Author Archives: Steve

NCEE and Learning Costs

In one of our favorite fun games, the main character must save a people from an evil, world dominator. The character must, however, purchase weapons and upgrades from the very people she’s trying to save. Fun game, really dumb concept, and easily fixed.

So what to make of the NCEE’s $20 Saveus proposal. Maybe this shouldn’t burn me so, but I’m a little worn over being cented to death. This is the same problem I have with cancer cures and heart transplants and the price of knowledge.

In any event, it seems to me that wages will begin to rise in India as cost of living and quality adjust in their economies. But I’m no economist so I could be wrong. Maybe I’m not a very good capitalist.

In another any event, I think the NCEE will be important reading, especially for those of us involved in new media curriculums. The NCEE proposes a system-wide overhaul, which I’ve clipped down:

1. A stiffer exam at the 10th grade built on international benchmarks
2. Better distribution of savings from #1
3. Top-third teacher recruiting; change compensation and retirement standards
4. Develop modernized standards of evaluation and assessment practices
5. Contractualize governance with direct teacher involvement and direct state funding
6. Universalize early ed
7. Equitize practice and finances so that the most needy don’t get left out
8. Provide current workers with access to new literacies
9. Fed should fund learning for current adults
10. Develop regional-based outcomes

Here’s a link to the Executive Summary of the report.

Going forward with such a system would demand the kind of high concept and system thinking not currently in vogue in our own national leaderships’ collective thought space. And I’d suggest that altering systems without bringing human-scale design to urban spaces will simply result in more disappointment.

21st Century Education

A list of responses to Time’s recent headliner:

The way we teach kids has not changed very much over the years. Yet all around our schools, society has changed in astounding ways. We are able to put humans into space, and yet, students in America’s urban schools couldn’t explain how a vehicle put into space is able to orbit the earth. The curriculum of our schools is designed to keep kids thinking inside the box, and discourage innovative thinking. Yet, there are currently calls for finding ways to bring our schools out of the 20th century. Time Magazine’s lead article this week addressed this issue.

The Art of Teaching Science

To me “powerpointlessness” is something that died a long time ago that is just an annoying tool that adults use to bore audiences to tears. First graders using tools on the internet is great but what about some of the old school logo type programming. I just don’t understand why a child putting a PowerPoint presentation together is so exciting. If a first grader programmed a logo turtle to move through an obstacle course then I would be very impressed!!

21st Century Educator

Trained and experienced educators run the schools. But perhaps more than anything else, education in the 21st century is about conversations, and our schools must operate within conversations between classrooms and homes, schools and communities, and lots of potent, two-way conversations between students and their learning experiences.

Most of the rest of the story includes some inspiring examples of schools that are moving to the edge of the wave. But what they make me wonder is if all schools might become charter schools. Each school is free to reshape itself within the context of a dynamic curriculum that reflects today and tomorrow, but incorporating local needs, local opportunities, and a desperate need to make schools powerful engines for improving neighborhoods, villages, cities and the world.

2 Cents Worth

At the moment we’re being pressed with lots of “reports” about the state of American education and education in Connecticut. Here’s an example. And the soon to come assessment by NCEE. I hope people keep in mind that global engagement is hypertextual. What do we mean by globalist thinking and internationalism? What will we mean by technology and literacy?

Study Group

The Iraq Study Group’s report, in my view, confirms what has been obvious (is this really confirmation):

1. That this “administration” has been building its own reality for many years now, acting in a space of subversion and cynicism

2. We have a deep hole in our national conversation, an emptiness of light

Number 2 needs some elaboration, since number one is just a fancy way of writing “lie.” We live in a time of rss, tags, and artificial super data. Even as I can read American and Spanish newspapers, images and messages can still be warped, as we saw in the latest CT elections, where false positions could be reported as perceived truth. For example, a line like this is fairly prominent these days: “Today the president responded to” blah blah blah “by declaring” blah blah blah. This is not watchdogging, nor is it practical. Research is not about “reporting” findings. It’s about the findings. It’s also about the how

White House reaction to the report will be predictable. The predictable will be reported and taken seriously.

We’ve known about this mess for a long time and it’s heartbreaking that the “Gee Wiz” will sound so professional. On scene reporters in Iraq have shown the frantic and horrific. Cut to smiles and the light side of the news.

In our military ranks there are teachers, parents, and engineers. They should be teaching, parenting, and engineering. And they should be given the space to do so. They deserve better than what they’ve been getting.

Urban Living and Rules of Exclusion

How Far Can We Extend This?
Here’s an interesting take from Seed:

Experiments have shown that social rejection prompts people to make poor decisions, such as eating more than they know they should or drinking too much. Now, a study in the current issue of the journal Social Neuroscience uncovers the neural basis for such poor decision-making. Researchers report that the feeling of social exclusion changes activity in specific regions of the brain responsible for self-control.

I’d bet that we could infer further about negative decision-making in stressful living environments in general, such as low-opportunity urban centers or in populations weighed down by debt.

Then Again
In another SEED article we can call into question bad decisions in general. Yes, metaphorically, we could always kill the elephants.

Elephants repeatedly rampage through residential areas of Sumatra island because of deforestation that has reduced their habitat.

Legos and Games

LucasArts’ LEGO Star Wars II is turning out to be an addictive experience. Played a lot this weekend with Jordan in 2play and the levels flew by. The game is heavily goal driven, fast, and fluid, even with LEGO characters driving the action.

The ability to play through episodes IV, V, and IV is a powerful draw. And it leads to a few issues for critique. How do the films influence the game goals? How does the game manifest drama? Why were some elements of the films changed for the game play experience, and how might the game inform future work with interactive film?

Performance

Performance
What about performance objects in AS 2 or 3? What defines or helps to define performance? Would this involve an seemingly intelligent animal or agent, dancing lights, or elements of behavior that appear rational or emotional? A weblog can be an adaptive or reactive space and we can still have the dog chase things and pant in MS Word (but this is non-adaptive). Is it enough to throw an object against Stage.width?

Performance
Spazeboy threatens to weblog during the next New Media course, which I guess would be a variant on backchanneling or perhaps a form or learning performance. Go for it, dude, we encourage that sort of thing in the course. I wonder, however, if this might form added benefit for other students who would read responses or additions afterwards, or if such practice could feed back into a new media weblog or wiki via rss. Something to think about.

Blending
On another note, Susan Gibb is going to have to start getting us up on Blender, which will be a must show for many of the students currently in new media.

Conversations

Chats
Had a nice chat with Spazeboy about weblogging, the recent elections in CT, and new media and look forward to his participation in the Perspectives course in the spring. He’s a nice guy and will add interesting perspective to the business of things. Tonight we discussed the future of new media, which is a major issue in the course, and we had lots of uninhibited interaction and analysis about reading machines, music, information, and research groups.

Vs
V for Vendetta is proving to be an excellent springboard for character, choice, and context in Contemporary Fiction. Evey is proving a profound lesson in bargains, parallels, rabbit reading, choice, and boundary in story.

Touring

I’m currently in Lewisburg doing a tour with K of Bucknell U. The food is great, the company engaging at my brother-in-law’s place across the street from the university. We’re here to think about the science offerings and the next four or five years. It’s been a wonderful road trip. More soon.

Seasons of Congress and Elections

Here’s a quote from the Toronto Star

Researchers warn in the journal Science that 90 per cent of present-day marine fish, crustaceans, shellfish and other currently eaten species of seafood could vanish in 50 years.

The truth of this will be born out someday but such a potential problem is a real issue. This is one frustrating problem with politics in America. It’s not Congress as an institution, but the fact that the people currently holding office can’t seem to project an operational habit of perspective.

Our young are often accused of being slouchers, ignorant, and lazy. Schools need to be held accountable. And we need wars on poverty, terrorism, and sex. It is office holders who need to be held accountable, need a nice dose of learning, and need to be held accountable. I’d love for Senators to hold themselves accountable and to come into office with a new ethic. “I need to work on real problems and argue best practices with an open mind and with hard critical tools.”

Unfortunately, people are now using the office for their own good, not for the good of cities, states, and the commons. Case in point. Pharmacies are now a law-enforcement arm. I have been fighting a cold for some weeks and typically use lots of Pseudoephedrine. In order to purchase this, I have to go the counter, sign my name away, and am limited in my supply. The counterperson isn’t happy at all about this because the process takes time and adds to the complexity of a relatively simple transactional space. In order to solve a problem that could be handled in much more creative ways, millions of people’s health has been complexified by bad apples. We lack creativity in our solutions.

Discourse is another matter. Political discourse has been destroyed by bad manners, demagoguery, and economics. John and Jane Doe are effectively cut out of politics because their voices have been drowned out by money and bad manners. To run for a position of leadership and responsibility should be a privilege, worthy of respect and encouragement. Electronic voting machines are simply another addition to the bad dream of the present. And yet another influencial fool has had his mask removed.

Priorities, real problems–all these have been drowned out by nonsense and issues that make for entertainment, not adult responsibility and robust effort. We should be worried about fish. We should be worried about health. We should be building on human creativity. If we continue on our present course, we will end up hating our neighbors because they worship snakes. The stock market looks good, but that isn’t the issue. More jobs can take the form of good and bad. In CT we are only gaining low-pays. Gas prices are down so buy that SUV and lose yourself to the peace of forgetfulness.