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Lessig on Digital Barbarism
Lawrence Lessig has posted a review of David Halperin's recent book, Digital Barbarism.
Halperin, who authored the (in)famous New York Times article calling for perpetual copyright, has now compiled his ideas into a book. Lessig offers a much-needed critique, including citing misconceptions about Creative Commons (Halperin conflates it not only with "freeware" with software... more
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Sprint ahead for learning
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The Sprint commercial, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_9SYaWAQg&v3 |
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This summer in the USA a new “Sprint Ahead” theme was launched for television and other media commercials for the Sprint mobile company. One of the TV spots, called “Sprint flashlight-animation commercial” can be seen here on YouTube, where today it has four stars from 108 ratings. I have seen the spot several times this month while watching TV, and it drives me crazy because of what it leaves out. This is the audio of the TV spot:
Think back to when you were a child. What did you dream of as you fell asleep —space travel, did you go back in time?
Or maybe you dreamed of a magic screen that you could carry in your pocket — a screen to entertain you whenever you wanted.
It held your favorite, music, pictures, stories — it helped you find your way home —
a screen that brought all of this to you wherever you were at the speed of light.
That was your dream.
With the magic of Sprint screen it all came true.
For me, this Sprint commercial is a reminder that inexplicably the education the magic screen could be delivering is not mentioned. The dream of learning is not there.
Without singling out Sprint as a bad guy, let’s use their new flash-animation commercial just as an example of what we are NOT doing to take advantage of the magic mobile screen for learning. Also, just making a wild guess, let’s say Sprint spent $10 million on its flash-animation commercial for production and to pay to run it on television. For that same $10 million, how much could you do in your country to put reading, writing and arithmetic on to the mobiles kids are using? To borrow Sprint’s new slogan: spending $10 million on mobile learning in your country would probably be a way for education there to sprint ahead.
A friend of mine who runs a program for children in a country where there have been decades of war has mentioned over the past several years how the local kids have been seen with mobile phones: at first a few, and now he reports youngsters all seem to have mobiles. The progress in that country toward education has been far less rapid. Reports are discouraging about construction, books supplies and the safety for students who attend school. Why not focus some learning resources into mobiles the kids already have? Maybe they even dream of a magic screen they can carry in their pocket — a screen to learn from whenever they want.
Seeing to it that the magic of learning is on those screens is becoming more and more possible. Over the next months, and very few years, the little screens will do a better and better job of delivering the Internet. Already, simple text tutorials and reading are possible on many, many mobiles. In this future time we are now entering commoners can help make certain education will sprint ahead by becoming part of the mobile experience:
To make the dream come true of a magic screen that you can carry in your pocket — a screen to learn from whenever you want.
It holds your knowledge, studies, ideas — it helps you learn with others —
a screen that brings all of this to you wherever you are at the speed of light.
That is a dream that can come true — even for today’s kids before they are grown.
And to show how close that dream is — within our reach — here are 3 samples of the kind of quality online learning nodes that could easily be delivered — with just bit of tech tinkering — into the magic mobile screen:
From Euclid’s Elements
Pelicans, who range on every continent except Antarctica
A live cam of Egypt’s Great Pyramids
tags: usa united states education mobile learning sprint youtube kids
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