January 17, 2022
Dr. Tal Slemrod has been collecting data on what students and teachers prefer in regards to different forms of remote learning. Now, during Omicron spikes where the narratives are emotionally charged and Reality is quickly constructed according to cognitive bias, Dr. Slemrod reminds us of how data can counter policy loaded with politics. A great listen for anyone affected by the school closures of late.
January 12, 2022
School board meetings have become politicized, teacher unions and mayors embattled, and teacher have been called unprintable names. But what happens when it is the students who decide to fix what they perceive to be a dangerous environment. Ayleen and Ximena organized a district wide petition for students to strike by not showing up to school if demands for a safer environment are not met. Student agency and advocacy in Oakland, California.
December 3, 2019
Andrew Quitmeyer lives in Gamboa, Panama running DinaLab, a center for Digital Naturalism. He works to change the way researchers interact with their data collecting by moving the lab to the floor of the rainforest. The implications of his ideas go way beyond scientific study, it seems similar to Francisco Varela's "Embodied Cognition" only with Arduinos, LED's, and laser cutters. Confused? Good, that is a good state of mind to begin this podcast.
September 17, 2019
John Fallon and Pual Darvasi discuss alternate reality gaming in the classroom. In their breakdown of "Blind Protocol" they discuss how teaching English Language class turns into an exercise in holistic literacy where knowledge becomes, in the Deweyesque sense, actionable upon the context of the immediate environment. Fallon and Darvasi are gaming pioneers who, impatient with the slow rate of change in education, create a way to mix physical and digital sensory reality with that of mental representation.