Half an Hour: An Operating System for the Mind - The Diigo Meta page

• 06 Dec 09
  

  wendy thomas

  21stcenturylearning 21stcenturyskills downes criticalthinking connectivism knowledge

• 06 Nov 09
  

  k lieneke
  • Sixth. The rise of internet technology has corresponded with a rise of activism
    and agency. In the world of even a few decades ago, the mass of people did their
    jobs, did what they were told, and exercised their options - if they lived in a democracy - through the
    vote. Today, people manage much more of their own lives (and clamour for even
    more). Almost everyone lives in a democracy, and even if people don't vote, they
    are increasingly involved in community activities, not mere socializing outside
    the family but organizing, participating, creating, lobbying and more. The
    skills we need in order to simply act
    are far more than what used to be required, and are needed by far more people
  • 

    • 

      k lieneke on 2009-11-06

      I guess in some respects there's a "rise of activism and agency" but this alleged involvement in community activities doesn't ring so true. Oh, wait. He's Canadian. Maybe that's it.
• 27 Oct 09
  

  Mike Nantais

  blogs ICT

• 23 Oct 09
  

  Vahid Masrour

  21st century skills... getting together to form an OS for the mind. Worth discussing at the very least.

  learning education

• 07 Oct 09
  

  mat Wall-Smith

  I very clear post about the need to look beyond the industrial economics of knowledge production and exchange

  arts1091 week11 week12 downes 21stCenturySkills Education literacy

• 04 Oct 09
  

  roland legrand

  downes 21stCenturySkills learning connectivism blog skills 21st-century education

• 02 Oct 09
  

  Helen Wybrants
• 30 Sep 09
  

  Chris Bigenho

  21stCenturySkills downes ToRead

• 

  Harlan Howe

  A great essay on the relevance of "21st Century skills" and a rebuttal to those who say we need to teach more facts.

  pedagogy

• 28 Sep 09
  

  Thieme Hennis
  • to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct route into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
    
    When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming.
  • I used the phrase "it's direct programming" deliberately. This is an analogy we can wrap our minds around. We can think of direct instruction as being similar to direct programming. It is, effectively, a mechanism of putting content into a learner's mind as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that when the time comes later (as it will) that the learner needs to use that fact, it is instantly and easily accessible.
    
    Interestingly, that's how many people used to think of electronic information systems - as mechanisms into which you input facts to facilitate easy discovery and retrieval. The computer, or online systems (such as Minitel) were visualized as giant electronic libraries, with the sum total of the world's knowledge at our disposal.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • 
      I used the phrase "it's direct programming" deliberately. This is an analogy we can wrap our minds around. We can think of direct instruction as being similar to direct programming. It is, effectively, a mechanism of putting content into a learner's mind as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that when the time comes later (as it will) that the learner needs to use that fact, it is instantly and easily accessible.
      
    • We know now - and, indeed, have probably always known - that an education based strictly and solely in facts is insufficient. The reasons are legion, but I will focus on six major points:
      
      First. There are more facts in the world than anyone could know, which means that we need to be able to find facts that we do not already know. This is the first facet of literacy, the ability to read, view or listen (etc).
      
      Second. As time passes, facts change, and so we need the capacity to know when facts change and to be able to update our own knowledge of these facts. We need to be able to learn - that is, to change the previously existing state of our knowledge.
      
      Third. And as the number of people, and the amount of information, in the world increases, we need some mechanism for selecting which facts we will be exposed to, and how to filter out irrelevant facts. We need to be able to determine what is salient or important to ourselves and to others.
      
      Fourth. Even more critically, not every bit of information presented to you in life will be a fact, and you need some mechansism to detect and reject false representations of facts. We need, in other words, some mechanism for comparing and assessing facts.
      
      Fifth. Additionally, we need to know which, of the many facts we have in our possession, constitute a basis for action. We need some sense of, and mechanism for, agency in the world, a sense that we can not only receive, input and assess facts, but that we can create facts in the world.
      
      Sixth. Finally, we need the capacity to act, which may mean some physical activity, or may mean some communicative activity, a set of abilities we can place under the heading of empowerment, as they involve not only the physical capacity to undertake an act, the knowledge which informs that act, but also the willingness to undertake it, the believe that one is entitled to act, and the faith that one's acts can have an impact on the world.
    • Let's return to the computer system analogy.
• 

  John Evans

  The core of the opposition to what are being called "21st century skills" is contained in the following argument: "Cognitive science teaches us that skills and knowledge are interdependent and that possessing a base of knowledge is necessary to the acquisition not only of more knowledge, but also of skills. Skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects."
  

  connectivism learning downes 21stCenturySkills

• 27 Sep 09
  

  Dave Truss

  And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct route into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.

  rote thinking learning skills 2.0Skills

  • The reason I pose these questions in particular is that, while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct route into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
    
    When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.
  • First
  • 18 more annotations...
  • • . There are more facts in the world than anyone could know
    • Second
    • facts change
    • Third
    • We need to be able to determine what is salient or important to ourselves and to others.
    • Fourth
    • you need some mechansism to detect and reject false representations of facts
    • comparing and assessing facts
    • Fifth
    • basis for action
    • we can create facts in the world
    • we need the capacity to act
    • Sixth
    • And what we discover when we think about it this way is that it's not simple whether or not we need facts that is important, but also, what format the facts are in that is equally important, if not more important.
    • 
      You need, in other words, need to acquire facts in a format appropriate to your knowledge system.
    • 21st century skills are, in short, an operating system for the mind.
    • They constitute the processes and capacities that make it possible for people to navigate a fact-filled landscape, a way to see, understand and acquire those facts in such a way as to be relevant and useful, and in the end, to be self-contained and autonomous agents capable of making their own decisions and directing their own lives, rather than people who need to learn ever larger piles of 'facts' in order to do even the most basic tasks.
    • What we have learned - what we are understanding, uniquely, in the 21st century - is that the nature of facts is very different from anything we thought before:
• 25 Sep 09
  

  kulub lnu

  mentala modeller undervisning 21st century skills

• 24 Sep 09
  

  Nantawat Sukprasert
• 22 Sep 09
  

  Yann Esposito
  • When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.
  • They constitute the processes and capacities that make it possible for people to navigate a fact-filled landscape, a way to see, understand and acquire those facts in such a way as to be relevant and useful, and in the end, to be self-contained and autonomous agents capable of making their own decisions and directing their own lives, rather than people who need to learn ever larger piles of 'facts' in order to do even the most basic tasks.
  • 2 more annotations...
  • • our relation with facts is much more contingent than previously supposed
    • The common core people want the means and the ability to implant unquestioned truths into the minds of children, and this in an environment where the possession of unquestioned truths becomes to be more and more of a handicap, an impediment, a barrier to personal growth and prosperity.
• 

  Benjamin Stewart
  • The more static our teaching, the less dynamic the learner can be.
  • That's why, when we design computers, first we build the hardware, then we install the operating system, then we install application programs, and only then do we add the data - the facts with which we expect our computer to work.
    
    The same principle applies in education and learning.
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • 21st century skills are, in short, an operating system for the mind.
• 

  Richard Hall

  21stCenturySkills facts

• 21 Sep 09
  

  Ange Recchia

  The core of the opposition to what are being called "21st century skills" is contained in the following argument: "Cognitive science teaches us that skills and knowledge are interdependent and that possessing a base of knowledge is necessary to the acquisition not only of more knowledge, but also of skills. Skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects."

  21stcenturyskills skills downes

• 

  Tony Searl

  The core of the opposition to what are being called "21st century skills" is contained in the following argument: "Cognitive science teaches us that skills and knowledge are interdependent and that possessing a base of knowledge is necessary to the acquisition not only of more knowledge, but also of skills. Skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects."

  21stcenturyskills skills downes

• 

  William Flarsheim

  Insight into the type of education needed in the 21st century.

  Education

• 20 Sep 09
  

  John Rison

  downes 21stCenturySkills blog learning connectivism

• 

  Donna DesRoches

  21st Century skills

  downes 21stCenturySkills

• 

  elizabeth helfant

  blog

• 

  David Andrew

  learning

• 

  Isabel Barbosa

  "21st century skills"

• 

  Mark Alexander

  downes 21stCenturySkills criticalthinking connectivism knowedge blog

• 

  y campbell

  21stcenturyskills criticalthinking 21stcenturylearning downes literacy knowledge skills

• 

  Karl Fisch

  Stephen Downes in defense of 21st century skills

  education_change

• 

  Tom Sepp
• 19 Sep 09
  

  jane dinh
  • "Cognitive science teaches us that skills and knowledge are interdependent and that possessing a base of knowledge is necessary to the acquisition not only of more knowledge, but also of skills. Skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects."
• 

  Paulo Simões

  downes artigo

• 

  Helen Otway

  downes 21stcenturyskills blog

• 

  Tania Sheko
  • 
    The reason I pose these questions in particular is that, while it is
    necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And
    the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and
    especially at a younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a
    person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
    
  • The reason I pose these questions in particular is that, while it is necessary
    (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is
    this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a
    younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a person's critical
    and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
    
  • 30 more annotations...
  • • When you teach children facts as facts,
      and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to
      children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or
      moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the
      brain. It's direct programming.
    • We know now - and, indeed, have probably always known - that an education based
      strictly and solely in facts is insufficient. The reasons are legion, but I will
      focus on six major points
    • we need to be able to find facts that we
      do not already know. This is the first facet of literacy, the ability to read,
      view or listen (etc).
      
    • we need the capacity to know when facts
      change and to be able to update our own knowledge of these facts.
    • we need some mechanism for selecting which facts we will be exposed to, and how
      to filter out irrelevant facts
    • you need some mechansism to detect and reject false representations of facts
    • we need to know which, of the many facts we have in our possession, constitute a
      basis for action
    • we can create facts in the world
    • we need the capacity to act
    • empowerment
    • the believe that one is entitled to act, and the faith that one's acts can have
      an impact on the world
    • why '21st century'? Because, after all, haven't these skills already been
      important?
    • first, there has been a proliferation of new skills in these areas that arise as
      a result of 21st century technology, and second, the importance of these skills,
      relative to a basis for learning in facts, has dramatically changed in recent
      years.
      
    • In a world of a million facts, if you learned a hundred thousand you could get
      by with your basic education and a good library. But in a world of a trillion
      facts, your education of a hundred thousand facts is pitifully small, probably
      irrelevant, and no library is large enough to hold all the facts. You need a new
      skill, a way to access the facts you need from an ocean of facts, and the tools of a person who
      used to just dip from the well will be insufficient.
      
    • Our world of a trillion facts, moreover, is much less static than the old world
      of a million facts. New facts come into being all the time
    • It used to be you needed to know about your home and community, and maybe a bit
      about your state and your country, basics of mathematics and language,
    • You need new skills to be able to select and prioritize information, and the
      skills of a person who just watched and learned are not enough.
      
    • By the 21st we have learned about networking, programming, photoshopping, topes
      and memes, visual literacy, and more, and these (along with all the rest) need
      to be used by everyone. In the 21st century, there are more types of reasoning, and they must be used
      by more people.
    • Just imagine, in the first decade we have seen the need for a host of skills
      related to managing one's presence in a social network, finding information
      using a search engine, and more (much more). We need to be able to turn our
      knowledge into these and other sorts of skills very quickly. And more and more
      people need to be able to learn these skills.
    • The rise of internet technology has corresponded with a rise of activism and
      agency
    • The skills we need in order to simply
      act are far more than what used to be required, and are needed by far
      more people.
    • So these 21st century skills are more numerous and needed by more people than
      ever in the last few years, with no sign of this trend changing or even slowing
      down. What of their relation to facts?
    • Not so long ago, pretty much every bit of information a person needed in his or
      her life could be taught as a fact, which basic mechanisms - such as literacy -
      being used to make up the difference.
    • people needed basic knowledge to survive in an industrial world,
    • And anything that detracted from that learning made a person less able to cope in society. These useless
      'soft' skills might help with their hobbies and avocations, but they wouldn't
      help them get a job or do well in their career
    • Today, the situation has completely turned around because of the six factors
      identified above. People need such greater capacities in literacy, learning,
      prioitizing, evaluation, planning and acting.
    • And as their need for these dynamic skills and capacities increases, their need
      for facts decreases. Indeed, the more these skills are needed
    • the more the teaching of facts as facts
      actually impairs the teaching of these
      skills. The more static our teaching,
      the less dynamic the learner can be
    • we discovered that we want our computer systems to do a lot more than to simply store facts. So much
      so, in fact, that the storage of facts in the computer became a secondary activity.
      
    • s. So much so, in fact, that the storage of facts in the computer became
• 

  Vicky Saumell

  21st century downes nle

• 

  Benjamin Jörissen

  21stCenturySkills learning2.0

  • The reason I pose these questions in particular is that, while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
  • When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else.
• 

  Brad Ovenell-Carter

  21stcenturylearning

• 

  Ana Loureiro

  downes 21st skills

• 

  Howard Rheingold

  while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
  
  When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.
  
  I used the phrase "it's direct programming" deliberately. This is an analogy we can wrap our minds around. We can think of direct instruction as being similar to direct programming. It is, effectively, a mechanism of putting content into a learner's mind as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that when the time comes later (as it will) that the learner needs to use that fact, it is instantly and easily accessible.

  literacy knowledge critical_thinking

• 

  Gina Minks
• 

  Rudy Godoy

  connectivism learning

• 

  Roger Neilson

  blog

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  k lieneke on 2009-11-06
  I guess in some respects there's a "rise of activism and agency" but this alleged involvement in community activities doesn't ring so true. Oh, wait. He's Canadian. Maybe that's it.

Page Comments

• 
  k lieneke on 2009-11-06
  An Operating System for the Mind--
  Long and a little overwrought here and there, but worth reading. 1) Balance core content and process as mutually supportive, and 2) All this focus on 21st century tech needs to be put into context: emerging technology as a tool. Why are we teaching this, and why are we teaching it this way?

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