Archive for the 'Education' Category

Finding Information on the Web

Published
by
Graeme Codrington
on July 25, 2005
in Education and Technology
. 0 Comments

Original concept by Stephen Wildstrom from BusinessWeek, 25 July/1 August 2005 - (click here - premium content)

Search engine“Popular wisdom holds that you can find anything on the Web. And if you’re looking for information on products, transportation schedules, or tourist attractions, it’s probably true. But there is a vast body of knowledge hidden either in the so-called deep Web that browsers can’t find or in those archaic but wonderful repositories called books.

Two factors combine to make so much valuable and authoritative information inaccessible. The bulk of human knowledge represented by printed material — especially the portion that is more than 25 years old — does not exist in digital form. In addition, most books and other printed matter published in the last century are still under copyright, and rights owners want to know they’ll be compensated for the use of their material.

Yahoo! and Google are leading the way in efforts to open this world of print and proprietary material to browsing. Yahoo’s latest move, Yahoo Search Subscriptions (http://search.yahoo.com/subscriptions), provides easy access from a search screen to an assortment of publications and other materials available only to subscribers. For example, a Yahoo search of the Web for “Intel chipsets” returned over 2 million hits. A subscriptions-only search returned just 33, mostly from the archives of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Forrester Research.
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The New Generation Gap

Published
by
Graeme Codrington
on July 25, 2005
in Education, Generations and Millennial generation
. 0 Comments

Digitally savvy students learn differently than their analogue-trained professors are prepared to teach them. How do we bridge the divide?
By Susan S. Szenasy
Posted at http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1521 on July 25, 2005

Old fashioned teaching“If I showed you a 1982 Memphis chair from Italy, you wouldn’t identify it as a product of the Dutch De Stijl movement from 1917, would you? Yet a distressingly large number of 20-year-olds are likely to do just that. In fact, such erroneous readings of designed objects–which speak to us about culture, time, and place through their forms and materials–are becoming the rule, not the exception. This fact made grading design history finals this spring a traumatic experience for me, just as receiving their mediocre grades must have been for the students.

I knew something was wrong at the outset of the semester. Only a few students took notes; most handed in weekly papers that were cut-and-paste jobs from Web sites. Class discussions were nearly impossible because of their shallow grasp of the subject and a general lack of interest in the people and the movements that laid the foundation of our design culture and their future professions.

What was different about this group?

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The problem with HR doing leadership development

Published
by
Keith Coats
on June 30, 2005
in Education and Leadership
. 2 Comments

Leadership trainingThe more I deal with HR departments in various companies the more I have come to understand that if it is HR that is entrusted with leadership development (and it usually is) the more it is likely to fail. Let me explain what I mean by this.

Most leadership formation programmes I have encountered either are not working or will certainly fail to produce the kind of leaders needed in a connection economy. My concern is that even amongst the ‘professionals’ - the business schools - that several companies entrust with their leadership formation programmes, are also following down the same ‘dead-end’ path.

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A Virtual Coach

Published
by
Michael
on June 26, 2005
in Education, Generations and Technology
. 1 Comment

Balls

A change of schools is usually a bit disruptive for most ten year olds. When it’s from a football playing English medium to and rugby playing Afrikaans one - the change can be traumatic. Playstation can change all that …

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What is real education?

Published
by
Keith Coats
on June 15, 2005
in Education and Leadership
. 0 Comments

This week I have enjoyed several great conversations around leadership as I have accompanied Nick Barker to various meetings. Nick heads up the Asia Pacific Leadership Program (APLP) at the East West Center in Hawaii. Here is one memorable quote from Nick who was in turn quoting someone else. He said
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11 Steps to a Better Brain

Published
by
Graeme Codrington
on June 8, 2005
in Education and Media tidbits
. 1 Comment

Bionic BrainThe New Scientist of 28 May 2005, lists 11 ways in which you can boost brain performance and/or slow the effects of ageing on your grey matter. See the full story here. In short, they are:

  • Smart drugs - drugs that increase awareness, decrease need for sleep, etc
  • Food for thought - certain food types stimulate alertness, especially by releasing certain vitamins and compounds
  • The Mozart Effect - maybe the most controversial, but certain music enahcnes brain activity in vital cortexes of the brain
  • Bionic Brains - implants ahead
  • Gainful employment - use it, or lose it - we’re beginning to understand that the brain has RAM, too
  • Memory marvels - using memory techniques - not just for super IQ’s
  • Sleep on it - allowing your brain a chance to organise, file and process can lead to great results
  • Body and mind - get your body in shape, it is your brain’s home
  • Nuns on a run - researching the unnatural longevity and alertness of the School Sisters of Notre Dame on Good Counsel Hill
  • Attention seeking - focus is critical
  • Positive feedback - just tell your brain its great, and it will be

Reverse Mentoring

Published
by
Graeme Codrington
on June 4, 2005
in Education, Future Trends and Generations
. 3 Comments

Every Monday morning, my 92 grandmother sits down at her computer and bangs out an email to all her children (2), grandchildren (7 + 6 in laws) and great-grandchildren (6 at last count), as well as a few nieces and nephews and their kids and grandkids. The whole family responds to her, as the matriarch, returning emails, sending digital pictures (which she prints and frames) and generally digitally interacting with her and each other. If she can do it, anyone can.

The use of technology is no longer an optional extra in the world. Everyone has to be able to use technology to a reasonable level. And being old (or “nearing retirement” is no excuse). Hey, if a seven year old can do it, how difficult is it anyway?

Young and Old computer skillsJack Welch, the legendary CE of General Electric, had this problem a few years ago when the Internet, cellphones and email hit companies. He solved it by insisting on a programme of reverse mentoring. Simply put, he required all his older managers and executive team to meet regularly, one-on-one, with 20-something staff members, with the express goal of the younger person teaching the older person how to use the emerging technologies. They discovered that there was much more value than simply technology training in these relationships – but that’s a different story, for another time.

BBC News carried a story two weeks ago about Chris Wertheim, a dyslexic man, now in his late 60s. He had taught himself to read at age 25, and now had signed up for the Sixty Plus Intergenerational Computer Project in Kensington and Chelsea in London, which pairs teenagers with older people teaching them computer skills one-on-one in their own homes. It has been a brilliant success.

Just like in companies, the success is not just older folk who are computer literate, but younger folk who develop life skills and worldviews as they interact with the wisdom of the older generation. This should be done in more communities. And in more companies.

Read more about reverse mentoring:

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Amazing opportunity at Tshwane University of Technology

Published
by
Jean
on May 24, 2005
in Education and TmTd Internal Issues
. 6 Comments

Hi team, I had a great exploratory conversation with Hannelie Minnaar, the Assistant Registrar at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) this morning. I invited her to interact with us on this opportunity via our blogger so that these ideas can get a life of their own…as they usually do as soon as we start working through them.

The opportunity is this: To transform higher education in South Africa. The TUT understand the fact that we are entering a new world where relationships are critical and they want to totally transform themselves into a client-centered learning institution. Top management already bought into this although the new university Principle will only be appointed in the next two weeks or so. The opportunity is open for TomorrowToday to partner with the TUT throughout this process. They want to develop individuals that will be relevant and successful in the workplace of the future and they want us to help them on this journey.

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The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence

Published
by
Graeme Codrington
on May 22, 2005
in Book Reviews and Education
. 0 Comments

I have been a fan of Dan Tapscott for years. He was one of the first authors to fully grasp the implications of the Internet technology, and has been writing about its potential and impact since the early 1990s. I still think his book on how it will impact young people, especially educationally, is one of the best yet written: Growing Up Digital may be a bit dated on the tech info side, but its still a brilliant read (get it at Amazon.com). In 2003, he jumped into the arena of corporate governance, with (buy it at Kalahari.net).

Book coverTrolling through the Net, I found a book review for one of his earlier books, from 1997. It’s “The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence”, (buy it online at Amazon.com) and the review/summary is available here.

How is this adding value to other people?

Published
by
Graeme Codrington
on May 17, 2005
in Education
. 3 Comments

A number of things coalesced for me this evening - so I can’t help myself- I should have been in bed twenty minutes ago. I got home a few hours ago, after a great presentation to about 250 parents at a school - my mind was buzzing, and as part of the relaxation technique I decided to have a long soaking bath and read a good book. Couldn’t choose which book to read, so picked up Tom Peters’s Re-Imagine! (but it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net) . I have been avoiding this book for awhile - it just looked a bit ADD to me (but that’s how I look to others, so no disrespect meant). (PS - also check out Tom’s blog site: http://www.tompeters.com (hey, Tom, get trackbacks!).

Amy's first projectI’m not sure what the rest of the book is like, but the first 50 pages were excellent. By then my bath was lukewarm. As I got out, I noticed a large A3 poster on my bed - it turns out it’s my six-year-old daughter Amy’s first school project. Amy is in Grade 0 - a singularly badly named school year, though not as bad as her sister Hannah who is in Grade 000 (triple nought) - so this is a milestone for her, and one she obviously wants me to be involved in.

In his book, Tom Peters calls for a new vision. He imagines:

  • A new brand of employee
  • a new social contract - societies that educate their young to break the rules and invent vivid new futures - that encourage labour mobility through policies that support of the entrepreneurial instinct…

    • How can I help my daughter to become one of these beings? One of the ways is to heighten the entrepreneurial instinct - may be getting her to ask the question, “how can I make money out of this?” But even as I had better thought, I realised that that type of thinking is part of the old contract. To help my daughter be part of the new one, I need to get her to ask an entirely different type of question. A question I can embed in her consciousness - a question she will ask of everything she ever does. WOW!

    What will the question be?

    Right now, a few moments before switching off and going to bed (and possibly a few moments after my brain has switched off), I am leaning towards, “how is this adding value to other people?” So, we went to Cape Town, we took photos, we stuck them on cardboard, we’re showing you - but what value have we added? How have we improved other people’s lives? How is this adding value to the people?

    I think I like that…

    Universities no longer favouring the “sausage factories”

    Published
    by
    Graeme Codrington
    on April 26, 2005
    in Connection Economy and Education
    . 1 Comment

    In the past decade, a number of chains of private schools have sprung up around South Africa. They provide a quality education, of course, but one of their primary focuses and certainly one of their primary marketing tools is to churn out matriculants with a fist full of distinctions. It’s not unusual for these schools to have matriculants who do 8, 9 or even 10 subjects (the requirement is 6), achieving most with distinction. Most of these students have expected to have universities clamouring for them, but that is starting to change.

    Both the University of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand University medical schools last year rejected many applicants with top academic qualifications, favouring applicants with life skills and the emotional intelligence required to be a doctor. Although this was partly due to South Africa’s need to redress past imbalances, it was not simply about affirmative action and limited places. It was about these medical school saying that it takes more than just academic intelligence to be a good doctor. The same is true for most of the other professions.

    It’s exciting to see universities, those social institutions supposedly geared towards the future skills requirements of society, starting to understand some of the implications of the movement to a connection/emotion economy.

    Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand.

    Published
    by
    Jean
    on April 20, 2005
    in Education and Organisational Design
    . 0 Comments

    If you copy and paste this saying into Google you’ll get 3520 hits attributing the saying either to Aristotle, Confucius or some native American wizard. Yet it is just as true today as it was hundreds of years ago. Perhaps it’s even more true today. We live in a world where information abounds and where people from diverse backgrounds are more in contact with each other than ever before. This post-modern world is one where traditional views are challenged and authoritive statements are doubted. Why should I believe you? Who says you are right? My Japenese friend says they’ve been doing it differently for centuries and he believes they are right. It is in a world like this one where a social constructivist approach becomes critical. An approach where people develop their own meaning from experiences and from interacting with each other. Using experiences. Based on relationships.