Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Missing an Organ--Just Print It!?!

Okay, so maybe it isn't quite as simple as the title of this post might lead you to believe. Nonetheless, while looking for good headlines that show how future trends in technology that might affect the literacy skills required for students' future success, I came across this article about biological printers that "print" the components of organs onto special gel-coated biopaper and then allow cellular processes to take over to finish self-assembling the structures. Can you imagine having been on THAT research team the day the chicken cells started to beat . . . in synchrony!?


Yet in the name of preparing students for "the future," we still have them sitting in rows, completing avalanches of worksheets, and practicing for standardized tests! This article makes it clear just how "standardized" the future will be, along with the kind of thinking it will require! :-( I think Einstein summarized the whole matter very nicely in this little image.


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