Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids

The label "childish" is an irrational stereotype, because adults have done stupid things, and kids have done things that have had huge impacts on the world. Also, childlike irrationality is actually something that the world today needs, rather than more excuses about why people shouldn't do things or don't have time. A knowledge of past failures can be a burden on adults, and they accept as fact that Utopian/ideal things are impossible.In order to make these things a reality, you first have to believe that they can happen.Kids don't start out with the filter of what is "possible" then base their goals off of that, they start out with their goals, then see how they can acchieve them despite "impossibility." Kids have a lot to share with adults. Children already learn a lot from adults, but adults need to start learning from kids. A lot of this is based on trust. Adults have a restrictive attitude towards kids because they don't trust them. Adults also often underestimate kids' abilities.

The speaker organizes her presentation like a paper. She starts out with an overview of what she's talking about, makes several points and gives examples, and wraps up her ideas at the end. Also, her jokes keep the audience engaged in her talk. Her language is eloquent, but easily comprehensible.

Her presentation type is somewhere between formal and informal. She uses vocabulary like a professor, and she makes her points like a formal paper, but she also talks to the audience as if she were having a conversation, not giving a speech. Also, she uses her PowerPoint only as a visual aid for a few of her points, and definitely not a guiding force in her talk.

The goal should be not to raise kids just like adults, but to raise kids that are better than the current adult generation. It is imperative to create opportunities for children so that they can grow up to fill those opportunities (and then some.) I personally feel that I should have the opportunity to teach my teachers as well as learning from them. I also feel that in some areas I am capable of handling more responsibility than is being given to me. In education, it shouldn't just be a teacher at the head of the class giving directions; students should teach their teachers, too. In other words, learning between grownups and kids should be reciprocal. Adults must lend an ear to kids today because they are the leaders of tomorrow. The world's problems shouldn't be the human family's heirloom.

PW Singer on military robots and the future of war

1. What are your take-aways from this video?

2. What are the speaker's effective speaking techniques?
3. What is his/her presentation style?
4. What matters from this video? How does it connect to you personally? To education? To the world?

A robots revolution is upon us. There is no permanent advantage in war, so the U.S. won't always be ahead. Warfare has gone open-source. Good guys might use them, but so might bad guys. Reinforce the power of individuals against government. There will also be an increase in terrorism. We are taking the moral part out of war. There will be entertainment based on war videos because everything is recorded by the machines. What is the message we are trying to send? We are trying to show our power. What are we actually expressing? We are expressing that we are cowards, too scared to send men in to fight. There is much more potential for "oops" moments. Robots are emotionless, so they don't get upset when their buddies are killed or go off on missions of vengeance. However, robots are emotionless, so they see a helpless old woman the same as a tank: A series of zeroes and ones. Machines can be used for both good and evil. Creativity can build fantastic machines, but part of it that is coming from a drive to destroy each other.

He uses lots of pictures and video of what he’s trying to express. He also makes jokes during his presentation. His speaking perfectly coincides with his PowerPoint. At the end of his presentation, he gives a final thought.

His performance has a light-hearted sort of mood, rather than a grave tone that you might expect for such a talk. However, though he does make jokes at times, he very serious about a lot of the things he is talking about. His presentation did not sound like an essay, and it was not organized according to essay format. He had closing thoughts, but not an opener, and not any real internal structure besides the PowerPoint’s series of slides.

What matters from this video is not that we have this technology so much as the question of what we are going to do with this technology now that we have it. I can personally apply this because when I grow older, this technology will have progressed, and we will probably be fighting machine wars. If I join the military, my experience will be much different than one might expect today; my job might consist of remotely guiding a robot into battle, pressing the buttons I am commanded to press. This applies to education because schools need to keep students informed about things like this; I had no idea about this stuff before watching this video, and I assumed it was just science fiction nonsense. Schools are doing a good job, however, of informing students of the science fiction nonsense that, as of late, is becoming real. Finally, the world can use this new type of war to decrease human casualties. On the other hand, the technology can also be used for evil, and it is almost inevitable that there will be an increase in remote terrorist activity.

Dave Eggers' Wish: Once Upon a School

1. What are your take-aways from this video?
2. What are the speaker's effective speaking techniques?
3. What is his/her presentation style?
4. What matters from this video? How does it connect to you personally? To education? To the world?

One-on-one teaching is more effective than normal class-size teaching.Teachers have to deal with students that are not on grade level especially in reading in writing in under-funded schools. However, this can be overcome if adults--even if they are not educators by profession-- take part in ensuring that a child learns essential skills like reading and writing.

Some of his effective speaking techniques include starting off with something funny and making lots of jokes throughout his presentation. He also uses much gesticulation. He almost constantly engages the audience with humor, which is an extremely effective way of communicating his ideas.

He is very informal in his presentation, talking about his nervousness and pointing out the clock. He doesn't really rely on the PowerPoint. He is the guiding force, not the PowerPoint.

I can apply this to my life because it teaches me that one-on-one education is important for my learning. Therefore, I should seek often as possible one-on-one communication with teachers. Teachers can use this information because it not only gives them a better idea of how to teach their students; it also gives them valuable information about motivating their students: when students know that their work is going to be permanent and viewed by others. Finally, this presentation is important to the world, because it shows that kids can find it fun to learn, read and write, that it doesn't have to be a burden on children to do their studies. It also shows that when people are willing to pitch into projects like the free tutoring center, lots can be accomplished; it is better to do this than to require it, because, as I learned in Daniel Pink's book Drive, this would destroy the intrinsic motivation and therefore it would probably greatly decrease the progress and the efficiency of this type of activity.

Beau Lotto: Optical illusions show how we see

There is no inherent meaning in information; it is what you do with information that matters. We don't see the world the way it is. We see it in a way that is useful to us. We are defined by our environment and our interaction with that environment. Only through uncertainty is there potential for understanding. A lot of what we see is what we have seen before. It is what we think we should be seeing, not what we actually are seeing.

Some of the effective speaking techniques include giving lots of examples to support his ideas; using lots of different mediums to show those examples, like video and audio; talking even during the thirty seconds he was having people look at the red/green optical illusion; and having audience participation in his demonstrations.

His presentation is informal. Most of the time his tone is not one of him lecturing but one of him having a conversation with the audience. He doesn’t use his PowerPoint as his sole organizer of his speaking; however, he does make use of it for most all of his points.

What matters from this presentation is that our perception of the world is relative; not everything we see is fact. In fact (☺), most of what we see is what we have seen and for this reason think we should see. To me personally, this matters because it makes me more aware of what is really true, and that that is not necessarily what I see. This concept should be taught in education, because it would give students new perspectives on what is true about their perception. Finally, the world needs this information because people need to be able to make wise decisions even if things are not always what they appear to be.