- The Year of Code's neoliberal agenda – Adrian Short
I completely support teaching young people a basic understand of what it means to code – I think it's an increasingly vital skill to understand, even if one does not wish to do it professionally, in much the same way I think it's a good idea to have an understand of the rough shape of legal proceedings, and how the law works, even if you're not a lawyer. What I absolutely *no not* support, as expressed on this bit of writing, is teaching the idea that it is only of value to learn a skill because it will make you money. All the skills I am proudest of, and derive the most personal satisfaction from, are the ones that I *do not want* to commercialise, and we should be teaching our kids that *learning* is good, not "skills acquisition".
Tag: education
Bookmarks for November 22, 2010
- TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine – Travel – News – msnbc.com
I have elderly family who have to wear bags exactly like this. The thought that anyone could consider it acceptable to humiliate someone in a manner like this makes me furious – I just keep imagining what it would feel like if it happened to my family. I reckon I would expect them to have legal recourse, and the assurance that someone had lost their job over this, because I don't care about security half so much as I care about basic human dignity and respect.
- The Ministry of Stories
Stop what you are doing, and go and look at this link. I promise you: it will make your day 100% better. This is amazing and wonderful stuff.
Bookmarks for November 11, 2010
- New Statesman – Inside the Millbank Tower riots
I imagine you'll see this link a lot over the next day or two – Penny Red on yesterday's riots at Millbank Tower. Superb writing, in support of an important cause.
Bookmarks for October 15, 2010
- BBC News – Spending Review: Universities 'to face £4.2bn cut'
This *has* be delibarately leaking of a massively inflated figure, so as to make the real figure seem much more palatable when it eventually comes out. It just has to. The alternative is simply unthinkable.
Bookmarks for July 18, 2010
- New Statesman – We need a retroactive graduate tax
I am 100% in favour of this. And I fully support backdating it quite massively. But then, unlike most of my friends, I'm not a graduate. But I find it hard to argue against the point that if it is now reasonable for society to ask students to pay for their education, then it must surely also be reasonable for society to ask those who got their education for free to give the money back? (Mind you, I think her educationally-privileged background is showing a bit in the comments thread.)
- 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review
If you still make a distinction between "in the real world" and "on the internet", then frankly, you're probably quite stupid. Some of this article is hippy claptrap, but it captures something I've been thinking about for a while now, when faced with friends who say that they "don't like doing X on the internet", when what they really mean is that they "can't be bothered to develop the skillset to do X on the internet". It's *not* a separate conversation to the one going on in the rest of your life. The issues are the same, the information the same, if not better, and if you can't engage with them on the internet, then you can't engage with them properly in other areas of your life.
Bookmarks for July 15, 2009
- Essay: Dumb-dumb bullets – July 2009 – Armed Forces Journal – Military Strategy, Global Defense Strategy
Whenever anyone asks me why I hate meetings and powerpoint, I am just going to point them at this. If the purpose of a presentation in a meeting is to get decisions made, then the decisions made as a result are likely to be flawed. The information should be circulated in a sensible manner pre-meeting.
- Words For Print Vs Words For Web | > jim rossignol
Yes. Clever stuff. Worth the read. Ties up with some back-of-the-mind thoughts I'm having at the moment.
- Meeting Ticker
This should be up on the a screen in every meeting room, ever.
- tedr*tumblr: Right on Trent
Trent Reznor nails the future of not just the music business, but more or less any creative economy. Barring, of course, the disruptive new technology that will be invented next month that will render his notions moot. But y'know, it's a good summary of what everyone should have been doing for the last few years.
Bookmarks for February 5, 2009
- Southbank Centre > Music > Mouse on Mars soundtrack Herzog's Fata Morgana
Anyone interested in this? Herzog + weird German Electro sounds like a moral victory to me.
- Should The New York Times Ditch Paper, Distribute Kindle E-readers?
According to one set of maths, it might actually work out cheaper for the paper to give away Kindles for a while, and then switch to digital only. The logic is flawed in a number of places (the move would cripple their ability to pick up new readers in the short term for example), but it's still fascinating to see that even with e-paper equivalent as expensive as the Kindle, the maths looks to be becoming favourable.
- Open the Future: Flunking Out
Jamais Cascio explaining quite clearly why the academic program offered by the recently opened "Singularity University" is a load of old trousers, and offering a rather more sensible sounding educational program for teaching people to think about the coming years/decades.
- DesignAday – Truism
"Broken gets fixed. Shoddy lasts forever." Having recognised that as true, I don't particularly need to refer to the actual this link myself, but I thought I'd mark anyway it just as an action to ensure I commit it to memory.