Saturday, September 20, 2008

What Else Can Yoda Teach?


This is pretty interesting to me: George Lucas has started The George Lucas Educational Foundation.

To quote, "Our vision is of a new world of learning. A place where kids and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve, all are empowered to change education for the better. A place where schools have access to the same invaluable technology as businesses and universities -- where innovation is the rule, not the exception. A place where children become lifelong learners and develop the technical, cultural, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the twenty-first century. A place of inspiration, aspiration, and an urgent belief that improving education improves the world we live in."

Web site at edutopia

Lots of information, nice videos, and podcasts. Though mostly targeted towards middle and high school levels, there is a wide variety of content that is also relevant to higher ed.






I hope to find the time to dig deeper in edutopia. There is always an entertainment element to education, if you can engage the students in any manner, they will pay more attention and learn more. Lucas may have some tricks up his sleeve in this regard. However, he is not just an entertainment innovator, but also a technology innovator, and is now turning his visions towards education. Lucky us!

I already stumbled across an interesting article on the typical process of technology adoption in education as a four-step process:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways.

Full article here.

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