The futures that never happened

Written by John Moravec on Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 9:27

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A great blog, Paleo-Future, has emerged over the past couple months. The site provides “a look into the future that never was” –often for good reason. Here’s one: Bill Gates’ vision of the future classroom.

Matt writes:

The paleo-future of 1995 is filled with ethnically diverse students academically engaged by the high-tech presentations of their fellow classmates. The teacher brings the class to attention by telling them to “get off the net.” Every child has a diverse array of technology at their disposal. The keyboard Mr. Ballard uses is the most confusing of the supposed advances we see in the video.

Allow me to be more brutal to Mr. Gates’ vision: Why did his future of learning require kids to get off the net before they could start learning? And, why did he suggest that we use technologies to learn the same “download,” non-knowledge-producing garbage that schools have always taught. In a lesson or presentation on Mayan culture, why did he focus on displaying how technologies can be used to portray cultural essentialist “learning” as opposed to real cultural learning through intercultural interactions –perhaps, using cultural simulations?

Bah. Enough of my questions. Visit Matt’s blog. It’s good.

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Category: Accelerating Change, Innovation, Technology

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Final defense on April 6

Written by John Moravec on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 15:45

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And, yes, it will be in 3-D!

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Category: General, In other news

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Relationships among scientific paradigms

Written by John Moravec on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 11:03

A collaborative work by Kevin Boyack, Dick Klavans and W. Bradford Paley maps the relationships among scientific paradigms through an analysis of published works in 2003. Seed Magazine has a link to a much larger JPEG (5.3MB) as well as a description of how the image was constructed.

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Prints of the image are also being “given away.” See Information Esthetics for more details…

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Off to Mexico City

Written by John Moravec on Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 2:32

I’m off to Mexico City until Wednesday. This video gives me something to think about as I wait in line to get screened at the airport…

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Un paso hacia los nuevos paradigmas de la educación

Written by John Moravec on Friday, March 9, 2007 at 17:46

My 12 March 2007 presentation for FLACSO Mexico is now available at SlideShare:

un-paso-hacia-los-nuevos-paradigmas-de-la-educacion

Very special thanks goes to Gemma Punti for translating the slides! Additional gratitude goes to Giovanna Valenti, Benjamin Temkin, Cristobal Cobo and Arlene Arciniega for organizing the event.

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Google zoom

Written by John Moravec on Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 20:16

Privacy issues aside, this is pretty darn neat. Apparently, with a little trick, you can sometimes zoom in a bit further than Google Maps suggests you can…

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Technologies and education in Latin America

Written by John Moravec on Friday, March 2, 2007 at 10:02

At Monday’s Horizon Forum meeting, Dr. Ursula Zurita (FLACSO Mexico) presented her research on social participation and educating for social participation in Distrito Federal and her plans for further investigation nationwide in Mexico. Dr. Cristobal Cobo (FLACSO Mexico) followed-up with a presentation and discussion on technologies and education in Latin America. Dr. Arthur Harkins, Garth Willis and I closed the session with a discussion on future collaboration University of Minnesota-FLACSO collaboration.

You can also download these files as a podcast:

  • Click here to download an mp3 of Ursula Zurita’s presentation
  • Click here to download an mp3 of Cristobal Cobo’s presentation

UPDATE: The wrong files were uploaded. I’ll work to get the files with the FULL conversations online.

Additional files related to Cristobal Cobo’s presentation:

SECOND UPDATE: Additional video formats are available at http://www.colaboratorios.net/video

The Horizon Forum meeting will be an all-day event held on April 30, 2007. Stay tuned for more details!

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Politics and present problems of education in Mexico

Written by John Moravec on Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 14:10

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(English version)

I will give a talk about Teaching and leading in the 21st Century: A New Paradigm of knowledge production at FLACSO Mexico on March 12:

The convergence of globalization, emergence of the knowledge society and accelerating change contribute to what the presenter terms a New Paradigm of knowledge production in education. The New Paradigm reflects the emerging shifts in thought, beliefs, priorities and practice in regard to all levels of education in global societies. These new patterns of thought and belief are forming to harness and manage the chaos, indeterminacy, and complex relationships of the postmodern.

Drawing from the author’s original research, the three phenomena driving the New Paradigm are explored together as a whole, particularly as it pertains to new pedagogies and educational leadership. Emphasis is placed on the examination of the future of education in the New Paradigm. By putting the pieces of the New Paradigm together through the forecasting of futures for primary through tertiary education, implications, consequences and actions for educators and policy leaders are identified.

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