Written by John Moravec on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 12:39
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Join us for the next Horizon Forum meeting!
Technologies and education in Latin America:
Changes in the infrastructure and not in the teaching methods
Monday, February 26, 12-3 p.m.
Room 319, Coffman Memorial Union
University of Minnesota, East Bank Campus
300 Washington Avenue, S.E. Minneapolis
Cristobal Cobo, Ph.D., is a specialist in information technologies, faculty member and Manager of the Communication and Information Technology Department at Flacso-México. He completed his Ph.D. (in communications science) at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. In addition, he has been a teacher at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and Universidad de Colima. He manages projects involving innovation, distance education, and knowledge management supported by information and communications technologies. His current research is centered on “collective intelligence,” the “architecture of participation,” and the phenomenon of the “wisdom of crowds” and its application in learning environments.
The Horizon Forum is a “mold breaking” round-table initiated by the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota to facilitate action-oriented discussions on how we may design outstanding educational futures for Minnesota.
Lunch and validated parking will be provided.
Please RSVP by February 19 to John Moravec, 612-625-3517 or moravec@umn.edu
Map to event: http://www.sua.umn.edu/reservations/directions/cmu_directions.php
Horizon Forum on the Web: http://www.education.umn.edu/cps/Horizon/
Related posts
Category: Accelerating Change, Globalization, Innovation, Public Policy, Technology
Tags: architecture of participation, collective intelligence, FLACSO, Horizon Forum, technologies, University of Minnesota, wisdom of crowds
Written by John Moravec on Monday, January 29, 2007 at 19:04
Just a quick note… Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant compiled a list of his take at what the top 30 education blogs might look like, based on Technorati rankings. He ranks himself at #24. Congratulations, Scott!
The list, itself, is interesting. Read his post, then download the Excel file.
Related posts
Category: General, In other news
Tags: blog, podcasting
Written by John Moravec on Monday, January 29, 2007 at 17:59
Google hosts a “Gapminder” tool that uses Flash technology to turn otherwise tedious or boring data into readable, interactive animations. Gapminder is a foundation based in Stockholm, Sweden. Funding has been mainly by grants from Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, and the data presented are gathered in collaboration with the United Nations Statistic Division. More details (and charts and graphs!) are available at www.gapminder.org.
Also graphically interesting is the geographically-based economic data site, hosted by Yale: gecon.yale.edu
Related posts
Category: Accelerating Change, Globalization, Innovation, Public Policy, Technology
Tags: development, statistics, trends
Written by John Moravec on Saturday, January 27, 2007 at 10:14
Presented at the University of Minnesota’s Quality Fair on Thursday:
Related posts
Category: General
Tags: LeapFrog, poster presentation, University of Minnesota
Written by John Moravec on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 19:57
Ah, yes… now for a moment of shameless displays of pride and self-promotion ! Desk copies of my “Chaordic knowledge production: A systems-based response to critical education” article, published in Theory of Science vol. XV/XXVIII/2006, no. 3, pp. 149-162, arrived last week.
Drop me a line if you’d like a PDF of the scanned article!
Abstract
Proponents of critical education and critical pedagogy call on us to question the “oppressor vs. oppressed” relationships that the global mainstream “banking” system of education enforces (see esp. Freire, 2000). This practice produces learners that do not have the knowledge and skills to solve their own problems and maximize their individual potential. Systems thinking is the contextual analysis of an organization or process as a whole (Capra, 1996, p. 30; von Bertalanffy, 1968). A future-oriented, systems approach to the examination and redesign of critical education theory yields a chaordic, coconstructivist metatheory that maximizes each individual’s ontological potential. By building upon an example that employs automated information technology as a mediator in a coconstructivist system, this paper suggests that not only are coconstructivist critical knowledge systems plausible, but the design of the systems themselves need not be designed complexly to exhibit complex, transformative behavior.
Related posts
Category: Articles
Tags: artificial intelligence, chaordia, coconstructivism, critical education, knowledge production, systems thinking, theory
Written by John Moravec on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 16:37
The Gallup Management Journal recently published an article on what drives innovation in organizations. Shelley Mika disentangles innovation from creativity and identifies four driving principles of innovation, based on discussions with key thinkers and leaders. All four principles are focused on people:
- “Finding and fostering talent” — people settle where their talent is similar to others
- “Managers matter” — and are necessary for the cultivation of talent
- “Relationships matter too” — positive relationships foster innovation
- “Keeping the right leaders” — both thought leadership and people leadership are important
Read the article at http://gmj.gallup.com/content/26068/4/The-Four-Drivers-of-Innovation.aspx
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Category: Articles, Innovation
Tags: creativity, Innovation, leadership, management
Written by John Moravec on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 16:12
I just received this note from Janet Cohen:
John -
You are going to love this one - from the Feb 2007 Wired.
A Second Life for MTV by Mark Wallace
article is not online yet, but this article explains the part you’ll like, MTV is calling their Virtual MTV a Leapfrog Initiative!
http://www.mediavillage.com/jmr/2006/12/04/jmr-12-04-06/
I’ll try to blog about this soon, if you don’t beat me to it.
cheers, janet
Although MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach has been out for a while, this is a great example of digital media converging with culture — and new culture creation. No wonder they call it leapfrogging!
Thanks Janet!
Update - Jan 24 @ 20:08
You should really read Janet’s thought’s on “leapfrogging” at MTV:
http://janetdcohen.blogs.com/babyboomerblog/2007/01/virtual_worlds_.html
Related posts
Category: Innovation, Technology
Tags: convergence, culture, LeapFrog, MTV, online, simulations, virtual reality, youth
