Sir Ken Robinson : Creativity and Education
his talk was very entertaining - he's quite funny!, and he raised some good points and examples of how modern education system is designed towards getting people jobs, since it was formed since the introduction of industrialisation. as we don't know what will happen in the future, how can we educate children correctly to prepare for the future. and how creativity has a lesser importance in the education system of today. I liked a couple of comments he raised - listed below. the full transcript is on the TED blog page

"creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status"

...

kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong.

Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong.

And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

And the result is, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

...

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented round the world there were no public systems of education really before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism.

So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas: Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art, you're not going to be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution.

And the second is, academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

he's written a book called "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative" and is writing another now called "Epiphanies" which is about how people discovered their talents.

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Paul Stamets : 6 ways mushrooms can save the world

Paul Stamets talked about mushrooms - mycelium and how they are nature's internet and the present day internet is a similar model based on nature's creation. also about different uses for mycelium eg regenerating soil, solving oil accidents, medical uses and renewable energy solutions.

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Al Gore : New thinking on the climate crisis

Al Gore gave a new presentation speaking about democracy and how people have to help the climate crisis at home, but also in larger scales by forcing their government and media to raise more awareness to assist with the consciousness change required in helping to save the planet

it's on http://postmoderntimes.com also - which is also a great video / online magazine

here's the blurb from youtube about it :

episode features four underground hip hop artists -- Naada, Propaganda Anonymous, 2HL, and iLL SpoKKinN -- and producer euphAmism in an animated music video packing lyrical and graphical punch in a call for global awakening.

Please go to www.iclips.net/2012 to see the rest of the episodes (more)

The PixelPress online magazine features projects that use a variety of linear and non-linear strategies, attempting to articulate visions of human possibility even while confirming human frailty. For them, the digital revolution is a revolution in consciousness, not in commerce.

PixelPress works with organizations such as Crimes of War, Human Rights Watch, World Health Organization and UNICEF to create Web sites that deal directly with contemporary issues in complex and innovative ways that circumvent media sensationalism and simplification. They also try to factor in ways that the viewer can help remedy social problems, rather than remain a spectator. Recently we completed a site focusing on how to end polio worldwide; another trying to aid an orphanage in Rwanda; one trying to reclaim the Brazilian forest; and a site featuring the images of photographers from the Vietnam War. And they also create books with photographers such as Machiel Botman, Kent Klich and Sebastião Salgado on social themes, as well as traveling exhibitions using both digital and conventional processes.

from http://www.pixelpress.org/whoarewe.html