How the internet tried to kill me

I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool anti-digital prophet of doom (though anytime I try to put awkward questions about, say, Facebook and privacy to my son that's what he accuses me of) - anything but - so I'm sorry, I couldn't resist this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13rubin.html?_r=1

Maybe Mr Rubin failed (see my photo post recently).

'Minimally Invasive Education'

Sugata Mitra's Hole in the Wall Project

In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.

In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

How to give the perfect TED talk

This is very funny and clever, but also has serious lessons for powerpoint users I think:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lies_damned_lies_and_statistics_about_tedtalks.html

A helpful Venn Diagram

Found on Harold Jarche's blog Life in Perpetual Beta, at:
http://www.jarche.com/