Neosophy

Update: Symposium Write-up

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Announcement: Neosophical Think Tank on Waiheke Island, 18th & 19th February 2006 .
A practical imagination symposium exploring learning and education in the Digital Age along with plans for constructive action.

The focus for the symposium will be around the five_competencies being proposed for introduction into the New Zealand National Curriculum.

These are the competencies that people need for work and everyday life, based on the OECD’s work that identified the competencies people need for a successful life and well-functioning society.

The symposium sets out to explore how new media technologies might be harnessed to assist the acquisition of the five competencies, to formulate strategies for implementation and commit to future actions.

For further information about the symposium click here

Neosophy was started in 2000 as a forum for educators to meet and discuss new knowlegde systems, particularly Massive Multiplayer Gaming; 4D Virtual Worlds; Visual Literacy; AI; e-ontology and Mobile Digital Learning.

As we hurtle into the future on spaceship earth, our survival depends on the choices we make and the speed with which we learn and can evolve. We are able to harness new technologies and ways of seeing and communicating with the world.

Information Communication Technologies increasingly provide new knowledge systems that present opportunities for education and new challenges for educators. It is a tide that we can not push back, but how to work with these new media literacies.

What is the purpose of education, what do we need to learn in order to live successfully?

There is a distinction between knowledge and knowing; how are each learned?

Quote:

"The approach of the 21st century has brought a chorus of pronouncements
that "the information society" both requires and makes possible new
forms of education.

We totally agree with this. But we do not agree that tardiness in
translating these declarations into reality can be ascribed, as it often
is, to such factors as the lack of money, technology, standards or
teacher training. Obviously there is need for improvement in all of
those areas. But the primary lack is something very different — a
shortage of bold, coherent, inspiring yet realistic visions of what
education could be like 10 and 20 years from now.

What we mean by vision is not a blueprint but a compelling view of the
"look and feel" of the future — its needs, its opportunities and how we
can prepare ourselves now to act on them. Vision allows us to look
beyond the problems that beset us today, giving direction to our passage
into the future. Even more important, vision energizes that passage by
inspiring and guiding us into action."

More here: http://www.papert.org/articles/Vision_for_education.html