--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > > Speaking of "digital introspection," and the future of > considering ones digital landscape more real than the > real landscape, here's a BBC video about an Android app > that allows you to combine the two. > > A national museum in the UK has enabled its visitors to > get a personal tour of several of the exhibits, narrated > by a 3D version of a famous British science presenter: > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9718563.stm > > When the teachers start to lose kids to their smartphones, > the smart teachers develop apps for the smartphones. :-)
Where I live, kids can brings phones to school, but must turn them off except at lunch. STarting next year, all students from grade 5 up will be given iPads. I thin this is the beginning of major changes at schools. WE already have Smart Boards, but this is the next step. For adults, there are new online free university level classes offered by Harvard, Stanford, U Penn and other schools. Amazing access to knowledge for anyone with internet access! The New York Times May 2, 2012 Harvard and M.I.T. Team Up to Offer Free Online Courses By TAMAR LEWIN In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities. Harvard's involvement follows M.I.T.'s announcement in December that it was starting an open online learning project, MITx. Its first course, Circuits and Electronics, began in March, enrolling about 120,000 students, some 10,000 of whom made it through the recent midterm exam. Those who complete the course will get a certificate of mastery and a grade, but no official credit. Similarly, edX courses will offer a certificate but not credit. But Harvard and M.I.T. have a rival they are not the only elite universities planning to offer free massively open online courses, or MOOCs, as they are known. This month, Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan announced their partnership with a new commercial company, Coursera, with $16 million in venture capital. Meanwhile, Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford professor who made headlines last fall when 160,000 students signed up for his Artificial Intelligence course, has attracted more than 200,000 students to the six courses offered at his new company, Udacity. The technology for online education, with video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate feedback and student-paced learning, is evolving so quickly that those in the new ventures say the offerings are still experimental. "My guess is that what we end up doing five years from now will look very different from what we do now," said Provost Alan M. Garber of Harvard, who will be in charge of the university's involvement. EdX, which is expected to offer its first five courses this fall, will be overseen by a nonprofit organization governed equally by the two universities, each of which has committed $30 million to the project. The first president of edX will be Anant Agarwal, director of M.I.T.'s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who has led the development of the MITx platform. At Harvard, Dr. Garber will direct the effort, with Michael D. Smith, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, working with faculty members to develop and deliver courses. Eventually, they said, other universities will join them in offering courses on the platform. M.I.T. and Harvard officials said they would use the new online platform not just to build a global community of online learners, but also to research teaching methods and technologies. Education experts say that while the new online classes offer opportunities for students and researchers, they pose some threat to low-ranked colleges. "Projects like this can impact lives around the world, for the next billion students from China and India," said George Siemens, a MOOC pioneer who teaches at Athabasca University, a publicly supported online Canadian university. "But if I were president of a mid-tier university, I would be looking over my shoulder very nervously right now, because if a leading university offers a free circuits course, it becomes a real question whether other universities need to develop a circuits course." The edX project will include not only engineering courses, in which computer grading is relatively simple, but also humanities courses, in which essays might be graded through crowd-sourcing, or assessed with natural-language software. Coursera will also offer free humanities courses in which grading will be done by peers. In some ways, the new partnerships reprise the failed online education ventures of a decade ago. Columbia University introduced Fathom, a 2001 commercial venture that involved the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan and others. It lost money and folded in 2003. Yale, Princeton and Stanford collaborated on AllLearn, a nonprofit effort that collapsed in 2006. Many education experts are more hopeful about the new enterprises. "Online education is here to stay, and it's only going to get better," said Lawrence S. Bacow, a past president of Tufts who is a member of the Harvard Corporation. Dr. Bacow, co-author of a new report on online learning, said it remained unclear how traditional universities would integrate the new technologies. "What faculty don't want to do is just take something off the shelf that's somebody else's and teach it, any more than they would take a textbook, start on Page 1, and end with the last chapter," he said. "What's still missing is an online platform that gives faculty the capacity to customize the content of their own highly interactive courses." > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Susan" <wayback71@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@> wrote: > > > > > > On May 6, 2012, at 9:58 AM, Susan wrote: > > > > > > > > Yep. The increasingly sedentary lifestyle since the 60's we can > > > > > probably vouch for ourselves, being raised in the generations that > > > > > went from kids playing in yards after school and on weekends to cable > > > > > cartoons after school and Saturday morning cartoons. Scouting around > > > > > neighborhoods today, you see few children ever outside, despite > > > > > neighborhoods filled with kids. Of course video games, computers (and > > > > > computers in cell phones) and the web has just accelerated these > > > > > inwardly-drawn, self-absorbed dweebs, fed on commercials and TV and > > > > > their "inner" lives. > > > > > > > > I see today's kids are having lots of connections with others, but not > > > > face to face. I think they have too many connections and too much input > > > > and are stressed greatly by all the different expectations of the > > > > different people. Probably better for young people to have just the > > > > number of connections and interactions you could have face to face and > > > > in real life. These kids are the transition from the old style to the > > > > new, and our systems have not grown to be able to handle it - yet. > > > > > > Maine has a good number of lower income families, so an interesting piece > > > of this puzzle is that there are still generations here who grow up > > > living and playing and hunting outside simply because their parents don't > > > have the money to hook them to the web or whatever. But - all Maine 7th > > > graders in Maine get an Apple laptop, have for years. This way you make > > > sure the poorer families don't become part of a technological underclass. > > > > > > > > > > > > > There's some speculation that in response to these changes a > > > > > transitional being may be being born. These are the numerous, many > > > > > probably as yet unknown, levels of the autistic spectrum child. > > > > > > > > Do you mean this in a spiritual way? If so, I doubt that. Altho I do > > > > think that our tech culture has allowed techy, introverted people who > > > > are mildly on the spectrum to thrive and marry and produce offspring > > > > who also are on the spectrum, only more so. So it is being passed down > > > > more these days. I bet that within a few decades, science will allow us > > > > to bolster and repair that part of the autistic spectrum brain that is > > > > different to the point of dysfunction. > > > > > > What I'm saying is if digital introspection is part of a disease process, > > > it's only natural that this could or would have a ripple effect for > > > future generations. If we pathologically dissociate from the world we > > > live in, we'll develop nervous systems that are modified accordingly. So > > > this raises the further question: people who spent large parts of their > > > life meditatively cultivating an introspective lifestyle, are there also > > > negative adaptive mechanisms that kick in there? Meditative texts are > > > filled with lists of the side effects of such meditations, what if > > > there's something to them? > > > > Re digital introspection - I wonder how long it takes for such brain > > changes to be established to the point they could be passed on to > > offspring. I would guess it will take a few generations for us to see the > > full (possibly horrid) impact of this major tech shift. A bunch of people > > who can't think deeply about anything? Who can't focus for more than a few > > seconds? Multi tasking is something I find annoying - in colleagues at work > > it is AWFUL. And I do it too, sometimes, and feel odd as a result. The > > tech revolution might also have some great effects, too. > > > > As to the consequences of spending so many hours with eyes closed? I never > > thought of that - someone should research that. Twenty minutes twice a day > > seems at worst benign and at best very beneficial; a full TM program every > > single day, year after year, who knows? > > > > > > > > > > > Vaj: But no one really knows what it all means. It makes me wonder IF > > > > pathologic introversion does cause this in humans, what does compulsive > > > > meditative introversion do to meditators children? Vedic Village of the > > > > Damned? :-) > > > > > > > > > > > > > Trying to raise children while having a demanding spiritual practice > > > > like TM/TM sidhis must be a challenge, unless you have the funds to > > > > hire loads of good help. And even then, the hours spent with eyes > > > > closed and not interacting with the kids, having time to hang > > > > out........ I would not call it compulsive meditative introversion - at > > > > least not for most Dome going parents. They were caught up in a bad > > > > dynamic - trying to be householders with children to raise while really > > > > devoting time to making a living and then doing their program (not a > > > > householder thing, really). There was a lot of pressure to make doing > > > > the program the top priority. For most, I hope that common sense > > > > trumped the expectation to do an extended full program twice a day. It > > > > did mean having to buck the system and what you thought MMY wanted you > > > > to do. Thinking back, there should have been special instructions for > > > > parents, special programs to acknowledge the time constraints, an > > > > honoring of their efforts to cut meditation short to spend time with > > > > the kids. From what I heard and saw, there were some who made a mess of > > > > caring for the kids. These days, are there young couples in Fairfield > > > > who have kids and go to the Domes? I think of the Domes as filled with > > > > mostly older people. > > > > > > Yeah it seems to be coming a geriatric crowd, supplemented by outsourced > > > Indians. > > > > > >
