How 3D printing will change everything – including education

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Tryggvi Thayer

makerbot-replicator2Edit: This article is getting a lot of attention so I’ve decided that some more background info on 3D printing is in order since I only briefly describe the technology. For more info see these TED Talks on 3D printing: 7 TED Talks on the wonder of 3D printing.

3D printing went from underground nerd-toy to “the next big thing” in just a couple of days when Obama mentioned it in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The day after the SOTU stocks having anything remotely to do with 3D printing made a significant jump, ranging from 2-6%. A couple of days later, the web is a-buzz with 3D printing; seems that everyone wants to voice their opinion about what it is, why it matters, and what we are going to do about. I shall gladly partake in the frenzy as this has been a fascination of mine for some time (although I still don’t have a 3D printer, which kind of bums me out). But, before I start, let me just say to educators – If you haven’t already, you better start thinking about getting a 3D printer in your school and figuring out how to use it! Continue reading →

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The ‘best educational systems in the world’?

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Tryggvi Thayer

appleorangeAn article published on the BBC News website yesterday on “successful” educational systems introduces the topic in a very odd and misinformed manner. The article takes a very brief look at educational systems in Finland, Hong Kong, and South Korea, claiming that they are “often lauded as among the best [educational systems] in the world”. Now, I don’t know who is saying that these or any other educational systems are the ‘best in the world’. The fact is that any claim to that effect would be a meaningless statement because it suggests that the ‘system’ is separable from its context. Thankfully, the educational researchers and specialists interviewed for the article do allude to that fact which, in turn, makes it all the stranger that the writer would still introduce the article as purporting to be about some of the ‘best educational systems in the world’. So, what is the real deal with these educational systems and what might policy makers learn from them? Continue reading →

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Filter Bubbles: A challenge for information literacy in the 21st century

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Tryggvi Thayer

The future is a strange beast. We’re always actively constructing it but we never know what the future will actually be. A seemingly insignificant occurrence in the present can emerge as the essential foundation of a future construct and, what’s more, the veracity of the originating source doesn’t always matter. A little tidbit of misinformation transmitted in the present can produce a future full of so many wrongs that they produce an enclosed self-supporting system of non-truths that can go unchallenged for years. As information flows are increasingly personalized through user tracking and other similar technologies, this has the potential of producing what Eli Pariser calls a “filter bubble”. A filter bubble occurs when the information provided to a user is filtered to the extent that the user is unaware of information that differs from a specific point of view. Filter bubbles and information manipulation in general has been identified as one of the top cyber threats for 2013 in Georgia Tech’s new Emerging Cyber Threats Report 2013.

Filter bubbles can be produced for a range of purposes (the notorious “santorum” Google bomb is an example of an intentional filter bubble) as well as being simply an undesirable and unintentional side-effect of technological development. However, there are those who rely on the contextual enclaves produced by filter bubbles to justify a discourse that has little, if any, relevance to the real world. Examples include today’s highly partisan political media, religious fanatics, and proponents of pseudosciences. For whatever reason, the leaders of these types of groups see a benefit in maintaining these questionable contexts and often resort to misinformation that originated long ago to justify their dubious claims. If we are truly to promote information societies, then the big task for educators today is to promote an awareness of the filter bubble phenomenon and information skills that will contribute to the construction of well-informed and reasonable future contexts. Continue reading →

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What information skills for the 21st century?

Posted on December 15, 2012 by Tryggvi Thayer

Yesterday’s tragedy in Connecticut was a horrible event that no one should ever have to experience and I sincerely feel for the people of Newtown, CT. But, if ever there was an appropriate time to consider the impact of vastly increasing flows of information on society and what “21st century information skills” means, this is one.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the media frenzy quickly turned into utter chaos. Everyone seemed to have a “reliable” (albeit anonymous) resource to back up their claims. Yet, stories changed every 15 minutes or less, accusations flew, Facebook and Twitter profiles of innocent people were splashed across TV screens and websites. Anyone with a name remotely like that of whomever was being named as the shooter at a given time and who had a Facebook or Twitter account was inundated with death threats, wishes for eternal damnation in the fires of Hell, and just downright deplorable comments that displayed the worst of the worst of human nature. When the story of what had actually transpired finally started to materialize late in the afternoon, it bore little resemblance to what had been reported throughout much of the day.

One of the key attributes that we have to consider when processing information is the authority with which the informant speaks. In the past, we have tended to regard formal news outlets as specialists in collecting information, validating it, and producing factual reports on that basis – tell what is known and no more. Those days are gone. Yesterday, news outlets appear to have anxiously blurted out anything and everything that they came across in the hopes that something would turn out to be the major scoop that brings in the ratings with total disregard for actual facts. It turns out that today’s news outlets have little more credibility than the forums on Fox Nation.

The loss of media credibility puts the onus of validating information on the “informed”. This is perhaps the most critical 21st century information skill looking into the near future. Sure, people still need to acquire the skills to find appropriate information to suit their needs and to produce quality information, but at this point, it’s urgent that people be equipped to properly evaluate and validate the information that will find them. Yesterday’s utterly meaningless info-chaos suggests that we’re not doing it right, yet.

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E-learning guy says that MOOCs are glorified books – No, I don’t think so.

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Tryggvi Thayer

Edit: Following a brief Twitter exchange with Dr. Cramer I want to note the following – The quote below is but a snippet of a 30 minute conversation and is probably missing a lot of context. Dr. Cramer has put out a call for proposals for MOOCs to explore their potential at the University of Minnesota.

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are all the rage these days. You can hardly turn a corner without running into some discussion about MOOCs. As the name suggests, MOOCs are online courses designed for self-directed study and made available to large numbers of learners. What’s more, the reigning view is that they are made available for no cost to the learner. MOOCs are being backed by some very high profile players in the higher education market in the US, ex. Stanford, MIT and Harvard. Others, however, are somewhat skeptical and cautious. For example, Dr. Christopher Cramer (self-proclaimed MOOC skeptic according to his Twitter profile), who was recently appointed “faculty liaison for e-learning initiatives” at the University of Minnesota, had this to say in this morning’s Star Tribune,

‘MOOCs have been around for a long time. They’re called books,’ said U chemistry Prof. Christopher Cramer. ‘The model removes an instructor from the equation … so what’s left is just content. It may be really well-designed content, if you’re willing to spend the money, but it’s just content.’

He doesn’t sound very optimistic about MOOCs, as far as I can tell. Continue reading →

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Newitz on futurism: A critique gone awry

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Tryggvi Thayer

Annalee Newitz posted an article on io9 a few days ago titled, “The Slow Future: The Future Is Not Accelerating”. Basically it’s a critique of the optimism regarding technological development that is expressed by some futurists. However, I find the criticism largely misguided and likely to propogate the myth and mysticism that tends to be associated with futurism among those who don’t fully understand what it is that futurists do and why they do it. Among the critical mistakes that Newitz makes are:

  1. She assumes that futurists foresee a future (i.e. some inevitability) as if they’ve discovered some hidden secret in their magical crystal balls.
  2. She generalizes from a very small group of futurists (she actually only refers to two) to futurism in general.
  3. She is stuck in a context of the present as regards both her criticism of futurism and her perception of what we have achieved with technology.
  4. She fails to recognize how the concept of “time” works in futurists’ discourse.

Continue reading →

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