We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.
A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.
Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.
Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.
Big Think’s Edge learning platform for career mentorship and professional development provides engaging and actionable courses delivered by the people who are shaping our future.
Redesigning Learning, Teaching, & Schooling
"Strong opinion's aren't free. You'll turn some people off. They'll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That's life. For everyone who loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one's upset by what you're saying, you're probably not pushing hard enough." ~Jason Fried & David ...
Let Valentine's Day be a time to reflect on our love affair with technology. Are school leaders in this relationship because they believe in the power of technology to enhance education or are school leaders looking at technology as a beautiful piece of 'eye-candy'? This year, how will you ...
Here is a short essay on MOOCs that Drs. Steve Vardeman and Max Morris, Statistics faculty at Iowa State University, gave me permission to share. Their essential premises? That MOOCs are going to rock state (and other) universities' worlds, that most institutions should immediately institute ...
Laptops. iPads (or other tablet devices). Chromebooks. Maybe even netbooks or ultrabooks... As more schools and districts move toward 1:1 computing, one of the most common questions is 'What device should we get for our students?' The typical response is another question: 'Well, what do you want ...
I just finished reading Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson. Although it has a business slant, there are many great links to school leadership. Here are but a few: "Policies are organizational scar tissue. They are codified overreactions to situations that are unlikely to happen ...
Introducing a new feature here, here's a school technology leadership scenario for you... SCENARIO: You're a new central office administrator in a growing district. Just a few months into the job you learn that the new high school your district is building - which was originally designed 3 to 4 ...
I was shocked to see a video where a Mesa, AZ principal forced two boys to hold hands as a punishment for fighting (Per AV's comments below, the boys were given a choice of punishments which included this option). The video shows fellow students ridiculing two boys. Let's not focus on the crime ...
I just came across a blog post where the author put the One Laptop Per Child computer on the Deathwatch.The crux of the post is that XO laptops, with great intentions, have been given to many kids but disappointing empirical studies have yet to warrant the cost. The lessons learned from smaller ...
There is a hole in higher education and it might not be where you expect. This hole in the system is causing substantial problems for our country, including for taxpayers and tuition-paying students & families. The hole is a lack of personnel with a particular skill-set for business management. You ...
We know that good school leaders: Create a shared vision Create relevant and lasting professional development opportunities for teachers Ensure the infrastructure is solid Budget to meet the changing needs of the school Why then when we introduce technology does good leadership ...
Here are some great resources from the 2012 ISTE Leadership Forum held in Indianapolis. The resources from the conference are hosted on the Leadership Forum Wiki - feel free to browse. Chris Lehmann's slide deck 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tech-leading Principals Educational Leadership ...
It's 2012. Technology suffuses everything around us. The Internet and Internet browsers have been pretty mainstream for at least a decade. And yet, I continually run into significant numbers of educators who still don't know how to work their Internet browser. They struggle with copying and ...
Marc Tucker, President and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy, had a blog post back in August titled Instructional Technology: Villain of the Piece - or Savior? In that post, he postulated five ways that technology could be used to improve student achievement: Use word ...
Part 1. Monkeys There's an apocryphal story about monkeys - based loosely on a real experiment - that goes something like this: Stage 1. Monkeys 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 live in a cage. A researcher hangs a banana down from the top and places a ladder underneath the banana. However, every time a monkey ...
Edward Brantmeier and I recently published an article focused on how modern digital technologies can be used to catalyze peace. In it we argue that: Information communication technologies (ICTs) play a vital role in the context of technocultural globalization. The world is now in an era of ...