It's About Learning

The Courage to Try: Inquisitivism in Real Life

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 6, 2012 — Leave a comment

Adam Savage's First Care
Source: https://www.wired.com/2012/10/ft-savage-first-car/

Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame relays his experience in learning how to parse complex systems which is a skill that he has used professionally ever since. Savage explains:

Every repair followed the same progression: (1) I don’t know how, (2) I can’t afford to pay someone else to do it, (3) I have to do it, (4) hey, that wasn’t so hard!

One of my teenage sons’ favorite shows is Mythbusters and while they may not yet appreciate the similarities they too have been learning how to deal with complex challenges. In the post I relayed the my son’s experience in diagnosing, disassembling and repairing a broken van door. Savage reminds us of the power that comes from solving these sorts of complex problems:

there’s a huge difference between not understanding something and not understanding it yet

Unfortunately, not enough people have the courage to try even the simplest of tasks. The following anecdotal story reveals just how pervasive this may be. My wife broke a windshield wiper the other day and went to local Canadian Tire for a replacement. At the check out the clerk asked if my wife would like a bag and my wife responded that a bag would not be necessary because our youngest son, Caleb, was going to immediately install the wiper–which he left to do. The clerks response was surprise and then turned to encouragement. She told my wife that most people had the shop install wipers even though they often had to wait a long time. The clerk went onto praise my wife that we had given our son a wonderful gift in teaching him how to do these sorts of things.

While I appreciate the kind words, I am also saddened and concerned by this experience. Replacing a windshield wiper is not even a task that my boys, or I, would consider complex–it is just something we all have to do. Teaching my children how to deal with complex systems and to solve problems shouldn’t be considered a gift–it is my responsibility as a parent. If I want my boys to grow into men of character who can positively contribute to society, they must not only learn how to solve ever day complex problems, they also need the courage and confidence to be able to tackle future problems that currently do not exist.

Are we as parents, schools and society doing enough to prepare our children to solve the complex problems that face society and the world?

In Leadership, Learning complex problems, complex systems, problem solving

Android Adoption Ramping Up 6X Faster Than iPhone

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 6, 2012 — Leave a comment

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/05/mary-meeker-internet-trends/?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=10%20Things%20In%20Tech%20You%20Need%20To%20Know&utm_campaign=Post%20Blast%20%28sai%29%3A%2010%20Things%20You%20Need%20To%20Know%20This%20Morning

Mary Meeker Gives Mid-Year Internet Trends Report: Android Adoption Ramping Up 6X Faster Than iPhone | TechCrunch via kwout

Mary Meeker of KPCB who is best known for her Internet Trends Report provided a mid year update to a select group of industry leaders and confirmed that mobile adoption is growing even more rapidly than she or anyone else has predicted. Meeker points to the following increased growth:

… iPad adoption is now ramping up five times faster than iPhone adoption, up from 3X in her May report…Android adoption is increasing six times faster than iPhone adoption, up from 4X.

Perhaps the most significant number and Meeker points to is:

…by the end of Q2 2013, Meeker believes the global smartphone plus tablet install base will surpass the install base of the PC.

In less than 5 years smartphones and tablets have surpassed the installed base of PCs. The notion of accessing the world’s information all the time and from everywhere is no longer a futuristic prediction. We are living this. We have been living this for several years and industries like Education are being disrupted in the same way that music, newspapers and video/dvd distribution have been disrupted.

Is Higher Education doing enough to respond to this disruption? Are faculty and administrator and schools at all levels preparing our students for a world that is changing so rapidly?

In Innovation android, disruption, iPad, iPhone, smartphone

Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 2, 2012 — 2 Comments

Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves | MIT Technology Review via kwout

Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. “I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,” Negroponte said. “Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android.”

This is a classic example of discovery or inquiry based learning. Given the right resources and opportunities children will learn how to use to a computer.

This is not the first time we have seen children teach themselves. Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, UK has learned from his Hole in the Wall project that children can learn as how to use a PC on their own and then teach other children. Mitra continues to ask what else children can learn. The following TED talk summaries the results of his Hole in the Wall project.

Mitra’s research that shows that children become computer literate without the aid of a teacher is formally presented in the academic paper Acquisition of computing literacy on shared public computers: Children and the “hole in the wall”

The OLPC experiment and Mitra’s Hole in the Wall research confirm that children can learn to become computer literate irrespective of who and where they are. What else can children learn on their own?

In 21st century learning "Hole in the wall", OLPC

Pinch Interface Connects Mutiple Screens

Dwayne Harapnuik — November 1, 2012 — Leave a comment

For those who have worked with multiple monitors and understand the power of being able to distribute a desktop across multiple monitors the Pinch interface that the University of Tokyo has developed will be a welcomed option. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the interface develops and where and how it will be comercialied.

Read the full story…

In Innovation