and "spread the word" because they were social birds.

The robins were territorial birds with a strong inclination to single male leadership, disallowing other males from settling in the proximity, limiting the chances to share knowledge that may have been beneficial to all. They were stuck.

You can follow some other interesting leads such as the above on Arie de Geus's The Living Company , here some quotes from an interview posted on Dialog on Leadership, Sept. 1999, read on 2004 :

"I’m beginning to see more and more loops that strongly reinforce the idea that there are hierarchically, higher placed living systems, higher than the human being. I called them "A Living Company," because basically I talk about the commercial population of the institutional world population. I talk about commercial tribes, but there are many other tribes. ..."

How my avatar came to be

The bird you see above was grabbing bits of toast from my lunch bag, while I sat reading at the Asilomar conference center in Monterey Bay, California, a decade ago. It reminded me of the story.

There were many birds like this smart one, at the MIIS university campus in Monterey Bay, flocking around and grabbing bits here and there. I wondered if they were behaving like the Titmouse birds ... or like the Robins.

The story emerged again much later Spain, when I needed an avatar, upon joining Twitter in 2007. I've lived in Spain for many years now and noticing how resilient we can be in Europe, when faced with changing trends in communications and information media... (well, in some countries more than in others ... ), I cannot but wonder ... will it play like the story of the Titmouse... or more like the one of the Robins?