A while ago I started thinking about education.
It all started with me blaming my past's teachers for not being able to excite me about pretty much anything, even though usually I was listening to what I was being told. Simply nothing was explained to us in an interesting way. And this even in university!
I firmly believe that inspiring is a crucial part of an educator's role. And creativity should be fostered!
Here two links:
- Here Wired points out a few talks from TED fellows which are thinking of how to inspire the scientists and engineers of the future!
Go Bre! Go!
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/ted-2012-hardware-littlebits-makerbot/
- Creativity can be trained?
http://www.labmanager.com/?articles.view/articleNo/6879/article/Anyone-Can-Learn-to-Be-More-Inventive
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Tuesday 11 October 2011
More notes:
innocentive.com, looks a bit like a scam... usually I'd say the sums of money are too low
opensciencesummit.com, maybe join it next year?
opensciencesummit.com, maybe join it next year?
Monday 10 October 2011
0pen scientific instruments!
Tonight I've looked over some pages I'd bookmarked last week:
citizensciencequarterly.com
p2pfoundation.net/Product_Hacking
Well I've come across a lot of interesting stuff in the first page! No doubt the most remarkable is an open source DNA oligomer synthesizer & microarrayer which was first published in 2004! Wow! Definitely "ahead of its time"... But also an orbital shaker and an electrophoresis chamber.
In the second, a wiki, well simply the amount of info there is overwhelming! I'm sure there are a couple of hidden gems there too... Just need more time.
These efforts convince me even further of the possibility to bring open hardware into science to change how science is done. Finally it should be possible to reduce the expense for acquiring the most commonly used instruments (bonus especially for small start-ups or poorer research institutions). More importantly the openness about the instrumentation used should speed up and facilitate innovation as the needs of scientists would translate sooner into practical solutions for unprecedented experiments. Then these open source developments would sooner reach potential users but also other people out there which can contribute yet more customizations and improvements.
citizensciencequarterly.com
p2pfoundation.net/Product_Hacking
Well I've come across a lot of interesting stuff in the first page! No doubt the most remarkable is an open source DNA oligomer synthesizer & microarrayer which was first published in 2004! Wow! Definitely "ahead of its time"... But also an orbital shaker and an electrophoresis chamber.
In the second, a wiki, well simply the amount of info there is overwhelming! I'm sure there are a couple of hidden gems there too... Just need more time.
These efforts convince me even further of the possibility to bring open hardware into science to change how science is done. Finally it should be possible to reduce the expense for acquiring the most commonly used instruments (bonus especially for small start-ups or poorer research institutions). More importantly the openness about the instrumentation used should speed up and facilitate innovation as the needs of scientists would translate sooner into practical solutions for unprecedented experiments. Then these open source developments would sooner reach potential users but also other people out there which can contribute yet more customizations and improvements.
Monday 3 October 2011
Sunday 2 October 2011
A mate?
I might have found the right person with which to share my first adventure in open source. On Tuesday I was at a talk by Pavel Tomancak entitled "Open access", which ended up covering open source software & hardware (in addition of course to publishing scientific results in open access journals).
Throughout the talk I often agreed with what was being said but at one moment I was struck: Pavel mentioned that he had heard about FabLabs and that he dreamed of having one in Dresden!
I couldn't believe what I heard! I had been thinking about something similar in the last months. I spoke about it to several collegues but never found anyone that really understood my vision. I instantaneously decided I had to have a chat with Pavel, to tell him about my ideas.
Well, we did meet this Friday :) It was brief but sufficient for me to understand that finally I have found a like-minded person. Needless to say I am excited! We have an inkling of a plan, I will post as things proceed.
Throughout the talk I often agreed with what was being said but at one moment I was struck: Pavel mentioned that he had heard about FabLabs and that he dreamed of having one in Dresden!
I couldn't believe what I heard! I had been thinking about something similar in the last months. I spoke about it to several collegues but never found anyone that really understood my vision. I instantaneously decided I had to have a chat with Pavel, to tell him about my ideas.
Well, we did meet this Friday :) It was brief but sufficient for me to understand that finally I have found a like-minded person. Needless to say I am excited! We have an inkling of a plan, I will post as things proceed.
Hey! Ho! Let's Go
Finally I'm also out there, in the blogger-space!
In the last years my thoughts have wandered and evolved from hobby electronics, to DIY, open source and experiential learning... Somehow, from thinking of setting up a makerspace here in Dresden (Germany) I came to the idea that the open source philosophy source should be fully embraced by scientists (details will follow).
So I decided to start this blog to expose my ideas in the hope of receiving constructive feedback and finding people that share and understand my visions.
In the last years my thoughts have wandered and evolved from hobby electronics, to DIY, open source and experiential learning... Somehow, from thinking of setting up a makerspace here in Dresden (Germany) I came to the idea that the open source philosophy source should be fully embraced by scientists (details will follow).
So I decided to start this blog to expose my ideas in the hope of receiving constructive feedback and finding people that share and understand my visions.
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