Slides from a brief talk I gave to a meeting of IT administrators.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
Labels
- physics (377)
- genetics (302)
- globalization (281)
- finance (268)
- brainpower (265)
- genomics (251)
- technology (237)
- american society (230)
- China (210)
- innovation (193)
- economics (183)
- ai (181)
- psychometrics (172)
- science (166)
- photos (162)
- psychology (158)
- machine learning (145)
- biology (142)
- travel (142)
- genetic engineering (130)
- universities (129)
- higher education (124)
- human capital (119)
- credit crisis (115)
- startups (113)
- iq (106)
- cognitive science (99)
- podcasts (98)
- autobiographical (88)
- political correctness (85)
- politics (85)
- careers (84)
- geopolitics (82)
- statistics (80)
- credit crunch (78)
- elitism (76)
- evolution (75)
- bounded rationality (74)
- quantum mechanics (74)
- gilded age (73)
- talks (72)
- income inequality (71)
- social science (71)
- genius (70)
- history of science (66)
- caltech (64)
- realpolitik (63)
- books (62)
- MSU (59)
- mma (57)
- sci fi (57)
- harvard (54)
- biotech (53)
- silicon valley (53)
- academia (51)
- mathematics (51)
- kids (50)
- education (49)
- bgi (48)
- history (48)
- intellectual history (48)
- cdo (45)
- derivatives (43)
- neuroscience (43)
- behavioral economics (41)
- jiujitsu (41)
- literature (41)
- physical training (39)
- video (38)
- computing (37)
- ufc (37)
- bjj (36)
- bubbles (36)
- film (36)
- mortgages (36)
- google (35)
- expert prediction (34)
- many worlds (34)
- affirmative action (33)
- hedge funds (33)
- economic history (32)
- nuclear weapons (31)
- race relations (31)
- security (31)
- black holes (30)
- quants (30)
- von Neumann (30)
- efficient markets (29)
- feynman (29)
- foo camp (29)
- movies (29)
- sports (29)
- music (28)
- singularity (26)
- entrepreneurs (25)
- housing (25)
- obama (25)
- subprime (25)
- berkeley (24)
- taiwan (24)
- conferences (23)
- epidemics (23)
- venture capital (23)
- athletics (22)
- meritocracy (22)
- quantum field theory (22)
- ultimate fighting (22)
- wall street (22)
- cds (20)
- internet (20)
- blogging (19)
- scifoo (19)
- gender (18)
- goldman sachs (18)
- new yorker (18)
- cryptography (17)
- dna (17)
- freeman dyson (17)
- smpy (17)
- treasury bailout (17)
- university of oregon (17)
- algorithms (16)
- japan (16)
- personality (16)
- privacy (16)
- autism (15)
- christmas (15)
- cosmology (15)
- happiness (15)
- height (15)
- oppenheimer (15)
- Fermi problems (14)
- fitness (14)
- les grandes ecoles (14)
- social networks (14)
- wwii (14)
- chess (13)
- government (13)
- hedonic treadmill (13)
- india (13)
- neanderthals (13)
- probability (13)
- russia (13)
- war (13)
- aspergers (12)
- blade runner (12)
- malcolm gladwell (12)
- net worth (12)
- nobel prize (12)
- nsa (12)
- philosophy of mind (12)
- research (12)
- Einstein (11)
- entropy (11)
- geeks (11)
- harvard society of fellows (11)
- string theory (11)
- television (11)
- Go (10)
- ability (10)
- art (10)
- climate change (10)
- cold war (10)
- football (10)
- italy (10)
- mutants (10)
- nerds (10)
- olympics (10)
- pseudoscience (10)
- complexity (9)
- crossfit (9)
- democracy (9)
- encryption (9)
- energy (9)
- eugene (9)
- flynn effect (9)
- france (9)
- james salter (9)
- pop culture (9)
- turing test (9)
- alan turing (8)
- alpha (8)
- data mining (8)
- dating (8)
- determinism (8)
- games (8)
- keynes (8)
- manhattan (8)
- pca (8)
- philip k. dick (8)
- qcd (8)
- quantum computers (8)
- real estate (8)
- robot genius (8)
- success (8)
- usain bolt (8)
- Iran (7)
- aig (7)
- ashkenazim (7)
- basketball (7)
- environmentalism (7)
- free will (7)
- fx (7)
- game theory (7)
- hugh everett (7)
- new york times (7)
- paris (7)
- patents (7)
- poker (7)
- simulation (7)
- tail risk (7)
- teaching (7)
- volatility (7)
- anthropic principle (6)
- bayes (6)
- class (6)
- drones (6)
- godel (6)
- intellectual property (6)
- markets (6)
- nassim taleb (6)
- noam chomsky (6)
- prostitution (6)
- rationality (6)
- academia sinica (5)
- bobby fischer (5)
- econtalk (5)
- fake alpha (5)
- global warming (5)
- information theory (5)
- iraq war (5)
- kasparov (5)
- luck (5)
- nonlinearity (5)
- perimeter institute (5)
- renaissance technologies (5)
- sad but true (5)
- software development (5)
- vietnam war (5)
- warren buffet (5)
- 100m (4)
- Poincare (4)
- bill gates (4)
- borges (4)
- cambridge uk (4)
- censorship (4)
- charles darwin (4)
- creativity (4)
- demographics (4)
- hormones (4)
- humor (4)
- inequality (4)
- judo (4)
- kerviel (4)
- microsoft (4)
- mixed martial arts (4)
- monsters (4)
- moore's law (4)
- solar energy (4)
- soros (4)
- trento (4)
- 200m (3)
- babies (3)
- brain drain (3)
- charlie munger (3)
- cheng ting hsu (3)
- chet baker (3)
- correlation (3)
- ecosystems (3)
- equity risk premium (3)
- facebook (3)
- fannie (3)
- feminism (3)
- fst (3)
- intellectual ventures (3)
- jim simons (3)
- language (3)
- lee kwan yew (3)
- lewontin fallacy (3)
- lhc (3)
- magic (3)
- michael lewis (3)
- nathan myhrvold (3)
- neal stephenson (3)
- olympiads (3)
- path integrals (3)
- risk preference (3)
- search (3)
- sec (3)
- sivs (3)
- society generale (3)
- supercomputers (3)
- systemic risk (3)
- thailand (3)
- alibaba (2)
- assortative mating (2)
- bear stearns (2)
- bruce springsteen (2)
- charles babbage (2)
- cloning (2)
- computers (2)
- david mamet (2)
- digital books (2)
- donald mackenzie (2)
- drugs (2)
- eliot spitzer (2)
- empire (2)
- exchange rates (2)
- frauds (2)
- freddie (2)
- gaussian copula (2)
- heinlein (2)
- industrial revolution (2)
- james watson (2)
- ltcm (2)
- mating (2)
- mba (2)
- mccain (2)
- mit (2)
- monkeys (2)
- national character (2)
- nicholas metropolis (2)
- no holds barred (2)
- offices (2)
- oligarchs (2)
- palin (2)
- population structure (2)
- prisoner's dilemma (2)
- skidelsky (2)
- socgen (2)
- sprints (2)
- twitter (2)
- ussr (2)
- variance (2)
- virtual reality (2)
- abx (1)
- anathem (1)
- andrew lo (1)
- antikythera mechanism (1)
- athens (1)
- atlas shrugged (1)
- ayn rand (1)
- bay area (1)
- beats (1)
- book search (1)
- bunnie huang (1)
- car dealers (1)
- carlos slim (1)
- catastrophe bonds (1)
- cdos (1)
- ces 2008 (1)
- chance (1)
- children (1)
- cochran-harpending (1)
- cpi (1)
- david x. li (1)
- dick cavett (1)
- dolomites (1)
- dune (1)
- eharmony (1)
- escorts (1)
- faces (1)
- fads (1)
- favorite posts (1)
- fiber optic cable (1)
- francis crick (1)
- gary brecher (1)
- gizmos (1)
- greece (1)
- greenspan (1)
- hypocrisy (1)
- igon value (1)
- iit (1)
- inflation (1)
- information asymmetry (1)
- iphone (1)
- jack kerouac (1)
- jaynes (1)
- jazz (1)
- jfk (1)
- john dolan (1)
- john kerry (1)
- john paulson (1)
- john searle (1)
- john tierney (1)
- jonathan littell (1)
- las vegas (1)
- lawyers (1)
- lehman auction (1)
- les bienveillantes (1)
- lowell wood (1)
- lse (1)
- machine (1)
- mcgeorge bundy (1)
- mexico (1)
- michael jackson (1)
- mickey rourke (1)
- migration (1)
- money:tech (1)
- myron scholes (1)
- netwon institute (1)
- networks (1)
- newton institute (1)
- nfl (1)
- oliver stone (1)
- phil gramm (1)
- philanthropy (1)
- philip greenspun (1)
- portfolio theory (1)
- power laws (1)
- pyschology (1)
- randomness (1)
- recession (1)
- sales (1)
- singapore (1)
- skype (1)
- standard deviation (1)
- star wars (1)
- starship troopers (1)
- students today (1)
- teleportation (1)
- tierney lab blog (1)
- tomonaga (1)
- tyler cowen (1)
- venice (1)
- violence (1)
- virtual meetings (1)
- war nerd (1)
- wealth effect (1)
6 comments:
Can you give us some concrete examples of the use of technology in teaching? Data point: what I find with the most recent crops of [mathematics and physics] undergraduates is that, apart from those who are focusing on computer science, the vast majority of them have zero interest in anything that looks like coding or involves learning a language. They have grown up in an environment in which computers do not require anything like that. So for example they want to be able to type in dy/dx and expect the computer to understand that. So they get along with MAPLE ok, but detest MATLAB.
The percentage of engineers and scientists who need to code in their work is very small. Even Maple, Mathematica and MATLAB are overkill. Excel suffices. This is true even for some very complicated problems like large building design. There are many commercial programs for those problems, and engineers and scientists generally just input the data.
When I was being trained in the 1960's, engineers were taught FORTRAN, and we used it for rather simple problems because there were no commercial packages or spreadsheets. Nowadays, engineers are generally taught some version of C, although FORTRAN and BASIC still persist. But very few of them will ever code.
PS. The computing engine for MATLAB is in the public domain. At one time the software companies would sell you a DOS version with a command line interface for about $10. I don't know if it's still available, but it was useful for smallish matrices, say 10x10 tops.
It seems to me that IT has made learning easier, but are the people who need the extra help learning capable of using their hard-gained knowledge? I don't think so. Knowing something is one thing, but using it is another.
I wonder how many kids would have failed maths were it not for Khan Academy? A lot. I read somewhere that more than 50% of kids can't learn from a textbook.
My experience as a teacher is that there is a large gap between lectures or textbooks and actual practical absorption of key material.
There are at least three different kinds of IT in higher education:
university administration (payroll, admissions, email, website, etc.)
general undergraduate student/faculty computer support (word processing, statistics, basic engineering software, etc.)
research (distributed computing, big data, etc.)
While there may be overlap, each of these has different IT requirements. Often people making the decision about Enterprise Software purchases do not use the software in their jobs.
I can only respond to this that if Excel is sufficient, then most engineers aren't trying very hard.
Post a Comment