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Sci-Tech

The Dawn of Artificial Intelligence: A Journey Through Time

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AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of our daily lives, influencing everything from how we interact with technology to how businesses operate. But where did it all begin? Let’s take a journey through the early days of AI, exploring the key milestones that have shaped this fascinating field.

Early Concepts and Inspirations

The concept of artificial beings with intelligence dates back to ancient myths and legends. Stories of mechanical men and intelligent automata can be found in various cultures, reflecting humanity’s long-standing fascination with creating life-like machines1. However, the scientific pursuit of AI began much later, with the advent of modern computing.

The Birth of AI as a Discipline

The field of AI was officially founded in 1956 during the Dartmouth Conference, organized by computer science pioneers John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon2. This conference is often considered the birth of AI as an academic discipline. The attendees proposed that “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”

Early Milestones

One of the earliest successful AI programs was written in 1951 by Christopher Strachey, who later became the director of the Programming Research Group at the University of Oxford. Strachey’s checkers (draughts) program ran on the Ferranti Mark I computer at the University of Manchester, England3. This program demonstrated that machines could perform tasks that required a form of intelligence, such as playing games.

In 1956, Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon developed the Logic Theorist, a program designed to mimic human problem-solving skills. This program was able to prove mathematical theorems, marking a significant step forward in AI research4.

The Rise and Fall of AI Hype

The initial success of AI research led to a period of great optimism, often referred to as the “AI spring.” Researchers believed that human-level AI was just around the corner. However, progress was slower than expected, leading to periods of reduced funding and interest known as “AI winters”4. Despite these setbacks, significant advancements continued to be made.

The Advent of Machine Learning

The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of machine learning, a subset of AI focused on developing algorithms that allow computers to learn from and make predictions based on data. This period also saw the development of neural networks, inspired by the structure and function of the human brain4.

The Modern Era of AI

The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of interest and investment in AI, driven by advances in computing power, the availability of large datasets, and breakthroughs in algorithms. The development of deep learning, a type of machine learning involving neural networks with many layers, has led to significant improvements in tasks such as image and speech recognition4.

Today, AI is a rapidly evolving field with applications in various domains, including healthcare, finance, transportation, and entertainment. From virtual assistants like me, Microsoft Copilot, to autonomous vehicles and systems, AI continues to transform our world in profound ways.

A Copilot self generated image when queried “Show me what you look like”. CP

Conclusion

The journey of AI from its early conceptual stages to its current state is a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance. While the field has faced numerous challenges and setbacks, the progress made over the past few decades has been remarkable. As we look to the future, the potential for AI to further revolutionize our lives remains immense.

2: Timescale 3: Encyclopedia Britannica 4: Wikipedia 1: Wikipedia

For the Silo, Microsoft Copilot AI. 😉

Sci-Tech

Seven Steps For Countries To Regulate Generative AI In Education

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Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools have far-reaching implications for education and research. 

Yet the education sector today is largely unprepared for the ethical and pedagogical integration of these powerful and rapidly evolving technologies.

A recent UNESCO global survey of over 450 schools and universities showed that less than 10% of them had policies or formal guidance on the use of GenAI applications, largely due to the absence of national regulations. And only seven countries have reported that they had developed or were developing training programmes on AI for teachers.

That is why UNESCO has developed and released the first-ever global Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research to support countries amidst the rapid emergence of GenAI technologies.

The new guidance, recently launched during UNESCO’s flagship event Digital Learning Week in Paris, calls on countries to implement appropriate regulations, policies, and human capacity development, for ensuring a human-centred vision of GenAI for education and research. 

What the guidance is proposing

The guidance presents an assessment of potential risks GenAI could pose to core humanistic values. It offers concrete recommendations for policy-makers and institutions on how the uses of these tools can be designed to protect human agency and genuinely benefit students, teachers and researchers.

The guidance proposes seven key steps for governmental agencies to regulate the use of GenAI in education:

Step 1: Endorse international or regional General Data Protection Regulations or develop national ones. The training of GenAI models has involved collecting and processing online data from citizens across many countries. The use of data and content without consent is further challenging the issue of data protection.

Step 2: Adopt/revise and fund national strategies on AI. Regulating generative AI must be part and parcel of broader national AI strategies that can ensure safe and equitable use of AI across development sectors, including in education.

Step 3: Solidify and implement specific regulations on the ethics of AI. In order to address the ethical dimensions posed by the use of AI, specific regulations are required.

Step 4: Adjust or enforce existing copyright laws to regulate AI-generated content: The increasingly pervasive use of GenAI has introduced new challenges for copyright, both concerning the copyrighted content or work that models are trained on, as well as the status of the ‘non-human’ knowledge outputs they produce.

Step 5: Elaborate regulatory frameworks on generative AI: The rapid pace of development of AI technologies is forcing national and local governance agencies to speed up their renewal of regulations.

Step 6: Build capacity for proper use of GenAI in education and research: Schools and other educational institutions need to develop capacities to understand the potential benefits and risks of GenAI tools.

Step 7: Reflect on the long-term implications of GenAI for education and research: The impact and the implications of GenAI for knowledge creation, transmission and validation – for teaching and learning, for curriculum design and assessment, and for research and copyright.

A human-centered vision for digital learning and AI

The guidance is anchored in a humanistic approach to education that promotes human agency, inclusion, equity, gender equality, cultural and linguistic diversity, as well as plural opinions and expressions. In line with UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and the Beijing Consensus on Artificial Intelligence in Education, it also responds to the flagship report, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education which calls to redefine the relationship between humans and technology.

UNESCO is committed to steering technology in education, guided by the principles of inclusion, equity, quality and accessibility. The latest Global Education Monitoring Report on technology in education highlighted the lack of appropriate governance and regulation. UNESCO is urging countries to set their own terms for the way technology is designed and used in education so that it never replaces in-person, teacher-led instruction, and supports the shared objective of quality education for all.

Sci-Tech

Connection Between Music And Math

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I remember the first time I heard the statement “Did you know that listening to classical music enhances your mathematical abilities?”

I was both intrigued and excited, intrigued because I did not understand how music and math, two seemingly unrelated subject could possibly affect each other. I was also excited because I began to view classical music as some kind of magical potion that would transform my math skills from decent to extraordinary. When I had the opportunity to write this web paper for The Silo, I immediately jumped into the topic of music and math. The questions that I wish to answer throughout this paper are; does listening to music really help you do better in math? If so, which part of the brain is controlling the correlation between math and music? In addition, how does music stimulate the brain in a way that enhances mathematical abilities?

It turns out that there is much evidence that supports the positive effects of music on one’s ability to do math.

Most research shows that when children are trained in music at a young age, they tend to improve in their math skills. The surprising thing in this research is not that music as a whole is enhancing math skills. It is certain aspects of music that are affecting mathematics ability in a big way.

Studies done mostly in children of young age show that their academic performance increases after a certain period of music education and training. One particular study published in the journal ‘Nature’ showed that when groups of first graders were given music instruction that emphasized sequential skill development and musical games involving rhythm and pitch, after six months, the students scored significantly better in math than students in groups that received traditional music instruction. (1)

The result of this study posed another important question. How does this type of music that emphasized sequential skills, rhythm and pitch manage to improve children’s ability to do math? It turned out that there are two distinguished types of reasoning, spatial temporal (ST) reasoning and Language analytical (LA) reasoning. LA reasoning would be involved in solving equations and obtaining a quantitative result. ST reasoning would be is utilized in activities like chess when one needs to think ahead several moves.

The effect of music on math sometimes termed the Mozart effect.

The Mozart effect gain its name after the discovery that listening to Mozart’s compositions, which is very sequential, produces a short-termed enhancement of spatial-temporal reasoning. Some key reasoning features used in spatial temporal reasoning are:

1. The transformation and relating of mental images in space and time

2. Symmetries of the inherent cortical firing patterns used to compare physical and mental images and

3. Natural temporal sequences of those inherent cortical patterns (3).

The same people who conducted the Mozart effect experiment also suggested that spatial-temporal reasoning is crucial in math. The areas of math that require ST reasoning are geometry and certain aspects of calculus, which require transformations of images in space and time. In higher mathematics, the ability to write mathematical proofs is also associated with ST reasoning because proof writing is a task that requires intuitive sense of natural sequences and the ability to think ahead several steps.

As to the question, what part of the brain controls the correlation between math and music, there are also many resources that provide answers.

Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, found that certain regions of the brain such as the corpus callosum and the right motor cortex, were larger in musician who started their musical training before the age of 7 (2). As to what happens in that area of the brain when one listens to music, we turn to the experiment performed by Xiaodeng Leng and Gordon Shaw. Gordon and Leng developed a model of higher brain function, which is based on the trion model. The trion model is a highly structured mathematical realization of the Mountcastle organization principle, with the column as the basic neuronal network in mammalian cortex. The column comprises mini-columns called trions.

One particular columnar network of trions has a large repertoire of spatial-temporal firing patterns, which can be excited and used in memory and higher brain functions (3). Shaw and Leng performed an experiment in which they mapped the trion model of firing patterns in that particular column onto various pitches and instruments producing recognizable styles of music. This mapping of the trions gaves insight to relate the neuronal processes involved in music and abstract spatial-temporal reasoning (3).

It shows that the part of the cortex, which contains the repertoire of spatial-temporal firing patterns, can be excited by music and is utilized in higher brain functions such as spatial-temporal thinking in mathematics.

In conclusion, my research into math and music does seem to suggest that music truly enhances mathematics skills. Music targets one specific area of the brain to stimulate the use of spatial-temporal reasoning, which is useful in mathematical thinking. However, as to the question of whether or not music is the magical portion that will elevate anyone’s ability to do math, the answer unfortunately . . .would be no.

Just because most mathematicians are fond of music, doesn’t mean that all musicians are fond of mathematics. I found a letter posted on the web written by a fourteen-year-old overachiever to a mathematics professor. The student expresses his frustration that even though he is an excellent musician, math is one of his weakest subjects. In math, he is not making the grades that he needs to stay in a certain prestigious academic program (4).

This letter seems to suggest that listening to music, or being able to master a musical instrument does not automatically guarantee that one can perform well in math. In other words, there are many musicians who are good in music but not in math. Music is a lot more than notes conforming to mathematical patterns and formulas. Music is exhilarating because of the intricacies of the patterns that occurs. Whether or not these patterns resemble math has no relevance to many musicians. More often than not, musicians are inclined to practice music because of the wonders and awe that they feel for music even if they are not aware of the math that is in music. Cindy Zhan

WWW Resources (1)Making the case of music education (2)Music on the mind (3)Spatial-temporal versus language-analytical reasoning: the role of music training (4)Letter written by a young musician

This Is Your Brain On Music BookThis Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession is a popular science book written by the McGill University neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, and first published by Dutton Penguin in the U.S. and Canada in 2006, and updated and released in paperback by Plume/Penguin in 2007. It has been translated into 18 languages and spent more than a year on The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and other bestseller lists, and sold more than one million copies.
Travel

Best Countries For Post Covid Study Abroad Programs

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As more students are heading towards graduation each year, the struggle to get a graduate job is becoming more difficult, and students have to ensure strong CVs in order to stand out from the crowd.  The Covid pandemic has put a halt to students having options in countries other than their own. However, with a bit of luck, the pandemic will continue to end and travel restrictions will be eased. When that happens, international students will finally be allowed to return to studying abroad, learning new skills and experiencing new cultures.

Although this may be seen as one long holiday to those not in the know, those that study abroad will, in fact, have a higher starting salary, earning an extra 5% more than those who don’t. On average, this could amount to an extra £75,000 ($126,709 CDN at time of this article)  over a career.

Study Abroad Graduates

Not only will they earn more, they are also almost ¼ less likely to be unemployed after graduation. So although all study abroad programs come with a cost, with readily available bursaries, this opportunity is accessible to any student who is hoping to boost their employ-ability and is an opportunity that should be taken.

• Business and Finance Students – China: As the second largest economy in the world, China offers endless business opportunities, whilst encouraging students to learn the most widely spoken language in the world, Mandarin.

Business and Finance Studies in China

• Medical Students – South Africa: Of the 234 million surgical procedures made every year, just 4% of these happen in the poorest third of the global population. When medical students choose to volunteer in South Africa, they will gain experience in a different medical setting, and all whilst giving back.

Medical Student study in South Africa

• Education Students – Australia: As an English-speaking country, Australia is the perfect study abroad opportunity for future teachers. With the average UK class size standing at 30 pupils, the Australian’s average size of 16 will be a lot easier to manage. Plus for those who decide to stay in Australia long-term, new teachers can expect to earn £40,000+ ($67,572 CDN) compared to the £22,000 ($37,164 CDN) starting salary in the UK.

Education studies in Australia

• Conservation – Madagascar: Conservation is a growing industry as concern grows for animals and the environment. As the fourth largest island in the world, and as home to species not found anywhere else, Madagascar is the perfect opportunity for a once in a lifetime opportunity for conservation enthusiasts.

Conservation Studies in Madagascar

• Art & Design Students – Italy: From ancient and classic sculpture to modern day art, Italy is the perfect place to learn and gain an even greater passion for art history.

Art and Design Studies in Italy

• Humanities Students – USA: With three of the top five humanities universities based in the USA, America offers a vast array of historical and literary studying options. This time abroad will open up options for students who are wanting to work in academia, journalism or teaching.

Humanities Studies in the United States
For the Silo, Bekki Ramsay/storageworld.

Sci-Tech

High School Student Dropped Out Joins Tech World Via Coding School

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CodingWhat happened when Katya Eames, a 16 year old female dropped out of High School and joined the tech world by enrolling in a coding school?

Joe Eames, her father, is a successful programmer. He believes in empowering youth and females, through technology. He got his daughter involved in some basic exposure to programming and web development. The more she got involved, the more empowered she felt.

Katya was selected to speak at one of the largest recent gatherings of web developers, ng-conf. Following, she attended an event where she taught Governor Herbert of Utah how to code.  Katya will complete her high school requirements using an online high school.

Katya teaching Governor Hubert how to code.
Katya teaching Governor Hubert how to code.

What are the thoughts of a high school age female about dropping out of school to attend DevMountain, a coding school in Utah?

  1. What do you think was missing from your High School experience in terms of your personal interests?

What I think was missing from my high school experience was the ability to actually learn, and to try new things and grow at your own pace. It seemed less like they wanted you to learn, and more like they wanted you to pass tests.

  1. Was it difficult to transition to coding school at your age?

    It was. In high school it was easy for me to not pay much attention and do my assignments at the last minute but still get relatively good grades. Then at DevMountain, I had to manage myself and had no grades to try and earn. It was definitely very different from high school.

Computer Code

  1. How important was the role of your father, a professional programmer, in helping you make your decision?

    He was really important in my decision because he was an example of how successful I can be doing something I love, and he was really supportive of me choosing to do it though it’s not the normal way to go about getting an education.

  1. Are you finding the online, high school learning experience something you can easily handle?

    I haven’t started yet, but from what I’ve seen and heard from friends who do online schooling, it seems to be much more my speed than traditional public schooling.

 

  1. Would you encourage other members of your generation to think about their options while still in high school, and perhaps go into coding?

    Definitely. You should explore your options as much as you can in high school, even if it doesn’t seem like something you would like. You never know when you’ll discover something you seem to have a natural talent/understanding for, or something that excites you that you never thought to pay attention to (or especially something you thought only those of the opposite sex are supposed to do).

  1. Do you think that members of your generation are particularly adept with computers and likely prospects for a coding school experience?

Start Coding

    I do. Those in my generation, and the younger Millennials, have grown up with technology always nearby. We know how to use it and we understand newer technology easier than others. Everyone in my generation has ideas on how to make our world better for us and our siblings and our future children. Programming and computer sciences, along with the other sciences, are great ways for us to advance the world in the direction we want it to go.

  1. Have you begun to make an income with your coding knowledge?  Are you in the market for a coding job as an employee or contractor?

    I have started making an income, not solely on my programming, but also on my unique views as someone who wants to know what they want to do in life at a young age in has taken a very untraditional route to pursue that career. As of now I am in the market for smaller projects while I finish school and continue learning.

Click to watch Katya's address at this years ng-conf
Click to watch Katya’s address at this years ng-conf

  1. What do your friends think of this, leaving high school and learning a skill early on in life where you can make an income?

    Some of them were worried first about my sudden decision to drop out of school in the middle of my junior year, but now they’re all very supportive of me and think it’s really cool that I’m able to pursue what I want to do. (though they all have the same complaint of missing me at school.)

  1. Lastly, what are the ideal personality characteristics for a young person to become involved and succeed at coding school?

    They need to be willing to push themselves and manage their own time. They also need to be able to be critiqued regularly by those who are more experienced than them and know that most, if not all, critiques are done with good intentions. You need to be willing to continue learning. Technology is always changing, and so the languages we use to program that technology have to constantly adapt. You never know everything there is to know when you’re a programmer.

About DevMountain

DevMountain started in 2013 in Utah. With over 300 graduates, two campuses, and six course offerings, DevMountain is the largest coding/technology school in the Intermountain West, and one of the highest rated coding schools in the United States.

Supplemental- Could Amazon’s AWS Lambda signal a new future for ‘automated coding’?

Click to view on I-tunes
Click to view on I-tunes

Culture

Ways To Retrain And Put Your Adult Brain Back In Charge

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Jungian Psychology uses art-therapy, dreams and imagery in mapping personal and collective unconscious, archetypes and complexes. Jung believed that there were fears and thoughts that children and adults exhibit that are "remarkably similar across time and culture" (allpsych.com) image: skycladtherapist.files.wordpress.com
Jungian Psychology uses art-therapy, dreams and imagery in mapping personal and collective unconscious, archetypes and complexes. Jung believed that there were fears and thoughts that children and adults exhibit that are “remarkably similar across time and culture” (allpsych.com) image: skycladtherapist.files.wordpress.com

The human brain is a wonder of the universe, but our understanding of it can seem contradictory, says Steven Jay Fogel, author of the book Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living.

“On the one hand, we’re often told of those crucial years that our brain develops in childhood, when we’re rapidly progressing in development of our language and other skills, and our preadolescent and teenage years, when our brains undergo a sort of second Big Bang of learning,” says Fogel, (www.StevenJayFogel.com).

“But although it may seem that the brain is pretty much set by adulthood, it remains malleable throughout adulthood; it continues to change as we learn and adapt.”

Most of us are unaware that elements of our inner child’s development are constantly tugging at us, and we don’t have a clue that it’s happening, he says. In Jungian therapy there’s a concept called the dark side, or shadow side, the place in our unconscious to which certain feelings and thoughts are banished because they don’t support our image of ourselves, he says.

Steven Jay Fogel is a longtime student of human behavior and development.
Steven Jay Fogel is a longtime student of human behavior and
development.

“That is our inner child responding to the emotional pain we experienced and interpreted with the limited understanding we had when we were very young. It continues to steer our reactions and behavior as adults, often in inappropriate ways,” Fogel says.

Awareness creates an opportunity for change. Fogel reviews how our adult brain can take command of the inner child:

• Recognize the elements of your self identity that keep you trapped. Our identity – how we want the world to see us – develops, in part, as a response to avoiding pain. Our identity may change from one situation to another (in the same way a chameleon changes its body color to match its surroundings) as we slip on the persona we believe is expected in a particular environment or social setting. This automatic behavior is the opposite of making mindful choices, and it robs us of the joy of living in the moment and inhibits spontaneity.

• Be aware of when you’re acting. Many of us live our lives as though we’re playing parts in various movies, navigating different storylines every day. You may be the righteous Clint Eastwood manager at work and then shift into the town drunk during happy hour, and later the loving husband and father during brunch the following weekend morning. When you’re playing these roles, you’re not in the present.

• Be skeptical of what the voice in your head may tell you. It’s not easy to recognize and quiet the mental chatter associated with the different roles we play. We’ve become so accustomed to the voice in our head, that we don’t realize its messages are programmed – and not necessarily the truth. Is your voice telling you to feel guilty? Ashamed? Angry? Is that rational? If not, it may be your inner child acting out of a childlike fear.

“Instead of simply responding to what we’re hardwired to think and react, we can hear, in mindful repose, those promptings as simply chatter,” Fogel says. “When you’re mindful, the inner child’s chatter can be seen for what it is, and you will be free to take a more mature directionin your day-to-day living.”

Steven Jay Fogel is a longtime student of human behavior and development; he has studied with psychologists, educators, and rabbinical scholars. Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living, (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2014), is his third book. He is also the author of My Mind Is Not Always My Friend: A Guide for How to Not Get in Your Own Way (Fresh River Press, 2010) and The Yes-I-Can Guide to Mastering Real Estate (Times Books-Random House). For decades he has been an active participant in the human potential movement, inspiring and mentoring others to seek their true selves. Fogel is a principal and cofounder of Westwood Financial Corp., one of the largest owner-operators of retail properties in the United States. He is a licensed real estate broker and past chairman of the California Arts Council.

Supplemental- Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s.
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

Click to view on I-tunes
Click to view on I-tunes

Politics

Better Colleges And Better Universities Equal Better Jobs

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"Career colleges have a strong proven track record and are among our province's most efficient paths to employment. They should be rewarded by a reduction in the costly and time-consuming regulatory burden they currently experience so they can be freed to take on students looking to gain access to the job market." Barrett image: thewordforge.com
“Career colleges have a strong proven track record and are among our province’s most efficient paths to employment. They should be rewarded by a reduction in the costly and time-consuming regulatory burden they currently experience so they can be freed to take on students looking to gain access to the job market.” Barrett Image: thewordforge.com

When I wrote this, Ontario was in the midst of an unprecedented jobs crisis and in need of sensible and affordable solutions. One avenue is to improve our colleges and universities.

Ontario’s system of higher learning must reflect the requirements of jobs in the present and the future. And it must reflect today’s economic realities.

Students recognize an academic education is often not enough – it must be coupled with employable skills. Some 80 percent of college applicants cite “career preparation” as a major reason for enrollment – something they may not have considered when they were making their post-secondary choices in high school.

The path from high school graduation to employment is often far longer and more expensive than it needs to be, thus inefficient for both the student and taxpayer.

Currently 35 percent of all new jobs in Ontario go to college graduates and apprentices, and only 26 percent go to university graduates. Many university students end up in the college system after learning how adept it is at teaching job-ready skills. To encourage more students to choose college first, we must create more options and paths for these students and improve the credit transfer system in Ontario. This would allow for part of the degree to be done at the college level and part of the education delivered through a university.

By improving the credit transfer system using online education to create bridging courses between institutions, students who take a course at one institution can be brought up to speed at another – – smoothing the move between institutions that deliver different course content. The online courses should be designed to assess whether students meet the standard at the new institution, whether they are moving from a college to a university or from a university to another university.

Language labs have shown that technology is effective for educating, distant or not. In this photo, Undergraduate Ted Glomski, a third-year Chinese student, practices writing Chinese characters on a tablet PC computer in the Learning Support Services (LSS) Language Learning Lab. For fifty years, LSS has provided technology support to language classes, evolving from the language tapes and foreign films of old to mp3s, DVDs, wikis, blogs and touchscreens. photo: Michael Forster Rothbart
Language labs have shown that technology is effective for educating, distant or not. In this photo, Undergraduate Ted Glomski, a third-year Chinese student, practices writing Chinese characters on a tablet PC computer in the Learning Support Services (LSS) Language Learning Lab. For fifty years, LSS has provided technology support to language classes, evolving from the language tapes and foreign films of old to mp3s, DVDs, wikis, blogs and touchscreens. photo: Michael Forster Rothbart

We need to be creative with programs that meet the expectations of students but also offer them at an affordable price.

In response to the growing demand for online learning, university and college programs can be taken at home using the internet. Universities and colleges do offer degree programs online that are flexible, cost effective and allow you to learn on your own time. They feature online instructors who help and provide feedback as you progress through the course.

We should encourage colleges to offer applied three-year degrees and limit the proliferation of four-year degrees in the college system. For example, a Bachelor of Applied Technology Degree is designed to teach leadership roles in the construction industry – – a program that meets a job market need, and is clearly suited to the college sector. Encouraging more three-year degrees like this one would allow colleges to cater to a student market looking for strong credentials without creeping into the degree market best served by universities.

Career colleges have a strong proven track record and are among our province’s most efficient paths to employment. They should be rewarded by a reduction in the costly and time-consuming regulatory burden they currently experience so they can be freed to take on students looking to gain access to the job market.

With these sensible and affordable solutions, improving Ontario’s colleges and universities will most certainly lead to better jobs. For the Silo, Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett.

Supplemental- Online learning in Ontario http://www.ontariolearn.com/en/

Culture

Natural World Immediacy A Rare Concept

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Immediacy? “Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes or figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient. First, you must allow the tree to flower, then put forth fruit; then you have to wait until the fruit is ripe. So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?” -Epictetus

The Worm (2008) and Watershort (2008) are time-contemplative short films by Canadian sound and visual artist Jarrod Barker.

In the natural world, immediacy is rarely a concept. While it is true the Mayfly lives only for a day, it is also true that each fly is one infinitesimal link in the long succession of the species. As humans have increasingly stepped beyond the boundaries of nature, we have begun to forget the importance of waiting and patience. We live surrounded by cheap treasures gotten easily and quickly. But like the Mayfly, these spoils of instant gratification perish quickly leaving us desiring more. No longer do we answer to the rhythm of nature, preferring instead to force the world to step up to our breakneck pace. All the while we are saturated with reminders that “good things come to those who wait” but too often choose to ignore this time tested wisdom.

Stefan Klein works in Berlin. Presently he is examining the concept of waiting. To this end, he has conducted quite a lot of field research. Waiting, he says, “is something that’s so routinely existing in our daily lives but at the same time has this very existential dimension to it so that almost everybody can relate to it but at the same time it’s a very abstract topic.” Another project, titled Introduction to Microeconomics is a book documenting Klein’s repeated ordering and return of a book by the same name. In this way, he examined documentation as a vital element of a whole work. Much of Klein’s work investigates complex systems through performative means. In September, Klein will begin a series of waiting sessions with people from various disciplines. He will meet with guests at a bus stop (a place of waiting) for a conversation. His audience will be comprised of both those who came to see the performance and those who happened to be waiting for the bus. In this way, Klein will access waiting from many perspectives.

untitled watercolor Emilie Clark 2015

Emilie Clark is a New York City based artist who spends part of the year in New Hampshire. Much of her work is based on the work of nineteenth-century natural historians and scientists, most of them women. She also explores the literal interpretation of the word ecology (earth’s household) incorporating historical texts and working in the landscape. In New Hampshire, Clark works in a floating research station surrounded by the natural world. In New York City her experience is quite different though she has noticed similarities in plant species between the two locations. From her research station, Clark collects specimens, makes sound recordings, draws, paints, preserves, and fully immerses herself in nature. This process is rooted not only in creating but in learning.

Brainard Carey

A Few Words to Keep in your Pocket

A work of art, a career, a relationship, anything worth investing our hearts and minds in, must be given time. We must relearn to wait, to fall back in step with the world around us. For the Silo, Brainard Carey.

Brainard  is currently giving free webinars on how to write a better Artist bio and statement and how to get a show in a gallery – you can register for that live webinar and ask questions live by clicking here.