Pride of Lions: 'Food' Class Video-Streaming at World Univ & Sch?, Teaching at WUaS is Learning Process, WUaS Great for Professional Skill Development

On the BART train to the airport today, I met some high school kids, around 15 years old, who were from Oakland, California. They were good kids, and looked like they were from the 'hood. One said to me something like: "You look like you're a busy man." (I had all my bags with me and was on the BART line to the airport). I said I was heading home for xmas. "Where are you heading," I asked? "Wherever BART will take me," he said, sounding like his world was the SF Bay Area for the foreseeable future. I asked if these kids had internet access, and began to tell them about World University & School, where they could teach (and learn anything), but we're all going to shape it. The two kids I was talking with both had cell phones, and at least one had internet access on his. "World University and School is in seed form now, but it's the open, free university and school idea," I said. "Streaming video for teaching and learning on mobile phones isn't 'there' yet, but a free open teaching and learning school and university, which we all shape will be very cool when we have video-capable web streaming." The kid sitting across from me joked to his friend, in an open way, that he was going to become a singing cook. I asked him what he would learn at World University & School, if he could learn anything he wanted? He said "Food." When they got off the train, they both shook my hand; I'm not sure why. So, I added soon a 'food' subject: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Food

There's a lot of great teaching about food already on the web ... invitation to teach and to add great food instruction to WUaS.


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Another young man, of Asian background, was working a Rubik's cube very rapidly with his hands, while listening to music. A Rubik's cube is six sided, with 9 faces on each side, and every face is rotatable on three axes. One challenge in this puzzle is to make each side the same color, after mixing up the sides.

I asked him while he was listening to music how fast he could do it, but he didn't hear me. I observed to the other kids I was talking with how there were strategies for doing Rubik's cubes, as well as mathematics for understanding what was happening.


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As we were getting off the train, the Asian American kid, also around 15, and I started talking. He said he could make each of the 6 sides their own color in 5-6 seconds, so doing it now was a rote exercise in manual dexterity for him. He said he never thought about doing it in terms of algorithms, nor as math or statistics. He was really quick with his hands. He made doing it look fun.

We didn't talk about the potential for World University & School to help shape ways to think about puzzles like Rubik's cubes, but there are many ways it could help. Perhaps he'll teach and learn about Rubik's cubes at WUaS.


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World University will help a lot of kids, and professionally, too. And kids' teaching at WUaS will be a learning process for kids.











(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/12/pride-of-lions-food-class-video.html - December 19, 2009)