Vorg education RSS feed

Ice Dancing Needs More Of This (NSFW?)

vinny9 — 2009-03-11T16:41:27-04:00

Faith is Bliss

vinny9 — 2008-07-10T10:29:58-04:00

Louisiana is legislating that other theories of life can be debated/taught in schools in the name of "academic freedom".

Now I'm all open to debating the flaws of evolutionary theory and where it breaks down. And I am pro challenging it with strong and convincing evidence/arguments/experiments. However, I am against the monumental intellectual dishonesty that will surely follow in this case.

At the same time, do a people have a right to miseducate themselves? If a corner of society wants to teach that 2+2=5, I'm tempted to say, "let them". I'd get the fuck out of there myself because I'm not interested in participating in it nor do I care to associate myself with people who get behind this kind of thinking.

Here's my question: if I was a Federal educator, would I try to prevent that or let it be fought locally? Do I have a duty to stop it?

Missing Class

goodladd — 2007-03-14T19:28:36-04:00

This is neither silly nor technical, but it's a neat article about everything that's wrong with American universities, and I felt like sharing.

Adrienne, I expect you to explain its conclusions with great exasperation to your mother at some point in the next week.

Vancouver continuing education

dustin — 2007-01-05T07:30:24-05:00

Of all the fliers that piled up in my apartment over the holidays, the only interesting one was the Continuing Education Program of the Vancouver School Board. They offer some normal academic classes, but what interested me was the huge variety of general interest seminars they offer. Cooking, dancing, computers, languages, art, business, personal development, and more.

I registered for a pair of 1 day courses about investing and memory boosting, as well as a longer swing dance course (bring it on Nikki).

We don't need no thought control

dustin — 2006-11-13T20:52:20-05:00

Here's an interesting interview about radical education reform:

"We need to kill the poison plant we created," Gatto has written. "School reform is not enough. The notion of schooling itself must be challenged." His alternative: to get rid of institutional mass-production schools, allow every imaginable experiment to blossom, make free public libraries universal, and expand hands-on apprenticeships.

I don't agree with everything the guy says, but I do agree that the public school system needs a serious shake-up.

Sillysoft Education Plan

dustin — 2006-07-29T04:53:44-04:00

I'm starting a special education deal, with 2 main programs:

1. Schools can get American History Lux for free.

2. CS, math, and engineering students and departments can get free Lux Delux registrations.

Full details on the program are here: http://sillysoft.net/schools/

The rational behind this is described (and commented on) in this IndieGamer thread that I started.

Educate Your Creativity

dustin — 2006-07-27T04:39:52-04:00

I just watched a video of Sir Ken Robinson talk about creativity as part of TED Talks.

One of his main points in that our current education system is designed to drive out creativity and variety from students. That it doesn't properly recognize the value that each person has. I agree with this.

His second main point was that some people are just meant to be dancers. Somewhat odd, but he is British after all.

- via Guy Kawasaki. More discussion about which talks are good is here and here.

The right solution

vinny9 — 2006-05-19T13:38:23-04:00

The downside to food aid

Top Universities in the World

dustin — 2004-09-26T19:25:13-04:00

Here's a nice list of the top world universities based on academic and research performance. It's pretty remarkable how well the US does. They have a clear lock on the top. Canada does decently, with 4 of the top 100. It was compiled by a chinese university.

Via the Edinburgher (xoxo).

MIT Open Course Ware saves Nigeria!

dustin — 2004-04-03T01:09:20-05:00

Today Mariana told me about some guy from Nigeria who emailed the Concordia Linguistics Student Association saying that they wanted to start a linguistics program but they didn't have any books or anything.

I mentioned to her that MIT had an Open Course Ware project going on, where they are putting all the materials for all of their classes online. MIT has a strong linguistics program, so I'm sure it's a valuable resource for the Nigerian dude. But MIT is strong in other things as well (computer science, engineering, AI, robotics, etc). So maybe there's something in this Open Course Ware program that's valuable for you?