TEDxNYED - George Siemens - 03/06/10

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the importance of education beyond corporate interests, advocating for a system that fosters individual growth and societal contribution. They argue against the reduction of education to mere vocational training, highlighting the need for a system that values social connections and critical thinking. The speaker shares personal experiences to illustrate the contrast between traditional social learning and modern information-based education, and calls for an educational model that integrates social and technological connections to prepare students for a complex world.

Takeaways

• 🤔 The speaker expresses concern over the framing of education, arguing it should not be solely focused on creating better corporate citizens or employees.
• 🌟 Education's vital task, according to Edgar Morin, is to prepare individuals for societal participation, contribution, and interaction, not just to serve corporate interests.
• 🚫 The speaker warns against modeling education systems after corporate structures, which are not designed for optimal connection capacities but rather for specific, narrow goals.
• 🏡 Reflecting on his upbringing in Mexico, the speaker contrasts the social richness of a small, clustered community with its limitations in information distribution and innovation.
• 🌐 The speaker emphasizes the importance of collapsing connections between social and technological realms to enhance learning and societal development.
• 🔄 The internet is seen as a tool to reconnect information with social roots, offering opportunities for authentic information interrogation and social interaction.
• 🛠️ Technology is viewed as an embodiment of philosophy and ideology, with the design of educational tools like Blackboard influencing what permissions and freedoms learners have.
• 🌐 The speaker advocates for learning in transparent ways, where the act of showing how we learn becomes an instructional task, fostering connections and interactions.
• 🌱 The course 'Connectivism and Connective Knowledge' is highlighted as an example of disrupting traditional educational models to encourage decentralized learning and the formation of connections.
• 🔗 The challenge in education is to create centralized, coherent outcomes through decentralized, distributed processes, ensuring that fragmentation leads to advanced conceptual understanding.

Q & A

What is the speaker's primary concern about the current framing of education?

The speaker's primary concern is that education is being framed in a way that serves corporate interests rather than preparing individuals to be active, contributing members of society.

How does the speaker view the role of technology in education?

The speaker sees technology as a tool that can bind information to social roots, enabling authentic information interrogation systems and social overlays that were not possible before.

What does the speaker believe is the vital task of education according to Edgar Moren?

According to Edgar Moren, the vital task of education is to prepare individuals for the vital combat for lucidity, to be part of society, to contribute, create, share, and interact.

Why does the speaker express concern over the solutions to the problem of education?

The speaker is concerned that the solutions to education are starting to focus more on creating better corporate citizens and employees rather than fostering critical thinking and societal contribution.

What is the significance of the kerosene lamp in the speaker's narrative?

The kerosene lamp symbolizes the speaker's childhood experiences in a small, clustered social system where information was shared and social identity was formed, despite the limitations of a closed information distribution structure.

How does the speaker describe the shift in the educational system when they moved to Canada?

The speaker describes the shift as an exchange of social identity for information value, where the emphasis was on information exchange and validation based on the scientific method, but lacked the social connections of their earlier experiences.

What does the speaker advocate for in terms of learning transparency?

The speaker advocates for learning transparency because it allows individuals to become teachers by showing others how they learn, which is an instructional task and an opportunity for connection.

What is the main challenge the speaker identifies in the use of technology in education?

The main challenge identified is the balance between the fragmentation of information and the need for a coherent narrative that allows for advanced conceptual understanding.

What is the 'Private Universe' phenomenon mentioned by the speaker?

The 'Private Universe' phenomenon refers to the lack of connectedness in information, leading to people holding incorrect assumptions for long periods, as illustrated by the inability of Harvard graduates to explain why we have seasons.

How does the speaker suggest we should approach the future of education?

The speaker suggests that the future of education should focus on collapsing its functions, curriculum, teaching methods, and inquiry down to the point of connectedness, fostering better citizens and members of society.