learning

Best Of: Education

by Brian on 11-08-2009

in creativity,education

Becoming a subject and future panelist for the UWO Online Journalism class’s EduPunk team has thankfully put my ass into gear. Education strayed off my radar for a bit; but looking back, a lot of what I’ve written is even more consistent with EduPunk than I knew. Sometimes these cut-and-paste sessions make everything more coherent… Creative Learning [...]

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Personal Education

by Brian on 10-29-2009

in education,media

Last week I was flattered by an invitation to be interviewed about my DIY approach to education. Nicole Veerman, Jim Saunders and Steve Howard from Wayne MacPhail‘s Online Journalism course at UWO went easy on me but I managed to flub most of it anyways. Between that conversation and the interview I had with Thomas Cermak from LondonFuse.ca [...]

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Few people would disagree that as more brands & memes vie for our attention, the simple act of communicating has become an accelerating arms race. We shouldn’t necessarily complain. Not more than a decade ago it would have been impossible for most of us to get any kind of public attention for our products or [...]

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Our Greek World

by Brian on 10-05-2009

in a2bb,civics,education

I’ve been meaning to do one of these Open Yale Courses online for a while. I’d love to watch Robert Shiller’s course in financial markets (I think Shiller is great but I’m undecided how much I can really tolerate hearing about financial markets…) You can also view Paul Bloom’s introduction to psychology. I haven’t looked at many [...]

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Learning Heuristically

by Brian on 09-30-2009

in art,creativity,education

“Heuristic” — an ugly word that everyone should know — is used differently in various contexts. It generally refers to a process of making open-ended, provisional decisions in order to get into a better position — “for now” — from which to act and decide better later: Let’s see how this works out — find [...]

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Another Look at LDNbeta

by LDNbeta on 08-30-2009

in a2bb,civics,london

No I haven’t forgot about the little endeavour I launched in May: I started thinking we need someplace to just try stuff. If it works, then great: we can replicate it on our own sites or even develop something more permanent, public, and professional. If it doesn’t work, then that’s ok too: without actually losing [...]

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There’s been a lot of press for Alison Gopnik’s new book, The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love and the Meaning of Life. Via Bookforum, here’s my lazy way of linking to this review … (and more and more and more and more and more and more). And here’s a short video. Here’s also an opinion piece at the New [...]

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Create Your Own University

by Brian on 08-14-2009

in economics,education

This is going to be a big theme for me in the near future… … the Web’s infinite niches make for richer possibilities for identity construction—it creates, as it were, a bubble in personal identity. We thereby need a platform where our social production—in this case, of our own identity—can be consumed, where the value [...]

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At HarvardBusiness.org, Tammy Erickson writes, Future leaders in all spheres will have to contend with a world with finite limits, no easy answers, and the sobering realization that we are facing significant, seemingly intractable problems on multiple fronts. Perhaps the biggest change from the past: leaders will have to listen and respond to diverse points [...]

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Going Back

by Brian on 07-21-2009

in creativity,education,london,media

I’m still posting more or less daily at Open/Conceptual, focusing on some special interest stuff there, but I haven’t been doing much for BrianFrank.ca lately. It’ll probably stay this way for a while. Lately I’ve been looking back at where I’ve come from. I actually forgot how non-blog-like my blogging was a little over a [...]

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Burying the Best and the Brightest

by OpenConceptual on 07-09-2009

in commentary

I’ve been thinking about the pernicious effects of our overachievement society again, this time by way of Philip Delves Broughton (via NYTimes Opinionator), in a post called The McNamara Syndrome. The following is actually from the author’s book, Ahead of the Curve: One of the most famous alumni of Harvard’s MBA program is Robert McNamara, [...]

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#gdldn+

by Brian on 05-07-2009

in education,london,media

Made a rare public sortie a few hours ago for a meetup of London bloggers, podcasters, and developers; a good opportunity to connect and soak up the conversation of people who are way ahead of me. It also gave me a good excuse to work a little harder on organizing and presenting my web presence. Hopefully I can keep the [...]

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