Tedx Livermore Round 2

TEDx Livermore June 8, 2013 Round 2

The music groups, music presenters, humanists, and the forensics pair were also highlights for me, as they stretched my own dimensional limits.  The Basement Boys opened the day with a twenty minute jazz improv session; they were outstanding.  Youth Rock the Rebuild had a superb vocalist, and a mission to sing for charity groups – their dedication as well as their music, was awesome.

The highlight for me was Walter Collins, Exec Director for the Calif Symphony Orchestra and his Sound Minds program for children.  He brought a group on stage, complete with stringed instruments, to regale us.  He also introduced Benjamin Zander, "The transformative power of classical music" which is a TED talk on the web.  Go see it, it will move you!

Along that same vein, Sugata Mitra, "Build a School in the Cloud" told an earlier TED audience a compelling story about children learning with computers in unstructured ways.  Think about leaving a computer in a "wall" or a "fence" for anyone to use, and then watching, sort of in a "Candid Camera" mode.  Astonishing results!  Even more interesting than the old "Stand and Deliver" movie.

There were, as befits any TED conference, 'serious talks' which is how I'd label my own.  I spoke to Resilience as the key to innovative success, using examples from HP, my old nursery in Colorado Springs, and COPD and emphysema death-rates across America, hardly correlated with what the AMA insists is the cause.   Aside from the stage being set up in a way it is hard to hear audience reaction, I felt very good about the talk, the questions later, and the enthusiasm it seemed to create.

Ro Khanna, a great talent who worked in Dept of Commerce for Obama's first term (2009-2011), is now at Wilson Sonsini and at Stanford.  He gave a clear-eyed talk about MOOCs, and the possibility (nay, the probability) that they will revolutionize education.  Tie his perspective together with that of Mitra's "hole in the wall" and Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk about escaping the Death Valley of Education, and we had a ripsnorter (how do the Brits say it?  Gobsmacked?) for educational reform.

But it went onAlex Eckert, Vice Principal at Livermore High, and Meagn Fallone, with Barefoot College, and Dustin Haisler all talked to aspects of how education is morphing.  Lisa Highfill did a bang-up job talking about her "Flipped Classroom" and Betsy Burroughs taught us about mood vs. goals with a set of flip cards we should take with us on walks and sojourns.

I can't omit Jade Meskill, who shared some provocative thoughts about societal change, with his work with Gangplank (a name not calculated to excited big company consulting contracts???).

But none of this compared with Andrew Todhunter's presentation about a new program called "Senior Reflection" at Stanford, and his guest who is laboring to save elephants from extinction.  The Senior Reflection concept is essentially a year to blend multi-disciplinary learning on a personal pursuit.  Shelly Xie, an artist and biology grad (with honors) from Stanford, showed us her 'sand animation' painting to illustrate the drama and pathos of the schistosomiasis disease in Ghana.  Without seeing this work performed, you'd never imagine that it was possible to blend computer imaging, sand designs, and a story like she was able to do.  Talking later with Andrew and Shelly about what it took to learn this skill was genuinely stimulating.

All in all, you missed a good Saturday in Livermore, never mind that it was 109 degrees outside