ability to think straight

“The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community- these are the most vital things education must try to produce.”

~ Virginia Gildersleeve

age of innovation

Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.

~ Peter F. Drucker

the list

I’ve been playing around with a lot of 2.0 toys lately, trying to wrap my brain around new and interesting ways I could use these in my classes to connect students to each other and to a larger network outside of the classroom. Every time something new comes along I try it out because I think the only way to really understand something is to become a user, not just a viewer. I finally decided to make a listing of the sites I’ve been playing on, mostly to put them all in one place so I can start thinking about how I want to use them. Some of the links are to less than active accounts, but at least they are all listed… well, at least I am starting to list them all. There are a few I can’t remember, but I am sure they will come to me eventually. Of course, I had to use one of the new tools to create the list. It’s at http://debbyk.jottit.com

networks

willrich45 Hey Everyone! Back from vacation. Say hello to a group of educators outside of Chicago. They want to know what networks mean to you. about 3 hours ago from web

hrheingold @willrich45 Hi educators outside Chicago. Networks are where I learn much of what I need to know from ppl like Will Richardson about 2 hours ago from web in reply to willrich45

dwarlick @willrich45 Hi, Chicago, from Raleigh. Networks give me a bigger brain. I can do with a network of people what I can’t do without it. about 2 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to willrich45

crowdsourcing

This word caught my attention as I was reading a TR article about Twitter. In that context, it means:

“crowdsourcing: ask a question on Twitter, and those who follow you respond with an answer”

I keep seeing this on Twitter but didn’t know it had a name. Now I do. Of course, wikipedia had a definition also. Apparently the word itself has only been around since 2006 but the activity it describes goes back much farther in time.

Words are cool.

“have to” vs “want to” participation

Every once in a while something clicks and begins to make sense. This morning it happened on my way to work as I was driving on mental auto-pilot. I really am thankful for the 25 minute drive to work because if I lived closer I wouldn’t get the uninterrupted time to think that driving for a while always affords me. It is one of the only times in an otherwise very overbooked day that I get to myself.

I began to think about the computer club and some of the participation issues that have happened this year… about the robotic challenge project coming up this summer.. about the cool lunch yesterday with Steve, Eric, Dom, and Chris… about education in general… seemingly disconnected thoughts that started pulling together into a cohesive picture.

I began to think about communities of practice, of learning communities, of the difference between formal and informal interactions, between “have to” participation and “want to” participation. I turned inward and thought about my own motivations and goals, and about what situations get me excited to learn and engage. Looking back at the club activities through that lens, I saw very clearly why things changed this year in unexpected ways. After what by all measures was an amazing year last year, I fully expected this year to be more of the same, and was very excited by the people we had involved as officers. Last year we flew by the seat of our pants most of the time. We organized events over lunch or at movie night parties or while running around Second Life exploring what there was to see there.

no kidding

“The fifth-annual Speak Up survey polled more than 367,000 “education stakeholders”–parents, students, administrators, and teachers–and found that while 66 percent of administrators, 43 percent of parents, and 47 percent of teachers said they believed “local schools are doing a good job preparing students for jobs and careers of the future,” students disagreed. Among middle and high school students, 40 percent indicated that teachers are limiting their use of technology in schools, and 45 percent said that school “security” practices, such as Web filtering, were limiting their ability to take advantage of technology for learning.”

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22407

As Susan Patrick said in the NACOL keynote, students come to school and enter a “resource deficit” environment. They know what is out there. They know the possibilities. And they are bored out of their minds. So what do we do? We make an already unbearable school day longer. We lock down their access even further. We keep pouring money into a system that is doing exactly what it was designed to do, create mindless industrial age workers who don’t know how to think in a knowledge era. Is it any wonder we are losing kids?

revolution

“The revolution of Socrates is to change education from the transmission of culture, to the development of self-reliance. If you want to function at the highest effectiveness as a teacher, then it is not enough to teach a subject to a student. Your goal must always be to teach the learner to be a teacher. Then the student is functioning at his highest relationship to the content, and to himself.” - Jensen, Brad. “Education is not broken.” DEOS

Not on the Test

http://www.sjbrooks-young.com/blog/index.blog/1801759/its-not-on-the-test-video/

this week at work

I always love teaching teachers. I just started a new moodle class this week. It’s always very cool to see what other educators are doing and to have a hand in influencing how they interact with students.  It’s a group of my peers and I love their energy. I almost always end up making friends and learning things I didn’t know before, even if I am the teacher!

Also this week I gave a last minute presentation to a group of special ed kids from the local high school that came to tour the college. It was fast-paced, high-energy, and I had their full attention, which for this particular group, was probably quite an accomplishment. I only found out about it the afternoon before so I didn’t have much prepared. On each table, I put out a few broken robots left over from the EYH event, told the kids to fix them while I talked, and asked them what robots were all about. Did my usual thing (how do YOU make sense of the world? ears, eyes, nose, taste, touch. How do ROBOTS make sense of the world…) Twenty or thirty minutes later we were escorting them to their next destination. On the way out, the teachers were asking me if I thought this would be an appropriate activity for the students and would I be interested in doing something with the kids?

Sometimes weeks like this make me wonder if I should just focus all of my attention on these groups. I’m really good at what I do. I have the ability to engage both groups, which at times can be a very hard sell. At one end, I can hopefully light a fire under students who might not otherwise consider higher education and help them see the joy of learning. On the other, I can influence educators who can then go out and make a difference for their own students. I’m at my best when I am working in this environment, far removed from the politics and pettiness that are sometimes a part of academic life. Is there a way I can cut out the crap and just get down to the business of educating people?