Magazine 2018

Transhumanism is based on the combination of human biology with technology, allowing for humans to remain useful in a robotic and artificially intelligent driven society. The rapid advancement of biotechnology has led to the idea that we can transcend the limitations of the human body to mortality itself and perhaps circumvent a potential artificially Intelligent threat as well as provide self-directed human evolution. People are already implanting sensors into their bodies such as Neil Harbisson who corrected his colour blindness by implanting a sensor in his brain that converted colours into soundwaves, and Julien Deceroi, who implanted a magnet into his middle finger to give himself the extra sense of magnetism. Elon Musk has created the Neuralink with the intention of connecting computers directly to human brains. His goal is to increase memory, improve decision making and provide an extension of the human mind, and Silicon Valley believes that neurotechnology is indeed the next big thing. Imagine having the ability to directly interface with the Internet and access any information you like instantly. Actually we can do this already, not at the lightning fast speeds that a direct brain interface would have, but rather through the use of mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads. We keep these devices close to our bodies and we feel that it is almost impossible to live, work or learn without them because they give us new abilities. This makes such a device a non- surgical transhumanist technology, and as an Apple 1:1 school, Parklands College has become a transhuman learning community. What is really exciting though is that when such devices are integrated appropriately into our learning programme, our learners experience transformative learning which develops skills that are critical for their future success. Our learners have designed traditional African masks on their iPads in their Art lessons and 3D printed their designs in order to see their thinking come to life. They have also been taking their own 360 degree photographs and creating portals to walk through and explore their own photographs and compare them with others taken around the world, using Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Our learners have explored computational thinking and problem solving using programming concepts and Spheros to augment concepts studied in Mathematics. They have rebuilt District Six in Virtual Reality, creating an eco-city featuring algae-powered buildings, water-catchment systems and heritage monuments and coins. Stop Motion animation is being used in the Sciences to turn practical investigations into documentaries and learners have also created short movies in teams, engaging with tough issues that face all of us in our country. We have also seen some incredible achievements over the past year, especially in Robotics, Application development and gaming. Team Infinity competed in the Advanced Robotics University category at the World Robot Olympiad International Finals in Costa Rica at the end of last year and placed 9th overall in the TetraStack challenge. Our First Lego League team, HyperionBots, placed in the Top 10 in the Open Invitational Central Europe Championship in Hungary with their innovative water brick design and water process to combat drought and water shortages worldwide. Three WeDo teams, three Elementary teams, two Junior High teams and one Football team entered the 2018 World Robot Olympiad (WRO) Western Cape Regional competition. The overall themed competition for 2018 is “FOOD MATTERS” which focuses on the way we grow, share and consume food. Our WeDo teams won gold and silver medals and the Elementary teams made a clean sweep by taking first, second and third places. It was the first time in South African WRO history that three teams had managed to score full scores at this level. Our Junior High team, Beastmode, and our football team, Robodog, both won gold medals as well. Teams MegaMind, TechnoADR and BeastMode qualified for the international competition in Thailand which will take place from 16 to 18 November 2018, by winning bronze and silver medals in their categories respectively. In our Mobile Application Development Incubator, Stephan Cilliers was awarded a scholarship to attend Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference event in San Francisco for the third year in a row. Keagan Strydom released his fun iOS game, called A.VOID, on the Apple App store, which is being enjoyed well outside the bounds of the College sphere. This is a new genre that has been integrated into our Incubator and we hope to see it evolve into educational based game development. Emile Tredoux was one of the four members of the South African team who competed in the 2018 International Olympiad for Informatics (IOI) in Japan. He also received a silver medal at the National Programming Olympiad which is an incredible achievement. Apart from the social side, computer gaming (ESports) enables our learners who are perhaps not sporty or musical to participate in a school team. It improves cognitive and critical thinking, as well as creativity in the learner. Our Parklands College eSports teams continue to do extremely well in the High School eSports League which has partnered with VS Gaming. Our CS:GO team won a silver medal at Comic-Con in Johannesburg recently and we are excited to see how well they will do next year. Our Splatoon Nintendo gaming team will compete in the National competition after winning the Western Cape event in September 2018. Drone racing is another area where we recognise huge potential regarding future careers and for this reason we continue to host First Person View (FPV) Drone racing events. We were very proud when Matthew Sherlock who founded this interest at our school, finished second in the Western Cape Regional Competition. Parklands College continues to explore the latest technologies in order to keep abreast of world trends in education, and as a result we were recognised once again as one of only 400 Apple Distinguished Schools in the world for Innovation, Leadership and Excellence in Education. This can be attributed to our exceptional transhuman leadership, technical and educator teams who share our vision of excellence in education. We are very proud of the fact that Parklands College continues to be recognised as a global leader in transformative and innovative education. Article by Mr Richard Knaggs – ICT Director at Parklands College 17. parklands.co.za