Andrew's Digital Domain

Today, a colleague has shared the following article with me " University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department, Increases Athletic Budgets. Hmm. "  Here's a quick excerpt: “Actually, the real villains here are the Florida state legislators, who have cut the budget for their flagship university by 30% over the past 6 years. Meanwhile, just two days ago, Florida governor Rick Scott approved the creation of a brand-new public university, Florida Polytechnic University, to be located near the city of Tampa.” What do I think about this? Well many things, but most of all: i nstead of looking for the villains or trying to do good with other people money - of course, thinking of the public good in the most objective way, which usually turns out to be somewhat skewed and biased, at best - we should get out of the business of subsidizing education in this fashion and let the market forces work. The education should cost what it costs, and if it is paid by people who...

Not too long ago I published a post titled " Academic Inflation and New Education Paradigms ", it had a cool short video featuring  Ken Robinson  and also referenced his book -  "Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative" ( I am happy to report that I have finished reading it, but a more detailed coverage will be a subject of another post, stay tuned ). The basic premise of the video as well as the book - a major overhaul of our education system is urgently needed. It was designed at a different time, in a different world, and for a different purpose; thus, it can not meet the demands of today or the future. So, while Ken Robinson takes a poke or two at our current system's bias towards academicism and science at the expense of arts and creativity , there are others who feel we are not biased enough at the time when the rate of acceleration in the field of science and technology is arguably the highest in recorded history.  A few month ago I've read a ve...

The "new media" must be getting to me. The chain of events leading to this blog post has been triggered by a great (IMHO) video I came across on the YouTube - "Changing Education Paradigms" by Sir Ken Robinson: But this video only increased my appetite for information on the subjects that I have been thinking and talking to my friends about for quite some time - depreciation of the value of academic degrees and what should the education system of the future look like (I think it is pretty clear that major overhaul of the existing system is desirable). So, I went on to investigate Ken Robinson's point of view further by getting his book - "Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative". And while I have not yet had much time to spend on it (a more complete review will be a subject for a different post), whatever little I have read confirmed some of my worries. Here are a few excerpts: There was a time when good academic qualifications guaranteed a ...