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 &#8220;EducationWorlds.com&#8221; 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>
&#8482; 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 &lt;<a
 moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:stephen at downes.ca">stephen at downes.ca</a>&gt;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. &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>A thesis is framed. &nbsp;Our educational system is an induction
machine. &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>This induction is backward looking and centered on serving the
supply system. &nbsp;It is not anticipatory, and thus the&nbsp;education&nbsp;system
does not have the properties of an intelligent system. &nbsp;There is
a&nbsp;denial&nbsp;that individuals have unique qualities. &nbsp;It is within these
unique qualities that one sees "intelligence". &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>We trace this limited systemic nature of the
current&nbsp;educational&nbsp;philosophy&nbsp;to Dewey, Darwin and Newton. &nbsp;We see
education is being anti-democratic in its practice and consequences.
&nbsp;It carries the "big lie", that the physical universe is&nbsp;deterministic.
&nbsp;This lie then allows a few to pretend as if they are in control. &nbsp;It,
the educational system, has the nature of a&nbsp;fundamentalism. &nbsp;It, the
educational system, is&nbsp;hijacking&nbsp;the democracy. &nbsp;it does this while
also providing us with great&nbsp;benefits. &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>The distinction is then made that there is a supply mechanism
called&nbsp;advertising&nbsp;which allows supply to control demand. &nbsp;The
systematic&nbsp;violation&nbsp;of the individual is then enabled. &nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>Part of the&nbsp;hijacking&nbsp;of the intention of the individual by
these mechanisms requires our citizens to be ignorant about the nature
of individual self. &nbsp;The action-perception&nbsp;cycle is interrupted to such
an extent that the individual (sometimes) becomes incapable of
understanding the self. &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>We give up the self so as to be a&nbsp;participant&nbsp;in a consumer
based&nbsp;social&nbsp;structure. The educational system assists us in giving up
our expectation that intention be expressed in a pure form. &nbsp;In fact we
are taught that intention is necessarily evil, unless shaped by the
supply side. &nbsp;This "teaching" is part of the&nbsp;fundamentalism. &nbsp; The
media and our literatures goes to great&nbsp;lengths&nbsp;to given evidence to
this assertion about individual intent. &nbsp;We are&nbsp;fed&nbsp;a continuous supply
of evidence as to our&nbsp;unworthiness. &nbsp;We&nbsp;accommodate&nbsp;this feeding as we
become ever more incapable. &nbsp; &nbsp;This process is one that must eventually
reach the point of absolute absurdity. &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>Maybe we are now "here". &nbsp;Maybe it is time to turn the corner
and evolve in the&nbsp;opposite&nbsp;direction, to re-establish the concept of
governance by the People and also to not over react. &nbsp;Might we reform
without extreme reaction?</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div>The Education&nbsp;Bridge&nbsp;makes the proposal that teaching using
supply side methodology creates acquired learning&nbsp;disabilities,
specific at first (1950-1990) to mathematics and science, but now
non-specific. &nbsp;The entering freshman are rejecting the very notion of
learning anything. &nbsp;They wish to just graduate with the credentials
that allow them to earn a living and consume. &nbsp;We pretend to teach and
they pretend to learn. &nbsp;</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&nbsp;individual&nbsp;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&nbsp;syllabus. &nbsp;If
the demand is from a desire to understand self, then this demand will
lead to capacity to serve self and others. &nbsp;</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". &nbsp;There is guidance, not all notions of "supply" are lost!
&nbsp; The framework for curriculums is provided, but choices are allowed. &nbsp;</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. &nbsp;The re-expression
involves an induction, the localization of non-locality and the
emergence of creativity. &nbsp; The methods that might support this "demand
pedagogy" are illustrated in the <i>Bridge</i>. &nbsp;</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. &nbsp;How is
this aggregation to occur, so that we as a&nbsp;society&nbsp;anticipate&nbsp;the
future? &nbsp;The answers we give are surprising at first. &nbsp;</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>. &nbsp;</div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <div><br>
  </div>
  <pre wrap="">
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
_______________________________________________
iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org)
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:iDC at mailman.thing.net">iDC at mailman.thing.net</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc">https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc</a>

List Archive:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</a>

iDC Photo Stream:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/</a>

RSS feed:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc">http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc</a>

iDC Chat on Facebook:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647">http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647</a>

Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<table width="100%" border="0">
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td width="100" valign="top">
      <img moz-do-not-send="false" src="file:///C:/downes-sig.jpg"
 alt="Signature"></td>
      <td valign="top">
      <span
 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: normal; font-size: 25px; line-height: 150%; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;">Stephen
Downes<br>
      </span><span
 style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;">Research
Officer, National Research Council Canada<br>
100 rue des Aboiteaux, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada E1A 7R1<br>
Website: <a href="http://www.downes.ca">http://www.downes.ca</a> ~
Email: <a href="mailto:stephen at downes.ca">stephen at downes.ca</a></span>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

--------------020006090209070805020200--


More information about the iDC mailing list