ylld

Jay Cross on the “Emergent Learning Paradigm ” via Robin Good at Master New Media.
Clay Shirky on hierarchy and leadership: the power of the individual to offer the “plausible promise”.

Applications plummet at top liberal arts colleges in the U.S. due to bad economy.

Continuing in the spirit of Fred Wilson’s “Hacking Education” session which I linked to in my previous post, I wanted to highlight a couple of the main themes that emerged from that discussion:
1) Students take control of their own education. Best practices in this area are schools like the SUK high school in Helsinki, Finland where students manage their own curriculum and schedules.
2) Rise of alternative forms of education (home schooling, charter schools, online learning, adult education/lifelong learning).
3) Disrupt from the inside: Open courseware, lesson sharing, social networks, and lightweight/public publishing tools are examples of disruptive approaches that will work inside the existing system.
What impact will these changes have on tomorrow’s college graduate? Take a look at the following series of videos featured on Presentation Zen which represent some of the best applicants for Australian’s Tourism Queensland quest to recruit for the “best job in the world“. Not only was I struck by the incredibly professional quality of the videos and the creativity and imagination which went into their scripting, shooting and editing, I also wondered what this generation could teach us about time management. They are all in their early 20s, and aside from having aced their undergraduate degrees and being first-rate communicators, they all seemed to be sky-diving, bungee jumping, rafting and biking in their spare time. All were well-travelled and multi-lingual, and each one had crafted a unique and original case for why Queensland Tourism should hire someone who had never set foot in Australia before to be a caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef Islands.
This one is my favourite, featuring Mitchell from Canada. Just outstanding.

I could not help but speculate on what legacy this particular generation would leave behind for those who will graduate in 2019, by which time our economic systems will have adjusted downwards towards a more sustainable level

Monday January 26, 2009: more than 65,000 job cuts were announced in the U.S. and around the world. This figure represents a staggering dislocation in human terms and instantly made me think of all the stories of human striving that are happening in real time as people struggle to adapt to these shocks. This led me to watch Jonathan Harris‘ video at TED about his ground-breaking work which combines art, science and storytelling. The last part of the video where he presents a series of portraits of people in Bhutan rating their happiness in balloons and depicting a wish on a balloon is deeply moving. The idea of using technology to make story bots which can be disaggregated and re-aggregated by computer programs is fascinating

Aside from watching the new blogs (eg laidoff2) being created around the subject of adapting to the economic crisis, it’s worth keeping an eye on the new digital storytelling tools that are out there to help people craft works of art from this exceptional moment in history.
In Ervin Laszlo’s words, “As consumers and clients, as taxpayers and voters, and as public opinion holders we can create the kinds of fluctuations - the actions and initiatives - that will tip the coming chaos point towards peace and sustainability. If we are aware of this power in our hands, and if we have the will and the wisdom to make use of it, we become masters of our destiny.” This is why we need people like Jonathan Harris to harness the changing social myth and tranform it into powerful art work with popular appeal using technology.

This is simply amazing: watch your crayon drawings come to life and obey the laws of physics via this recently released game developed by 25 year-old Petri Purho from Finland. Costs $19.95 from Crayon Physics.

This is amazing: watch your crayon drawings come to life and obey the laws of physics in a new game designed by a 25 year-old Finnish independent game designer. Costs $19.95 at www.crayonphysics.com.

The benchmark study on toxic chemicals in perfume appears to be the Greenpeace one from 2005 which tested 36 different fragrances and found both phthalates and artificial musks in almost every single sample. Most commercial scents contain either animal substances such as musk, civet, castor or ambergris which have been obtained at some price to the animal’s welfare; or synthetic substitutes of those substances which are made from the same toxic chemicals found in household products and air fresheners. Applying these chemicals to your skin means they are absorbed into your body - and they have been linked to respiratory and allergic reactions, as well as reproductive problems.
Organic alternatives are still quite thin on the ground. Here are some of the latest offerings. Kibio, a French brand, introduced Eau de Parfum 100% last November, a blend of citrus aromas and amber.
Brazilian brand Natura launched Amor América in October 2008, a line that uses elements from the Andes and Patagonia, including oils such as Palo Santo (from trees in Ecuador) and Paramela (from Argentinian bushes). The company claims that it uses 100 % organic alcohol; whether this means the fragrance would meet, say, Ecocert organic standards, I’m not sure. At any rate, here is the ad from Brazil, complete with Caetano Veloso soundtrack.

Finally, in the luxury niche (retailing at around 140 euros a bottle), and sold only at Printemps department store, is a new line of organic fragrances called “Honoré des Prés” by Olivia Giacobetti, with names like Nu Green, Bonté’s Bloom and Sexy Angelic.

I stumbled upon this great video on Teemu Arina’s blog which really sums up the problems with our education system. Industrial age system, industrial age problems - the key to a mindset shift which we need to move to a more sustainable way of life lies with our children, and our children are still being educated in the same force-feeding industrial prison systems which have produced today’s leaders and authors of the current planetary distress.
Will technology save us?

A powerful documentary, which has been showing this week in a handful of cinemas in Paris, entitled “Our children will accuse us” makes the case for organic agriculture in terms of an urgent call to action. Unless we act now to change our industrial models of agricultural production which rely on petro-chemical fertilizers and insecticides, our children will be condemned to rapidly deteriorating health in the form of cancers, infertility and other illnesses which have been linked with environmental fact

Last week, France’s Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier unveiled a plan to create a scientific institute to conduct bee research aimed at stemming colony collapse disorder, as well as the appointment of a “Bee Czar”. Every year, 30-35 percent of the bee colonies do not survive the winter and the suspects include predators, pesticides and climate change. Barnier, who authorized the use of the controversial pesticide Cruiser (made by Swiss firm Syngenta) in France in January 2008 for a 12-month period,

Many Parisians are adapting to the spiraling cost of food, gas and housing with resourcefulness and creativity. Le Nouvel Obs Paris has a great round-up of all the latest trends in sustainable living which have evolved in response to the purchasing power deficit.
1.   House sharing – no longer restricted to rent-sharing among students and single young professionals, the trend has spread to familie  and often encompasses the communal house purchase. The trend is documented in a film to be released in Ju