Do you have enough tools? Do you possess enough software packages? Do you own or rent the ability to make something? Chances are you probably do. With the average computer containing word processing software able to write, append, index and paginate a book, and spreadsheet software able to calculate enormous ideas, you could do anything, but do you?
Computers have allowed us access to tools that were fantasy a few decades ago. I am now wondering if we have too much, if getting the tools is more important than mastering them. I need to learn a new vector graphics package and when I checked, I already had 3 good ones but wasn't sure which to concentrate on from now on in. I still remember the first one I truly mastered, Acorn Draw. It seemed to only have about 11 tools, but I did wonders with it. Images were laboriously built up from sub bits and the whole grouped together. True it was a nightmare to edit parts later but with so few tools you could concentrate on being creative.
On my iPad I tend to use 'Paper 53' which is stripped down to 6 tools, 8 colours but a blindingly fast interface which doesn't slow my thinking down. I actually have all the major vector graphics packages for the iPad but long ago gave up trying to interpret their quirks and inconsistencies. I no longer carry a paper pad, just my iPad and the 'Paper 53' software. In a technical sense such simplification could be seen as going backwards, but because I am getting meaningful things down quickly and joyously.. I feel like I'm moving forward!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
The UK has education today in the spotlight. Government has announced a 'new' approach to exams it wants to introduce and the headlines talk of a future where exams at the end of a course are the only way to judge a students learning rather than modular examinations and coursework.
I failed A'level Geography many years ago. I knew my stuff, and when my favourite topics came up in the paper in front of me, volcanoes and solifluction, I was extremely confident in answering the single exam that summed up the 500 days I had been studying for this subject. I flopped and I do not know why to this day. It might have been a lost paper or an accounting error or more likely I failed to read the question properly but I had been predicted a 'B'. Does one death or glory moment adequately summarise a persons abilities?
I also failed the '11 plus' and was not picked for the local technical school. Something deeply ironic there I think!
My favourite author, William Gibson, said (And I am massively simplifying here) that a young person in a poor area of south america could become a reasonable expert on classic mechanical watches within a year by studying in his own time using the Internet despite never handling or building a watch like it. I think his implication is that the knowledge we defined in the past as demonstrating a high level of ability is now easily disseminated through the Internet and thus I suggest that learning requires different approaches.
Memory was a key element in proving intelligence in the past as well, but one which tended to favour the more 'academically gifted. I know people in occupations where a prodigious memory is an absolute necessity and it is no coincidence that these are also subjects seen as among the highest callings by universities, those the government claims are amongst many crying out for these fundamental examination changes.
I advise on Technology, an area where a good memory is also essential but I value how that learned information is used more. By the time a teacher tells a child what pewter is made of, the child can look up the fact and get an idea of what it can be used for and view 100 images of pewter objects. It is how we use information, the fine detail, the experimentation, that is where future learning should be. Maybe we need to drop the requirement to find out basic stuff like what pewter is made of, and switch the whole of education to what we do with such information. I will watch the present education debate with some interest... if I remember!
I failed A'level Geography many years ago. I knew my stuff, and when my favourite topics came up in the paper in front of me, volcanoes and solifluction, I was extremely confident in answering the single exam that summed up the 500 days I had been studying for this subject. I flopped and I do not know why to this day. It might have been a lost paper or an accounting error or more likely I failed to read the question properly but I had been predicted a 'B'. Does one death or glory moment adequately summarise a persons abilities?
I also failed the '11 plus' and was not picked for the local technical school. Something deeply ironic there I think!
My favourite author, William Gibson, said (And I am massively simplifying here) that a young person in a poor area of south america could become a reasonable expert on classic mechanical watches within a year by studying in his own time using the Internet despite never handling or building a watch like it. I think his implication is that the knowledge we defined in the past as demonstrating a high level of ability is now easily disseminated through the Internet and thus I suggest that learning requires different approaches.
Memory was a key element in proving intelligence in the past as well, but one which tended to favour the more 'academically gifted. I know people in occupations where a prodigious memory is an absolute necessity and it is no coincidence that these are also subjects seen as among the highest callings by universities, those the government claims are amongst many crying out for these fundamental examination changes.
I advise on Technology, an area where a good memory is also essential but I value how that learned information is used more. By the time a teacher tells a child what pewter is made of, the child can look up the fact and get an idea of what it can be used for and view 100 images of pewter objects. It is how we use information, the fine detail, the experimentation, that is where future learning should be. Maybe we need to drop the requirement to find out basic stuff like what pewter is made of, and switch the whole of education to what we do with such information. I will watch the present education debate with some interest... if I remember!
Friday, September 14, 2012
More Augmented Reality!
Am working on a proposal to put 10 famous engineering achievements into schools full size or at least enormous. Following the success of working with an Academy to turn students Olympic ideas into 4 metre high 3D mascots
I have adapted the technology to show examples such as Stephenson's Rocket in a school hall or playground. I am experimenting with adding info panels, transparent text panels that pop into view as you walk round or rotate the model so students can get more than just a 3D image.
As well as this I am working on other projects including these:
Am working on a proposal to put 10 famous engineering achievements into schools full size or at least enormous. Following the success of working with an Academy to turn students Olympic ideas into 4 metre high 3D mascots
(Here are the students drawing and the final model displayed full size, as you walk round the model it correctly scales and alters the view so it appears to be really there, 4 metres high)
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| Students winning drawing |
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| Augmented Reality model viewed through iPod |
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| This is displayed half size |
- Using an 8 pin PIC as a drum trigger to enable a folding amplified 'box' drum to be created
- Developing a super low cost self propelled cable car kit
- Developing a torsion rod powered vehicle
- Setting up an inter school online competition around 1 hour practical tasks
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