Holistic and Integral Education: October 2005

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Student Feedback on Integral Theory

Student response to Integral Theory over the last few months has been very enthusiastic. Although you can't read the left hand column in the linked doc you can see from the feedback summary that I touched on many concepts over 2.5 hrs. Some a little too briefly perhaps but I think it is important for students to get a clear sense of the coherency of the overall framework.

So far I have only introduced it to Level 5 English classes but I know of teachers internationally who have received very positive feedback from grade 9 and 10 students... so I'm keen to try it with other classes next year.

I'm about to run similar sessions for teachers so it will be interesting to compare feedback... For teachers I am hoping Integral Theory will provide a coherent conceptual framework that helps to make sense of some fundamental concepts underpinning the ELs and PY10 Frameworks such as: * Worldviews * Value systems * Systems Thinking * Disciplines * Transdisciplinary * Transformation *

Labels: conceptual frameworks, integral

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Educating for a future that is already here

QRIO Robot

I've been looking at Sony's latest robot - QRIO. Susan Greenfield showed a video of a group of school girls having a very human-like conversation with QRIO at the July Thinking Conference.

The Sony web site has lots of info. These animations are pretty good - in Flash - see the second and fourth.

At this site there are more vids - one of QRIO throwing a ball ... and one with a group of QRIOs dancing ...

QRIO is a Science Ambassador for UNESCO and is touring the world.

Pity he is not yet for sale...

World's First Bionic Man

In May 2001, working as a high-power lineman 54 year old Jesse Sullivan was electrocuted so severely that both of his arms needed to be amputated.

Jesse now has bionic arms. See story and video clip.

Doctors took nerves that used to go to the arm and moved those nerves onto chest muscles. The nerves grew into the chest muscles, so when Jesse thinks “close hand,” a portion of his chest muscle contracts and electrodes that detect this muscle activity tell the computerized arm when to close the hand. So when he thinks “close hand” and his artificial hand closes.

Billion Dollar Industry Within 5 Years

enon, a service robot, comes in Citrus Yellow, Lily White and Lavender Blue for just $72,000.

10 of the robots have already been ordered by shops to provide guidance, escort guests, transport objects, and do security patrols. We could have one on campus: “You are late for class. Please move on before I SMS your teacher, the security guard, your parents...“ :-)

The price is expected to more than halve within a year and robot production is predicted to be a 1.2 billion dollar industry within 5 years.

Robot Car Wins $2 Million

Last week the robot car Stanley won $2,000,000 for crossing the finish line first in a US desert. It is not remote controlled - a computer does the driving.

Stanley was built using a diesal powered Volkswagon Touareq R5.

See a video-clip of Stanley on the downloads page at http://www.grandchallenge.org/

There was even a driverless motorcycle - Ghost Rider Robot - http://www.ghostriderrobot.com/

2005 is certainly THE year for robotics! What does this mean for students and the curriculum?

One way to engage students is through Robocup Junior where the challenge is to build robots that can dance to music, rescue someone in distress or kick a soccer goal. Robocup junior is inspired by Robocup International where the challenge is to "develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team" by 2050.