This is a blog on data but not the data that we know as educators.
Last week I heard of a tragic plane crash in Eastern Europe and of course the first thing that was reported was that the airplane's black box was found. The black box is that device that captures all the data from the airplane as it flies, providing the investigators with information as to what may have precipitated the accident.
That got me thinking. What kind of "black box full of data" are we creating? If we look at our life today and we had an internal "black box" to investigate, what would that black box say about our life? If we knew that our thoughts, moods, feelings, actions were being "recorded" would our internal "black box" be changed? If we could access our "black box" to look at past data, would that make a difference to how we live the rest of our lives?
Perhaps it is time for us to act as if we did have an "internal black box" that measured ourselves. Or do we have one already and we call it conscience?
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Lessons From China
I heard Yong Zhao, from the University of Portland, speak at the ATA sponsored Educational Futures Symposium on March 19, 2011. He provided interesting food for thought for this blog. China has launched a comprehensive reform of its education system. They have cut hours for math and increased hours of instruction for physical education, the Arts, and complementary courses.
They are broadening their curriculum, certainly increasing local autonomy (they had been nationally centralized), cutting down the burden of academia on their students and minimizing using test scores as measures of teacher and school evaluation.
In short, they are diversifying the definition of achievement in Zhao's words.The Asian countries are now focusing on Creativity.
It is interesting that while we in North America worry about Mathematics and the teaching of it, China is worried about Physical Education and the Arts. Perhaps it is time for our innovations to meet in the middle somewhere or as Zhao says, Distance is Dead - we are in one world, together
You can learn more about Yong Zhao"s ideas at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNpZ60IJ42o
They are broadening their curriculum, certainly increasing local autonomy (they had been nationally centralized), cutting down the burden of academia on their students and minimizing using test scores as measures of teacher and school evaluation.
In short, they are diversifying the definition of achievement in Zhao's words.The Asian countries are now focusing on Creativity.
It is interesting that while we in North America worry about Mathematics and the teaching of it, China is worried about Physical Education and the Arts. Perhaps it is time for our innovations to meet in the middle somewhere or as Zhao says, Distance is Dead - we are in one world, together
You can learn more about Yong Zhao"s ideas at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNpZ60IJ42o
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