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>> Asking Better Questions >> Marco Torres
>> Iíve been challenging a lot of people who are in the learner community or the expert
community that learners will inherit the earth now because so much information is ubiquitous
that your ability to ask the better question really is adds more value in just being quick
at knowing the answer and so what I did is, ah during the world cup soccer um I we were
all exposed to the amazing and annoying sound of the vuvuzela and so one of the things I
found very interesting is that everybody keep talking about what a horrible sound that is
I mean you hear it on your stereo and even all these companies were trying to figure
out ways but then all of a sudden the cultural aspect came in well thatís what they are
doing thatís the sound of it they donít block out the sounds of singing in London
so why would they block out the vuvuzela so in a count I was interested in that challenge
so one of the things I realised that is as myself having a science and maths background
eliminating reducing the sound of the vuvuzela is a real math real science question and my
immediately I realised that in traditional in a school context you canít answer that
question because itís not a real world circumstance however if I take the real world maths real
world science and then give it a real world maths and real world science question then
thatís how we can solve a problem as opposed to were you learn the grammar of it in school
disconnected from the real world so any how to make a long story short I I ah I used students
that werenít necessarily, um, um good maths students and I challenged um um maths experts
um on a competition were they had an hour a hour and a half or two hours depending on
the different places Iíve tried it to take a clip that I had collected of a the vuvuzela
from actually from the world cup and they had to reduce to as much as they can reduce
the sound of the vuvuzela and they had to go to their own groups in their own kinda
rooms to do this I knew that by the way this was a test Iíd tell teachers can I made can
I do an experiment with you I didnít know if it was going to work and so the very first
things that the kids that we do I have this process that I show kids on how to ask good
questions and itís something I start cause thatís where the producer in me thatís what
my job is to ask good questions I donít have to know the answers which I didnít by the
way starting but one of the very first difficult questions that I asked with the kids um that
the adults didnít ask is what is the vuvuzela just that fundamental question when we asked
that ah and the kids went to Wikipedia first were as ah the adults didnít go to Wikipedia
cause the experts felt that Wikipedia is is not the truth you shouldnít go there even
if itís something as basic as the vuvuzela however the students went there first and
sure enough it said the vuvuzela itís this measurement itís this and um and for the
most part it um the sound of a I think b flat and um and itís in the lower, ,b b flat and
it shows you ah but I donít know that b flat is so the kid says what is a b flat and they
typed it in and it gave a frequency of I think four hundred and sixty six or it was a range
between four sixty six and four eighty something and so what I did is have the students once
they figured that out, how, how do we know that they got that number and so one of the
things we asked online is how do you measure frequencies well you need a oscilloscope so
well can where can you get an oscilloscope when I went to the adult at this point the
adult said you know we canít get an oscilloscope because they are too expensive um we are observably
at a conference we donít know how to get one so all of these different what I call
analogue excuses of why they couldnít do this experiment in fact they were just chilling
and they werenít going to do this um so itís almost gave up because in their expect head
they didnít have their expect tools so they could do their expert job where as the kids
had learner questions so they went and looked for learner resource for their learner questions
so then the question was how do we use an oscilloscope I donít know lets figure it
out so again we YouTubed it and it showed how to do it so when we played held it against
the TV we could see where it was um measuring the sound of the vuvuzela it was obvious how
we were collecting it from that information we were able to download that graph that actually
showed the 2 peak area the 2 peak spots where the vuvuzela that actually was those actually
closer to the camera and those further away from the camera and then all they did figure
out how do we isolate that frequency question the answer is by the way these were simple
questions and so like on Google one of the first responses was you need a parametric,
parametric equalizer so where do I find a parametric equalizer so the kids one of the
things was in garage band um Iím sorry in Australia Garage Band and um they went to
Garage Band and to parametric equalizer and imported the video and, and chose those two
frequency and just pulled straight down because they didnít know how to do it but they figured
if it was going up then maybe by going down was going to reduce the sound of frequency
the vuv of that frequency and sure enough they played the before and after and they
can see that within an hour they were able to solve a real problem but and we have done
this like 8 times and, and other people have done it as well they have never gotten a group
of expect math adults to actual solve that problem I did get a couple of engineers who
solved it they ah they already knew where I was going with it and actual it was great
to have engineers there cause they tested to the fact of doing maths versus knowing
maths um and so I use that example can I and by the way I could do that with a lot of different
things just to show teachers that we are living in a space where if you can teach kids to
engage and the kind of questioning you can get them to do a lot more than, than you be
responsible for the questions cause if your responsible for the questions then their thinking
the only way I can get into a is by getting inside your head.
One thing I love about being a producer is everybody knows Iím a idiot so which means
they arenít going to ask me the questions so they know we are co-learning together where
as a teacher the assumption is you still know the answer so how do we put yourself in a
situation where let me ask a question where you donít know the answer so we are co-learning
I think for co-learning then there is a better chance that learning is going to happen and
to me that where the vuvuzela story is which by the way we have gotten weíve actually
added stuff to figure out ways on that frequency like what animals in the animal kingdom or
insects can hear or not hear those frequency so I think it was like if you were a beluga
whale you can watch the the world cup with a beluga whale cause the beluga whale does
not hear that frequency. But I didnít know a lot of times its kinda
artificial Iím, Iím sorry to say this a lot of the times when I see co-creation itís
like the teacher already knows the answer so thereís a bit of condensation condescending
ness that I see happens um I actually as a producer I have no of what it is that um,
um trying to learn so um I mean what it is that Iím trying to tell a story on your seeing
my learning. >> Kym Nadebaum
>> I think the other that is power is we saw the kids through their question in process
turning to technology >> Marco Torres
>> Absolutely >> Kym Nadebaum
>> To actual find their answer and to talk about those answers and be really creative
of the technology rather than use it in a in a really passive and meaningful way we
often do with kids >> Marco Torres
>> Yeah because we donít well the things is we that technology in schools is another
noun you were talking about nouns and verbs like teachers will say we are going to do
an animation project or we are going to do a blog, blog project or we are going to do
a iMovie project there putting the emphasis on the tool and the resource the first thing
where if you cook no one says where going to be doing a knife ah, ah weíre going doing
knifing dinner or we are going to be doing a whisking no one puts the emphasis cooking
schools chef recognise technology is the verb necessary to add value to the noun tomato
cut it salad so the technology is critical to reach the goal you cannot make a salad
without ah the knife in the middle think about in schools think about your curriculum this
is one thing you and I were talking about one of the challenges I face you can edit
this part out if I looked at your goal or your curriculum and then we take a look at
what is expected of the kid you could actually do it with the aid of technology so the question
is a problem because what is says is we have to force fit or creativity figure out how
to use technology to help address this question my question is if you asked a better question
then you have to use technology like if Iím going to do a tomato here right if I draw
a tomato and then obviously cut it to make salad what do I need the kids will come up
with the tools I need to make a salad we donít do that
Kym Nadebaum And you talked about the verb as cut and then
you talk about the adverb and how well its cut and, and thatís were we can add value
to it and thatís what we often donít look at is looking at those adverbs
Marco Torres We donít we donít look at anything donít
thatís what important about the story cause you can actually look at adverbs at the ah,
ah the adjectives you could take a look at how critical is to tell that story cause when
you work with kids you know Gina went to the store well how was Gina happily Gina went
to the store really happily Gina sad sadly waking to the store itís those other ingredients
that help communicate that story that are going to make it more cause what you doing
to language is visualising it and the more you visualise it the more you make connections
the more connections the more narrow connections are made the more narrow, narrow connections
then the more itís going into long term memory so thatís why itís important about telling
the story of this report thatís why no one remembers reporting everyone remembers story
a lot more because there were different connections being made so I think the challenge for us
as educators right now especially with all this technology is how do you made it so technology
is like a no brainer of course I need if Iím going to bake a cake where the heck is the
ah mixing bowl um well thatís next week we donít talk about mixing bowls yet weíre
still on whisks this week well then I cannot bake a cake until most kids can do all their
assignments without most assignments that Iíve seen you can still do without technology
so as teachers ask a question that like my question vuvuzela you cannot answer without
technology thereís no way .