A Bicycle for the Mind

Comment

Comment by Brad Ovenell-Carter on April 1, 2010 at 4:57pm

It sends a powerful message, doesn't it.

Comment by Dwayne Harapnuik on April 1, 2010 at 4:06pm

Wow! Replace the flag with something more current and switch out the blackboards with whiteboards and it looks like many classrooms of today.

Comment by Brad Ovenell-Carter on April 1, 2010 at 12:43am

Here you go Dwayne, as it was in the '40s:

Comment by Dwayne Harapnuik on March 31, 2010 at 11:32am

Technology is "A Bicycle for the mind" Great metaphor (or is it an analogy)! I wouldn't mind seeing that image of your father's one-room school house from the 40's in Saskatchewan. My family settled in Alberta, Canada and my mother actually carried her lunch to school in a syrup pail--similar to title of the Educational Foundations text used in Canada called Syrup Pails and Gopher Tails.

Finally to my point. Technology has progressed a long way from the 40's and the one-room school house and we have lots of opportunities to use "Bicycles for the Minds" but why don't we--on a very broad and scale. We see small pockets of experimentation and adoption here and there but for the most part one could argue that other than newer buildings and larger classrooms much of education has remained the same. I am hoping that with mobile technology we have an opportunity to really make some changes. You just can't stuff a classroom into the device so perhaps the academy will start rethinking how it creates learning environments--perhaps mobile technology is the catalyst that can help make some lasting and significant changes. I got my hopes up on the mid 90's with online learning but the academy with the help of the BBorg found a way to transfer the classroom online without having to really change or improve things. Perhaps it will be different this time.

Comment by Brad Ovenell-Carter on March 30, 2010 at 4:24pm

Hi Kenny, and thanks. Impressed you know Beuys work. I took this shot at his exhibit at the Hamburger Bahnhof while on a house swap in Berlin last summer. The previous image in my video is the one-room school house my dad attended when he was lad in the 40's in Saskatchewan.

Comment by Kenny Jones on March 30, 2010 at 4:01pm

Nice image reference to the Artist Joseph Beuys at 0:44. Especially since he was all about "taking down the brick and mortar of schools" at least as they reference the "walls" that stop the cycle of learning. Also nice overall metaphor in the bi (two) +cycle = learning / co-learner collaboration, instead of unicycle of top/down instructor student interactions.
Thank you for this concise statement of the problem.