complexity conference

[Mitchel Resnick <mres@media.mit.edu>]

>Do any of you have any firsthand experience with the recent
>International Conference
>on Complex Systems in Boston, 9/21-9/26?  Mitchel, do you?  Anything
>interesting to report with respect to our work on this list?  I'd love
>to get hold of the proceedings.

I was there for just a day. I gave a short talk about the "centralized
mindset" (and ways of moving beyond it). People at the conference
seemed quite interested in these ideas. But as Uri noted in his
message, the primary focus at the conference was on complexity
*research*.

Another presenter in my session was Lynn Stein, a computer-science
professor at MIT who is rethinking the introductory CS course, and she
is taking a more "decentralized" approach. Some of you might find her
work interesting. See http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/cs101/ for more
information.

There are plans for conference proceedings (both printed and
online). But it will be a while before they are available. The best
bet is to look at the conference Web site for now, and to check back
there in a few months for an update. The Web site is
http://necsi.org/html/iccs.html

- -- Mitchel