When Big Data goes bad: 6 epic fails
Donald Clark, Donald Clark Plan B, November 10, 2013

When Donald Clark is older he will be classified as a full-fledged curmudgeon. As it stands now he is definitely a curmudgeon-in-training not to be missed with riffs like this debunking the abuses of big data (or in some cases, misinterpreted data, misleading data, or (in the case of Ken Robinson) no data whatsoever). "We must be wary of data when it is used to exaggerated claims through addition or subtraction or spearhead prescriptive programmes and extreme testing. I am appalled at the way politicians and educators take up PISA, PIAC and OECD data, with little or no detailed examination of their assumptions or relative values and use it to shape prescriptive policies that do more harm than good." Amen. (See also my essay Understanding PISA).

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Academic Teaching Doesn’t Prepare Students for Life
Shelley Wright, Powerful Learning Practice, November 10, 2013

I like this post from Shelly Wright because it fits into the theme emerging in today's issue of OLDaily and because it underlines the change in thinking that has characterized education over the last two decades or so (which begins, actually, in the 1970s (I am an early beneficiary of that kind of thinking, as my small rural school is where many progressive and alternative teachers ended up teaching)). "Our school system doesn’t need to create kids who are good at school. Instead, we need to create an environment that engages learners, fosters creativity, and puts responsibility for learning where it belongs – with our students." (p.s. if writing academic essays does not prepare students for life, you might ask, then what does? I highly recommend writing articles for underground newspapers.)

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Digital Differentiation
Rob Watson, Rob Watson Media, November 10, 2013

"Too many teachers have no respect for authority and are hampering schools’ attempts to improve standards," reports the Independent. "Some teachers simply will not accept that a school isn’t a collective but an organisation with clear hierarchies and separate duties." Nor should they. If we've learned anything about education over the years, it's that it functions better in a collegial and - dare I say it! - collective manner. Education is about conversation, give and take, and interaction - not following orders and filling boxes. "The expectation that we should Think for Ourselves is what fuelled innovation and progress in Western society since the Enlightenment," writes Rob Watson. "Why should independent thinking be stymied now?"

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Rebels on the edges
Harold Jarche, November 10, 2013

"Innovation and creativity will be the new literacies," writes Harold Jarche. "This is scary because most of our schools and other institutions do not foster innovation and creativity." We need to focus - in our schools and in our companies - not on people and skills that demonstrate conformity, but those outside the straight and narrow. See my other post about polymaths. Jarche continues, "The rebel spirit is the competitive advantage for innovation and creativity. Most organizations do everything possible to extinguish it, but rebels can help cycle more quickly through increasingly shorter stages of competitive advantage. The new economy’s equivalent of the industrial assembly line will likely be some system that celebrates rebels... In the new economy, it’s not what you know, but what you do with what you can learn, that will be valued. It will take rebels on the edges to do this." What are the edges? Here's what I think.

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How To Be a Polymath
Steven Mazie, Big Think, November 10, 2013

I am never really happy unless I am doing three or four things at once - not all at the same time, but balancing my day between activities of a very different nature. This is, writes Steven Mazie, the secret not just to being a polymath but also to success in any individual enterprise. And I can see why - I often transfer lessons learned in one domain to another domain. But in the age of the specialist, how do you begin? Start small. Think big. "Simply attempting new things seems to offer health benefits to people... After only short periods of trying, the ability to make new connections develops. And it isn’t just about doing puzzles and crosswords; you really have to try and learn something new.... What kind of thing? There’s evidence that something as trivial as changing the path you use when you walk home from the subway can rewire your brain for the better." 

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