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Are teachers actually using new, advanced technologies in teaching? The answer may surprise you and shock all those tech jockeys in both K12 and HigherEd that the chalkboard is dead.
Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using “clickers,” or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously. The one technology that most teachers use regularly—course-management systems—focuses mostly on housekeeping tasks like handing out assignments or keeping track of student grades.
The survey, answered by 4,600 professors nationwide and did not ask about PowerPoint, which anecdotal evidence suggests is ubiquitous as a replacement for overhead and slide projectors.
This is not a book about Dan Brown’s character, Robert Langdon and his fight against the Illuminati in Angels & Demons. This is The Numerati, a slight spin on very advanced mathematics and high performance computing, the future of shopping, medicine, safety, sex, voting and yes …. even work.
The Numerati is a great read regarding the impact of advanced analytics across the board. I was impressed with mathematicians Baker interviews and the surprising number who eventually work for IBM or the NSA. Baker has written a book about how the best mathematicians are changing the way we live by processing amazingly vast amounts of data and simply detecting patterns. The data comes via mouse-clicks, cell phone calls and credit card purchases just to name a few.
It sounds simple. On the surface with today’s high performance computing and powerful consumer technologies. But Baker shows how mathematicians are working to draw upon extremely high levels of computational power to deliver products and solutions that will dramatically impact our lives.
At the same time some of the projects mentioned seems more ‘wonderland’ in design. Yet consider the amount of data created by the Large Hadron Collider for example, the emerging world of Big Science is just starting to take off.
Chapters tackle different subjects (mentioned above) and as others. Many have indicated the shopping chapter is the best of the book. It was very enjoyable to read. Some of the ideas and inventions about health were interesting, some ideas a bit hard to wrap around your brain – like the ability of a floor tile to detect if your elderly father has a change in an existing medical condition. Another example, how a computer can analyze a sequence of video (over time) and determine in your are prone to suffering Parkinson’s disease.
Watching this documentary about Daniel Ellsberg reminded me of his rather extraordinary life that has not yet stopped. With the recent WikiLeaks sensation its worth reminding America how powerful documents can change people and governments.
Every day more people shop online. As shoppers write blog posts about their purchases and read millions of product reviews and their social networks. We have transformed retail:
[youtube width="600" height="362"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPy93HM1vPU[/youtube]
The movie everyone should have been waiting to see….on your computer before at the cinemas.
In an unusual move Freakonomics the Movie is coming to iTunes first on September 3rd and then to a theater on October 1.
Since I read this book (review)
Sometimes a 2.0 release is viewed as a fix for shortcomings in the initial release of just about any product….except this update from Tom Friedman: Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America. I read version 1.0 as soon as it hit bookshelves and was just amazed at Friedman’s writing about the state of research, business and culture surrounding our planet.
Missed reading this when it was originally released? Consider the following accolades for his writing:
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
A Businessweek Best Business Book of the Year
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
A Business WeekBest Business Book of the Year
A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editors’ Choice Best Book of the Year
Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Remember the last time you read a great story that you caught yourself peaking at the remaining unread pages because you didn’t want the story to end? That’s how I can best describe Clay Shirky‘s book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. His stories were coming to a close before I was ready to put the book down.
Over 1 trillion hours of TV is watched per year. Imagine what can happen when people turn TV off and begin contributing. And Shirky elegantly shares the shifting nature of professionals vs. amateurs in the age of the internet. Pretty amazing reading.
I believe there have been attempts to move in the direction he outlines but a tipping point has been the mass availability of consumer devices at very affordable price points. I recall Peter Gabriel‘s interview on the Today Show in 1988 talking about the efforts of Amnesty International and their attempts to videotape human rights abuses with large, analog cameras.
Today we know all to well from the murder of Oscar Grant that cameraphones have made their efforts real.
The Napster thing
IMHO Clay’s single oversight in the book surrounds Napster. I think he was trying to communicate a holistic answer to why people (not just Gen Xers) were stealing music. He called it sharing — it was stealing plain and simple. Continue Reading →
Tonight Amazon introduced a new Kindle. Set to ship August 27th, the new revision is 21% smaller and 15% lighter than its predecessor. The new unit will ship with an display E Ink that has a 20% faster refresh rate.
The unit will also have two wireless options: a $139 WiFi only version and a $189 3G version. Storage has been increased to 4GB.
The survey, answered by 4,600 professors nationwide and did not ask about PowerPoint, which anecdotal evidence suggests is ubiquitous as a replacement for overhead and slide projectors.
