Must see: Shift Happens
Posted On Thursday, August 30, 2007 at at 8/30/2007 10:46:00 PM by L SantoroThis takes a few minutes to watch, but it's well worth it given our discussion at the CPATH meeting.
Dan Francisco
http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift
Of course, most of that data is put together like subjective statistics, but there's no denying the macro trends. Dan Francisco
Good find, Dan… Kind of “the word is flat” in <5 minutes. Best point is the one on preparing people for work on problems that have not been defined wiyh technology that doesn’t exist. Someone needs to get this message to the politicians who think that rote memorization and regurgitation will ever yield much in the way of problem-solving capacity.
We need to consider this in curriculum terms as well. What is infrastructural in nature and what is trivia or so task-specific that it’s virtually unusable in most other contexts. How do we deliver solid infrastructural, analytical, problem-solving skills (attitudes?, perspectives? “skills” has too much baggage…) in the context of domain-specific training/learning experiences. I believe this needs to be in our mission along with the vertical training markets we discussed at length last week.
Phil Tierney
Intel Innovation Centre
How do we get a username/password to view it?
If you build it, will they come?
One conclusion that can be drawn from the movie is that curriculum should be more “analytic-centric” and less “task specific” so as to prepare students to solve problems that do not yet exist. So, how does one market such an “analytic-centric” curriculum? For example, most ordinary people do not know what an engineer does. They think its math - and maybe math is not their favorite hobby. Actually, engineers create the future - and its one of the most interesting jobs available. The situation is more complex with “computing” because the field is even more varied and often very abstract.
So, if one made an awesome curriculum, would it be recognized as such? Should we, and how would we, build awareness of the value of this type of curriculum?
dan ross has a good point...that marketing "analytic-centric" curricula may present marketing difficulties since strategic direction requires fundamental understanding, and employers' present pain makes tactical direction more understandable, targeted and defensible.
i suspect we miss opportunities to emphasize the value of technology to non-technology-focused curriculum by failing to design into the non-tech courses examples, practice and coaching on using tools (at the end of the day, isn't that all tech really is?) So maybe if students see examples of very interesting mashups (zillow.com, etc.) in real estate classes, some would think to themselves..."hmmm, i'd like to be a creator of this sort of material". Or perhaps extracting data from an mls and doing an analysis of neighborhood trends provides a certain level of fluency that at least raises general skill levels and might just recruit another tech focused student or two.
so, yes, strategic or horizontal (here are some tools & methods that you may just find useful elsewhere) thinking about tech in curriculum may be more difficult to design and implement, isn't there an opportunity to do some cross-departmental teaming to foster more cross-disciplinary exposure? is it possible that if we
show tech in broader contexts and design experiential learning into traditionally non-tech curriculum that we might just raise the awareness, stature and perceived value of technology-focused skills and careers? just focusing on skills for the tool-makers or the empathetic is likely to generate the same low interest levels that NSF wants to fix. it's all about context.
1. What is the optimal size of this group?
In general, the group size should not exceed 20 people. My reasoning on this number is that if we get too many people then individual contribution is very difficult to ascertain. That said, it is necessary to have enought people to represent the segments of community, education, and industry.
There should be two people from each segment/school/discipline/business. One primary and one backup.
2. Who should be represented?
a. Big industry (intel, SMUD, etc.)
b. Mom and pop (search the yellow pages and select a few business to solicit involvement from. also, tap into the Chamber of Commerce)
3. How should attendees be recruited?
a. Personal invitation from FLC - Gary.
b. Invitations from members to co-workers or other networks.
4. How should the seminar be structured?
a. Solid agenda with goals and activities clearly mapped out.
b. Break-out/working groups to work on the activities and deliverables.
c. Roll up/report out sessions to allow the working groups to report on their results.
5. What are the critical issues for discussion?
a. Solicitation of individual goals and objectives. (What do individuals want to get out of the team's collective work?)
6. What are some relevant goal statements for this activity?
TBD