#edcmooc Final Assignment, Thoughts & Artefact

For my final assignment I resurrected and finished an old project, which sadly had been parked on my unfinished projects graveyard. I am happy to finally give it a life!
For me it represents my thoughts about technology, learning and the future. I think technology drives history and social change, but still we decide the ultimate direction. We are not helpless and technology is not pressured on us by an "alien" force, because without us there wouldn't be technology in the first place. It's important to encourage a lively public discussion about what all these innovations mean for humanity in a very large and wide context. Only through this public discussion will we be able to decide which unwanted consequences we are prepared to pay and which not. Science and technology can be incredible useful for humanity, but all the controversies of today also remind me of a poem by Goethe called:

"Der Zauberlehrling" (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)

You can read The Sorcerer's Apprentice , as well as other all encompassing technologies like genetics or an internet that destroys every safe place for our privacy, in two ways:
First:
Some things are too powerful to mess with, if you don't have mastery about them - meaning having thought about all the consequences and what to do about them.
And Second:
Lying can be seen as willingly obscuring half of of the truth, but if you call this magical power you can never be sure or get rid of the consequences. (which reminds me of metaphors and how science and advertisement often encourage one sided ways to think about certain topics)

I think technology can solve a lot of humanities problems, but we have to stop closing our eyes for the not so beautiful consequences. Only if we can ponder and discuss the whole big picture, we can over come our fears, find solutions and work in the right direction. Utopia for me still is the right direction, but to pursue it we have to dream consciously, knowing about the problems we need to solve, which is actually quite hard work and not easy at all.




Please press the HD button and head over to vimeo to see the video in High Definition!

#edcmooc, #videos, #utopia,


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Looking Back to the Future! Seymour Papert - Learning vs. Teaching

Education with an Emphasis on LEARNING not Teaching!
Seymour Papert the Teacher Activist. :)

"Nothing enrages me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn math and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization. I know. I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities."

“The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.”

"I am convinced that the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge..."

"What would happen if children who can't do math grew up in Mathland, a place that is to math what France is to French? "

“Our interest is really in Third World development. I believe that it's essential to solving the problems of poverty, violence, and environment, to have better education.” 

"[the children] become producers instead of consumers of educational software."


Have you listened to the wonderful Keynote by @Gardner Campbell 'Ecologies of Yearning' we were supposed to watch for #edcmooc? I highly recommend it! And I was pleased to hear him mention  Seymour Papert who is also my hero. Some years ago by accident I stumbled one night on the documentary below and instantly was mesmerized. Here was somebody who understood why I had hated school. If this is the first time for you are hearing Papert, I hope you will enjoy it and be as touched by it as I was. If you already know him, I hope you will havce fun revisiting his powerful ideas. I still can't believe that suddenly I will be able to participate in the #medialabcourse "Learning Creative Learning" that starts tomorrow. ( #medialabcourse is open even if you missed the sign up deadline. visit the Google+ community) The Lifelong Kindergarden Group and Mitchell Resnick took Papert's ideas and created Scratch, but I will make a post about that soon too. So for now: Enjoy Seymour Papert!

Seymour Papert 1983 - Talking Turtles Documentary:



Go visit http://www.papert.org/ for more!

Seymour Papert on Online Learning and Universities
During the summer of 2000, Dr. Seymour Papert prepared a short keynote address on the future of higher education for a conference in Italy.


Seymour Papert on Online Learning and Universities from Gary Stager on Vimeo.


Seymour Papert at Bates College - 2000


Seymour Papert at Bates College - 2000 from Gary Stager on Vimeo.


Seymour Papert in Sydney, Australia 2004


Seymour Papert in Sydney, Australia 2004 from Gary Stager on Vimeo.

Freire and Papert
The following discussion between Seymour Papert and the Brazilian philosopher and educator Paolo Freire took place in Brazil during the late 1980s. It was sponsored by Pontifícia Universidade Católica, the Catholic University of São Paulo; and the Afternoon Journal TV show. It was broadcast in Brazil by TV PUC São Paulo and KTV Solucoes.


Freire and Papert from Gary Stager on Vimeo.


Seymour Papert's CUE Conference Keynote Address (2000)
This one I couldn't embed so here is what Gary Stager the uploader write about it:
"In May 2000, Seymour Papert delivered a barn-burner of a keynote address at the California Computer Using Educators Conference in Palm Springs, CA. The venue was a tent with large fans blowing and planes flying overhead. The organization made no attempt to record the speech professionally, so what you have here is an amateur attempt to capture history with the gear I had with me. The audio quality is often hard to deal with. I hope to improve it in the future. Fortunately, a transcript of this important address is now online at dailypapert.com/?page_id=1124"
https://vimeo.com/41967316


I will repost two comments of mine that I made talking to +Sandra Sinfield on a post, where she asks the great question if "lurkers" could be just learners doing it their way.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115686965562050065530/posts/YaWgRWxD2bR
I don't have much time right now, but I would love to share with you my learning experience and why I am so in love by Papert's approach to learning. In these comments I try to explain:

"When I want to learn something I do what most teachers (especially in music) despise: I listen to and watch a lot of different teachers/people explain what I want to learn and usually I am lucky and pretty soon it klicks. I do spend time with the ones whose "language" doesn't speak to me, but I never despair and move on if it doesn't fit.

I don't think it's always the case that some people are better at explaining, it's more like my brain is focused on something in particular and theirs on something else. Sometimes I am lucky and I find somebody who explains it the way I need it in that moment, but more often I find some who explain one part of the problem perfectly and somebody else in a different context/tutorial who suddenly (or is it me?) can explain what was missing in a single sentence.

I think it might be that for me looking at things from different perspectives really helps me understanding things. I think personally I would be bored to death or despairing if I had to read a lot about other students approaches in learning, the moment when I try to understand a certain problem/topic. But (like here in this mooc) I love to "surf their streams", read about their approaches and find new tools and advice when I don't have to = time to fool around. That really helps and I have to say that sometimes I hear better explanations from students who are not perfect than from accomplished teachers.

So yes I believe learning from each other is great and makes it easier. Sharing knowledge always is. I also found that you learn best trying to explain something to somebody. I think you have that totally right, the 'lurker' should be seen as a learner doing it their way and there are so many ways! Some people really need a framework, I need a lot of info and freedom to follow my thoughts. There are also people who like to start with baby steps and the easy parts, I always want the big picture first and get confused when I have to start with little bits and pieces.

                                                       ----------------------------------------

"Learning ended up to be the topic most dear to my heart, because school was so horrible for me and the realization that I love learning came so late (I was 25...). I so wish I could change this experience for other people, especially children. I hate that so many people come out of school, knowing only one thing for sure: what they supposedly can't ever learn and don't have a talent for. Makes me so angry. I think school is made for very linear people and so mostly only these people succeed. Others I guess don't have a chance or the endurance to live with that linearity to become teachers....

Did you see the Learning Creative Learning course?http://learn.media.mit.edu/index.html It's the last day to sign up today, but you could also just follow the lectures and readings - a really open course! When I saw the "Talking Turtels " documentary on youtube a couple years ago and read about the Life Long Kindergaden Group, that was the first time I ever felt somebody understands how I need to learn. Falling passionately in love with something and creating things being able to choose how freely. I think Papert got it so right and I can't believe 30 years later this still hasn't taken over classrooms. So sad... And through my experience I know that this works for grown ups too. If you don't know about this and If you have some time I highly recommend to check it out.

I am so excited that I can be part of this! Reading about his approach gave me a lot of back up, when after my first success in free learning (My friend encouraged me to switch from drawing comics to make an animation movie, so I learned a computer program while doing just that) I decided to also give it a try and learn something I thought I would never be able to do: making music with an instrument! Learning and creating for sure is the what makes me happiest in life , and I almost missed it.

I am sure you maybe already know about Papert and Resnick but just in case you don't and feel curious :) here is one chapter of Paperts book: "Mindstorms" online: http://llk.media.mit.edu/courses/readings/mindstorms-chap1.pdf "

#edcmooc,  #medialabcourse , #utopia, #autodidacticism, #peer2peer, #documentary, #talks



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Utopia / Chris Anderson's Makers: The New Industrial Revolution

"But I do know that, when you give a kid a 3D printer and they have access to Thingiverse and easy tools to customize, that the imagination runs riot.
And what these kids know is that anything they could imagine they can make real.
Right now, they can make it real in plastic in one color. Soon it'll be plastic and multicolors. Soon it will be much higher resolution. Soon it'll be multi-material. Then they'll be able to integrate the electronics into it. They'll be able to print in metal. We can see the way this is going. It's not going to take 20 years to get professional quality manufacturing on your desktop."


"Now there is nothing standing between ideas and practice."
I so want a 3d printer!!!

Chris Anderson (formally of WIRED) speaks about his new book:
Makers: The New Industrial Revolution

"The technology is there and easy and in place. And now we can just fill it with our ideas.
And the nice thing about hardware is that there's no crazy debate over the business model.
The business model is you sell products for more than they cost. Period. That's it. Business school professors keep saying, explain your business model. It's like, we sell products for more than they cost. We made money on Day 1. We actually sell it at 2.6 times the actual cost. 2.6, that cost is the Bill of Materials plus labor. And 2.6 is like this magic number. It's basically two 40% margins, one for us, and one for our distribution partners, a wholesale and a retail margin, if you will, 2.6. 2.6 times the Bill of Materials is like an order of magnitude cheaper than closed-source, sometimes two orders of magnitude cheaper. It's not rocket science. We learned it from other people in the Open Hardware Movement."

I read Free: The Future of a Radical Price last year and found it to be equal parts scary and incredibly hopeful. I haven't had the chance to read Makers yet, but I will.
All I can say: after watching this talk is: "WHOA!"
If you are a creative person there is no way you are not going to root for 3D printer utopia.




Chris Anderson, the groundbreaking author of the Long Tail visits the RSA to outline a dramatic new change in the way our economy functions.

picture credit: wiki commons

#edcmooc, #3Dprinter, #ChrisAnderson, #makers, #opensource, #utopia,


Text by Céline Keller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Files, Pictures and Videos might not be.

Metaphors and Magic / Alan Moore and Rebecca Johnston

Today I read Rebecca Johnston: "Salvation or destruction: Metaphors of the internet".

It was very interesting to think about our word choices and the consequences they entail.
I loved this part of the paper most:

"When individuals chose the metaphors they used to describe the Internet, they also selected a filter for viewing the Internet. This result makes it vital for us to reflect on our metaphors and select them with care. 

In these example editorials, the most–used metaphors surrounded ideas of destruction. 
If theInternet is destruction metaphor becomes the predominant schema for reflecting on online experiences, how might this impact the future of the Internet? Could this metaphor encourage censorship and oppression online? What other metaphors better convey the future and potential of the Internet?"

It reminded me of an Alan Moore quote that touched me. The quote is about what it means to be an artist, but I think it fits to what Johnston is writing about:


"There is some confusion as to what magic actually is. I think this can be cleared up if you just look
at the very earliest descriptions of magic. Magic in its earliest form is often referred to as “the art”.
 I believe this is completely literal. I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness. The very language about magic seems to be talking as much about writing or art as it is about supernatural events.

A grimmoir for example, the book of spells is simply a fancy way of saying grammar.
Indeed, to cast a spell, is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change people's consciousness.

And I believe that this is why an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world that you are likely to see to a Shaman. I believe that all culture must have arisen from cult. Originally, all of the faucets of our culture, whether they be in the arts or sciences were the province of the Shaman. The fact that in present times, this magical power has degenerated to the level of cheap entertainment and manipulation, is, I think a tragedy. At the moment the people who are using Shamanism and magic to shape our culture are advertisers. Rather than try to wake people up, their Shamanism is used as an opiate to tranquilize people, to make people more manipulable. Their magic box of television, and by their magic words, their jingles can cause everyone in the country to be thinking the same words and have the same banal thoughts all at exactly the same moment.

In all of magic there is an incredibly large linguistic component.
The Bardic tradition of magic would place a bard as being much higher and more fearsome than a magician. A magician might curse you. That might make your hands lay funny or you might have a child born with a club foot. If a Bard were to place not a curse upon you, but a satire, then that could destroy you. If it was a clever satire, it might not just destroy you in the eyes of your associates;
it would destroy you in the eyes of your family. It would destroy you in your own eyes.
 And if it was a finely worded and clever satire that might survive and be remembered for decades, even centuries. Then years after you were dead people still might be reading it and laughing at you
and your wretchedness and your absurdity. Writers and people who had command of words were respected and feared as people who manipulated magic. In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They’re not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being; that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment; things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die. It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants.

If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. 

They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need."

-Alan Moore

The quote is taken from the documentary: The Mindscape of Alan Moore

                                                                        photo credit: wiki commons

Here is also a the guardian interview from last december including a link to the video interview
where this awesome screen capture is taken of:

Alan Moore: Why I turned my back on Hollywood

Text by Céline Keller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Files, Pictures and Videos might not be.

#edcmooc, #videos, #documentary, #AlanMoore, #comics, #utopia, #art, #language

From digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom / Marc Prensky

"Most people prefer to walk backwards into the future. It's a posture that is maybe uncomfortable, but at least it allows us to look at familiar things as long as possible. 
Now what happens when you do that of course is you get hit by the truck of change."

Marc Prensky

"A lot of our kids say they come to school and they say when I come into the building I have to power down. They don't mean that devices. They mean their brains. Thy mean they get to do more powerful stuff outside of school than they do inside of school." 
Marc Prensky 

"Do our kid's have attention deficit disorder? A lot of people think so giving them ritalin and other drugs. Here is what the kids say: It's not attention deficit disorder, we are just not listening. - Engage me or enrage me -"
Marc Prensky

 This is a fantastic talk by Marc Prensky held at the Global Education Forum 2010
( Sadly there are a couple of short periods when he shows his presentation where you
can not hear the audio but I didn't mind. It is not that important to understand the talk. )



Marc seems to post all his essays and articles online. You can find them here: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/ 
That's how I like it!

He also has a nice collection of all the videos about him posted on his webpage: http://www.marcprensky.com/videos/

Don't forget to follow him on twitter: @marcprensky

From the #edcmooc wiki page: 

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Prensky, M. (2001).
 http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf

"Sparking extensive debate, while working its way into common usage, Prensky’s metaphor of the native and the immigrant is one of the best-known accounts of the effects of the digital upon education. Offering a narrative of ‘native’ young people’s seamless integration with technology, and the revolutionary changes that information technology has brought, Prensky warns ‘immigrant’ teachers that they face irrelevance unless they figure out how to adapt their methods and approaches to new generations of learners. When reading this paper, try to identify the strategies that Prensky uses to make his argument - how does the language he uses work to persuade the reader? Who are ‘we’ and who are ‘they’? What associations do you have with the idea of the ‘native’ and the ‘immigrant’, and how helpful are these in understanding teacher-student relationships?"


I think he nailed it, in the sense that as an 'immigrant' it is hard to understand a different language.
Not because you don't understand the words but because of the subtle cultural differences expressed between the lines. Some things you just don't get. ( I spent some years in Argentina and I think it took me 3 years a until I started to understand what and how big the differences really are).
This 'we' and 'they" or 'immigrants' and natives' also expresses a common hostility that grows in these situations. For example: First I found it annoying that people always seemed to talked on top of each other. My frustration made me misunderstand the cultural circumstances. I had to be open and not assume this to be an impolite gesture to realize the beauty of the argentinian way of social gatherings.
Acknowledging my own limitations and the resulting frustration was necessary too.  :)


+Britt Watwood shared this great article:

From digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom

"Digital wisdom transcends the generational divide defined by the immigrant/native distinction. Many digital immigrants exhibit digital wisdom.

...

The point is that while the need for wise people to discuss, define, compare, and evaluate perspectives is not changing, the means by which they do so and the quality of their efforts are growing more sophisticated because of digital technology. As a result, the unenhanced brain is well on its way to becoming insufficient for truly wise decision making. When we are all enhanced by implanted lie detectors, logic evaluators, and executive function and memory enhancements—all of which will likely arrive in our children's lifetimes—whoamong us will be considered wise? The advantage will go, almost certainly, to those who intelligently combine their innate capacities with their digital enhancements."

"So what constitutes digital wisdom? What habits do the digitally wise use to advance their capabilities and the capabilities of those around them? Can digital wisdom be taught?"

"Digital wisdom can be, and must be, learned and taught. As we offer more courses in digital literacy, we should also offer students guidance in developing digital wisdom. Parents and educators are digitally wise when they recognize this imperative and prepare the children in their care for the future—educators by letting students learn by using new technologies, putting themselves in the role of guides, context providers, and quality controllers, and parents by recognizing the extent to which the future will be mediated by technology and encouraging their children to use digital technology wisely."


"The digitally wise also realize that the ability to control digital technology, to bend it to their needs, is a key skill in the digital age. As a result, they are interested in programming, in the broadest sense of the word, that is, in making machines do what people want them to do."

Marc Prensky 

http://www.innovateonline.info/pdf/vol5_issue3/
h._sapiens_digital__from_digital_immigrants_and_digital_natives_to_digital_wisdom.pdf

By Marc Prensky [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

#edcmooc #MarcPrensky #TechnologicalDeterminism #talks #videos #utopia

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The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined - Salman Khan

“While I’m around, Khan Academy will be free,” Khan says. 

(source: Inside Higher Ed)

"The new world is not about selling or having a gate to knowledge," he said. "It's about having a relationship with the user."

(source: Daily News)

When I did my first MOOC 'Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World'
I was very frustrated and angry about the fact that after the course ended, they took down everything: the whole forums and the wiki page including all the information and links we students collected.
It doesn't make any sense to me and to be honest I find it offensive. The only reason I could think of was coursera trying to create a 'business model'. That's another reason why you should set up
your own blog and save the information that is valuable for you.

Or as my friend Marcio Gualtieri put it:
"You can't change the world (in a positive way) and have a "business model". I hope that MOOCs
read this book, because from my interaction with them I have the impression that they just don't get it."

 

I love the quote Salman Khan puts in the beginning of his book:

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. - Rabindranatha Tagore

You can read the Introduction to his new book here:

Excerpt: "The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined" by Salman Khan by

And here is another nice talk:



Be sure to also check out the heart warming Khan Academy student stories:
https://www.khanacademy.org/stories



Text by Céline Keller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Files, Pictures and Videos might not be.

 #edcmooc #SalmanKhan #talks #videos #articles #utopia