Services from Tom March
Intriguing Ourselves to Death
by Tom March, January 2007a 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
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:
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.
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:
- 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?).
- 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?
- 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 demonstrate the joy of learning.