Learning Chinese R/W way - Lesson 12

This lesson was written before, by during the uploading, it was gone somewhere in the wilderness. I have to rewrite it again.

I am very impressed by Albert's way of learning Chinese using computers as we are in the computer era. Chinese characters are ideograms which are depicted the things by using linear lines. Most Chinese characters are built using limited component parts and can be grouped into related words using the same component. Chinese children learn Chinese characters through a tedious process of recognising and writing by imitation. They often make mistakes by putting in the wrong components or some even reverse the components by putting in a mirror image. To learn Chinese efficiently, we should start with the components. Albert has mentioned about the sun, moon and the five elements, and Changjie input method. However, it is hard to remember the keys and their corresponding representations. Thanks to Mr. Peter Kwun Wing WONG of Marymount Secondary School in Hong Kong who invented a system to help his students to master the Changjie input method by associating the keys and the meanings. After learning this leasson, you should be able to remember the keys from A to G which were referred as the natural phenomena by Chu Bongfoo.
Key A represents the Chinese character and also a component 日. To remember this association, Peter used the method which are employed in typing lessons. He put the association as:
A for Apollo which is the god of the sun. So A for Apollo 日.
B for Banana which has the shape of the new moon 月.
C for Coin which is made of gold of metal 金.
D for Door which is made of wood 木.
E for Ebb which is the low tide, so it is related to water 水.
F for Fire which is easy 火.
G for Ground which is the Earth 土.
With the witty way by Peter, you now know the associations of the first seven keys. You can now do some blind-touch typing and learn some new words.

One 日 is the sun. Two 日 together is prosperity 昌. Three 日 together is crystal bright 晶. A 日 and a 月 together means both the sun and the moon, so it is very bright 明.
So by typing one A and a space, you get the sun. By typing two As and a space, you get prosperity. By typing three As and a space, you get crystal. By typing A and then B and a space, you get bright.


One 月 is the moon. Two 月 is friend who spent nights with you 朋. So typing two Bs and a space gives you friend.

There is not much on 金 which has simple combinations with the first seven components.

One 木 is a piece of wood. Two 木 means many trees. So it is a grove or small wood 林. Three 木 means a lot of trees. so it is a big forest 森. If the tree is very tall and large on top of the sun, it blocks the light and therefore cannot see anything 杳. If you put the woods on fire, you burn them 焚. A wood on the ground is the surname of a clan of Chinese people 杜. Here the Chinese uses the sound of one component to mean other things. The sound of ground 土 is used for the sound of the surname.

One 水 is water. Water and gold is 淦 which is the name of a river in China. Water and wood is 沐 which means bathing. Again, the sound of wood is borrowed for bathing. Wood and bath have the same sound. Water and two wood is 淋 which means pouring water over something.

One 火 is fire. Two 火 describes the burning hotness 炎. It is often used to describe hot weather. Fire and earth form the Chinese stove 灶 where the wok is to be put above it and fire inside below the wok.

One 土 is earth or ground. Two 土 is 圭 which is a piece of jade in the form of a sword used by the emperor to signify his standing. When used with 日 as in 日圭 means sun dial.

Now you have learn the associations:
A for Apollo the god of sun
B for Banana the shape of a new moon
C for Coin which is made of gold or metal
D for Door which is made of wood
E for Ebb which is water
F for Fire
G for Ground.

You have also learned that Many Chinese characters are formed by combining the components. Sun, moon, gold, wood, water, fire and earth are some of these components. Some Chinese words borrow the sound of some of these components. by making combinations, you have learned the following words:
日, 昌, 晶, 明, 朋, 金, 木, 林, 森, 杳, 焚, 杜, 水, 淦, 沐, 淋, 火, 炎, 灶, 土 and 圭.

I hope you enjoy this lesson and have learned as intended.

Cheers!

A positive future

We know that electricity distribution lost a lot of energy. Generation of electricity also produce a lot of heat which we need to warm our homes. But because of job opportunities, we are living in large cities. Here are two thinkings which can keep our environment without lowering our living standards.

Decentralized electricity production using conventional generator


Add printable Solar Cells to ensure that these conventional generator needs not be too large.


To handle (CO₂) and other human-generated waste, add a vertical farm which also produces the vegetable for local consumption.

A simple Quiz for you

Here is a question of the French's version of "Who wants to be a Millionaire" (translation according to The Speculist by Phil Bowermaster)
Which object obits the Earth?
A. the Moon
B. the Sun
C. Mars
D. Venus

Can you answer this?

The following is the show captured on youTube:



My real question to ponder: Why over half of French think that the Sun orbits the Earth?

Are you one of them? If yes, where did you learn that the Sun revolves the Earth?

Our progress is driven by technology which is driven by science which is driven by evidence-based investigation.

In a previous post, I suggested the following as subjects students must learn today for tomorrow:
Languages (4+1)
Communication skill
Self Entertaining Development
Evidence-based data-based learning
Authentic learning

Do you agree? Should I move "Evidence-based data-based learning" to the very top?

BTW, Moon revolves around the Earth.

The new seven wonders of the world

The final tally produced this list of the world's top human-built wonders:

• The Great Wall of China


• Petra in Jordan


• Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer


• Peru's Machu Picchu


• Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid


• The Colosseum in Rome


• India's Taj Mahal


photo credits: ascreamingwriter, csimpson, Scott Ingram, Kenny Maths, dejk, Stuck in Customs, locket479

Learning=Conversation

Although I have written this, during face to face conference, I totally agree with this:

Sessions are for presenters. Learning happens in the conversation.

Screencast-O-Matic

from the website:

Screencast-O-Matic is the free and easy way to create a video recording of your screen (aka screencast) and upload it for free hosting all from your browser with no install!

While screencasting is not the best learning methodology, it is great for information dissemination. Use wisely and sparingly if you like.

Sicko

From Wikipedia

Sicko is a documentary film by director Michael Moore, released in the United States and Canada on June 29th, 2007.[1] It investigates the United States health care system with a focus on the behavior of large health insurance companies, and contrasts the U.S. system with those of countries with universal health care coverage.

I watched the movie and am deeply moved.

The American's people's money is sucked up by greedy CEO and shareholders of the private insurance companies. Do Australian want to see the same thing happen to us?

Private insurance is nothing, but a way for some people making big money. Cut the middle man. Government funds ALL health care on an equal basis is the way to go. What about copying France's system?

Learning to Learn

by Dave Pollard'


I cannot do any better than Dave himself. So I suggest you read the post.

Here are some gems I have picked up:

everything we want or need to know in the world is waiting to be discovered. That means it is waiting for us to be ready to learn it

Despite (or perhaps because of) our large brains we are inattentive, prone to erroneous prejudgement, distrustful of our intuitions and our subconscious knowledge, and we suffer from dreadful and growing imaginative poverty.

what we should do now is build our capacity to understand -- capacity of attentiveness, openness, imagination, intuition, subconscious awareness, appreciation of complexity, ability to learn and intuit and induce and synthesize and see patterns and adapt and let come and let go. And then show others in our communities why this capacity is so important and help engender it in them, too.

Must have equipment in a co-ed High school

The eye glasses in this video is a MUST-have item in the modern schools. :-)

Sensitivity Training

Swiss Army Sunglass

via Gizmodo
Will I have a problem boarding an airplane with one of this?

Education Manifesto

This is way back, but nevertheless worth a visit.

Two of the 25 "rules" that I will single out are:

5. Education has no economies of scale‚ yet…
22. Learning is more important than Education

For 5, I will delete the final yet and replace by "ever" to read, Education has no economies of scale‚ ever! Learning occurs inside the space between our ears, individually at its own time frame and its own pace. Education can arrange the external environment, provides stimulations etc. But education can never create learning. Learning is the act by the learner. Period.

That, of course, leads to 22. Dude!

Spiritual dimensions of informal learning

via Big Dog,Little Dog

I found the title very strange, uneasy in fact.

To make sure I understand the meaning of "spiritual", I googled:

Definitions of spiritual on the Web:

* religious: concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church; "religious texts"; "a member of a religious order"; "lords temporal and spiritual"; "spiritual leaders"; "spiritual songs"
* concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; "a spiritual approach to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values"; "unearthly love"
* lacking material body or form or substance; "spiritual beings"; "the vital transcendental soul belonging to the spiritual realm"-Lewis Mumford
* a kind of religious song originated by Blacks in the southern United States
* apparitional: resembling or characteristic of a phantom; "a ghostly face at the window"; "a phantasmal presence in the room"; "spectral emanations"; "spiritual tappings at a seance"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Without seeing the original paper (a link was provided, but that gets to nowhere), I reread the post again.

Please someone enlighten me. I just cannot see the connection between "spiritual" and "informal learning".

The main argument of the author is that informal learning can foster a (a) strong sense of self, (b) concern and outreach to others, and (c) continuous construction of meaning and knowledge.

"can foster"??? How? Why?

It was like attending a church service sometime ago when I was in Hongkong with my little sister (she is no longer little, she is the youngest thro'). I found the priest inter-posing some of his life experience with some text from the Bible. I just cannot see the connection. His life experience in no way support the truth (or lack of) in the reference Biblical text. The Biblical text support (or lack of) his life experience too.

Disclaimer: My primary school is a Christian school, my secondary a Catholic and I have taught in a Buddhist school for over 15 years.

Learning is Conversation - Rebutal

Durff left a comment in my post Learning is Conversation - Revisited:

Learning is indeed conversation!

My original post was a shortened list from John Pederson's long list. That does not mean that I totally AGREE.

Conversation fosters learning. True and correct. Conversation builds, refines and mutually influences each other's understanding of the objective world.... All agreed!

Hundreds, if not thousands or more, experiences touch us everyday, including a lot of conversation with many different people. We filter out most of the experience. Only a tiny amount has left some traces in our mind. A short time later, these traces may have evaporated too. Conversation does not necessarily result in any learning! Conversation is NOT the ONLY way we can learn!

Learning is an explicit effort to capture the experience and enable the experience for future reference or application.

Introspective reflection, an internal dialog if you insist, is another form of learning. By working through a set of different experience, we gain insight and new understanding. To me, this is learning too.

During some design exercise, we manipulate model alone (no conversation with anyone else) and reach new design. Later, we may make use of such design. I will categorize this as learning too.

[Most lectures result in nothing, some may be grouped under information gathering and only exceptional ones inspire! That's also not conversation!]

Total Domain Name

via BoingBoing, Aging the Internet Prematurely, One PDP at a Time by Wendy Seltzer

The paragraph picked by Cory Doctorow in BB is

To trust the market, ICANN must be willing to let new TLDs fail. Instead of insisting that every new business have a 100-year plan, we should prepare the businesses and their stakeholders for contingency. Ensuring the "stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier systems" should mean developing predictable responses to failure, not demanding impracticable guarantees of perpetual success. Escrow, clear consumer information, streamlined processes, and flexible responses to the expected unanticipated, can all protect the end-users better than the dubious foresight of ICANN's central regulators. These same regulators, bear in mind, didn't foresee that a five-day add-grace period would swell the ranks of domains with "tasters" gaming the loophole with ad-based parking pages.

I see two different points one from the post and another from the comment.

From the post:

Yet that's what it's doing by bureaucratizing the addition of new domain names: Asserting that no further experiments are possible; that the "show me the code" mode that built the Internet can no longer build enhancements to it. ICANN is unnecessarily ossifying the Internet's DNS at version 1.0, setting in stone a cumbersome model of registries and registrars, a pay-per-database-listing, semantic attachments to character strings, and limited competition for the lot.

Some one has said that intelligence is at the edge of the network. The initial "show me the code" attitude has created a global phenomenum which changes every aspects of our modern life. Killing this "show me the code" attitude will slow progress if not stop the innovation.

From the comment:

With the existing model, it would be nice if I could have clifford.eu. Can I have it? No? Is it because the reverend Alan Clifford in Norwich has it? No. Is it because another namesake, Alan Clifford, the BBC broadcaster in Nottingham has it? No. It is because it has been registered by Direct Electronics Inc which appears to be an American company. I wouldn't even mind this except that neither clifford.eu nor www.clifford.eu appears in DNS. So an American company is stopping me, an EU citizen, from obtaining the domain name I want, apparently not using it, and this is with the connivence of the registry authorised by the European commission. The whole thing stinks.

Internet has grown beyond just a USA property. It is time to hand over the ICANN to UN and let the global netizens figure out how we can use the Internet for the better of humankind.

Animated Model within Google Earth

It seems that Google Earth is going to be a very useful tool for teachers and students. I am yet to figure out how to use it, though!

Learning Chinese R/W way - Lesson 11

Today's lesson is bit different.
The is wooden block toy, whereas English words can be reformed to Chinese characters of the same meaning.

Here is one of them. Go to their website to see the rest.

If Australian is to learn anything, don't learn this!

When I wrote What students should learn today for tomorrow?, I am explicit in that "Religious Studies" is ABSOLUTELY not allowed to be "taught" in any school at any time.". I assume so it should be with politics.

From The Huffington Post

DES MOINES, Iowa — GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, courting Iowa conservatives, found himself answering questions Saturday about the role his Mormon faith would play should he win the race.

Romney told one questioner at a forum co-sponsored by a Christian group that "we have exactly the same values" and said there is no religious litmus test for candidates. The former Massachusetts governor dismissed suggestions of a conflict between his religion and his ability to govern. He also hastened to offer assurances of his faith.

"The Bible for me is the word of God," Romney said. "I also believe that Jesus Christ is my savior."

If his future discussion is to be guided by God, we are in a big problem (because USA is still the world's largest nuclear weapon owner!).

Laptop stand

Why pay AUD45+ for a laptop stand when you can:
use wire mess


an old towel holder


or two wine cork


me? I use an old oven wire rack!

Should this watch be banned in schools?

From the website

The only watch that's also a weapon- it shoots BBs, dried peas, popcorn kernels, lentils and more up to 8 feet accross the room! This stainless steel watch will be the envy of the classroom or the meeting room.

Broadband in Australia

I wrote about the state of broadband in Australia. It was my speculation, no scientific method applied.

On the same track, if Australia were to be a US state, the broadband speed for our average home would be ranked 56 according to this report (via 2Cents Worth). (Assuming the average household will select the middle of the range of the plan and take into account the "shaping" every month when your monthly quota is reached.) See a sample price from one the many similar companies, TPG.com.au. The big name company is not any better, see Bigpond and Optus.

World today - its bare truth

via Evan McLintosh's Edu.blogs

Hans Rosling, showed us last year, how animated statistical data could impress us and make a change.

This year, he confirmed that UN has made its statistical data open from 1st May and stunned us with another series of data.

Make sure you watch the video to the end. Hans has an impressive performance you would wish for in any conference presentation.

Scientifically accurate visualization of 9/11 attack

from Purdue University

Australian ISP nukes all hosted audio and video files every night -2

Related to a previous post, there is digged article with a comment by NinjaBoy:

"their multimedia files keep disappearing from their accounts" Where the f--k are they storing their files? On the ISP's server? Thats kinda like saying the cops steals my weed every time i leave them on top of a cop car.

I'm no fan of this by any means but today i found a ton of mp3's on my server here at work. Know what i did? Delete the files.

Well NinjaBoy obviously did not understand the situation here in Australia. Our ISP normally will not supply a static IP. So, if we want to share some files or have a website, these digital files have to be on the ISP's server!

The issue is ISP should NOT be the cop. Period!

Broadband affordability in Australia

I was trying to get an ADSL2+ into my home. Nope, not available. The current speed is 1.5Mbps download and 256kbps upload. [I should be classified as a large volume user and I am willing to pay for my speed.] If Australia ever aspires to be a "smart"-country, we have to be faster, much faster!

From United Press:

Japanese Internet users enjoy speeds of 661 megabits per second, South Korea averages 45 mps, France has 17 mps, and Canada has an average 7 mps. The median U.S. speed was 1.97 mps, the study said.

OLDaily Chinese Version

The widely circulated OLDaily by Stephen Downes has a Chinese version.

Australian ISP nukes all hosted audio and video files every night

via BoingBoing

Exetel, an Australian ISP, silently deletes all the MP3s (and mpg, mpeg, avi, wma, and any other unspecified file types they deem to be "multimedia") from its users' Web-site every right.

and from Exetel's web page

Effective from 1st April 2005 scripts will be run nightly that will examine all disk content and delete any multimedia content with the extensions mp3, mpg, mpeg, avi, wma and any other multi media file type.

We, Australian citizens are in general law-binding citizens and DO NOT need ISP to enforce anything. We can do it ourselves as we deem fit.

For those who are using Exetel service, there are many other ISP who will and do not delete your files. You can switch and so that you do not need to write the stupid email if you want your files to be available to anyone else on Internet.

What students should learn today for tomorrow? - 2

In yesterday's post, I listed the curriculum for preparing our children for future.

For the skills that to be considered important, (useful starting today and likely be essential in the future) see Tony Karrer's post on Needed Skills for New Media. [Copy below without permission]

* Work Integration — the ability to leverage social media and personal learning as part of problem solving
* Meta-Learning — the ability to look at your own work and learning processes to continuously identify improvement opportunities
* Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
* Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix content as part of work and learning
* Scanning — the ability to quickly scan from a wide variety of sources, to focus on salient details in order to maintain a broad picture and also to focus as needed to salient details.
* Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
* Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
* Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
* Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of information and conversation across multiple modalities
* Networking Building — the ability to build a network of people who can help with a wide variety of needs
* Network Access - the ability to quickly access your network for a variety of different kinds of needs in different ways using different tools
* Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
* Knowledge Work - the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information as part of work processes that captures personal value, builds network, and collects appropriate feedback

As I have noted before, future jobs available in developed countries will be of three types: hospitality, creative and problem solving.

Hospitality (ie personal services including beauty salon, restaurants, healthcare, legal matters etc) is unlikely to be outsourced to cheap-labour countries. BUT, cheap-labour can be in-sourced!

Creativity is about finding markets, products or new ways of doing things. These are for the most entrepreneurial type of people. High risk with high returns. (Recent examples: Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, youTube, eBay, flickr,... sorry, I am not familiar with success outside IT area. I am sure there are many too.)

Problem solving is about fixing problems. These problems are unforeseen and many may not have a procedure to deal with. Some are caused by accidents or natural activities, and others are result of intentional attacks.

We should prepare our children to handle these situation by including the following skills as essential in their education.

So these are additional to Tony's list:

1. Creativity and innovation spirits


2. Sense of curiosity. Current education system seems to be very good at killing this. We should reverse this effect and encourage curiosity.


3. Balance of Risk and Reward assessment, again based on evidence and scientific principles


4. Resilience

Learning is Conversation - Revisited

Back on April 2, 2005 I took the 95 Theses from the Cluetrain Manifesto, substituted “learning” for “markets” and “students/parents” for “customers”.

This is a long list (68 in total). Here are the ones that I single out:

# Learning is conversation.
# Learning consists of human beings, not demographic sectors.
# The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
# These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.
There are no secrets. The networked learners know more than schools do about their own learning. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
# Schools that assume the online learning medium is the same as television are kidding themselves.
# Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.
# The community of discourse is the learning.
# Schools that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.
# There are three conversations going on. One inside the school. One among the parents. One among the students.
We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

Top 100 Web applications

These are the results of the top 100 Web applications, 10 in each of 10 categories, determined by Webware readers.

Question: How to display all these information on one page?

Answer: Go there to see for yourself. I think it is pretty cool!

More Google Gears Tech -2

Julien Couvreur has left a comment in David Van Couvering's post

Building P2P technology into the browser or into the browser's local server, is attractive but challenging.

I've done some small experiments building an HTTP entry point to a simple P2P service, so that I could access my personal files stored on various computers through a unified interface.

From what I can understand, it is more like a Private Information Network than P2P.

:-)

Different types of Realities

Physical Reality
This is where our carbon-based life form lives. This is kind of fundamental. Without an existence in Physical Reality, we may not have another existence in the rest of the realities I will describe in this post.

Virtual Reality
This is the 3-dimension world computer generates. You either put on a head-mount gear, wear some sensor-enabled clothing and walk in a VirtuSphere in an immersive VR. Alternately, you can control an avatar in a token-immersive VR. In both cases, the interactions of virtual artifacts are controlled by the computer. Second Life belongs to the latter in this group.

Augmented Reality
From Wikipedia, Augmented reality [snip] deals with the combination of real world and computer generated data. At present, most AR research is concerned with the use of live video imagery which is digitally processed and "augmented" by the addition of computer generated graphics. Advanced research includes the use of motion tracking data, fiducial marker recognition using machine vision, and the construction of controlled environments containing any number of sensors and actuators. Again, there are two sub groups here. Physical Reality augmented with virtual artifacts, such as Hear&There¹ or Magic Eye². Virtual Reality augmented with virtual artifacts such as Berlin in 3D for Google Earth or Las Vegas 3D Buildings. Historical events link to Google Earth, such as World War Two Google Earth Famous WW2 Battlefields Today, part 1 and 2. Last, but not the least, Google street view where physical space's photos are used to augment virtual space.

Imagined Reality
This is the scenery we found when reading novels such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, written by Mr. Mark Twain where our brain will fill in the missing parts from the author's description.




¹Hear&There allows people to virtually drop sounds at any location in the real world. Once one of these "SoundSpots" has been created, an individual using the Hear&There system will be able to hear it. We envision these sounds being recordings of personal thoughts or anecdotes, and music or other sounds that are associated with a given area.
²let the user see the real world around him and augment the user's view of the real world by overlaying or composing three-dimensional virtual objects with their real world counterparts. Ideally, it would seem to the user that the virtual and real objects coexisted.

cross posted to EnRoLE

What students should learn today for tomorrow?

Before revealing what students must do, here is the list of what students must NOT do:

No holidays
Learning is human nature. We breathe continuously, so is learning. There should not be any term-break, weekends or holidays. Learning should occur 24/7 everyday every year continuous both online and offline. Day time is continuous. Stock market in HongKong closes and then open in London and then in New York. Things are happening continuously.

School is not THE school
Learning occurs anywhere, anytime. School is a meeting place. One of many other meeting places. School helps organise learning and support learning. Some learning may occur at school, most learning at places (including virtual spaces) other than school. School may be a virtual space too.

Learning, playing and working have NO distinction
Take preparing lunch as an example. Preparing the daily lunch is work, but is also learning because we should continuously look for improvement, collect data about the food, the preparation process. As noted before, school is NOT a specific place. Lunch can be prepared in kitchen, in park or in a commerical kitchen. Obviously, it should be and is fun too!


Here is the list of what I believe should be the curriculum in no particular order:

Languages
Minimum four languages: English, Chinese, one other human language (including sign language) and a scripting or programming language.
Reason:
English is now the default for online communication, business transactions, major publications...
Chinese is the language of one quarter of the world's population. (Still need more convincing?) China will be the economic power house in this century.
One other language is for appreciation of world diversity.
These three languages should achieve fluent speaking level BEFORE age 5. Children learn languages easily when young. These languages must continue throughout the formal education years for further development and consolidation. May be they can drop them at University level.
The scripting/programming language is for discipline training and procedural thinking development. Should start at beginning of secondary school if not earlier.

Communication skill
Knowing a language is not the same as having the ability to communicate effectively. Students should be able to communicate effectively in different genres of expression for appropriate audience under different situation using different technologies including face to face, telephone, teleconference (audio only and audio+video), web-based technologies including discussion forum, blogs, wiki, chat, ....
Reason:
Examples speak louder.

Self Entertaining Development
One musical instrument (including human vocal), one non-digital art (painting, pottery, photograph, sculpture, ..), one sport and one mental game (such as chess, bridge, or other form of quiz/puzzle).
Reason:
All work no play make Albert a dull man!

Evidence-based data-based learning
Scientific method (or the subject matter themselves although different subject matter are used as examples of practising Scientific method). Data collection, analysis and presentation (numeracy and mathematics are learnt under data processing). Note: "Religious Studies" is ABSOLUTELY not allowed to be "taught" in any school at any time.
Reason:
Today's world is filled by miracles created by the relentless application of scientific methods. All technological achievements human has made, with no exception, are based on principled understanding of the world. This will not change in the future. A sound basis to tackle problem with evidence, data and disciplined methodology is critical for future citizen to solve unforeseen problems and challenges.

Authentic learning
Learning does not occur in vacuum. When we want to achieve a goal, a game goal or a life goal, we need skill and knowledge. That's the best time to learn. Learning is organised as tasks which lead to an overall goal aligned with learner's interest. Like many times in life, we sometime practice and rehearse. These can be done with simulators or role playing games.

Final Remarks

You may notice that I do not include any traditional subjects in the above list. Not that I don't believe they are important. I just don't believe compartmentisation of subject areas are effective strategies. By organising learning goals which require understanding of culture issues will cover traditional subjects such as history or literature. By organising investigative activities will cover subjects such as chemistry, physics, mathematics and so on. A collection of mathematical games (covered in the self entertaining section) will cover interesting subject areas such as cosmology in Physics, Fractals etc in Mathematics and other interests.

Please let me know what you think? Am I too radical? or too conservative?

Demystifying Holy Grails of Innovation

Our education system is too old to meet today's requirement.

This is likely to be a post not you would have expected. But just stay with me for a while.

The article (an article on an article originally published by Business Week) is about innovation processes. First the classic Six Sigma is considered not working by way of the lack of innovation of 3M:

The magazine illustrates the ramifications of ill-directed Six Sigma rigor by juxtaposing the leadership philosophies of James McNerney and George Buckley at 3M and showing how an over-emphasis on process-quality led to “sameness” and the gradual waning of the company’s innovative power. Process-obsession may in fact be opposed to “the new age of creativity” that propels hyper-customization and attempts to save brands from the “death spiral of commoditization.” If you measure everything you manage, risky ideas will not spark.

By contrast, Apple is receiving a lot of praise. To summarize:
The four principles of innovation from Apple’s success are:

1. Network innovation – “very welcome” vs. “not invented here”
2. User first! – design around the needs of the user not the demands of the technology.
3. Discover untapped markets – listen to what your customers do not say rather than relying solely on the requirements they articulate
4. Fail wisely – allow failure but don’t make the same mistake twice

This is all fine on paper and this blog is NOT about innovation in business. So you have asked why you should read on. Since you are here already, the relationship is about how we should "teach" our next generation.

I wrote over three years ago,
our future in the developed world is

a future where

repetitive tasks will be replaced by computer and machinery,

creativity and innovation are critical,

communication skill, team work and problem solving skill are important,

productivity must be so high that an average people will support the needs of parents who had inadequately funded their retirement and children of their own

Solving (new, unforeseen, complicated and complex) problem will be everyday job of citizens of the future. For the more ambitious few, they will need to come up with totally new idea to meet not-yet-filled, unknown market demands.

This article basically has thrown out the prospect of any process as a potential "must-learn" subject for our students. The BIG question is WHAT we should teach our students today to equip them to meet challenges from the future.

Any suggestion? Tomorrow, I shall reveal my current thinking.

A good story is a good story even the ending is not what you have expected

BoingBoing has a post about a lawyer going after a DVD rental service. The owner has been publishing the email messages he's received from the lawyer. By part 6 of the series, the emails developed into unbelievable tones: [Quoting from BB]

Tourtelot [Lawyer]: Dear Mr. Corcoran [DVD rental Store owner]: I am in receipt of your e-mail to my client, Mr. XXX. I note your comments about me. I have a proposition for you. I will pay your way to California if you will agree to come and meet me in a gym, the address of which the limo driver who meets your flight will have.

Oh yes, the deal only includes a one-way ticket, as I do not believe you will be needing the return portion! Ciao, and have a good day. RHT

Corcoran: Are you proposing a boxing or MMA match?

I accept. I’ll pay my own way back, of course.

Any weekend in June works for me.

Please mail the airline ticket (departing from Logan Airport, in Boston) to the address I previously supplied.

I look forward to our bout (I usually do heavy bag work in my training sessions, but I’ll make sure to add some speed bag work to the mix over the next few weeks).

Shall we specify the same $1,000 wager that you suggested to Mr. XXX in your bet about my height?

Tourtelot: Plain and simple, pal. A street fight.! By the way, do you have a Black Belt also?

Corcoran: Please send the plane ticket.

By part 7, the situation took a very unexpected turn. (I don't want to spoil your reading pleasure, please read the series starting from here if you have time.)

As a role play designer, I found this example very important and a great lesson to learn.

A good story is a good story even the ending is not what you have expected.

A good role play is a good role play even the ending is not what you have expected.

ps Life is really stranger than fiction.

The beginning of the end for the industrial schooling system?

by Graham Attwell

Eleven existing secondary schools in Merseyside will be closed by 2009 and replaced by "learning centres" where they

will open from 7am until 10pm in both term-time and what used to be known as the school holidays. At weekends, they will open from 9am to 8pm.

Youngsters will not be taught in formal classes, nor will they stick to a rigid timetable; instead they will work online at their own speeds on programmes that are tailor-made to match their interests.

The students (should we still refer to them as "students" or "customer" or "client"?) will be given the day's assignments and then they can disperse into Internet Cafe zones to carry them out.

The focus of the new learning centres, according to what Graham quoted, are mainly vocational such as "haircare, beauty therapy, leisure and tourism, and engineering as well as the more traditional academic subjects"

This is certainly a bold move. I believe the success depends on the nitty-gritty of implementing the concept.

Creativity

Do you remember the days when we made toys for ourselves? It seems that our children in the developed world are not doing this anymore. I don't know whether this will become a problem later in their lives or not. The African children are full of ingenuity. See African Children’s Toys: Ingenuity Starts at a Young Age

All you need to know about elearning?

via Harold Jarche

I found Google Apps for Education and Google for Educators in the article.

None of these are new. Just different combination of the online tools by Google grouped together and some example uses. Anyway, it is worth a look to see examples.

Birth Order and future success

from Scientific American

Some sniplets from the article:

Past studies of birth order and IQ have produced a mix bag of data; studies of children found that younger siblings fare better on the tests, but research on adults and teens showed the opposite.

Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal studied 241,300 Norwegians, focusing on men. Not only did they find that first-borns had higher IQs (103.2) than second-borns (100.4) and third-borns (99), but they also say that social rank, rather than birth order per se, is the determining factor.

They reached this conclusion by looking at families whose first-borns died in infancy. In such cases, the second-borns' scores rose, to an average IQ of 102.6. Third-borns whose two older brothers died jumped the most, to 103.5.

Robert Zajonc to explain why, as children at least, younger siblings outscored their top-bunk mates. These youngsters evidently derive wisdom from the older siblings and get an IQ boost; that ends during the teen years because the older kids gain more benefit from tutoring, rather than being tutored. You handle a topic more adeptly when you have to teach it to someone else.

In any case, the study illustrates the power of the environment on IQ. The best example is the Flynn Effect, which shows that IQ scores have been rising over the generations, a rise attributable to the environment more so than to genes.

All emphasis are mine.