No subject
Wed Jun 16 17:01:21 UTC 2010
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">So let us be specific. We propose significant
sums of federal funding be used to<br>
extend the open source realXtend code base, and to create a network of<br>
community centers, two for each state. These bricks and mortar
buildings, and<br>
the business that will grow up around each center, will support all
maintenance<br>
costs for a next generation immersive Virtual World (iVW) system. ...<br>
The “EducationWorlds.com” branding may be developed so that people will
know<br>
about the Bridge between High School and College. Once this branding is<br>
established, continuing funding will be generated locally as a function
of these<br>
state funded community centers, and for profit franchises that are
proto-typed by<br>
the two centers. The two centers per state will prototype tea and
coffee shops,<br>
where significant telecommunication capacity will be open to the
public. In each<br>
state, the community center will be franchised with the branding Second
School<br>
™ Coffee and Tea Shops Inc. These businesses will form a business co-op
in<br>
each state.<br>
The Bridge is a fully monitored and dedicated peer-to-peer iVW system.
...</blockquote>
<br>
This is exactly the opposite of what I am recommending, and not
congruent in any way with the approach and philosophy I describe. <br>
It appears to be a book dedicated largely to a commercial enterprise,
and is simply attempting to free-ride on the current discussion.<br>
<br>
-- Stephen<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 06/19/2010 10:03 AM, Paul Prueitt wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:31805DB6-A0A2-4197-A573-A76B2C910C27 at ontologystream.com"
type="cite"><br>
<div>
<div>On Jun 19, 2010, at 7:09 AM, Stephen Downes <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:stephen at downes.ca">stephen at downes.ca</a>>t
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">We don't (as we all know, right?) consume an
education, but our</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">education system has become based on the
model of consumption, so much so</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">that even the critics of it can articulate
only about how hard it is to</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">create the consumable.</font></p>
<p
style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; min-height: 14px;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">This is why we - George and I and David and
Alec and Dave and others - are</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">working on opening up education. Not because
we think it will reduce the</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">cost of the consumable to zero, not because
we think we can package and</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">deliver an education more cheaply and more
efficiently, but because we</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">understand that, unless an education is
open, unless it's precisely *not* a</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">consumable, it's not an education at all.
And while *this* observation, that</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">education is not a consumable, is hardly new
or unique, our approach to it</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">appears to have been (though you know if you
go back into the history of</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">education you can find a great deal about
self-organizing learning</font></p>
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">communities and the pedagogies based on such
models).</font></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In <i>The Education Bridge</i>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.educationWorlds.com/bridge.pdf">www.educationWorlds.com/bridge.pdf</a>
the notion of induction is developed, along with the related notions of
non-locality and emergence. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A thesis is framed. Our educational system is an induction
machine. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This induction is backward looking and centered on serving the
supply system. It is not anticipatory, and thus the education system
does not have the properties of an intelligent system. There is
a denial that individuals have unique qualities. It is within these
unique qualities that one sees "intelligence". </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We trace this limited systemic nature of the
current educational philosophy to Dewey, Darwin and Newton. We see
education is being anti-democratic in its practice and consequences.
It carries the "big lie", that the physical universe is deterministic.
This lie then allows a few to pretend as if they are in control. It,
the educational system, has the nature of a fundamentalism. It, the
educational system, is hijacking the democracy. it does this while
also providing us with great benefits. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The distinction is then made that there is a supply mechanism
called advertising which allows supply to control demand. The
systematic violation of the individual is then enabled. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Part of the hijacking of the intention of the individual by
these mechanisms requires our citizens to be ignorant about the nature
of individual self. The action-perception cycle is interrupted to such
an extent that the individual (sometimes) becomes incapable of
understanding the self. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We give up the self so as to be a participant in a consumer
based social structure. The educational system assists us in giving up
our expectation that intention be expressed in a pure form. In fact we
are taught that intention is necessarily evil, unless shaped by the
supply side. This "teaching" is part of the fundamentalism. The
media and our literatures goes to great lengths to given evidence to
this assertion about individual intent. We are fed a continuous supply
of evidence as to our unworthiness. We accommodate this feeding as we
become ever more incapable. This process is one that must eventually
reach the point of absolute absurdity. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Maybe we are now "here". Maybe it is time to turn the corner
and evolve in the opposite direction, to re-establish the concept of
governance by the People and also to not over react. Might we reform
without extreme reaction?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The Education Bridge makes the proposal that teaching using
supply side methodology creates acquired learning disabilities,
specific at first (1950-1990) to mathematics and science, but now
non-specific. The entering freshman are rejecting the very notion of
learning anything. They wish to just graduate with the credentials
that allow them to earn a living and consume. We pretend to teach and
they pretend to learn. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We move away fro the notion of a meritocracy. The remediation to
this trend is also proposed.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The remediation is to develop Socratic,constructivist and
participatory pedagogy that asks the individual student to demand
specific topics to be discussed, rather than to be forced to consume
the material in a specific order and using a very rigid syllabus. If
the demand is from a desire to understand self, then this demand will
lead to capacity to serve self and others. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">how hard it is to</font></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><font
style="font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;"
face="Helvetica" size="3">create the consumable.</font></div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
<div><i>The Education Bridge </i>suggests that we no longer create a
regime of consumables that are forced on the student, but rather
develop a set of focus topics, the complete set of which would be the
"curriculum". There is guidance, not all notions of "supply" are lost!
The framework for curriculums is provided, but choices are allowed. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We then allow students to select which of these consumables he
or she wishes to internalize and then to re-express. The re-expression
involves an induction, the localization of non-locality and the
emergence of creativity. The methods that might support this "demand
pedagogy" are illustrated in the <i>Bridge</i>. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The objective we may choose to share is to balance a system that
is now 95% supply side and create a system where a 50-50 balance
between supply and the aggregated pure intent of individuals. How is
this aggregation to occur, so that we as a society anticipate the
future? The answers we give are surprising at first. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We would be pleased if this list would focus on this proposal,
as stated at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.educationWorlds.com">www.educationWorlds.com</a>. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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Downes<br>
</span><span
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Website: <a href="http://www.downes.ca">http://www.downes.ca</a> ~
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