iFoundry » the basics

Is engineering philosophically weak?

deg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:23:38 +0000

iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg just presented a talk at SPT 2009, the 2009 Conference of the Society for Philosophy of Technology at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. The powerpoint stack from that talk is available in the viewer below:

Qual to quant: Start with little models

deg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:27:45 +0000

In moving from qualitative models to quantitative models, it pays to start small. In module 11 of Creative Modeling for Tech Vision, the topic of little quantitative models is explored with applications to evolutionary computation and organziational theory:

See more presentations here.

Crossing the qual-quant divide

deg — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:54:41 +0000

One of iFoundry’s themes is the importance of both qualitative and quantitative thinking skills, a theme emphasized in the powerpoint presentation shown in the viewer below:

or in on the Slideshare page here.

iFoundry website welcomes NUS visitors

deg — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:47:53 +0000

NUS visitors wishing to view the talk on The Missing Basics by David E. Goldberg can do so in the viewer below

or they may view it on the iFoundry slideshare page (here). iFoundry YouTube videos are available here and other presentations by Professor Goldberg are available on the slideshare page here.

Live twittering of 2009 Symposium on Engineering and Liberal Education

deg — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:58:03 +0000

iFoundry co-director, David E. Goldberg, is live twittering the 2009 ELE symposium at www.twitter.com/deg511. First up, Lewis Duncan, former Dean of Engineering at Dartmouth and currently, President of Rollins College.

The missing basics and an academic NIMBY problem

deg — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:55:32 +0000

The 2009 Symposium on Engineering and Liberal Education starts tonight at Union College in Schenectady, NY, and iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg will be giving a poster presentation entitled The Missing Basics and an Academic NIMBY Problem: Conceptual and Organizational Obstacles to an Engineering Education Aligned with a Creative Era (here).

The Missing Basics and an Academic NIMBY Problem

Lecture: Playing well with others in a creative era

deg — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:49:45 +0000

Apr

12:00 pm

iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg will give a talk Playing Well with Others in a Creative Era from 12-1 pm in Lecture room C60, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, on Friday, 17 April 2009.

Abstract. Cross-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education and research are all the rage, but the reasons for their ascendence and the conceptual and organizational hurdles to successful execution are rarely critically examined. This talk considers the rise of work across disciplinary boundaries since World War 2, and the missed revolutions that have transformed organizations outside the academy. Economic and technological forces underlying the missed revolutions are also examined, and these lead to a discussion the growing body of literature that recognizes the present as a time that values creativity over mere improvement or enhancement. The talk continues with a discussion of the ways in which the separation between what C. P. Snow called The Two Cultures are increasingly untenable, suggesting that the language used to defend the cold war paradigm of technology–language that includes terms such as “rigorous” and “the basics”–is itself a barrier to working across disciplines, that terms such as “soft” and “not rigorous” are a form of name calling, and that technologists have done themselves and their students a disservice by disregarding the missing basics of a proper technological education. These missing basics are identified as a missing link to successful interdisciplinary research, and a number of organizational innovations to successful discipline crossing are discussed, including pairwork and mesolevel dot connectors.