With so many kids turned off to boring, ‘No Child Left Behind’ teaching-to-the-test rote learning that’s causing high drop out rates at a time when education is what’s needed in this post industrial society (even more so once the recession is over), creative ideas like this could generate interest in learning and stimulate young minds into thinking creatively when they are the most able to do so.
Here’s more about David Merrill and Siftables. Also, check out more videos of talks at this and past years TED-fests.
I learned using pencil and paper. I didn’t see a computer until high school. Computers may be a useful adjunct to real learning but mostly they are distraction.
wish I had some when my children were little….love them…want the music ones
Interesting technology. Hope they find a practical purpose for it. As for “Siftables”? I doubt we’ll ever hear of them again.
While the US has been slipping down the list of literacy, of industrialized nations. It’s been increasing its involvement in every countries problems, with military force and solutions. I don’t believe this is a coincidence. And that the goal isn’t to educate the american youth too much. Because as career professionals they’d get out of an economic draft. And maybe even the next mandated one. IOW, doctors and lawyers don’t fire rifles, GED students do. So you can bet the Dick Cheneys of the US military, don’t want kids to become too smart to to fight a war. Or at least not for the piss poor wages they’ve been doling out. Weapon systems get more expensive, but soldiers’ pay and health benefits barely keep pace with inflation. And that’s the way “they” want to keep it. Smarter kids wouldn’t stand for it. So they’re kept dumb, to keep them from wanting better. Or qualify for non-combatant jobs, or civilian ones. The Volunteer Army plan only works as long as their are plenty of low scoring students, and lack of civilian employment, to make a military “career” seem attractive, or the only recourse. The NCLB policy was about as effective as subprime loans were in strengthening the economy. Perhaps on purpose.
#24 Interesting theory. Works well for the Libs too (who control the schools via the Teachers Union). Create kids who can’t compete and need gov’t $ via welfare programs and thus want to reelect the people who feed, clothe, house & provide them with medicine…
“new human computer interface” – well, it’s hard to predict the future . . . I wonder what this will morph into in a few years. My teenage son son wants a gamer’s desktop computer instead of a car and I sure didn’t expect that!