Friday, August 6, 2010

Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering

A software engineer, Gever Tulley is the co-founder of the Tinkering School, a weeklong camp where lucky kids get to play with their very own power tools. He's interested in helping kids learn how to build, solve problems, use new materials and hack old ones for new purposes. He's also a certified paragliding instructor.

the school:
http://www.tinkeringschool.com/blog/

the book:

Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)

mediasnackers and Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson: Okay. Well, I’m Ken Robinson. I’m a writer, a consultant now and a speaker on issues of education and innovation. I work a lot with education organizations. I work with corporate organizations around the world and I work with cultural organizations. And my big interest is in how you cultivate creativity and why you need to do that. I now live in Los Angeles, but work pretty much internationally around Europe, Asia and the States.

DK: Brilliant. Well, welcome, Ken. Thanks for giving up your time to speak to MediaSnackers. I was to ask you straight away a question which you’ve already touched upon about this cultivation of creativity. How can people do this and more importantly, why must they do this now?

Ken Robinson: Well, I think it’s vital that we cultivate creativity for various reasons. The principal one is the world is changing so quickly and so unpredictably, that for all of us were to make any sense of it and to engage in it properly in any way, we have to be firing in all cylinders. You know, we have to not only be open to change, but be willing to respond to it, to contribute to it and to be flexible and adaptable to it.

read more or listen to the podcast at the lovely new site of the media snackers:
http://mediasnackers.com/2007/06/mediasnackers-podcast88/

Prof. Roni Aviram / The Center for Futurism in Education

Prof. Aharon (Roni) Aviram, Chair

Educational futurist and philosopher of education, Roni Aviram's interests focus on the impact of ICT on education and society, and on forging macro and micro levels strategies for the optimization (in light of Humanistic values) of the impact of ICT on education and higher-education. Aviram has written numerous scientific papers and articles published in collective volumes and scientific journals on these subjects, as well as several books on the desired future of education and ICT-based education. He is the chair of the Center for Futurism in Education at Ben-Gurion University, and has led pioneering projects and think-groups - Israeli and European - focused on the "merger" of ICT and education, the radical change of the school and systems of education and higher education, and the formation of virtual lifelong learning environments enhancing human development and flourishing. For Aviram, the best uses of ICT in any educational or lifelong learning framework would be those enhancing personal autonomy and dialogical belonging, the two values he takes as the cornerstones of Humanism and Humanistic education.

CFE - The Center for Futurism in Education

The ever growing availability of information and knowledge, the globalization of society, and at the same time the growing diversity and regionalization of states, the free market economy and ever expending privatization of once-universal or national assets - all these factors and many more call for re-approaching the question of the aims of education.
Any such attempt to address this question must stem from a deep understanding of prevailing practices – and among them, first and foremost that of ICT.
Any such attempt should furthermore be critical in its approach, investigative in spirit, and strategic in scope.
And at last, any such attempt should be guided by a clear conception of individuals' wellbeing and societies prosperity as means for enabling their citizens' wellbeing.

Homeschooling

The Center provides academic support to the legal campaign of homeschoolers in Israel, trying to achieve governmental recognition of their educational practice. This effort joins another process, led by the Center, aiming at increasing awareness in society in general and the research community in particular to the issue of homeschooling.
The Center has organized, together with Mandel Institute for Educational Leadership, the first academic conference dealing with homeschoolers, held in Jerusalem, May 2006.
http://www.bgu.ac.il/futuredu/