Ideas Worth Spreading 

Topic: Leadership and Responsibility downstream from the Unabomber
Description: Paul Fochtman will weave a story from his leadership learning journey especially his time in India.  Punctuated with various global and local events and challenges, he will share some insights on a leadership priority lesson, on service in international schools, and communicate an idea on responsibility.

Topic: Mythology of Identity
Description: As modern people we would like to believe that we are rational and reasonable beings. In fact, the modern man looks at mythology as pre-modern thinking. And yet, most things we hold dear originate not from logic. Our self-image, our identity, our culture, our ideas about truth, beauty and goodness depend on a mythic framework. This talk explores an aspect of life that we as humans are often embarrassed to acknowledge, yet is present all around us. It brings out the worst in us and the best.

Topic: Entertainment vs. Engagement: Why it's Imperative
Educators Know the Difference
Description: When asked a defining characteristic of the "Net" Generation, teachers often cite the need for today's students to be constantly entertained. This talk will argue that there are significant differences between activities that are entertaining and those that are engaging, and what today's student demands is engagement.

Topic: Are Schools Dangerously Irrelevant?
Description: Educational research consistently finds that the vast majority of students’ day-to-day classroom work occurs in relative isolation, is primarily paper-based, and focuses on factual recall and low‑level procedural knowledge. This industrial model of schooling is increasingly in tension with the needs of a hyperconnected knowledge economy. As school leaders, we must ask ourselves what our moral and professional obligations are to create school environments that prepare our graduates for a technology-suffused, globally-interconnected world.

Topic: Social Networks and Interactive Portfolios: Blurring the Boundaries
Description: Electronic Portfolios have been with us for more almost two decades, used primarily in education to store documents and reflect on learning, provide feedback for improvement, and showcase achievement for accountability or employment. Social networks have emerged over the last five years, used by individuals and groups to store documents and share experiences, showcase accomplishments, communicate and collaborate with friends and family, and, in some cases, facilitate employment searches. The boundaries between these two processes are gradually blurring. As we consider the potential of lifelong e-portfolios, will they resemble the structured accountability systems that are currently being implemented in many higher education institutions? Or are we beginning to see lifelong interactive portfolios emerging as mash-ups in the cloud?

Topic: A School for Everyone
Description: For all that we know about school transformation, and innovation in education so little seems to have been realized; at least on any scale. While we are incrementally exploring new possibilities for what school could be through the use of technology in schools around the developed world, we seem comfortable with our progress…even though a rapidly increasing amount of evidence suggests we are failing to meet the needs of too many young people within our existing institutions.

What if, for a moment we thought, not just what school could be, but rather what it should be? What if we decided that our priority in exploring the opportunity afforded to us by technology would be directed at those areas of most need; what if we decided that rather than trying to tinker, we would truly transform. What would school look like then?
In this talk, Bruce explores the possibility that what we already know about learning combined with emerging technologies might allow us to truly create A School for Everyone; that what has limited this possibility has not been a lack of capacity or funding, but our legacy perspective, and that what might be possible, might indeed allow us to meet one of society’s most challenging goals…education for all.

Topic: Did God Invent the Internet?
Description: Many people today are discussing the ultimate impact of technology on the human race. They often don’t state it just that way, but they do talk about how technology is impacting our kids, and how it has changed their own lives – for better and for worse. So the seminal question is whether technology will ultimately help or cripple humanity. In some ways, this thought might be too big and unpredictable to even consider in 2010, yet if we can project out what the answer might be, the changes in behavior we could make now might really be helpful. The reality is that technology may be the largest catalyst for change since we became conscious. No other influence in our lives is so integrated into who we are, and how we operate. It is also important to note, that we have barely scratched the surface with how we use technology because we have only had it for a relatively short time. At the current rate of progression with invention and innovation, our lives will barely be recognizable 100 years from now. By the way, our kids and grandkids will still be alive at that time in most cases, so it is imperative that we form our beliefs on what this powerful catalyst might inevitably do for us and make any adjustments necessary now…

Inari Kolu, a Finnish singer-songwriter and student at ASB, performs her own “Hourglass”, a lovely song specially commissioned for this TEDxASB event. The poetic lyrics of “Hourglass” encourage us to remember the human side of radical change, and to face our struggle for the future with optimism, open-mindedness, and compassion. Inari’s creativity promotes reflection on the key themes touched upon by the other presenters… but in the end, it’s just great music to listen to!

Pranav Mistry is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.

Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.
Full bio and more links

On December 1, 2009, TEDxASB, brought constructive and provocative ideas about service, making a difference, and helping others to live their dreams to the community at the American School of Bombay. Bill Magee, founder of Operation Smile, described what has become a life mission to help people with cleft lip and cleft palate. Bill came to see his purpose when he made a connection between a simple need in a Philippine community and the skills that he and his colleagues had as doctors. He inspired ASB community members to reflect on themselves as agents of change who can pursue dreams for the lives of others. Shaheen Mistry, founder of the Akanksha Foundation and Teach for India, described her quest to provide hope to children in India through education. Shaheen told stories of under-privileged children who through the special efforts of Akanksha educators are discovering that they too can participate in making the world a better place. She inspired our community with her optimism and commitment and left many of us contemplating how our skills as students and teachers can be better harnessed to enhance the lives of others. TEDxASB reminded me that hope can be derived through the process of learning – too often we see learning as purely rational – and that it is through hope itself that many of us find the strength to stay committed to our ideals.