The video’s posted by adrian as to subsitute for the lack of symposium this week all had the common themes of self directed learning and a need to change the way both students and teachers approach education. This is the third time the TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson has popped up during my first year at RMIT, and for a very good reason. Education has generally been approached with the intention of churning out minds focused towards production (I.e. scientists, lawyers, doctors) as opposed to creativity. As someone who considers themselves a creative person, Kens talk is especially inspiring, persuasive and compelling. It is undoubtedly evident that people learn in many different ways, and while it maya not be an educational institutions responsibility to cater for this, in my opinion it certainly should be.

The Michael Welsch talk, from knowledgeable to knowledge-able, expands on Kens talk by offering an alternative approach to the way in which we engage with education through utilising the global network. This talk screamed Adrian miles, as I’m sure this was a major inspiration for the way this course is structured. The key point that I gleaned from this talk was that we can all participate in a global conversation through participating and contributing to the network. Unlike the tv, which is a one way conversation, being that the message can only be received, access to the Internet alone gives us the freedom to publish and critique works at the click of a button. I am very much in favour of this approach to learning, given that it gives us real network experience, as opposed to simulated situations or questions written on paper which is seen and assessed solely by the assessor.

I’m a little weary about the fact that this is a relatively half baked blog entry. A criticism I do have is that it seems as though we are discussing the same thing over and over, being that this content serves as a discretion and justification with the learning model. Nevertheless, both ted talk were very interesting, I just feel as though I’ve seen it before.

Dr. Vannevar Bush speculates as to the possible future of communication as the way in which we record, store and consult information. For the most part, Bush see’s a problem with the large amount of information and data being recorded and stored versus how little this information seems to be consulted and reviewed. He says, “If the aggregate time spent writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling.” This point is interesting because we have a massive amount if information being stored for academic inquiry, however, the vast majority of this information is never consulted, and thus, the knowledge is lost and potentially becomes redundant.

It’s also interesting to note that this article was published in 1945, a fact which I overlooked before it was brought to my attention in the tutorial. This should probably have been relatively obvious considering some his ideas of future technologies have already been realised. The ‘walnut camera’ for example fits the description of the GoPro, a small camera that is widely available today. There are also cameras in development the size of a Panadol tablet, which really highlights the exponential development of technology.

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