Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Sixth Sense - are we ready?

Having just attended the two-day NSW DET "Connected Learning 2009" conference (and presenting in a session last Wednesday), I'm internalising a lot of new ideas that will need to be interpreted and translated into my daily professional practice.

This year's conference was subtitled "Transforming Learning and Teaching". Colleen Foley and I were pleased we had plenty of school principals at our session! But there was so much information to convey in a 50 minute session of a two-day conference - at which all attendees were giving up two days of their vacation. Which is hardly ideal.

Some of the points raised by the keynote speakers were so important, thought-provoking and challenging. The presentations by Mark Treadwell and Peter Blassina, particularly, were quite mind-blowing. If you haven't seen the TED talk on "The Sixth Sense" by Pattie Maes (MIT Media Lab), as discussed by Peter Blassina at the conference, it's a must-see:
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html



After that video, we were all feeling more than a little inadequate, and yet incredibly excited by the possibilities. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, here I was thinking my iPhone was pretty clever, and a harbinger of how students of the future would still be needing the help of teacher-librarians to plough through our information world. If "The Sixth Sense" becomes a commercial reality, the learning curve starts anew before the current one is even finished. Are any of us ready for the next paradigm shift?

#73
Outside the Novotel Sydney Hotel, Brighton-le-Sands,
for the Connected Learning conference.

1 comment:

Therin of Andor said...

There was an amazing vibe at the conference watching that TED video together. From the moment the guy took his photograph with his hands in the traditional "framing" gesture, we all wanted one. And the calculator/phone keypad on the hand!

We also loved that he was still buying books - complete with Amazon ratings and book reviews to help him select!