The "I'm Bored" Conversation Thread

[Rigwyn]

Something I've thought about from time to time is how little has change as far as teaching and education goes. They way we learn in schools is pretty much the same as it was when I was a kid. Some learning is repetitious rote learning and some involves actually discussing and dissecting information - tearing it apart in order to understand it better.

Is it possible to invent a far more effective means of teaching  without the use of expensive medical technology? Is it possible to devise a way or method to more rapidly educate a student so that by they time they are an adult, they know maybe two or three times more that one would via conventional means?

I could see this as being very important as technology advances.

[bloodedIrishman]

@tman

I was being sarcastic. No person likes My Little Pony. I do find it boring and I did not read. Thus I want the topic to change, thus I state what I stated. Rirenil wants MLP. Why are you discounting his opinion? FASCIST NAZI. Godwin's Law. There it is.

[tman]

Why are you discounting his opinion? FASCIST NAZI. Godwin's Law. There it is.

So...

I win? 

[bloodedIrishman]

Godwin's Law does not imply the one on the receiving end wins.

However,

(1) I am always right
(2) I called you a Nazi
Therefore you are a Nazi

[Illysia]

@bloodedIrishman: Don't say that on the internet. You'll attract a rush of fanboy rage... because it's certainly not the 5 year old little girls propping the ponies up.

@Rigwyn: One can simply put more effort into developing the infrastructure to support different types of learning. For instance, some people learn better while moving, some people while interacting with others, and so on. Adapting classes so that they are separated by learning style rather than child number might help better. I guess the seven intelligences are a good place to start.

Then there is also just updating the system. Simply changing things to fit around new technology could help. Er... not the medical kind just things like making sure kids never have to learn on software like clarisworks again. Do schools even still have that? XD

[Volki]

I'm pretty sure I nearly killed myself yesterday. I'd rather not discuss anything so complex right now... Feeling a little woozy.

[Eonwind]

I know this topic has gone too far but I can't really resist from replying...

So.. if QM is indeterministic however, those wonky behaviors that are at play only at the subatomic level do not have any affect at a macroscopic level ( ie. it does not cause photons to stray from their trajectories as they traverses from one end of the universe to the other. Such creep or collective error would cause light to twist and knot along the way - perhaps turning back to its origin. ),  then does this make the universe as a whole indeterministic too?  Isn't it fair to say that ts deterministic at a macroscopic level?

I'm not the mouth of the science but as far as I can tell if the inner structure of the universe is not deterministic at subatomic level we can't really say it is at a bigger level... however for such bigger scale phenomenon we can safely assume they are predictable, at least in the time frame we can observe.
I know the terms predictable and determinable as I used them can be pretty confusing but they are not the same, at least in the contest of what I'm talking about.

Right, but there is still a chain of cause and effect. It's just too obscure to measure and observe.That's not the same as saying that randomness is part of the cause, rather its only practical to deal with this mess by using probability and treating it as if it was random?

Of course there is cause and effects, the only problem (if we can call it a problem at all) with QM is the sheer act of measurement is a "cause" by itself. As you approach and go to measure the quantum state of an electron, you actually make the probabilities collide and the system can be actually be measured (given measurement errors and given you're not trying to measure for example below the wave length of the electron itself, which is by no mean possible) and so it is determined, but at this point it's already in the past!
So the problem still stay and while we have a relationship of causes and effects (and they're not random because while measures happens the results given are by no mean random) we can only predict the state of a system by interacting with it which will actually modify both the system and the observer to a degree.

Damn you.. I'm going to have to start studying this stuff now.... 

physic is fascinating, isn't it? 

[Rirenil Masdo]

Or maybe God is just a kid at his computer and we are his Sims 

More Pony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZG1K1-2omo

[Roled]

Something I've thought about from time to time is how little has change as far as teaching and education goes. They way we learn in schools is pretty much the same as it was when I was a kid. Some learning is repetitious rote learning and some involves actually discussing and dissecting information - tearing it apart in order to understand it better.

Is it possible to invent a far more effective means of teaching  without the use of expensive medical technology? Is it possible to devise a way or method to more rapidly educate a student so that by they time they are an adult, they know maybe two or three times more that one would via conventional means?

I could see this as being very important as technology advances.

http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U   (RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms )
enjoy.....

[tman]

As a student at a fairly prestigious university, there is NOTHING more annoying than going to the first day of class and discovering your professor is one of those new-age let's-change-the-entire-classroom-paradigm kind of guys.  Seriously if this happens to me I drop the class immediately.  A couple classes at my university are starting to do the whole "flipped classroom" thing where the lectures are posted as videos and the time in class is spent doing "homework problems."  I get it.  People learn differently.  But the fact is, all of us who go here got in because the traditional system worked well for us.  We all did really well in the traditional education setting.  Stop trying to change us.

[Volki]

I had a "flipped" class in one of my lecture classes that holds about the number of students that attended my elementary school. It was really confusing. There was too much talking. It was far too slow. And barely any of the students brought their over-a-thousand-page textbooks. I haven't even bothered to show up to the class since. (Teacher doesn't take attendance or in-class grades, and I can't survive huge auditoriums with no breathing space.)

Also, I can guarantee you that videos are the worst learning medium. People can read information much faster than they can watch/hear it. And you can't speed up videos to equal the speed at which you learn with reading without losing frames or going beyond the threshold of audio comprehension.

[yourcharname]

no

[Rigwyn]

When I was going to school, the biggest hinderance for me
Was that I could not take notes and pay attention at the same
Time. If I listened and understood the material, I would not
Have notes and vice versa.

Simply being given a transcript forr the class - video and audio
Would have been great and easy to produce.

[Rirenil Masdo]

Can we move on though? This is boring. Some made excellent points, some not, and you all tl;dr'd. Now onto My Little Pony.

i will do you one better  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwud6Qh4e_c

oh, and they curse, so waer headphones if you are in an area where that sort of thing is frowned upon.

[Rigwyn]

Something to consider would be to make specific debate threads for those who are interested in discussing things in detail.