Wednesday 6 April 2011

Disease gene blocker sneaks past cell defences

Just found this fascinating article in new scientist title Disease gene blocker sneaks past cell defences.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

A vision for 21st century learning

So I had a vision over Christmas of the kind of learning and teaching I've always wanted. As I wrote it down I became more and more convinced that this is possible right now. It also pulls together my passion for understanding human excellence with my experience in taking ideas to deliverables. It's still very much a work in progress but I'm really excited by it and everyone I've shared it with feels the same. 


It's not about revolution but evolution. My main view is that very little these days is new. The internet isn't enabling much that's new just a new scale, speed and quality of what existed before. Good learning and teaching is the same now as it was 1,000 years ago. What made Plato and Aristotle great will be similar to what made Einstein great. 


What's changed is what one human can achieve in one day with a small budget. The same goes for one team or one organisation. We can just do a lot more with a lot less. So we now get to revisit what good learning and teaching is and figure out what we would do if we could build on the great work that's already being done but with all these great new opportunities and tools that didn't exist before. 


My vision for learning in the 21st century is built by merging best learning practices with the methods of achieving scale in this era and partnerships with leading providers of the components that will be needed.

I learned to thrive due to a world class educational system. I want to bring this to the world and evolve it to fit todays capabilities and expectations.

Part of this involves each student understanding their potential through experience of a virtual body. The human being, particularly their mind, far exceeds the capabilities of any technology yet invented. I want a system designed around it. To make winners of anyone in the world who takes the time to develop their abilities. The knowledge and skills to do this already exist and we're perfectly placed to make use of it.

I've broken this down further into components. Each component is already in existence and will mainly require reuse of current skillsets, personnel and assets.

So now I'm spending time developing these ideas further. What I've found so far is that much of what I'm looking for already exists but the components have never been put together in this way before. I've also found  I'm not alone.  There are many efforts to improve education from a peer to peer university where you can suggest the currciulum or even opt to teach a class to an open high school finding ways to deliver “one-on-one tutoring for every student in every subject".

So there you go. I'm clarifying my vision for 21st century learning. Through this I'm finding that I'm not alone. In fact I keep finding more people with a similar vision that are already implementing it. I don't care who delivers it. I just want it for my children and for everyone who thrives on learning.