Galapolos Islands

John:

I did indeed get married. honeymooned in the Galapagos. ("Why?" my fellow passengers on the boat wanted to know, "What a strange place for a honeymoon"—they wanted me to be on a beach somewhere which would certainly be an odd choice for someone who lives on a beach.

Darwin was right. (I had little doubt of this, although I have never been one who thinks evolution explains enough—what would an almost wing on a bird look like?). Of course he thought this stuff up on the galapagos—although why the finches fascinated him I don't know.

Here is picture of a marine iguana. These evolved from their land cousins and learned how to eat stuff in the sea. They are black because its cold in those waters so they spend a great deal of time warming up in the sun. The sea lions were great too. Graceful in the water; clutzes on land. Yet, clearly land animals. Got to swim with a few of them (they are better at it than I).

I write from Singapore where I am about to keynote an e-learning meeting. They want to know why e-learning hasn't taken off in Asia. (Because e learning sucks would be my answer, but it's not the one they want to hear). In any case, I continue to try to get Singapore to change its school system. CMU west (my new gig) will have no lectures, no classes, no courses actually—just sequences of projects that all fit together in what I call the story centered curriculum. Singapore has shown some interest in this so we shall see.

Then on to Tokyo to do the same. a brief stop in New York and back to Florida where there is actually a K-12 school that is going to give this a try. Am asking many others in the academic community to help out in that school and they have been happy to add their stuff into the new curriculum we are building.

Roger


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