Our discussions of computer models of complexity and their relationship to the natural world are interesting, but there is another application of these types of models that does not engage the philosophical debate about what is real and what can be measured.

Computer models of complexity are used to help students (of all ages) think about how complexity might play out in solving problems that are systemic in nature. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab and their Epistemology and Learning Group have been trying to provide some tools that allow learners to play with these concepts. One product is a massively parallel piece of modeling software called StarLogo TNG. The support site (with some discussion of complexity) and free download are located at: http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/complexity/complexity_and_SLTNG1.html

Continue reading "Complexity, models , and learning" »

Posted by Brad Johnson at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What this blog needs is meta tags other than "administrative considerations", not that there's anything wrong with that.

Is there any way to make it possible to tag entries with things like 'nonlinear dynamics' or 'order out of chaos', or any number of the list of words David wrote on the board two weeks ago? Allowing these kinds of tags would go a long way towards making this blog less temporally linear, and more horizontally connected.

By the way, this particular entry clearly does fit under the category of 'administrative considerations'.

Posted by William Lindeke at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Together we will explore the capabilities of this system -- discovering what it can and what it cannot do. Since you are reading this, you have passed the first hurdle.

Posted by David Shupe at 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)