The iPhone & the Truth of Elegant Design

How Web hits from iPhones far exceeded their market share.  The fact of being able to do something isn't the same of the facility of doing it easily within an intuitive environment.

Wikicademy,

Wikipedia, open source, mash-ups, online tutors, distributed wisdom

Whim Commerce,

ringtones, any color so long as it's ... Brave new wasteland, Read recent posts on the theme of Whim Commerce.

Crumbware Post,

what's new in the world of digital data trails

Tech's Appeal & Advances,

top post?

Intriguing Ourselves to Death...,

a plea for Education... What follows isn't anything new, but will likely be all too common - yet it serves as a concrete example of why education must change and what it must address. Over an hour ago, I thought I'd better see if any comments had been made to a recent post of mine on the InfiniteThinkingMachine Blog. The post was about education learning from Big Music failed response to the digital era (Digital Rights Management, lawsuits, fear campaigns, etc.) and the head of Warner Music now acknowledging this and offering their content DRM-free at Amazon. Fellow-blogger Lucie deLaBruere got me looking into a discussion on Will Richardson's Weblogg-ed - Open in New Tab #1 - Skimming through the post and many comments, I was drawn to Ric Murray's that referred to his post titled, " Educational System: Blow It Up And Start Anew" Open in New Tab #2 - I know Ric from year's back when I met him at a workshop in Rome, Georgia. Ric mentioned Tim Holt, whom I don't know so I skipped off to his blog that has changed into Intended Consequences. There I ran across this cool video where a graduate student at Carnegie-Mellon demonstrates how to use a WiiMote and minimal LED / IR electronics to create a $50 Interactive Whiteboard. Open in New Tab #3 YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ/ Now if this doesn't prompt you to further explore Johnny Chung Lee's Web site, you do indeed have a life! Looking through videos of other projects brought me to something I've been thinking since my long-awaited 12-inch Mac Laptop didn't come out, but the iPod Touch / iPhone did: the next cool super portable Mac should be an enlarged, say, "tablet-sized" slate (iSlate? - you read it here first - oops, a quick Google search shot that one down ;-) - okay so here's something original (maybe?): you know those silicone cooking trays that bend and withstand heat? Don't you think that would be a good body for at least the 2nd Generation iSlate? The following video shifts this idea slighter further from Science Fiction and into your backpack: YouTube video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nhSR_6-Y5Kg These two videos lead me to... Open in New Tab #4 - Where I looked through the other videos on Johnny Chung Lee's YouTube Profile where I spotted one of his favourites, a video from Crysis. I had not idea what it was, but it looked cool, so take a look. YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaHS-y_mapQ Open in New Tab #5 - Of course a quick Wikipedia search revealed what one of my least "schooly" tech-using students could have told me: Crysis is a new shooter game published by the assembly line of game creators, Electronic Arts. I was so impressed by the real-time rendered graphics that I wanted a closer look at the company that developed Crysis: Crytek. Especially take a look at their video that demonstrates their CryEngine 2:

So where does this meandering leave us? A few important things come to mind:

1. I've just spent a couple hours thoroughly engaged, letting one idiosyncratic interest lead to another. How many students in school can say the same thing? Isn't this the way we all learn? Starting with our prior knowledge, igniting interests, adding new pieces to our body of knowledge? (other models of learning you'd like to suggest?).
2. However, none of this has anything to do with the paying work I began and set aside four hours ago. So where does the incredible "personal learning" afforded by Web 2 technologies align with the demands of things like work and school? The New Tab Clicks above began with my own work / body of knowledge, then added new info about how to hack an interactive whiteboard (maybe I'll share this with geekier friends at school?), future gadgetry that I like to share during keynotes and ending with an overwhelmed amazement at the life-like virtual experiences most of our children and students will be used to when they aren't sitting in school. So, yes, I did "learn", but when does learning become achievement and accomplishment?
3. So as challenging as many in education would consider "engaging" students, this isn't enough. The point is not to repeat the worn lament that kids use technology as a distraction. First off, we all do! Second, I see the challenge as not avoiding getting intrigued (which some see as the answer), but doing something with it. Hence this article. Hence, the need to change education from the inconsequential tasks that turn students to intriguing / amusing technologies, into experiences that "amount to something," that "matter." My thinking on how to do this involves CEQ•ALL which begins with a foundation of intrinsic motivation and builds achievement through sincere effort to achieve quality and ends with enthusiastic attitudes and creations that demonstrate the joy of learning.

And this is my complaint with blogging - all these ideas and where do they build? This is our challenge as Ed Tech / Learning aficionados. After 20+ years in the game, I've got a few essentials down and a lot of huge gaps - which is our human condition and why an "open source / collaborative" model where teams of teachers, working with administrators and students, need to build a body of knowledge, not just posts with good ideas. Any one interested in participating in this?

Change "Music" to "Schools" and...

It's no secret that the music industry has played hardball with users of filesharing networks. Leaders in the field worked hard to ignore the fact that those who swapped files via BitTorrent were also the greatest purchasers of music. Now it seems that Big Music may be crumbing just like the Berlin Wall, Big Tobacco and WMDs in Iraq. It seems Edgar Bronfman, head of Warner Music has signaled a change of heart:

"We used to fool ourselves,' he said. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."

Although I work with many creative and innovative teachers, capital E Education doesn't seem to get that the last couple years has witnessed a transformation: schools are now islands of impoverishment whereas homes, Starbucks and McDonald's with their broadband WiFi access can be a better place for the motivated learner to get on with what they love. Because, although not everyone loves school, the joy of learning is universal.