February 2008 Archives

From the 2006 TED conference. A talk from Sir Ken Robinson about creativity and education.

Robinson defines creativity as "the process of having original ideas that have value." This comes about by using an interdisciplinary way of seeing things. In other words, creative people are generalists, not specialists. But what are we training people to be?

The talk information notes: “Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

“Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies--far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity--are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences.”

Robinson says, “The education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip mine the Earth—for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won’t serve us.” What should be the future of education, and how can we stop educating children out of their creativity?

Video is 20 minutes long, but well worth every minute.

The O'Reilly School of Technology has teamed up with Wolfram Research to create math courses using a version of Mathematica that works with Ajax in your browser. Using materials developed by professors at the University of Illinois and the Ohio State University, students will be able to learn and utilize mathematics in a browser, including graphing. This has incredible potential to solve a lot of problems distance education courses dealing with math. I wonder if they would think about licensing the ajax code more broadly, or if they will keep it as an O'Reilly School of Technology product?

Interview with Scott Gray

Wow. So powerful. Lots of stuff to think about here.