I’ve been watching a lot of TED talks recently (part of a NY’s resolution), and have been struck by the number that say something along the lines of “school is broken” and “how do we make children like school?”.
There’s a sad story about a tiger called Mohini that Tara Brach tells as follows.…
…such are the limitations of our understanding of the brain, attempting to apply the findings of neuroscience to social policy would be premature, even if this were not wrong in principle. But it is wrong in principle. The fabric of the human world, of the public space that is the arena of our lives, is woven out of explicit shared attention that has been infinitely elaborated in a way that has little to do with what goes on in the darkness of the individual skull, though you require a brain in working order in order to be part of it.
…Although there is a troika (Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami) that inspires many of “The Green Path of Hope” , there seems to be a lack of top-down leadership. Indeed, Mousavi has been at pains to say that the people are the true leaders, that he is not creating a political movement but a “social network,” and that the strength of the Green Path derives from the spontaneous and creative actions of millions of Iranians.
21st century skills are, in short, an operating system for the mind.
Source: here
…most computing applications, which separate data structures (which we could liken to human knowledge) and processes that operate on them (which we could liken to human thinking skills); so long as the data are in a compatible format, the computing processes can operate on any data that are entered.
Jeremy Faludi over at Worldchanging has a nice primer on biomimicry.
…“Most designers, engineers, architects, and other people who build things just don’t know that much about biology and the natural world; and even when they do, there’s often a gap of capability in available materials, manufacturing methods, and economic systems … Even with existing technology, however, an enormous realm of possibilities is feasible, it just requires the right approach.”
Another of Lilia‘s introductions, this time Janine. She’s got a fascinating theory for de-intellectualising knowledge work.
The knowledge territories metaphor (KTM) I propose refers to the ways that animals leave traces and protect or show-off with their territory. In short, the notion of knowledge territories emphasises the aspect of ‘ownership’ and is used to describe how people let other people know about their knowledge and how people share knowledge … Similar to information foraging theory, the metaphor of knowledge territories assumes that people are selfish, lazy and want maximal output with minimal effort …
Jazz musicians have a lot to teach us about leadership, teamwork and the like. That, apparently is an oldie but goldie in management thinking. Perhaps they can do the same for blogging?
One Professor Knudsen from Norway makes the point that
…“Communication is not just about words, but about moods.”
Technology both enriches and constrains memories. It enriches them through tools such as pens, books, and PDAs. And it constrains them through the power of its metaphor.
First Rose explains a little about scientific metaphors. There are three types of scientific metaphor: the poetic, the evocative, and the structural.…
This book has started getting really interesting – and so it’s quite hard to keep these notes short. Will do my best.
Metaphors of Memory – Overview
– The general themes of the chapter are: collective and individual memories, how technologies have helped/hindered our memories, and how those technologies give us metaphors with which to try to understand memories.
