I know I have posted many comments about things Kevin Kelly has posted. He’s everywhere I go!
Here is an “OLD” Ted Talk (How Technology Evolves) and there is also another newer 2007 selection as well. Check out the TED site.
2 weeks ago
Showing posts with label Kevin Kelly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevin Kelly. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
The Amish & Technology… & Education?
I have got to stop reading Kevin Kelly. I can NOT believe how he writes so much (in length and depth, but also so often.)
I was completely shocked when I saw his post regarding Why Technology Cannot Fulfill …about the Amish community. I immediately said – the Amish and technology? How do they connect?
Kevin Kelly can do it, and he did it again.
He writes a long and wonderful piece immediately wrapping you into the story telling about an Amish visitor he met online… yes, you read that right. Maybe you’d better go right now to the source and read it from Kevin Kelly! (It’s a long read, though!)
After a wonderful, yet rambling story about his Amish friends and life as a hippie in the 70s, Kelly talks about how the Amish are somewhat “selfish.”
“The "good" they wish their minimal technology to achieve is primarily the fulfillment of a fixed nature,”
unlike the “rest of the world.”
We, in the technological world of today,
“Those million urban migrants per day have enrolled into the technium for the same reason you have (and you have if you are reading this): to increase your choices. To increase your chances of unleashing your full potential. Perhaps someday someone will invent a tool that is made just for your special combination of hidden talents. Or perhaps you will make your own tool. Most importantly, and unlike the Amish and minimites, you may invent a tool which will help unleash the fullest of someone else. Our call is not only to discover our fullest selves in the technium, but to expand the possibilities for others. We have a moral obligation to increase the amount of technology in the world in order to increase the number of possibilities for the most people. Greater technology will selfishly unleash us, but it will also unselfishly unleash others, our children and all to come.”
The Amish are dependent upon our technology…
“The Amish are a little sensitive about this, but their self reliant lifestyle as it is currently practiced is heavily dependent on the greater technium that surrounds their enclaves. They do not mine the metal they build their mowers from. They do not drill or process the kerosene they use. They don't manufacture the solar panels on their roofs. They don't grow or weave the cotton in their clothes. They don't educate or train their own doctors. They also famously do not enroll in armed forces of any kind (but in compensation of that, they are world-class volunteers in the outside world. Few people volunteer more often, or with more expertise and passion than the Amish/Mennonites.) In short they depend up the outside world for they way they currently live. The increasing numbers of minimite urban homesteads are likewise indebted to the ongoing technium. If the Amish had to generate their all their own energy, grow all their clothing fibers, mine all metal, harvest and mill all lumber, it would not be Amish at all. Their communities would hardly be civilized.”
Kelly says,
“As I encourage new technologies I am working for the Amish, and Leon, and the minimite homesteaders. So is anyone who is inventing, discovering, and expanding possibilities. In our ceaseless collective generation of new technologies, we technology boosters can invent more appropriate tools for minimalism, even though they are not doing that for us. Nonetheless, the Amish and minimites have something important to teach us about selecting what we embrace. I don't want a lot of devices that add maintenance chores to my life without adding real benefits. I do want to be slow to embrace technology that I can back out of. I don't want stuff that closes off options to others (like weapons). And I do want the minimum because I've learned that I have limited time or attention.”
“I think I can put it this way: What we are seeking is the minimum amount of technology that will generate the maximum number of options for all.”
Kelly also has a point about education. He asked Leon, his online friend who was visiting, if he thought that there could be the same goodness of the Amish life if kids went to school until the 10th grade instead of the 8th grade like they do. Leon said,
“Well, you know, he said, "hormones kick in around the 9th grade and boys, and even some girls, just don't want to sit at desks and do paperwork. They need to use their hands as well as their heads and they ache to be useful. Kids learn more doing real things at that age."
That is true, kids don’t want to sit at a desk and do paperwork. They want to do more real things.”
AUTHENTIC LEARNING…
We are investing in the possibilities of our students, as well.
After you read the whole article (I know it seems that I quoted it all here in this post, but truly I didn’t; he is a prolific writer), tell me what I missed, what you thought, and how we can use this information in education.
[As always, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s. I do this so often, I should probably put a disclaimer to this effect at the bottom of every blog!]
Technorati Tags: Amish,technology tools,education,Kevin Kelly,authentic learning experiences,minimites,selfish
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Technology is free
My little brain is somewhat fried right now.
I bend to the genius of Kevin Kelly, writing about FREE, especially in reference to technology.
I do not think I am smart enough to understand it all.
Kelly says in his post here,
Technology wants to be free, as in free beer, because as it become free it also increases freedom. The inherent talents, capabilities and benefits of a technology cannot be released until it is almost free. The drive toward the free unleashes the constraints on each species in the technium, allowing it to interact with as many other species of technology as is possible, engendering new hybrids and deeper ecologies of tools, and permitting human users more choices and freedoms of use. As a technology grows in abundance and cheapness, it is more likely to find its appropriate niche which it can sustain itself and support other technologies in commodity mode. As technology heads toward the free it unleashes the only lasting thing it can: options and possibilities.
[As always, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s. I do this so often, I should probably put a disclaimer to this effect at the bottom of every blog!]
Please read the post and report back to me what you gleaned from it.
What does this mean for education and the students of today?
Either it is too late at night for me to understand it, or I am not capable of understanding it!!
FREE in a digital society… How does one earn money?
I have been wondering this same thing for many days, weeks, months.
In a FREE digital society, how does one earn money?
I heard about the figure and description (below) in a blog written by Kevin Kelly. He has an uberblog combining all of his blogs together, but this is from his blog called Cool Tools.
The figure and quote below is from a book written by Chris Anderson, Free- The Future of a Radical Price.
[As always, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s. I do this so often, I should probably put a disclaimer to this effect at the bottom of every blog!]
Chris Anderson says in Free- The Future of a Radical Price, “In Denmark, a gym offers a membership program where you pay nothing as long as you show up at least once a week. But miss a week and you have to pay full price for the month. The psychology is brilliant. When you go every week, you feel great about yourself and the gym. But eventually you'll get busy and miss a week. You'll pay, but you'll blame yourself alone. Unlike the usual situation where you pay for a gym you're not going to, your instinct is not to cancel your membership; instead it's to redouble your commitment.”
Kevin Kelly of Cool Tools blog says, “Free is tricky. Free is great for consumers but difficult for business and creators. It is becoming a serious economic force (thanks to digital technologies and automation) but no one is really sure how to use free to, well, make money.”
This reminds me of a situation I recently found myself in.
I read many blogs. I enjoy reading them. I read from a variety of blogs, although most of them have an education/technology bias. One blog that is not in that category is about Marriage. It is a good blog with lots of ideas and helpful comments, stimulating ideas!
Recently I read this Marriage blog and just about deleted it from my Reader. I was furious!
I even wrote a comment! I hardly ever, almost never, make a comment. I might write about what I read in other people’s blogs in my blog, as a way to take the thoughts through my mind for processing. I might occasionally say, “Hey, good blog!” but rarely do I make a negative comment. Actually, I think this was the first!
This blog asked for readers to make a donation if they felt the blog was helpful. Say $25. Say only this year while I am trying to make my change from earning a living elsewhere to earning it with this blog. Say maybe only once every year!
So far, in the comments of others, only 1 other person agreed with me.
Everyone else said,
“Good Luck with the change.”
“Hope this leap of faith works out for you!”
“When I can, I will send you money, but just can’t now, not today!”
I would like to know what others feel about this.
Do you expect to be solicited by the author of the blogs you read?
I am not talking about a blog author who wrote a book and promotes it on his blog, or who provides seminars or presentations and promotes them on his blog, or offers to consult with you privately about what he can do for you personally on his blog. All of these are legitimate to me. If you want that extra special piece of attention/help, PAY FOR IT! That is fine. It is OK to advertise for that. Those interested will click on your link! Those not interested, will just continue reading.
If you don’t want your blog to be free and open, then don’t put it on the open internet. Make it by registration only after a fee has been paid!
Am I too upset by this?
Recently, I even looked at the tab on Blogger where it says monetize. I didn’t go very far, but wondered if this was the “way” to earn my living on the web!
I know several of the blogs I read do place ads on their blogs, and earn some small amount of money when readers click on these advertisements.
I don’t criticize those who do this. (I am not sure, but I don’t think they earn very much by doing this; maybe only enough to pay for the yearly cost of the site maintenance if their blog is posted on a paying site.)
So far, I decided it was not for me. I didn’t feel that my blog had a big enough readership (if any readership) and I didn’t feel that my thoughts were earth shattering. Most of what I post is a re-thinking of what I have read in other places - a directing of others to a good read.
In spite of all this, I do have a desire to make a living in a way that feeds my passions – education, technology, helping others, working with students, education, learning.
I had also thought that somehow I could make this living with my passions on the internet, but in education nearly everything is open source, free.
I’m still reading, thinking, learning, and imagining. Maybe someday, I will figure it all out. In the meantime, I am enjoying the journey! (But not making any money!)
Cascading abundance of opportunities vs limited designed intentions
Kevin Kelly is an amazing person and has a "master blog" (He calls it his uberblog.) that covers a multitude of interests. It is well worth a look, but you may get lost there!
His thoughts remind me, of course, of education and technology.
We are currently teaching and working in schools (and with curriculum) that are built for the Industrial Age while our students are living in a 21st Century Technological Age. Is it any wonder that our students are not engaged?
Somewhere recently I read that the Industrialization Revolution took a century to emerge/complete, but the Technological Revolution changes ever so much faster (as we all know) …
Below is just one comment that Kevin Kelly makes regarding various products/inventions of today (my underlining, bold, and color changes!):
“Contrast this [current] cascading abundance of opportunities [of today’s products] with almost any product of the industrial age--say an electric rotary saw, or a color-fast dye, or a maplewood chair. While some of these objects have a few dual uses (the chair could be used as a step stool or to wedge a door open, and the saw motor could be used to drive a drill), they are pretty much limited to their designed intentions. There is no river of opportunities flowing from them [Industrial Age products or inventions]. So that even if chairs, dye, and saws were to become universally abundant, their physical plentitude would not change the world much.”
Students today are much more creative and have the attitude that “It CAN be done!” (not that “It won’t work!”) Everything they have ever known has been re-worked, or re-used, or re-mixed, or re-imagined into something newer and better and always will be in their future!
We must teach the students of today in their environment and with the attitude that they have grown up in/with and the environment/attitude they will continually see in the future!
IMAGINE IF…
WHAT ARE YOUR STUDENTS IMAGINING?
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