When bureaucracies kick in the real world stops. Obama started work for proper last week and hit the same problems that teachers, administrators and civil servants hit every day: the technology with which he and his advisers are so fluent, the technology that helped them win the election is blocked and filtered.
What does it mean? According to a fascinating piece in the Washington Post, no Facebook to communicate with citizens including his supporters (apparently 80% of the country at the moment), no outside email accounts or address books to maintain contact.
Officials also hit that well-trodden path of many a creative educator:
Jeff Jarvis makes a separate but related point, based on discussions he had two years ago as Britain's opposition party prepared digitally for an eventual (and as yet unheld) election: if you're going to win democracy with technology, you've got to continue governing with technology.
It leaves an interesting question for Obama in office, but also a question that filters down through the country's schools, hospitals and bureaucracies: if the White House and Downing Street increasingly rely upon social, mobile and gaming tools to survive and carry out their business to their best abilities, when will the obligation hit our other public institutions?
Obama is now the first ever President to have a computer in the Oval Office, in the form of the 'BarackBerry'. He's doing what millions of teachers and students are obliged to do - use mobile devices to circumvent the slow-moving load of bureaucracy.
Is it not time that this question is asked loud and clear and repeatedly by the lobby of millions of vocal teachers already thriving on the web: when can all our public institutions join the free world?
I was thrilled to hear that colleagues in Channel 4's Film4 (well, it's a table with two or three people at Horseferry Road) have had a significant hand in winning twelve Oscar nominations. All year they've been winning prizes for Hunger, and now Slumdog Millionnaire, In Bruges and Happy-Go-Lucky add to that.
Working in an organisation where every week its Chief Executive is able to send emails telling the whole staff of the latest world-class awards being nominated or won by colleagues is, I think, quite rare. But it also has the effect of raising everyone's game. How many jobs have you been in where every week, at least once, you're asking if the project you are thinking of doing or stuck in the middle of has the potential to be world class? Even the lead of Slumdog, Dev Patel, was discovered and had his first acting role on another award-winning production shown first on and made for Channel 4's teen channel E4, Skins.
If only more schools set their ambition levels at that level, not at the vagaries of "excellence" and "21st century", but at "world class". If only more teachers saw their role as contributing to the potential of their students to win the imaginary plaudit of educational Oscars or Webbys in the same way as a Commissioner at Channel 4 looks to make their independent companies' productions become the best in the world at what they do.
It's not that every idea gets there, but one thing is certainly true: We all get closer to world class by consistently working towards that level and being around others who do, too.
The film buffs amongst you might want to read more on the fine heritage of Film4. Meanwhile, I wonder whether anyone would have the guts to proclaim their Curriculum is not one for Excellence, but The Best Curriculum In The World. At least at that point, the goal is clearer for everyone involved.
Through Techcrunch, Arrington geeking out on websites while the rest of us were watching and twittering the inauguration of new President Obama, we discover that the White House website changed drastically, too. The home page's main feature is a blog, with feeds galore, a weekly video update and photo slideshows. In the same way that technology helped win the election for Obama, we can only hope that it will enable greater democracy during his next four years as President.
So David's school is a rather expensive one in a nice bit of the South East, but that doesn't negate the fact that his teaching of technology and the issues around it this past term has been astounding.
Students are not just using games for learning but they're thinking about it, too, everyone - including the students - reading Johnson's theories for starters. And they've had talks from half of Web 2.0's glitterati: the founding director of carbon footprint company AMEE, the creator of Pepys' Diary, the company behind Channel 4's latest games project about your genes (Routes), author and hyperlocal website founder Steven Berlin Johnson, coder and writer suprème Tom Armitage, and sci-fi writer, gamer and husband-of-dear-colleague Cory Doctorow.
If schools are worried (and they are) about how to teach technology in an age where students and their teachers think young people know it all, then engaging young people and their teachers in higher order thinking and real-life entrepreneurialism like this is a damned good way of taking the lead in creativity through technology. Congrats, David, on a superb term. Can't wait to see what's in store this Spring!
Pic of David Smith
It's as if I owned one-and-a-half hummers, apparently, my travel for one year. This poster chart for a year of travel highlights is lovely touch from the lads at Dopplr. Click the image to view the full version.
My big boss at Channel 4 (spot the new website), Chief Executive Andy Duncan, gave a speech last week in anticipation of the Digital Britain report, the first part of which is released next week. In it he makes some key points about the importance of the public service intervention we are making on the web, mobile and gaming with 4iP, but also stresses why Government needs to act rather than talk about broadband access for all.
I still hear about the digital divide as a legitimate excuse for not embracing technologies and equally a reason for blocking and banning sites with which the Establishment of our education institutions don't agree or don't understand. It's the main reason for a propagation of 'safe' social networking sites and school intranets destined for tweens and teens who spend up to six hours a night unleashed in the 'real' online world, reaping the benefits this untempered activity has to offer. Making sure all citizens have access is a key "must-change" in 2009:
This documentary reveals that shamans were the first healers and scientists and are responsible for early human evolution. By inducing an altered or shamanic state of consciousness, they were the ancient astronauts that explored the mystical regions of the mind for the protection and growth of their societies.
In the post-war era, a wave of decolonisation swept across the decaying British Empire. British forces became embroiled in a number guerrilla wars. In Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus and Malaya, indigenous forces waged war on their imperial oppressors. However, Britains long running struggle with the Irish Republican Army has proved to be the most enduring, and arguably most damaging, conflict of all.
Based on Karen Armstrong's book, this film examines the concept of God in the three major monotheistic religions from the days of Abraham to modern times. Through analysis of historic and holy texts and incorporation of ancient art and artifacts, the program explores the deity written about in the Bible and the Quran. The evolution and intertwining of various Christian, Jewish and Islamic interpretations of God are also addressed.
The War on Drugs has become the longest and most costly war in American history, the question has become, how much more can the country endure?
It is a small nation in an unforgiving land, surrounded by enemies. It fought three large-scale wars in the years between 1950 and 1980, and countless smaller engagements during and since that time. Not surprisingly, Israeli experts have designed and developed some extremely effective weapons to help in their seemingly never-ending battle to defend their homeland.
At a time when America's relationship with Saudi Arabia is under close scrutiny because of the war against terrorism, this timely profile looks at the colourful history of Saudi Arabia's royal rulers. Discover how charismatic King Ibn Saud went from being a desert warrior to leader of the largest oil-producing nation in the world, and how his 4 successors have been both friends and foes of the U.S.
"Why should I learn Algebra...? I have no intention of ever going there." Billy Connolly had a point.
Schooling, despite the concentration on curriculum and assessment reform in recent years, largely still hasn't tackled the main issue: meaningless (to young people) pedagogy. It's not the fault of teachers, of course, but of those who "manage change" not managing to give enough time for teachers to think about what they would do differently from the last 400 years. One day extra a year for "the biggest innovation in curriculum in a generation" is to ridicule the enormity of the task in hand.
Cue The Alternative School (TAS), a non-profit initiative for those kids who don't 'get' regular schooling, and is arguably doing already what most schools strive for and don't quite attain across the board. Their new blog gives a flavour of some of the activity they have been up to, and their latest post features a superb film starring some of the young people involved in the programme. One to keep an eye on and learn from as things develop more in the open with their new blog.
Bunking Off - The Alternative School from Kirsty Anne Pugh on Vimeo.
Part 1 of 6. Explores the revolution in astronomy launched by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Part 2 of 6. Explores the revolution in astronomy launched by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Part 4 of 6. Explores the revolution in astronomy launched by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Free energy and anti-gravity are new solutions to the world's energy crisis. Rarely mentioned in the media-- even as power shortages cripple the U.S. Zero-Point Energy can transform our earth to a self-sustaining, pollution-free planet. The basic theory of Zero Point Energy maintains that there are fluctuations of electrical field energy embedded within the fabric of space. By identifying the densest energy; and then using today's technology to balance the energy flow, we can acquire free energy which doesn't deplete the earth.
