San Diego – This past weekend I attended the Imaging DNA Conference held at Art Center in Pasadena. It was a great experience and presented some very challenging concepts for education in the digital world. It also previewed the Raytrix Plenoptic Lightfield camera. That technology is very new and still under development but the possibilities are amazing. Enough data is captured from the incoming light rays that focus can be recalculated in post production and 3D images can be made from the data. The version of the camera we saw was for industrial use on very small objects but it certainly proved the concept works.
The major challenge came in the presentations which built on a recurrent concept that achieving the “possible” is no big deal, anyone can do it because it is, well, possible. But aiming for the “impossible” is the path from which growth stems in all areas. We need to learn to interrogate the possibilities but not to achieve them so much as to point to the IMpossibilities we need to achieve. And education is where that habit can start. We talk about various learning styles among individuals but all of those are, in fact, LEARNED. Based on our culture, history, associations, habits, etc. we have “learned” to learn in a particular way. But for given material that may not be the most efficient or optimal way. The data is out there, and it exists in a wide variety of forms. If we want our students to succeed, we need to concentrate as much on teaching them how to learn our material optimally as we do on the material itself.
That is a bold view and flies in the face of political correctness and the adherence to diversity especially in academia by those who have taken tolerance to the point of cowardice. But it is backed up by experience and practice. But it means we, as educators need to know that in the first place and Im not sure we all do… I’m not sure I do. But you can bet I’m going to be working on it.
N. DAVID KING's BLOG 