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Change, continuing to learn, and Bloom's taxonomy keeps blooming February 19, 2012

Things that are in my mind this weekend, relating to:
  • The challenges that we face
  • The need for well educated, creative and innovative people who can work together
  • The need for all of us to make dramatic changes in the ways we see things
  • The need to find ways to "regroup" to face our uncertain future together, collaboratively, rather than in destructive competition
Yesterday brought another excellent "finite world" video to my attention
Like other "finite world" videos it raises the need for new approaches and new thinking - because of the challenges of living in a world that is not based on ideas of continuing growth.

By contrast Martin Ford doesn't seem concerned about any finite world issues - his concern is about robots reducing the need for human labour, and what that will do to our ideas about work.

I was most interested in the comments on his ideas, which are also emphasising the need for new thinking - especially in the area of work and how we view it (my highlights):. 

Ford doesn’t leave his readers with just another doomsday scenario, he does his best to find a solution. No, he doesn’t think we should (or perhaps even can) avoid automation. Instead, TLITT explores some pretty radical ways that we could put purchasing power back in the hands of the masses and create non-traditional jobs with economic incentives. He speaks of ‘recapturing wages’ by imposing capital/labor taxes on industries as they automate, and value added taxes to goods as they become cheaper. These taxes should not be large enough to discourage automation, but they could (Ford proposes) provide revenue for a new kind of job.

Ford’s ‘virtual jobs’ are incentivised programs that would reward people for pursuits such as education, civic service, journalism, and environmental responsibility. These jobs would be paid for by the state through the revenue gained through recaptured wages. Those who accomplished more in their virtual jobs would receive higher wages, thus providing the financial incentive that everyone needs to feel like they are really working. There would be some industries and some workers that exist outside of this new system, and plenty of space and encouragement (Ford says) for entrepreneurs, who would still have the most potential for monetary gain.

So, to paraphrase Ford’s solution in my own words: we should take money from automating industries to fund a state guided program that gives money to consumers in exchange for working at bettering themselves. Sounds like a decent plan. Never gonna happen.

I like the collection of kinds of work that is listed above "pursuits such as education, civic service, journalism, and environmental responsibility" - on first reading I assumed the education meant "spending time learning new things in various ways" - not "a limited traditional approach to being taught (or teaching) in traditional ways in traditional institutions"

Some of my own thinking relating to our uncertain present and rapidly approaching future is mentioned in an email to Michel Bauwens and a contribution to an e-book
edited by Dougald Hine and Keith Kahn-Harris - Despatches from the Invisible Revolution. Some of the practical outworking or these ideas will be visible soon when Nikki Fishman and I launch 'Collage - Age of Collaboration"

I believe strongly in learning by doing - mixing practical work with analysis and theory. It's how I prefer to learn and so I identify with others who favour that approach as well. To me it's the natural way to approach learning, and living, and therefore life-long-learning. 

So this weekend I was glad to learn (and to share with others) that Weezie is continuing her alternative learning journey - Latest from my "fellow student" Weezie -The Eduventurist Project 2012

I also appreciated the post that Philippa Young (another "alternative learning journey" contact from Dougald's "Universities Past and Future" event) posted in  New Educational Paradigms pointing to Sebastian Thrun Aims to Revlutionize University education With Udacity which tells of impressive experiment enabling students world wide to join in free Artificial Intelligence courses by Stanford professors (then more courses from elsewhere) - not "traditional ICT enabled distance learning" but some more innovative approaches, that students appreciate for various reasons. Scroll right down for the video that brings it to life.

Sebastian Thrun's work looks like ground-breaking access to education for people who otherwise would not have a chance - and at a pace that is genuinely flexible and personal. (I don't know how well the method would transfer to less structured curriculum areas - but it is an interesting approach.) It is always hard to tell from presentations, rather than first hand experience, but the evidence looked good. It seemed that a large number of people were being given a special kind of chance to continue their learning journeys.

There was moving feedback from  mature students in extremely challenging situations - who are struggling to learn for their own deep personal reasons. I connected with that deep need to learn from times in my adult life when my horizons were closing in on me in mind-crushing ways. It is good to see opportunities for that need to be satisfied.  I love to see opportunities for learning opening our to people in later life - not just straight from school. (Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I don't see how that need and hunger to learn can be present in many students who simply "go on to uni" after school "because it's the next thing to do". To me the words of the song that goes "Love, like youth, is wasted on the young" often seems to apply to educational opportunity as well - but it could be that I'm just getting cynical, and a touch envious, as I get older.)  
 
Some links then led me to the Khan Acadamy, and from what Salman Khan was saying I think I must have been lucky with how I learned maths - and how I was taught to teach it. . Khan Academy  seems to be helping a lot of people, with an approach that is appreciated for its intimate and somewhat informal approach - more like having a friend explain things to you.

Salman Khan's videos can be downloaded from YouTube to a local server. That makes me thing it might be worth mentioning to people at Fantsuam for the Knowledge Resource Centre - where there is the possibility of downloading to a local server, but that's still not a possibility for Fola and others.

I was checking out various other stuff too - but too much to mention - except that I went to Tessy Britton's site to see if I could see any updates about the Ad Hoc Enquiries - I hope to attend - but February was mentioned originally so I wonder if they've started and I've missed the announcements somehow.

Reading Tessy Britton's recent posts on the Social Brain linked me to Bloom's Taxonomy. That took my mind back to the 1970's, when I was writing my final dissertation as a trainee teacher. I had chosen the topic "Think Child!" ( -which was an exploration of what that common admonition really means - using the structure of Bloom's taxonomy to guide me through the analysis).

I guess that in one way and another I've been studying that taxonomy ever since.