TedTalks
TED is a 4 day conference held every year in california - 1000 people from very different backgrounds talk about their latest ideas in technology, design and science but also arts, ecology and other topics trying to improve the world. the talks are available as streaming video, download or pod/videocast. i have watched all of them and most are really amazing. my favourites:
- sir ken robinson talks about education and how our current educational system tries to make a university professor out of everyone but makes people lose their creativity
- larry brilliant has killed smallpox and now wants to install a global epidemic warning system using web crawlers
- jehane noujaim is an independent movie maker who tries to build bridges between cultures with her movies. she shows scenes from her movie control room as well as paradise now, the last 48 hours of 2 suicide bombers, and others. her proposal is to organize a world wide cinema day where people all over the world would go to their local theaters and all watch the same movies - movies that would help to bring the world closer together, to understand different cultures. (and she’s actively working on it)
- cameron sinclair talks about open source architecture and shows the first building with a creative commons license. together with designers, architects and engineers from all over the world he wants to build up a repository of housing designs everyone can use for free, thus helping people especially in the 3rd world.
- david pogue laughs and talks about interface design, microsoft, apple and others. very funny
- hans rosling is showing off some amazing animated diagrams visualizing world development. he produces them with his own software called gapminder.
- majora carter tells about her neighbohood - the bronx - and how she’s trying to turn the area, which has been filled with power plants and waste facilities over the last decades, back into a place worth living in.
Tags:conference ideas ted video
August 11th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Those interested in creativity, education and educational change might also be interested in this new book, “Education is Everybody’s Business: A Wake-Up Call to Advocates of Educational Change” (Rowman & Littlefield Education). It’s by educator Berenice Bleedorn ( http://www.creativityforce.com ), who was the gifted consultant for the Minnesota State Department of Education, a professor of creativity in both the business and education schools at the University of St. Thomas, has taught creativity to inmates in the state prison, and writes and speaks about creativity throughout the world.
This book really makes the case for the deliberate teaching of thinking - creative and critical - in education. It also links the importance of education to a thriving democracy. A great idea in the book is that “democracy deserves the best thinking possible” - which offers a great place to begin one’s thinking about any number of political issues in the world today. Some other good quotes from the book include:
* Children and youth are all much smarter than we think. They are smarter than the standardized test scores tell us. They have a longer tomorrow than adults, and most of them think about it more than we realize. Students have a right to understand what is happening to the world that they are inheriting.
* The hope is that educational programs will become better designed to make the best possible use of the natural power of the human mind to grow and develop and to be significantly active in service to a cause beyond oneself.
* There are no limits to the intellectual resource of the human mind when it is provided with an atmosphere for personal growth.
* The idea that `Creativity=Capital’ is not a facetious one. The capacity of the human mind for creativity and innovation is unlimited. Harvesting the creativity in a business translates to money in the bank.
* Creative thinking can be taught if learners can practice the art of being serious and playful at the same time.
* The educational problem of a disparity between average achievement scores of white students and black students may have some of its origin in the nature of schooling that neglects programs that identify creative talent and fails to provide for its appropriate expression in problem solving and other creative thinking activities.
* Educators have not only an opportunity but an obligation to open the “doors of perception” for all students. The enduring purpose of education is to provide students with a perception of the outer reaches of their talents and possibilities and, ideally, to give them a reason to continue to learn and contribute to their society for all of their lives.
* The mandate is undeniable. The future of the environment can be guaranteed only with the determined effort of all the players in the world drama in every society, and there is no time to lose. It is a perfect project for the integration of schools and society, the community and the education profession. It is a time for personal action and resolve.
* Initiatives from concerned citizens and business interests have a vital place in developing educational outcomes that can be competitive with the rest of the developing world and can continue to contribute to a better life for all.
* Paradoxical thinking is a prerequisite for a society and world steeped in a diversity of cultures, religions and ideologies if we ever hope to achieve a more sane and peaceful world. If complex thinking were taught, practiced and modeled during the process of education everywhere, the people of the world would understand more and fight less.
January 8th, 2010 at 1:20 am
Tramadol….
Snorting tramadol….