Siftables Music Sequencer from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.
We need to walk away from the pathos of 20th century education’s demise and get every kid a pocket full of siftables. What a wonder it would be if every siftable was interfacing the internet, showing related nodes of science, history, literature — whatever a student was working on learning as he shifted incoming ideas, thinking about their relationships. For now, kids with smart phones can browse the internet for these and other subjects — though educators usually don’t let them do that at school.
The siftables are a project headed by David Merrill at the MIT Media Lab. Merrill describes them to the TED audience on a page linked other coverage. The siftables are not browsers yet, but already are powerful pedagogic devices.
A new global education that embraces the internet’s knowledge and connectivity is within our grasp. Am I being too visionary? Or is the ongoing dumping of resources into very 20th century ideas something that does not see reality?
Thanks Matt for the siftables
March 10th, 2009 at 4:08 pm