Monday, February 28, 2011

Skype in the Classroom is Now Open

Skype in the Classroom is Now Open

cool jets.. let's do it.


dang.. and now skype on my pc now blocked.
skype on mac not available all year..

nic askew



one door shuts another opens, if you can deal with the limbo inbetween - you're onto something..

the mind, heart, and body are totally into it - and that leaves room for nothing else.

because of this odd creating thing, i felt compassion for everyone, rather than thinking, why is it so crowded

everything comes down to you and one moment and one action, the concentration and the dedication you give to that one action is where not success but fulfillment lies
if you're totally into something there's not need for greed, jealousy, envy, frustration,...
you're so into it  - it's almost like time stops

beyond the impersonation:

BEYOND THE IMPERSONATION from Nic Askew on Vimeo.
it's time to speak the truth
evolve or die
get with the people that are doing this stuff



FREEDOM FROM STORIES from Nic Askew on Vimeo.


i had believed in a lot of things, but never examined the truth in them.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

tacit knowledge

great find from Adam...
on tacit knowledge

They are among the most important
structures of any organization where thinking matters; but they are, almost
inevitably, subversive of its formal structures and strictures’ (Stewart

do not attempt to formalise your communities of practice (a surprisingly
common response). Instead, give them the time and space they need to do what they
do well. Stewart talks about how organisations need to ‘fertilise the ground but keep
away from the tending’. If you give the communities too many resources, this will
increase the pressure on them for outputs and defeat the whole point. The best way to
‘fertilise the ground’ for communities of practice is to recognise the important role they
play in the organisation, and then provide members the time and space they need to
come together.

Storytelling has been described as ‘possibly the most
effective way to convey knowledge and understanding

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language

learning it fast

___________________

diana rhoten



met her here
about 27 min in

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adam mackie

how cool Adam...
sharing his thought process as he writes

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ian chia




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Saturday, February 26, 2011

tom altepeter

he took time to find out who's in the room and some are not in the room...


the more we make it about ourselves, the further and further away we get from community

a community is a group of people interacting with one another.
culture is everything you believe and everything you do that enables you to identify with people who are like you and that distinguishes you from people who differ from you.

how do you define community

mwacker - norms

what does that mean - norms within a community
also intentional and unintentional

community exists whether we do something about it or not
it also happens with effort
hagel - create serendipity

people who feel or don't feel included in the community (figurative homeless)

what do you do to create an inclusive community

cultivate
internal and external dimensions of culture
who are you
who do you serve
how do you serve them

now discover your strengths, buckingham (michelle) - of yourself and others - honor and value the skills that override changeable skills

respond
easy to talk about grading policies/assessments/deliveries/practices
not easy to talk about the kid with deep problems or things with a student who is frustrating you with their behavior when you find out why
dynamics of community - that - what do we do with that, this is ed, we have things to move forward, we don't have time for that.

all the tools and such are great.. but what are you talking about and who are you talking to..

phone call to every 6th grader made more of an impact, than multi-blogging on tech tools, etc

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Friday, February 25, 2011

Inspiration

Inspiration

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

john seely brown

live
John Seely Brown is a visiting scholar and advisor to the Provost at University of Southern California (USC) and the Independent Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge.

Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)—a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, knowledge management, complex adaptive systems, and nano/mems technologies. He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). His personal research interests include the management of radical innovation, digital youth culture, digital media, and new forms of communication and learning.

John, or as he is often called—JSB— is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of the MacArthur Foundation. He serves on numerous public boards (Amazon, Corning, and Varian Medical Systems) and private boards of directors.

He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's 1991 McKinsey Award for his article, "Research that Reinvents the Corporation" and again in 2002 for his article “Your Next IT Strategy.”

In 2004 he was inducted in the Industry Hall of Fame.

With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002, and with John Hagel he co-authored the book The Only Sustainable Edge which is about new forms of collaborative innovation. He has just completed two new books – A New Culture of Learning with Professor Doug Thomas at USC and The Power of Pull with John Hagel.

JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences. He has received five honorary degrees including: May 2000, Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree; July 2001, the London Business School conferred an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics; May 2004, Claremont Graduate University granted him an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters; May 2005, University of Michigan awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, and May 2009, North Carolina State University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree.

emphasize the roll of mentorship
if you get the edge really high performing, the core takes notice

when you can move to a full inquiry method..

we need space for messing around in order to find our sweet spot - love it
petri dish is where learning happens


leadbeater 
and

architect - someone who can transform constraints into 

one room school house like a petri dish  have to teach others - best way to learn

we have to be able to show what we've accomplished - ?

1/2 life of any skill has moved from 30 years to 5 years or less
so we need to learn how to embrace change - turn everything into a learning oppotunity
through the collective
listen with humil
ty to others and to the pushbacks of the situation


structure and agency vs structure and freedom
Agency is what we rob kids of in school, as the typical picture, and thus goes motivation

learning in collective:
in regard to kids not doing anything on facebook, etc
harry potter - kids absorb everything... they live it - they're learning to be
indwelling - not thinking about the learning

indwelling plays at the tacit level - tacit is where you live

“Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.” James Carse

proofs and refutations

it's about making visual arguments
you can completely change the movie as it's perceived by changing the audio - you can almost change what's seen

Andrew Hiskens: 'The computer scientist Chrstipopher Langton observed several decades ago that innovative systems have a tendency to gravitate towards the 'edge chaos': the fertile zone between too much order and too much chaos' - Steven Johnson (sorry to keep quoting him!)

clay shirky

surprised we don't study more - true expert coaches..

___________________________________

pbs video


Watch the full episode. See more Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century.

Gee - skills are changing so fast, and kids need so much practice to be good - we've got to start going off passion to get that rigor
kids are reading and writing more than they ever did, it's just not where they are sitting in a room reading a novel

they don't even need an adult around them, they are so passionate about what they are doing. 

their work is actually improving the community.

gosh - what a great video, great people: JSB, Lehmann, Gee, Jenkins, Ito, Rhoten, Pinkard, Laufenberg

Sunday, February 20, 2011

mark pesce

currently reading and absorbing this and this.

Save NPR and PBS by Adora Svitak



How did Adora get her quality education and entertainment? Watch PBS and listen to NPR is a big part of it, please help her to save NPR and PBS for the future generation, after all, we need them to help us in our old age. Do you want your students and kids to have quality education and entertainment? please share the video Adora made--save NPR and PBS


_________________________________
via Sir Ken Robinson
Imagination makes us human. Join the movement to support creativity in our youngest children.  


Earlyarts International UnConference 2010 from Earlyarts on Vimeo.


_____________________________

john seely brown & douglas thomas

the new culture of learning














review by Hagel 

notes :

vast amts of info +  deep personal motivation   =   unexpected, unplanned, innovative use of space
public & info based   +   personal & structured  =  same

started to see the difference between learning & being taught (Doug's college students when gaming) p. 32
much like peter/cristian, who say almost daily, i want to learn everything, on youtube even, like it's a new experience for them, this learning thing, we've all experienced so much of being taught.

a mechanistic view - steps to gain mastery = efficiency
an environment/organism view - unexpected results = thrivability
limited knowledge of result is good - so you don't interfere with the process,
it's the process itself that is interesting

not necessarily fixing a problem in ed, rather growing a solution

adapt: culture is the environment, you teach about, you prove you know info
create: culture emerges from the environment, you learn from engagement within, you change info

Heraclitus - no man ever steps in the same river twice..
well - used to be river was going slow enough that we kind of could, but no way today.
70 yrs for 1 thing - color tv, 10 yrs for for everything - on internet

tech is no longer simply a fast way to transmit info, it's a participatory medium that is always changing

wikipedia makes change visible, britanica just as erroneous, but wikipedia allows us to read across time, britanica forced choices of inclusion/exclusion, excludes then invisible

today - we are not stable/constant - which that allows for more play
play is a strategy for embracing change, as opposed to a way to grow out of it
we need to marry structure and freedom


give a man a fish and feed him for a day. 
teach a man to fish, and feed him as long as the fish supply holds out.
but create a collective, and every man will learn how to feed himself for a lifetime.
collective is the medium for participation, for peer to peer learning, and once they can no longer do so, their can simply cease to exist
(in most basic sense: a group constantly playing with and reimagining its own identity)
community: learn in order to belong - about belonging
collective: belong in order to learn - about participation

on p. 54 brown and thomas write:
at this point one might be tempted to ask how we might harness the power of these peer-to-peer collectives to meet some learning objective. but that would be falling into the same old twentieth-century trap. any effort to define or direct collectives would destroy the very thing that is unique and innovative about them.

public vs private
the boundary between the two are becoming more permeable
personal is diff than private, and public implies scale and anonymity, collective is narrower than that

is public vs private really the best way to distinguish anymore?
because you have selected your collective, sharing something personal with a collective is very diff than taking something private and going public with it

throughout life, people continuously learn things they have personal interest in, those things are rarely acknowledged in ed environments.
classrooms are predicated on the sense of the private and the public
transmit info in a public way to the private minds of the students
why student called on can't answer even if they know answer, they've been asked to go public with what had just before been private

what makes Kiva work is not a traditional community but the participatory nature of a collective - there is not a learning objective, nor a right or wrong way to do things, free to play and imagine businesses ina space they never had before

Richard Light's revelation of study groups
to many - learning must be difficult and directed by others, otherwise it threatens academic integrity.
but actually, groups where students can do whatever they want, where learning can even appear easy or fun, collectives can encounter more theories and applications than they ever could in a classroom, following passions/desires in fruitful ways

Michael Polanyi's - The Tacit Knowlegde
in a world of exponential change, focus exclusive to explicit is no longer viable
tacit grows through personal experience and experimentation - it's not transferable - you can't teach it to me, though i can still learn it.
tacit happens not only in the brain but through all the senses of the body - experiential and cognitive
it's not about being taught, but of absorbing

because our mind/bodies/senses are always learning, we pick up vast amounts of tacit knowledge just by going about everyday activities
understanding and knowledge are shaped to a far greater degree by tacit than they ever could by explicit, esp in a world of constant change

different people when presented with exactly the same info in exactly the same way learn diff things. most ed has no room for this, so eliminates student imagination

students learn best when able to follow passion and operate w/in constraints of a bounded environment.
??not following this. they say, 
w/o the boundary of an assignment there would be no medium for growth.
i'll have to come back to this..

most kids don't know how to answer.. what are you most passionate about, never asked that before, or, they have come to believe that if they care about it that much it's not valid for ed



p. 81 - saying that if you give a kid the internet and tell them to seek their passion, they would meander around finding bits and pieced of info that move them from topic to topic and produce a very haphazard result.
(that's what these guys need, they need detox, time to meander, no? we've caged them up for too long
if we let them meander more maybe they would find their true passion to play in vs a virtual game - not saying for everybody, are you saying gaming would be for everybody? if given the option, i would want to do something real.)

know, make, play
on know: facts have become things that can be located, so the question moves from what to where, where allows for a multiplicity and sophistication of response, more a question of where that question means something than what an isolated answer is - the increasing importance of context

expertise is less about having a stockpile of info/facts at one's disposal, more about how to find/evaluate info on a given topic  (conrad wolfram's computer based math)

on make: where one chooses to post, where on links to or where one is linked from does not just serve as a locus for finding content. it becomes part of the content itself
learning content through making - still concerned with the what
learning content through shaping - concerned with the where
both cultivate imagination - basis for play
by participating in the making of meaning, we learn how to judge and eval
in a world where images/texts/meanings can be manipulated, awareness of the play of context and ability to reshape it become important in decision making

on play: huszinga, play is most overlooked aspect in understanding how learning functions in culture
all systems of play a- are at base - learning systems
play reveals a structure of learning that is radically diff from the one most schools provide, and which is well suited to the notions of a world in constant flux
play provides opp to leap, experiment, fail, and continue to play with diff outcomes, it's an organizing principle.
the nature of epiphany - finding that meaning could not happen w/o the playfulness of mind
how one arrives at the epiphany is always a matter of the tacit


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Friday, February 18, 2011

tall painting

cool - thanks han




_____________________

umair haque

his post - dumb growth revolution
Children of tomorrow--spreading at the speed of light through the fibers of a new global nervous system. They're waking up to the boundless possibility of creating a better tomorrow. And just as important, they're waking up to the timeless truth that history's most unforgivable act is to carelessly squander what has always been its greatest gift: the ever-unfurling, infinitely fragile, endlessly mighty human potential that lies sleeping in each of us.
uk uncut 

this is our bloodless revolution..



enronia
andy carvin's tweeting revolution
venessa's incredible list of mesh networks




_____________________________________

douglas rushoff



we are attempting to operate our society on obsolete code
if we don't understand programs in our computers, we don't stand a chance understanding how

how much is the bias of the medium and how much is the bias of the programmers, we won't know until we understand how our technologies work on us

if you are not a programmer, you become passive to the game

we got text, and the ability/tech to read, and we get the ability of the generation before
printing press, generation of writers? no, civilization of readers and an elite of writers
get computers, great generation of programmers, no, a nation of bloggers
now we have the great ability to write, but we don't know how to program, we write in the box that google gives us
issue - at each state when we get a new medium, civilization is one stage/generation/iteration behind

this one is bigger, programming is even bigger than the printing press, it's as big as text
it's important for people to be able to contend with the biases..

it's an amazing moment where we can begin to program money and society,
but we need to understand both, the programs we're using to do it and the meme sets, the codes, the symbols, if we don't create a society that at least knows there's a thing called programming, then we will end up being not the programmers, the users, and worse, the used.




via @VanessaMiemis 's post

_____________________________

SNICKERS - "Logging"

Thursday, February 17, 2011

emergent collective

via bernd and vanessa

The Future of Art from KS12 on Vimeo.



______________________________

i. love. this.



best conference i've been too.
did i say - i love it?

___________________________________

youtube

todays convo with Jim
incredible ride to and from denver to hear Anya

we were both keen on talking youtube and video logging, on learning, innovating, immersing in a 3d documentation (per chris anderson, roger schank, bernd/emergent)

so Jim's idea - start using how to videos (how to whatever - per choice) and the response videos..
instead of kids logging, have them make response videos... or comments

we're thinking perhaps jan smith's son's help with bowdrill set is an exemplar - which i don't see video response on there.. but tons of comments..

we're thinking if we do this within facebook - where the crowd is - we'll get more input, esp people helping us with our thinking on this.

we're pumped.

funny how kids in the lab, that finally get they are free to do things like that, come in everyday or leave everyday saying... i just want to learn everything. it's like - they had no concept of learning before. so much is compliancy, so little is immersion into their own curiosities..
look at them having fun.. let's do more of that.

just as i'm finishing this - i find this in my email - dean's video for alec - and his post about it.. very much the same thing.
i think kibitizing around- is what it's all about.. that's the deep tinkering we're after - that immersion into tacit knowledge. just in time learning per choice, swimming in fun and joy.


_____________________________________
__________________________________________

anya kamenetz

cool update, her slides now on slideshare:


mike davis up first reminding parents - you model behavior for students.

Anya - live - how lucky am i.

her words as best i could capture them (i didn't see anyone videoing this..shame if not)

ultimate lesson: exciting time to be a learner

i'm not an academic, not an educator, i'm a journalist , come from the outside and ask annoying questions

john meyer, stanford, speaks of oxford: a cathedral of rationality
such a bedrock articl of faith
the sacredness of that cathedrasl rationality has made it hard not to evolve
in america we made college ed the centerpiece of the american dream
1) higher ed for small % of white men
2) 1965- turned to open doors toa ll, 70"s community colleges popped up 1 every 2 weeks
the masterplan - charles reed, csu system today, says masterplan is dead (before 2008 crash)
no longer have resources to back the promises we made

college tuition has grown over any other good or services in last 20-30 years
1) massification  - broad opportunity
2) cost shifting - play between fed/state level funding
3) student loans - cheap money gets people less sensitive to high costs
4) baumel's cost disease - 1966 performing arts dilemma - you cannot outsource a string quartet, you can't cut the cello, an immanable (?) 1st person experience
say ed is personal so no other way to do it

looking at not only what's possible with tech - but what's possible in lowering the cost with tech

45% - no significant gains 1st 2 years of college
36% - no significant gains over 4 years of college
remember this black box - when we're trying to decide if change is worth the risk

are students taking responsibility - are they engaging
1) they are working harder - most have jobs
2) in the flow of communication (fb, twitter, text, google, youtube, etc) - too much is not happening in the classroom
this is a magnitude of missed opportunity
a waste of resources - how do we redeploy them

music industry - records replaced by digitial downloads people are seeking out personalization, through privacy
then they seek out face to face, because that's immanable ? (want to find that word)
resources flow into in person experiences

cathy davidson - hastac
daniel pink: design/function, story/argument, symphany/focus, empathy/, play/, one more (get that slide)

____________
content, socialization, accreditation, all 3 are being affected with openness:
content
open courseware at mit, 95 mill access it, offered couple thous for profs that allow videoing, etc (which by the way encourages them to improve their lectures)
cost of distributing ivy league course drops to 0, so what will ivy league provide
teds, khan academy, etc
all moving faster than an official curricula can move,
computer based program, carnegie mellon, presented at levels like a video game, allow students to cover more material (and i would add - per choice)

flatworld knowledge - save $1000/year per kid on text books
2 bill for creation of vocational courseware
hopkin? (find him) asst to deputy, says unis will be irrelevant in 30-35 yrs, and not going away till irrelevant

socialization
pln's everyone has one, not just people but info
youtube
if you can do it (learn via youtube) with a skateboard, how do you do it with a math trick, a resume, an app letter   (again - per choice, only - just in time and per choice)
university of mary washington - blog platform, sharing w/world vs reports to be trashed
feedback from world brings intrinsic motivation
prof networks in lieu of diplomas
complementary, supplementary, and some replace all together
behance network, scott belsky, companies recruiting straight off this website, true peer review (whoa - hadn't seen/heard of this - take a look at the gallery)
reputation based systems (we rely on them more than a priest/dr/etc)
the younger kids learn how to represent themselves on these networks the better
linkedin has 90 mill members - data driven career planning - how to use it
find out - what did the other math majors do as a 1st job, 2md job, etc

a lot of students make career based decisions based on too little info - this is huge - we need more of Anya's message

#1 employer of ivy leagues - teach america/year in africa - nothing wrong with either, but if they knew more of their options at the front end..
the new way - college is a piece of success. options are huge

______________________

from q&a:

as an employer, how do you start to evaluate students?
co-evolution has to take place:
1) institutions who's basis is assessment, per specialization, you pay to get reliable vouching
2) portfolio - where you can see the work
3) reputation - large % of hiring here, has been this way before
hiring is an arbitrage process - so an arbitrage opportunity

in this new model - what about writing? i find it's the hardest thing to teach.
internet is text based
(well has tons of text in it - google still just sees text but-   is it not more video based -tapping into speakertext, 3d-ish, kelly's what tech wants. i would offer the suggestion, the key is in words like teach, and run a class, etc, like Anya pointed out in the beginning, the black box, teaching writing doesn't get at the essence of it, and excellent consideration, writing, because it is huge - would love to hear how Anya thinks she got to be such a good writer - here's Kate)

is it (still wondering what people are defining it to be) going to make it more competitive?
there are more opportunities for people currently without a voice/invisible that have talent to rise and for those in high places with no talent to fall 
(my thinking: competition becomes mute as people are allowed options to be themselves, no one can compare to you, so the competition, you could say, turns in to - how can i be the best me - everyone finding their nitch - comes down to godin's - indispensable people)

what about those with learning disabilities?
there's mass customization, it it's tailored and not just thrown out there - ie: you find it - then tech can certainly be a plus

seems choices are highly complicating things, do you see simplicity down the road?
old dewey decimal system to google search box
google is simpler but system behind it is more complex
everything is miscellaneous, more simplified at the level of the user
(steven johnson's adjacent possibilities, and again kelly's - what tech wants:  minimize to self, maximize to world)

what about organization establishing curriculum? seems very chaotic.
university = guild, community helping you funnel through
my notes from her talks on this - wec10 and tedxatlanta
less people at the major uni more in a customized group

how do you get kids prepared for this?
ed no longer as a service - like hot water, now has to be in hands of the learner
culture that says yes instead of no - allows for that (i'm assuming this means less rules/policy/filtering/etc)
huge: make failure part of learning. (godin again - part 6 video)
talked about how she didn't let herself fail even through college
this is a supplement - ivy bridge - (not sure if that's the right link, missed that connection/explanation)

how do you assess the merit of the content?
perfect answer - we're comparing it to a black box - her very opening, that more than 1/2 - no significant gains
piece of improvement happens w/open courseware, profs lectures are now online, they improve, bigger audience
for optimal - we need the back end connection to employers, asking them to eval a portfolio, give feedback, recommend content, action, etc

what about the core curriculum and liberal arts that bring a continuity of community?
she's found in her research, that continuity of these is merely an illusion

no - i meant community from common knowlege..
core vs specialization, this actually brings us closer together, bridges
she said - may still have groups - math people - sharing - with others not joining in,  {i may be misrepresenting her here - well - all throughout, no? this is all my interpretation of what she said}
[Anya touches on this in her post on ed - it's an overriding curriculum, if you will, of learning how to learn, no matter what:
No decision of curriculum, grade, or whatever should be imposed from above without students taking responsibility for their own learning. This would drive diversity within the system as it adapts to a multiplicity of needs, freeing everyone from the yoke of standardization.
this drives diversity to a limit, that limit forces us, or let's us, finally, zoom out, to what we're really after in the first place, how do you learn, how do you get better at things, etc... that's our commonality, and it's much more humane ]

what about the danger, who we trust, how do we teach kids how to discern, teaching discrepancy?
we need to be teaching them to question everything, even us
now we've got many resources to verify, etc, many eyes on all we do
[something we needed to be doing all along anyway - and ties in nicely with mike's first comments, the first sentence above, we all need to be gracefully questioning everything.]

_________________________________

anya kamenetz

holy cow - i get to meet her today.

at the colorado academy - another holy cow.. their history is amazing. what a place.
head of school - Mike Davis - on Anya's visit
i love what Anya says here:

The more I think about it, the more I think that what’s key in that equation is the student voice. While educators continue to unearth and transmit the best of the past and current knowledge, students individually and collectively need to be empowered to question the structures in place and to be free to pursue their own passions. No decision of curriculum, grade, or whatever should be imposed from above without students taking responsibility for their own learning. This would drive diversity within the system as it adapts to a multiplicity of needs, freeing everyone from the yoke of standardization. And it would drive the system toward the future. I see this as more of a gut renovation than a demolition project.


i think the challenges talked about in the horizon report are actually are plus.. if we realize the benefit of zooming out to the limit of these exponentiating possibilities. we simply can't keep up - which drives us to a new paradigm. not - can we keep up, keep ahead, but let's just jump in. immersion is the key. which is so beautifully humane. it's Shirky's cognitive surplus blending with Hagel and Brown's tacit potential. finding the stuff we want to know in life. in people. in trusting relationships.
i believe Chris Anderson touches on it here, and i believe Roger Schank is working on it here, and my kids completely get it here and here.
video is pushing us past linear static knowledge, it's immersing us back into a fully dimensional life. it's connecting people with people. 
how to tap into that, how to do part 4 of the challenges in the horizon report - that's what i think our biggest challenge should be. as we focus on the process of learning alone.. no matter what a learner chooses to learn/seek out, per passion, how can we zoom in and out of documentation, esp video and conversation, (get pivot style) so that our time in tech is at it's minimum, and the adjacent possibilities (Steven Johnson) of the trail we leave for others is at it's maximum? (Kevin Kelly's what tech wants)




how you change a room- kevin


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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

patricia kuhl



celestial openness of the child's mind

studying how sounds are learned..

interesting... citizens of the world turn into language bound listeners before their first birthday

babies listening intently and taking statistics











babies are sensitive to the statistics, adults no longer absorb them,  we're governed by the representations in memory that were formed early in development
the learning of language may slow down when our distributions stabilize
bilinguals must keep 2 sets in mind at once
can babies take stats on a brand new language - they found out yes
found it takes a human being for learning to take place, no tv no teddies

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Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture | Video on TED.com

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature's genius in architecture | Video on TED.com

“Online Learning” is Not “Learning Online” | Powerful Learning Practice

“Online Learning” is Not “Learning Online” | Powerful Learning Practice

christian long

holy cow man.
he hit the candy store - and is running with it.

love all of this.. huge bravo.
be playful - about
be playful on twitter - and it's their taco truck
be playful on facebook
be playful blog


prototype camp
curriculum and incredible links/resources to design thinking
protoype on facebook 

















the third teacher writing about prototype design camp


oh - and gosh - don't forget David Bill.



_____________________________________

will richardson

what's the new narrative, Will's interview with mindshift


nothing is for everyone.. that's our story. so let's monitor learning, then everything/everyone fits. per choice.

so many options today. let's get the word out.

be you.
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Yuri's Night 2011 Video Contest Trailer

jacqueline novogratz



your job is not to be perfect, but only to be human
and nothing in life that matters happens without a cost

tilly olson - oh yes
better immersion than to live untouched

the most important things we do and spend our time on are the things we cannot measure

monsters exist in all of us, but maybe it's not monsters but the broken parts of ourselves, sadness, shame
no group more vulnerable to those kinds of manipulations are young men
the most dangerous animal on the planet - the adolescent male

moral imagination

we have it all wrong when we think income is the link, what we yearn for is to be visible to each other

we need the audacity to believe - all men are created equal
and the humility to believe - we can't do it alone

our lives are so short, and our time on this planet is so precious, and all we have is each other.
__________________

News

News

bmw



cool jets. thanks eli

The future of advertising. BMW is one smart cookie. This was made possible with a $150k 3D projector.

simon sinek

simonsinek It doesn't matter how much you know, it matters how clearly others can understand what you know

i'm struggling a bit with that one..

i completely get that you need to be able to share what you know, and that i pretty much suck at that, need a lot of work with that..

but the things i can't seem to be able to share just now, still matter to me.. they are helping to build on what i will share

i don't know.
help me.

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ideabox

you go@christianlong
i love this.

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daniel kahneman



dang. took notes and didn't save.
funny.. just like in the talk.
what if vacation - you couldn't keep pics and took drug to not remember after. would you still take it.

what if notes on lecture - you couldn't keep notes, would you still listen?

The Purpose of an Institution

The Purpose of an Institution

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

the horizon project

the horizon project

mark harvoth



about 2:29 talks about youth homelessness

interview
In this short interview Barbara Poppe talks about President Obama’s “Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness”.
The plan has 4 key goals:
  • End chronic homelessness by 2015
  • Prevent and end homelessness among veterans by 2015
  • End family, youth and child homelessness by 2020
  • End all forms of homelessness

youth homelessness:
at the federal leve 15-24 nothing in place - they are in need of something involved with ed
no dept of youth services at federal level - all addressed through education and housing services
2:29
endhomelessness.org
http://www.usich.gov/bio_poppe.html



____________________________-

david perkins

project zero - from harvard

book published in 2009 - any revisions since then?
developing more ideas about - origins in making learning whole, important meaningful things for the lives that learners are likely to live - new book

dlaufenberg: and it isn't going to be about what is best for kids, but about what we can afford

if you organize the learning right, small classes isn't that important

dlaufenberg: I would argue that K,1,2 is much more effective with small class sizes...

Me: right people in the room together

olena: I disagree with larger classes.

good teacher prep via chat:
http://www.ptec.org/
dlaufenberg: Learning how to learn is the key... once you focus on that as the overarching goal, the rest of it falls into place.

via lauf  http://sheg.stanford.edu/
http://chnm.gmu.edu/
lehmann at tedxphilly

making learning whole

tests

the comments are so disheartening.
we assume so much, or fight so blindly.
we're wasting so much time.

i wish i had a voice. i wish i knew how to speak.

venessa miemis

program or be programmed
great review of douglas rushkoff's book
my fav quotes from Venessa:
  • If we agree to categorize ourselves based on the choices available, we become more predictable, our potential for exposure to novelty narrows, and we conveniently transform into statistics for consumer research and targeted advertising.
  • In some instances, all this tagging and categorization based on preferences is valued for the personalization it gives us and assistance in decision making. But, we should be aware that there is a point where a trade-off is being made, and we begin to voluntarily limit our perspectives and ability for growth.
[reminds me of Kevin Kelly's what tech wants.. minimize what we do, but keep the options limitless]
  • No amount of reading or theorizing can replace prototyping, testing, and experiential learning and knowledge building.
  • In fact, it seems the closer you are to the actual creation of value, the further you get from the money.
  • In essence, we’re all marketing to each other instead of just doing the thing we’re advocating.
  • by approaching the digital experience with the understanding that nothing is really off the record, we can shape our online identities by being willing to own the words we say.
  • As Rushkoff put it, “The history of the Internet can probably best be understood as a social medium repeatedly shaking off attempts to turn it into something else.”
  • Like Buckminster Fuller said: You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.




via @zephoria

also from danah boyd
the 2011 horizons report 

wondering in the critical challenges if we flipped - went bottom up for importance. specifically, organizing, tagging/coding video documentation, esp conversation. (humanity 4.0 - all about convo)




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Monday, February 14, 2011

cynthia breazeal



thanks Laura - who wrote:
Laura wrote.. maybe the lab can be a test site for mit's media lab? what do you think?

________________________________________

Entrepreneurial Minds

Entrepreneurial Minds

ahumanright

Find more artists like Jared Barowitz at Myspace Music


_____________________________

depave

love this: i can already hear the earth breathing again..


Depaving Day! from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
depave.org

thanks to Hans - let's do it man.

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

gever tulley



the arc - oh the arc...

__________________________

john seely brown

new culture of learning



the big shift - from predictable to and constant flux

best predictor of how well kids do in college,
not gpas, tests,
but their ability to form study groups


talking about surfers about

a good idea will make it around the world

to prep students, it's not a skill it's a disposition

john seely brown



john's goes until 48 min

know a lot of stuff but have little curiosity

more correlation to kids that know how to form a study group than their sat scores.
curious thing about these study groups, they turn out to work virtually as well, basically equally production,

social life and intellectual life co-mingling
case in toronto - student prosecuted, had 150 in study group to do chem, very productive, but one of deans said these kids are having too much fun, they can't be learning

a new blended learning... open courseware + study groups

learning about - explicit knowledge
learning to be - tacit knowledge

importance of critique

indwelling in the space - tacit to the individual - is there a way to blend the cognitive and tacit
indwelling is a marinating in the cognitive

speed chess - if you take 2 groups of people, 1) tries to figure it all out with models 2) other, engages in speed chess, 5 min games
by and large, grand masters did speed chess, not the ones that thought it all through
something happens in speed chess, that you are able to integrate the board in your head, that you don't even realize what you're doing
don't expect hackers to understand what they do, they just have instincts to indwell in that space

open source community, want to write codes so that others can learn from it..
mit - open community, conversation, open construction










we don't think much about deep tinkering
how do you develop a gut feeling.. an intimate familiarity with the knowledge in hand
maybe it's deep tinkering that unfolds this indwelling.













not man as knower, not man as maker, but man as player
nuance of it is this freedom to fail fail fail again, fail fast, and then slowly get it right
one characterization of extreme surfers - this
sense of play - play of the imagination
in play - every once in a while you get an epiphany
re-register the world around you
a kid who has an epiphany has it for life

where we spend a tremendous amount of thinking in terms of knowing and making, maybe we need to look at deep tinkering as playing with complex systems that has a sense of immersion in it

deep tinkering, playing at its deepest sense, riddling the system


learning about, learning to be, learning to become
learning to become so that you don't fear change
the value of play is never found in a static state, it's found in becoming, always about the next challenge

how to honor intuition more
how do you let your kids experience a sense of awe, curiosity and a sense of humility



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Friday, February 11, 2011

imagine and play

John Seely Brown wrote a book, John Hagel posted about it.
i read his post, and couldn't stop thinking about it.
drew up this..
now i must get the book.



















_________________________

noam kostucki

ah Noam.. i love what you're doing with seeducation



more on the social innovation safari


___________________________

Thursday, February 10, 2011

richard bach

you must begin by knowing you have already arrived - Jonathan Livingston Seagull,

perfect speed, my son, is being there. --Jonathan Livingston Seagull, @richardbach

___________________________________________

christian long

can she be comfortable as a learner, not prove to you she is a student - via @ChristianLong  http://bit.ly/hqaf4O

imagine if you have furniture that says.. movement matters - via @ChristianLong  http://bit.ly/hqaf4O




_______________________________________

ishmael beah

just finished ishmael beah's http://www.alongwaygone.com/  - we have no idea.


for any of you reading a long way gone, you might be interested in this Ted, http://www.ted.com/talks/emmanuel_jal_the_music_of_a_war_child.html and this movie: war dance http://www.wardancethemovie.com/
 
 
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

options abound

Khan Academy: 


or

UnCollege


or

traditional


or
life


with infinite options beyond and inbetween.

how cool for us.

let's make sure everyone gets to play..
support @ahumanright 's buy this satellite

_________________________________

i cry a lot

seems i do.
a lot.
it's not a depression cry.
it's a - i can't contain all i'm taking in - cry.

maybe it's my age, maybe it's i'm more real than i've ever been in my life. i think i'm more vulnerable, more accepting of whatever comes my way. i'm pretty sure i notice more than i ever have before. i don't know.

all i know is that several times a day, i'm touched beyond my what my heart can hold.. and it usually causes me to cry. mostly inside.

just now John T did it to me with this post.


___________________________________

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

homeless photos




_________________________

the big what abouts

the biggest questions/doubts for the lab/unschooling come from these what abouts:

structure
laziness
learning to write/read

college admissions
icyte collection for alternate/eportfolio/documentation

the parent gathering

___________________________________________________

Monday, February 7, 2011

palomar 5

the future of art

The Future of Art from KS12 on Vimeo.

_______________________________________________

The Future of Art from KS12 on Vimeo.

the role that we play, making connections with what might not be otherwise be obvious connections
it's the use that is the art, rather than the person that comes up with the idea

visual capacity for people to think

video mapping -

we can now create our own limitations

make the work not about the technology, but also - use the tech/web like it really is the web

________________________________

brene brown



social work: lean into the discomfort of the work
if it's not measurable it doesn't exist

connection is why we're here, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives

unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection: shame
shame is the fear of disconnection
people who haven't experienced shame - have no capacity for human empathy or connection
no one wants to talk about it and the less you talk about it the more you have it
underpenned by: excruciating vulnarability
in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, fully seen

after all her research - the only difference between those who had connection and those who didn't was their feeling of worthiness

what they had in common was a sense of courage: to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart
the courage to be imperfect
the compassion to care for themselves
they had connection as a result of authenticity
they fully embraced vunlerability
they believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful, it was necessary

research: study phenomenon in order to control and predict

we numb.. but you can't selectively numb emotion

i am enough.
we stop screaming and start listening.
we're kinder and gentler to others and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves

you are imperfect and wired for struggle
but you are worthy of love and understanding

_________________________________________

notice dream connect do

notice:
we all assume a standard success, go to school, get a degree, get a job, make money
parents hold a lot of the keys to making change happen
college admissions is driving a lot of their and student's choices
gpa/act/sat is driving a lot of what we do in k-12

dream:
people boldly defining their own success
mandates lifted in order to facilitate these self-directed learners/dreamers/doers

connect:
let's call a big parent meeting, encourage them to make bold, new, personal choices  -will richardson
let's gather a collection of unis that offer alt admissions so that learners/parents/teachers are freed from the - well it's needed for college admission  - lisa, kirsten
let's change the state, national mandates of measures (gpa/act/sat) that are becoming less of a determining factor for college admission and success  - kirsten, kate, mark johnston, jordan, karina, jessi,


let's do it.
____________________________

brad flickinger

SchoolTube - Canada - photo essay 3rd Grade

Sunday, February 6, 2011

beyond pbl

differentiated learning to project based learning - quite an improvement.
this is huge: letting go of the reins with pbl

but is it enough?
is that why we're not changing more/faster/deeper?
are we just getting pieces of improvement.
incredible ones - yes.

but it is enough, to change the world?

________________________________-

larry rosenstock

high tech high



4 integrations:
1) social class
2) head in hand - dewey
3) secondary and post sedondary
4) school and community


revisiting this video:


einstein - easy to discover theory of relativity, if you ignore a few axioms..
high tech high ignores the normal disjoint of the 4 above

purpose of ed is not to serve a public but to create a public.
reverse the peer affect, you're going to college, where are you going, doesn't matter what your family brings to the table..
public ed is most precious public institution
ed can elevate you the most and it's the least changed institution

what is adolescence but trying on new roles and sampling new identities, i want kids behaving like a scientist, composer, oncologist, artist,  not studying them. being them.

___________________________________


___________________________________

ginger lewman - project based learning



Alvin Toffler:
learn how to learn.
learn how to unlearn.
learn how to relearn.
because that's the real skill.

teach them how to do, how to think, how to be.
Kevin Honeycut's face to face program.

differentiated learning to pbl to ?
16 students to 28 to now over 70, grades 5-8, 6 staff members

kids have to learn to be empowered. they are not told what to do and how to do it, and they're not used to that.

it's about optimal ambiguity.

________________________________________

dan meyer



__________________

Saturday, February 5, 2011

structure

more polished post here on lab connections.

insight from James Bach:
what is structure..

I think structure means pattern.

but when people say it pointedly they often mean a pattern that is imposed 
sometimes, they mean a pattern that they can see, or name 
and sometimes they mean a pattern that directs and confines
so when people say - i like structure, I like to check whether that means 
"I like to be told what to do" 
or 
"I like to tell other people what to do"
or 
"I like to be able to explain and justify what I'm doing"
each of these are different.

the thing is
all things have structure! 

A room full of kids has a structure
even without telling them what to do
they will be structured by their feelings toward each other
and toward the objects in the room
and their beliefs about justice and fairness
and their cultural expectations
and the roles they choose for themselves
and what they had for breakfast
and whether they had a fight with their sibs before school
and prior agreements
and what happened yesterday
and the things adults do that they witness
etc.


we watch the kids,
feel what's going on,
diagnose problems, if any,
provide support if requested. 
if the kids are constrained by a lot of imposed ideas, that disturbs the system and makes it hard to see what's happening.
it's as if you were trying to understand the psychology of a child solely
by watching them play chess
that's a lot of structure
but chess is not a very expressive experience
I think basically, the problem for a lot of us is that we just don't believe kids are healthy humans who instinctively seek their own growth

but one thing is
that one persons organization/structure is another person's muddle
we can't know what's really happening for the kids
inside their heads
we do have to trust in the wisdom of the growing mind

great post and comment by zac chase @mrchase on this:
I’m not sure where it’s going or what it will become. 

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