We are all interested in improving the quality of education that our children receive both in and outside of school. If there were a “magic pill,” to accomplish this task, I believe it would have been discovered. So far, no such luck.
As I read the education literature, I search for success stories. There are many such stories. But, is there a magic pill, or some ideas that can be easily replicated?
I was one of the founders of the Math Learning Center (MLC) and have served on its Board of Directors since this 501(c)(3) organization started 40 years ago. During these 40 years, I have advocated for increased use of calculators and computers in math education. Several hundred of my math education and computer education publications are available free online (IAE, 2017). Three of my more widely read math education articles are (Moursund, 2017a; Moursund, 2017b; and Moursund, 2017c).
One of my contributions to the MLC was getting it started in developing some online Math Manipulatives programs (Moursund, 4/19/2013). A catalog of the MLC’s current collection of 11 free online math manipulatives is available (MLC, 2017).
Almost every day I find one or more science and technology articles that really catch my attention. David Hambling’s article about developing robots to do underwater mining certainly provides a good example (Hambling, 10/23/2017).
The problem that many mining operations face is that of water getting into a mine. The history of steam engines is intimately connected with this problem. Steam engines were first developed to pump water out of mines. Quoting from Encyclopedia.com (n.d.):
IBM is one of a large number of companies that are deeply engaged in developing uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help solve problems and accomplish tasks (Moursund, 2017a). In 1997, an IBM computer system named Deep Blue defeated the reigning world chess champion in a six-game match. In 2011, an IBM computer system named Watson handily defeated former Jeopardy! winners Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.
A recent interview of Ginni Rometty, Chief Executive Officer of IBM, discussed what that company is currently doing (Murphy, 9/25/2017). The interview began with Rometty explaining why IBM now uses the terminology Cognitive Computing rather than AI. Quoting Rometty:
Education serves many purposes. In much of my writing, I combine these purposes into the following short statement:
I believe that the overall and unifying goal of learning (via a lifetime of informal and formal education) is to develop and maintain cognitive, moral, physical, and spiritual knowledge and skills that help learners to solve or in other ways to cope with the problems they encounter.
