Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com
12/14/2009
12/09/2009
Education Week: What Do School Rankings Really Mean?
Education Week: What Do School Rankings Really Mean?
Funny that I should come across this article right when we are trying to argue a case for why FGCS should not have to conform solely to the school district's and broader dominant educational standard of 'best' school rankings based on test scores.
The article critiques the popular approach to listing top ranked schools based on indicators such as high SAT scores. Burney states, Attainment of “top” status can render schools complacent at best, and negligent at worst, regarding the learning of individual students...indicators such as high SAT scores are misleading as a key indicator of a school’s educational quality, because students from advantaged backgrounds tend to do relatively well, in part because they have access to hours of expensive test preparation, and ongoing intellectual enrichment from home.She questions how these schools can be considered the 'best' when their focus is on teaching to the test, excessive seatwork and perpetuating a culture that squelches students' love of learning and fails to teach skills to pursue productive & satisfying lives.
Top-ranked high schools provide a standard-size instructional hoop that many students jump through well enough. But does “well enough” warrant distinction as excellence, which implies high standards, innovation, and engaging, rigorous instruction?
eSN Special Report: Small-group collaboration
eSN Special Report: Small-group collaboration
We teach the value of constructivist approaches and collaborative work in educational psychology, but as this article points out the reality of today's world requires that students be able to work with others both face-to-face and in a global digital context. Collaboration is "authentic learning," Hobson said, and it is "transformational in that kids see their work is valued beyond the teacher. We're so very connected now, it's critical that kids have the ability to collaborate even when they're not in the same physical space."
Though the article focuses on using technology tools to support group work, those of us with limited technology in the classroom can still use its ideas - along with some creative thinking - to create a rich learning environment that encorporates a variety of learning styles...
'Plano's curriculum stresses multitasking in classrooms, which means some students might be working in groups, while others are working individually or listening to the teacher. "To get the most personalized learning," Hirsch said, "everyone shouldn't be working on the same thing at the same time." He believes mini-projectors could be a "key component of multitasking in the classroom."'
12/02/2009
12/01/2009
The Roles of Schools; The Place of Education
Egan, K (1992) The Roles of Schools: The Place of Education. Teachers College Record Vol.93 No.4 pp. 641-655.
Egan writes on what he calls the messy concept of education.
"All societies have procedures for initiating the young into sharing the norms, values, and commitments that govern social life and determine the distive identity for both the group and the individual within it"
In oral cultures these procedures place a significant emphasis on memory as the method of preserving knowledge, lore, and customs.. and they discovered:
- information can be made more easily and reliably memorable by encoding it verbally in vivid images
- lore coded into stories was much more easily remembered than if conveyed by other medium.
STORY HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL SOCIAL INVENTIONS
- engage intellectually + affectively
- communicate information/values/norms of behaviour while engaging a commitment to them
Invention and spread of literacy has resulted in
- less reliance on memory
- 'loss of the intensity of participatory experience in an immediate life-world in which ones' store of knowledge & lore was profoundly & vitally meaningful'
this blog
i've created this as a space to try to keep up with the seemingly never ending things to read. it will cover all aspects of my work, maybe even recreational interests - if i ever have the time to get a life :0)
11/25/2009
11/21/2009
Can Web 2.0 Save Teacher Professional Development?
edweek.org Webinar
Presenters:
Barbara Treacy, director, EdTech Leaders Online, Education Development Center
Christopher Sessums, College of Education at the University of Florida
Moderator: Anthony Rebora, managing editor, teachermagazine.org, Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook
Themes: Online PD, teacher social networking, collaborative
Opening questions: what's happening? what are the opportunities & issues?
I. TREACY: Elements of effective PD? Which Tools Support Elements? Some Examples
PD needs to be well designed & delivered and to be better respected in its role for the educator.
Web 2.0 can support effective PD
ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE PD
- be intensive, ongoing, connected to practice
- focus on student learning
- address teaching of spec content
- alignt school prop
- build strong working relationships among teachers.
- http://www.nsdc.org/stateproflearning.cfm
- Linda Darling Hammond
Succeeding with Web 2.0
Classroom 2.0 Live webinar 11-21-09 with Terry Freedman http://www.ictineducation.org/
Classroom 2.0 resources for Freedman: http://gl.am/QixMq
INTRODUCTION:
Elluminate features needed for attendees [approx 79+]
- what was cool here was clicking on a map & seeing where all attendees were from
Attendee Survey
- poll 1: experience using Web 2.0 -> 50/79 = Yes; 12/79 = No
- poll 2: googleform w/ 2 checkbox answer questions
TALK OVERVIEW:
Case Study: E13 Learning Community http://www.e13lc.newham.gov.uk/
11/20/2009
11/19/2009
21st Century Resource
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=786&Itemid=139
This page provides links to various guides related to:
Curriculum Instruction
Standards
Assessment
Professional Development
Learning Environment
This page provides links to various guides related to:
Curriculum Instruction
Standards
Assessment
Professional Development
Learning Environment
11/16/2009
11/14/2009
11/13/2009
Educational Practice
[11:41 mins] In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.
Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
11/12/2009
Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: The World's Largest English Department
Social Networking
A Ning group for English teachers reveals the potential of online social networking to break the culture of professional isolation.
Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: The World's Largest English Department11/11/2009
10/28/2009
ECEL Copenhagen 2007 Terry Anderson
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
ECEL Copenhagen 2007 Terry Anderson
View more presentations from terrya.
10/23/2009
web 2.0 Summit, San Fran Oct 20-22, 2009
i missed the live event but have been viewing some of the archives
http://www.web2summit.com/web2009
http://www.web2summit.com/web2009
10/22/2009
recent stuff
a few things have been happening on the technology front. first of all i'm looking forward to the class getting started on their action research projects this saturday. it's always fun to see what people choose to work on. on a personal front i got some great news this week that a chapter proposal i submitted has been accepted. i'm still waiting to hear more details but it will go in an edited book on personalized learning and personal learning environments. this is a topic we explored a bit in my last class through iGoogle and i feel is a fascinating area of study. the other fun news is that i get to present the work i've been doing with colleagues at george fox on second life at the eLearn conference in vancouver canada next week.
10/09/2009
workin' the web conferencing
i dont know if it's because i had such a useful meeting with the connect pro guy, but i really got into preparing my meeting room for tomorrow's class. i started playing with the different layouts and pods, and even created a little poll that i hope to try out tomorrow. as the man said - and how many times have i said the same to my own students - you just need to get in and play with it. looking forward to see how the students find it all tomorrow
Cool tools
http://www.wordle.net/
Also here is another tool for Firefox browsers for downloading videos to your desktop and it can reformat too
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
The Learning Society
Continual
acquisition and sharing of knowledge and skill to cope with our changing
environment defines homo sapiens.
Learning to survive and gain partial control of our environment has
involved the invention of powerful mediating tools and the social
constructions of complex systems of language and culture. Learning to use these tools and language
systems has been intimately linked with the work of developing them through
most of human history .D. W., . . but
the quest for knowledge has been the most distinctive intrinsic feature in
the origin of our species. In this respect human societies have always been
learning societies. (Livingstone, 2004, p. 2)
Livingstone's statement
presents learning societies as an inherent component of the human experience;
others maintain that the learning society is a modern day myth that has
neither been realized nor is close to existing (Smith, 2000). Reality or
myth, a common theme in the literature is that the concept of a learning
society helps us to make sense of the profound social and economic changes
that are occurring in this era of globalization. Further to this, it has been proposed that
the importance of the learning society is that our future survival depends on
our ability to adopt the habit of mind of lifelong learning as well as the
intentional action towards its realization.
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The
learning society model put forth by Keating and Hertzman in Developmental Health and the Wealth of
Nations contributes a theoretical framework of understanding
based on deep consideration of the social, biological, and educational
dynamics of developmental health and the promotion of a future healthy and
prosperous global society by ensuring quality developmental experiences in
the early years.
A most compelling
reason stated for understanding the significance of a learning society
concept is in relation to the global momentum toward innovation-based
knowledge economies. As human
resources are a key component to innovation, societies that do not invest in
their human resources stand to limit their chances to prosper in future
growth economies.
Keating points out
that it is not only the availability of human resources that matter to
well-functioning societies and economies, but also how those resources are
organized:
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Source: Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations
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The ability to
function as a civic society with self-renewing "social capital"
(Putnam, 1992), to generate the human capital necessary for economic prosperity
in the information age, and to adapt to the rapid social and technology
changes we now confront depends heavily on how a society organizes itself to
support human development. (p. 249)
Furthermore he states, "Learning or
knowledge societies are characterized by higher rates of participation and
engagement, and by greater reservoirs of social capital. The levels of
competence and coping in the population are thus also likely to be crucial
resources for the development of adaptable and resilient learning
societies." The proposed conceptual framework provides a starting point
for understanding the complexity of human development from biology to
society, but its inherently dynamic nature also requires extensive ongoing
discussion and coordinated action in order to influence its future
evolution.
We are all of necessity both observers and participants in this system, and perhaps it is only through such an extended conversation open to all observers, that we will be able to grasp the core dynamics of the system and move it toward greater prosperity and developmental health—which we suspect, may become fundamentally the same in the not too distant future. (Keating & Hertzman, 1999, p. 16)
In this respect
the learning society framework is seen as
a social experiment aimed at attempting to resolve modernity's paradox of
material abundance on one hand versus the deterioration of developmental
health equity. Seeking to establish a
learning society based on facilitating collaborative knowledge building
within the context of a learning organization, can
serve to enfranchise diverse participation in a knowledge economy, increase
available social capital, and thereby both increase a nation's and
individual's competitive advantage and forge stronger social, educational and
communication connections.
(Excerpt from Zijdemans, 2005).
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The full details on the Learning Society Framework
and it theoretical underpinnings can be found in the collected volume:
Keating,
D. P., & Hertzman, C. (Eds.). (1999). Developmental health and
the wealth of nations: Social, biological,
and educational dynamics. New
York: Guilford
Press.
Paper Summaries by Dona Matthews |
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| Resources Keating, D. P., & Mustard, J. F. (1996). The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth: An essential element for building a learning society in Canada. CIAR Program in Human Development, Working Paper #8. Keating (2001) The Learning Society Lecture presentation Keating (1999) The Learning Society: a human development agenda Ch12 Livingstone, D.W. (2000). The learning society (Jackson Lecture). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Marsick, V. J., Bitterman, J., & Van der Veen, R. (2000). From the learning organization to learning communities toward a learning society. Ohio: ERIC Clearinghouse. Schon, D. A. (1973). On the learning society. In Beyond the stable state. Public and private learning in a changing society. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Retrieved June 1, 2005, from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm Smith, M. K. (2001) 'Peter Senge and the learning organization', the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm Smith, M. K. (2000). The theory and rhetoric of the learning society. Encyclopedia of informal education. London: Cassell. Retrieved June 1, 2005, from http://www.infed.org/lifelonglearning/b-lrnsoc.htm Zijdemans, A.S. (2005) Exploring a Socio-Technological Design for Knowledge Development: The Millennium Dialogue on Early Child Development. PhD dissertation. OISE/UT. |
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adobe connect pro web conferencing
had a meeting with the adobe guy today. i had a bunch of questions and learned some interesting things.
* new release 7.5 will allow capturing phone conferencing through third party
* VOIP works better with headsets and in particular USB headsets as they dont just rely on the sound card. so technically the hands-free should work for everyone but built-in mics are more likely to have problems with feedback, echo etc.
* i learned how to change 'enhanced participants rights' so that everyone who has a camera can share their video
most of all i enjoyed getting into connect and playing around. i wish i could do it more...i need to find people who want to play in there with me
* new release 7.5 will allow capturing phone conferencing through third party
* VOIP works better with headsets and in particular USB headsets as they dont just rely on the sound card. so technically the hands-free should work for everyone but built-in mics are more likely to have problems with feedback, echo etc.
* i learned how to change 'enhanced participants rights' so that everyone who has a camera can share their video
most of all i enjoyed getting into connect and playing around. i wish i could do it more...i need to find people who want to play in there with me
Another class, more to learn
here i am teaching another technology course and what i love about that is that it gives me an excuse to take time to pick up the playing with technology. i'm looking forward to playing more with web conferencing, google tools, blogs, and of course seeing what projects the students decide to work on.
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