thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

Last week was the annual TED conference 2011 in Monterey. Would have loved to be there but lucky for us David Cowan was and he wrote up his TED Talks 2011 guide over here - David said

“The 2011 speaker lineup lived up to prior years. You can never tell beforehand which ones will be the classics; this year the standouts turned out to be General Stanley McChrystal, dinosaur hunter Jack Horner, transplant surgeon Anthony Atala, Slate columnist Kathryn Schulz, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, poet Sarah Kay, Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim, and fourth grade teacher John Hunter.”

Read more of David Cowan’s guide to TED Talks 2011 over here David rated Salman Khan’s talk as 8/10

In watching the talk I was reminded about 3 ideas that have emerged as themes for me in recent times.

• Idea 1- Salman Khan says Let’s use video to reinvent education: (more below)
• Idea 2- Changing Education Paradigms – Education outside school by way of travel, exploration and rich media if extremely valuable but can be very distracting. (see Ken Robinson talk below)
• Idea3  -Many of us have huge trouble getting work done at work because of too many meetings or other “work” processes that stop us from being as productive as we can be. (see Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work – video link and my comments below.)

Salman Khan on flipping the classroom.

After he did some videos for his cousins – “they preferred him on YT to in person” – because they can learn from him at their own time and own space.

“He shows the power of interactive exercises — and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do you “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

(Recorded at TED2011, March 2011, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 20:27)

Most intriguing we get to see Bill Gates ask Salman a bunch of questions about “the future of education” from about 17 mins onwards.

Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms

I saw that Sir Ken Robinson was in Palmerston North for the Inspired Impact Teachers Conference education conference back in January 2011*. I was reminded of the animated talk given by Sir Ken Robinson at the RSA last year. (* if you were there – I would love to hear about it.)

Watch at 4:26 for some thoughts from Ken on the way that our children get all kinds of great stimulation from a huge number of sources and then when they get to school they are penalised for finding the typical class room experience boring or too slow for them.

“Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth. …besieged by information.. and we penalise them for getting distracted… from what – boring stuff at school for the most part”

Of course, there are many great teachers and parents out there doing their best for their children to help develop skills and strategies for managing all of the great resources available.

To me Khan’s work represents another step away from the book based learning that I experienced at school.

My daughter was lucky that her teacher brought a pigs brain along to school recently so that the 9 and 10 yr olds could get their science right up close and tactile. We have since supplemented that with videos and books but the shock and delight of having that physical object in the classroom will be treasured by most.

In my post last year 500m in Sight I mentioned the Digital Nation documentaries. There is an episode at the end which gives examples of video use in schools.

It is not just children that need help with managing distractions and over stimulation from media or work processes or general daily routines as Jason Fried explains.

Jason Fried on How Work doesn’t get done at work.

Work day becomes a series of work moments. Watch the excellent video below and for further reading check Paul Graham’s essays on the differences between managers and makers which I wrote about over here..

• What do you all think about these 3 ideas?
• Are Salman Khan, Sir Ken Robinson and Jason Fried onto something we need to care more about?
• How then – do we manage our time and resources better for ourselves, our work and our families?
• Important or not?

Footnote: After I wrote this post I found another example of a teacher using video to flip the classroom that was written about by Daniel Pink in September last year. That teachers name is Karl Fisch and he appears to be using the same approach as Salman Khan.

At this stage I haven’t researched the possible connections between Fisch* and Khan or if there are even any. Ideas can break out simultaneously anywhere but I do think that videos like the TED Talks series make a huge contribution to the spread of ideas.

As it turns out we have written about Fisch before as he made the video for Shift Happens. I really liked a more recent post on his blog where he talks about some of these ideas being developed in medical education as The Learning Studio.

Your homework: Chris Anderson: How web video powers global innovation

It’s true I’m a TEDhead and if we’ve met it would be unusual if I didn’t mention the TED conference videos at some point.

One of the incredible delights of the today is that even though we read less; if we can find time to watch an 18 minute video – paradoxically we have even greater access to some of the best minds in the world  via TED and sites like it.

In my house we call it Teducation and personally I just love being able to get an idea of what the best subject matter experts in the work are thinking about their chosen topics and what they actually care about.

Even better when they have only 18 minutes to express their passion (which is the standard TED format) that is short enough to be useful but not too long if the presentation sucks.

This week TED announced A TED Fellows programme for this year and buried away in the detail was the name Sean Gourley described as  Physicist/military theorist; Rhodes Scholar. New Zealand

Sean has been away in the UK on a Rhodes Scholarship for the past few years but his background from Canterbury University is

Bachelor of Science with Honours and Master of Science in Physics
Sean researched nano-scale blue light lasers for his first-class BSc(Hons) degree in Physics and self-assembled quantum nano-wires, for his MSc before enrolling for a DPhil at Oxford University, researching complex adaptive systems and collective intelligent systems.

Over on younoodle it says that Sean is a

“New Zealander, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, PhD in Physics specializing in ‘networks and complexity’, just finished a research fellowship at Oxford in the quantitative analysis of war and terrorism. “

So what is the Ted Fellow award and how can we be involved?

I think we can all be involved in scouting for the unusual suspects. Anyone can become a member of TED. As at today’s date there are apparently 908 NZ linked members on the network. My TED profile is here but anyone can join – check the joining TED blurb here.

Getting into a conference and paying the $US6k in fees plus the travel and other costs of getting there and back each time takes some serious effort for most of us so it is fantastic that there is a TED fellows sponsorship programme.

Go Sean Gourley @ TED .  For more detail download the TED fellows PDF and check page 21 of 45. Some of the other Fellows like Patrick Awuah we have seen in action before and I have also spent time on Jennifers Brea‘s blogs in the past as well. Her work on Africabeat is worth reading.

If you read this Sean – make sure all of those guests know that NZ is not just a rock in the Pacific or Fiji with snow – but a really vibrant community of creativity and world class thinking.

Update:4th Feb We are following Sean via his twitter feed in the top right sidebar / see comments.

Sean says

• Talk to me about – Politics, Venture Capital and innovation, Mathematics, Physics, running, single malt scotch, the latest book I have to read or movie I should go see.

For background on the Fellowship programme:

Ted Fellows

“Introducing TED Fellows, our new international program that will bring 50 eclectic, up-and-coming world-changers to our Long Beach and Oxford conferences each year….

All TED Fellows will receive special benefits including pre-conference programs, training from world-class communications professionals, the opportunity to give short TEDTalks at TED University, the opportunity to spread their ideas on TED.com, a private social network and more. Of course, TED will cover their conference fees, travel and lodging.

We’re targeting individuals aged 21-40 from all of TED’s many disciplines, including of course, technology, entertainment and design but also science, humanities and the arts, entrepreneurs, NGOs and political and community leaders. We’re focusing on candidates from five regions of the world: Africa, Asia/Pacific, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. However, anyone 18 and over is welcome to apply. The first application cycle begins February 23rd, 2009.

These men and women were selected for their achievement but especially for their promise. Each of them shows real potential to create positive change in their field — whether it’s technology, entertainment, design, music, art, science, business or the NGO community — in their country, and even around the world.”

However ;  I can’t help thinking that some of our brightest TED prospects are now outside the university systems especially in the creative sectors.

What do you think -?  Who would you nominate as a representative of your sector, company, organisation or country. Who are the unusual suspects?

Here is hoping that Sean enjoys his time at TED and reports back.

TED 2009 Conference starts 3 Feb (today – depending on your timezone.)

If I was at the conference I’d be keen to see Daniel Lebskind, Oliver Sacks, Herbie Hancock, Dan Ariely and Liz Coleman for starters. Jacek Utko thinks good design can save the newspaper? He will be presenting on that — and good luck with that one from me.

For more on the TED Conference 09  speakers

Really I’d love to be at TED one day but the next best thing is helping a smart New Zealander make it there. Lets nominate some more TED fellows for next year and trust that Sean will have a great time this trip.

The third best thing to being at TED are the T shirts. Premo purveyor of T’s to the thoughtful REMO Generalstore is the TED T-shirt supplier so Australia are already doing their bit for TED.

Founder Remo Giuffré is at TED – Remo on twitter

Footnote: As always if you are at TED 09 – feel free to add a comment here or contact me via TED or LinkedIn.

We really enjoyed David Cowan‘s posts from TED last year (Check the Dave Eggers post) and Brian Sweeney’s notes before that.

The TED prize is webcast live at Thursday 5th Feb at 5 pm US Pacific Time. LA time is currently

For NZ – this makes local time of 2 pm Friday 6th or Friday Feb 6 12 noon for Sydney, NSW readers. For your location you may want to double check the meeting planner.

TED prize winners this conference are deep ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, astronomer Jill Cornell Tarter, maestro José Antonio Abreu.   I’m sure they are all great but I especially like the sound of :

Jose Abreu, a retired economist, trained musician, and social reformer founded El Sistema (“the system”) in 1975 based on the conviction that what poor Venezuelan kids needed was classical music. After 30 years and 10 different political administrations, El Sistema is now a nationwide organization of 102 youth orchestras, 55 children’s orchestras and 270 music centers.

Update: Some of this post have also been added to Idealog Blog

In the last post I mentioned that the TED prize broadcasts were going to be live so that anyone could see the video as it happened from the TED conference.

There were 3 sessions plus a musical performance. It was great to get an idea of the conference in real time even though one of the presentations in my view wasn’t up to scratch.*

In my opinion the most inspiring TED prize presentation was by Dave Eggers.

Dave has found a very practical and inspiring way of improving educational outcomes and helping teachers and parents with the Valencia 826 project which has now morphed into a national and international project now called Once upon a School.

A few days ago the video from that presentation was released and you can now view and download it.

The genius of this idea is that it provides a new model for adults to get involved in some very practical ways to support teachers, parents and of course – the kids themselves.

Dave’s wish and how you can help out.

Ironically the reason it has taken so long to finish this post is that my local school has a musical fund raising event called the Little Day Out and we have used a blog based system to provide a full website for the event.

Consequently in the past 6 weeks there has been the equivalent of 30 content posts from all the different teams involved so it’s been a bit busy! If you are in Auckland, NZ on April 5th feel free to come along – kids under 12 are free and full details are on the LDO website.

Working together with lots of volunteers is exciting and it is that same combination of focus and community passion that drives the Once Upon a School idea.

Dave tells a great story about how Valencia 826 came about, why they had to sell pirate supplies for the working buccaneer and how this project has become the model for six other innovative mentoring / tutoring centres.

There are now 1400 tutors in SF and Valencia 826 is now working with multiple schools to the point where they have been given classrooms to use directly for the programme.

As noted on the TED site Dave

“Dave Eggers’ first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was a memoir about becoming the official guardian of his 8-year-old brother at the age of 22. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; the New York Times called him a staggeringly talented new writer.

Since then Dave has written a number of other books, including You Shall Know Our Velocity!, followed by a collection of short stories, How We Are Hungry, and his latest book, What Is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award…..

Much more recently he co-wrote, with Spike Jonze, the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.”

Dave Eggers – Author, philanthropist and literary entrepreneur
“When we think about kids and education, we have to get back to the basic undeniable that kids are individuals, they learn in a thousand ways, and there are undeniable steps to greater education for all: better salaries for teachers, smaller class sizes, and more one-on-one attention.”

and here is a quick history of some of the flow on effects of the project from their website.

About 826 National

We started with after-school tutoring as the foundation of 826 Valencia in San Francisco.
But the volunteer corps grew so quickly and broadly — within a year we had 1100 tutors, from hundreds of occupations — that we were able to dream of many other ways to work with students, schools, teachers, and parents.

With an abundance of support, we were able to do much more than we intended.
We were able to begin hosting daily field trips where students learned story writing, editing and bookmaking. We were able to send tutors into schools all over the city at a teacher’s behest. We were able to host nightly workshops, open to all, taught by professionals.

We were able to give four yearly college scholarships and a monthly teacher award (attached to a monetary grant). We were able to publish paperback and hardcover books of student work, in addition to producing dozens of newspapers, chapbooks, student films, plays, radio shows and websites.

The essence of the program is that it’s like school, but it’s not school.
The students come to 826 because it’s fun, it’s warm, it’s full of people who care — but who don’t HAVE to care. That is, the average students knows his teacher has to help with his schoolwork, and he knows his parents have to help.

But there’s something very new and transformative about meeting a member of the community — a professional journalist, a radio disc jockey, a graduate student, an advertising copywriter, a software developer, a retired lawyer — and have that person give them 2-3 hours of undivided attention.

Almost without exception, student achievement and understanding leaps when they are given this concentrated one-on-one attention. Teachers and parents love the help, and the students get to ask a hundred questions until they truly understand a concept.”

The reason that the first store sells pirate supplies is that the zoning required some form of retail activity and by fortuitous chance they decided on pirate supplies almost as a joke.

At the beginning this confused a few people and parents weren’t so keen on the idea but incredibly that part of the store now pays the rent while the tutoring centre does the real work.

“At San Francisco’s only independent pirate supply store, we offer a variety of goods, including lard, flags, eye patches, mops, glass eyes and the like.

All proceeds from the store go toward the writing center resting directly behind it.”

For those who want to know more about the TED conference David Cowan has posted an extensive series of very entertaining posts for each day of the conference. I have include the list below along with a few of his comments. Thanks David – almost as good as being there.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
TED 2008

“Having said that, there is still one conference I try to never miss. TED”

Friday, February 29, 2008
TED Thursday Morning: Life Origami

“Particle physicist Garrett Lisi closed the session. Garrett is an avid surfer who lives and works in a van on the beaches of Maui. He compares physics experiments to startups, since they hold great promise but they usually don’t work.

The connection to beauty is that Lisi is pursuing the grand unified theory of physics by advocating a mathematical model of the universe that isn’t proven, but it’s so elegant and beautiful that physicists like Lisi believe that it’s most probably correct. (As Dr. Suess wrote about Horton’s egg, “It should be, it should be, it should be like that.”) ”

Saturday, March 01, 2008
Helpful Tips To Survive a Nuclear Explosion

“Dave Eggers, author of several non-conventional books, the best of which is (in my humble opinion, but apparently not his) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. TED recognized Eggers for his campaign to build several inner city tutoring centers staffed by writers.”

David is also surprised by one of the TED prize winners. Karen Armstrong. I was too. I think she should give the prize money back. Her presentation lacked clarity and real vision in my opinion.

Saturday, March 01, 2008
TED Friday Morning: Music, Shrooms and Crows

An example is “I then got to hear novelist Amy Tan after all. I wasn’t expecting much, but somehow she still disappointed. As far as I can tell, the entire point of her talk was “How did I come to be such a creative genius?” The possibilities seem to include “God’s will, synchrony, or mysterious forces.” And finally her Big Question: “Did someone intend for me to be this way?” My big question: Who Has Time For This?”

Tuesday, March 04, 2008
TED Friday Afternoon: Shining Eyes

Title refers to the Benjamin Zander session.

Thursday, March 06, 2008
TED Saturday: Thank You For Being Here

All of these posts by David Cowan are great examples of how blogging can get to the heart of an event as it is filtered by an engaged participant.

Note: * The TED presentation by Karen Armstrong was unconvincing to me. Granted – the topic is a difficult one and the intention is good but I would have given the prize to someone else like Majora Carter who is unquestionably outstanding by way of contrast.