Wednesday, October 24, 2012

charlie kouns - listen to youth

Listening for the Wisdom of Young People

imagining learning - listening sessions to youth
not about what's wrong with ed, but what would you do.. no agenda

culture

Greg Satell (@Digitaltonto)
10/24/12 6:12 AM
How to Build an Innovative Culture digitaltonto.com/2012/how-to-bu…

having so much trouble envisioning an 8.8 part exec summary outline for a business plan... seems to beg strings attached moneys....

seems odd - culture is the paradigm shift, and that's the thing we don't want to let go of.

the rest is fluff. no?

being innovative (whatever that means) yet holding to the same documentation and paperwork... leads to a bigger box, not a new mindset.. no?

partial freedom is no freedom - krishnamurti

how to get there in increments... ?

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

we the data

http://wethedata.org/

who's rich?

via leah - and heather

moneys

why-do-some-americas-wealthiest-individuals-have-fingers-louisianas-education-system#
via jayeesha

the money-drenched process

oh my.
we have all we need. no?

sam chaltain - policy

sam-chaltain/the-world-is-a-sisyphean

What Friedman seems to have forgotten, and what the Obama administration has repeatedly failed to heed, is that systems as dysfunctional as those in American public education require more than a new set of end goals: they require deep and sustained investments in our collective capacity to imagine and sustain something new -- and that sort of change requires two main ingredients: technical expertise and emotional commitment.

grazie man.
just one domino.

tweets today oct 23

Molly Cantrell-Kraig (@mckra1g)
10/23/12 6:49 AM
Love them! RT @burgessct: 60% of people 16 through 29 still frequent libraries.nyti.ms/QRxXvw

library as city hub... hs bldgs as youmedia centers, city as school

Daniel Pink (@DanielPink)
10/23/12 6:44 AM
Google will earn $8 billion from mobile ads, apps & media in coming year, has activated half a billion Android devices. nyti.ms/T8ofVx

best deal ever for google an facebook - quiet revolution

ktenkely (@ktenkely)
10/23/12 6:43 AM
20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Twain

Jose Baldaia (@Jabaldaia)
10/23/12 6:43 AM
Producing more amazing knowledge and building creative trustbit.ly/RZwN6Y

Jose Baldaia (@Jabaldaia)
10/23/12 6:42 AM
Transparency facilitates integrative thinkingbit.ly/QAmfsv

Jonathan Fields (@jonathanfields)
10/23/12 6:40 AM
could you use a mini-mentorship from @pamslim @CameronHerold & @julien when starting your new project? bit.ly/100change #100change

Mark Barnes (@markbarnes19)
10/23/12 6:29 AM
New by @joe_bower: What won't we do for high scores?ow.ly/2sP51H

Mark Barnes (@markbarnes19)
10/23/12 6:29 AM
New tech stuff: Parents consider the value of Twitter during the presidential #debatesow.ly/2sP51I

Bud Hunt (@budtheteacher)
10/23/12 6:26 AM
@dajbelshaw I could pull that trigger this time. So I did. Curious about self sustaining spaces.

Bud Hunt (@budtheteacher)
10/23/12 6:27 AM
@dajbelshaw I also liked the idea of a market signal to Twitter. I’d pay them. I get tremendous value from their platform.

Brad Feld (@bfeld)
10/23/12 1:11 AM
Icelanders approve their crowdsourced constitution — European technology newsbuff.ly/VvvNcy

tyson adams

misfit inc app

Laos is the most bombed country per capita, IN THE WORLD, with over 2 million tons of unexploded ordnances littered throughout the country. In fact, at the end of the war there remained over 80 million UXO’s in Laos and one third of the country is still unsafe to venture into.

However, these facts are not the problem. They are only the cause. The cause, which has subsequently created the resulting problem. Laos has an education problem.

The fact that Laos’ literacy is ranked 150 of 184 countries in the world, is because they have been rebuilding for the past 40 years. A rebuilding that has not allowed for the integration of one simple thing in their culture. Books.

Imagine a place where at school there are only three subjects: Math, Science & Lao Language. A place where the majority of the adult population is illiterate because of the Vietnam war. A community that collectively doesn’t quite grasp the importance of encouraging their children to go to school each day and definitely does not invest in their children’s education resources like textbooks, school supplies, and storybooks. A culture that allows their children to drink from the many polluted streams because they cannot afford a water pump at the school.

The problem in Laos is multilayered but it can be boiled down to these points in no particular order. The adult population of the coffee communities on the Bolaven Plateau are poor and illiterate. This leads to them not requiring their children to attend school daily because they don’t grasp the importance.

Laos’ education department on the Bolaven Plateau has a lack of funding from the Government because of too many middlemen taking a piece of the action. Every single village needs education aid but the resources are minimal.

Who’s affected? The Bolaven Plateau is where The liveGLOCAL Foundation has been working the past three years. This area has approximately 500 Coffee Growing Families ~20-25,000 people. Our estimate is that the Bolaven Plateau has 150+ village school houses, almost all of which are primary schools, which are k-5th grade

“Thats the difference between a charity and a social business. In charity when you give money, it goes away. It never comes back. So charity dollar only has one life. If you use it, its done. But if you can design this into a Social Business, then suddenly that social business dollar has endless life. Because it recycles. It starts moving back and forth, again and again. You touch many more lives. And it continues ever and ever.”

An ideal solution to the education problem on the Bolaven Plateau is a crowd funded coffee shop to be built in Paksong, Laos, where all business profits are reinvested back into the education system. These profits will be allocated to building school libraries, building sports (play) facilities, and drilling clean water pumps at the schools. Other than paying for employee salaries and operation costs, no coffee shop profits will be taken out of the company for personal gain.

What type of coffee shop will be built? The type of coffee shop has not been determined yet. However, the goal in mind is to create a spot that both locals and backpackers would both equally want to hang at. It will have a coffee shop area with computers for tourists and welcome english speaking locals who want to integrate with these tourists and learn computer skills and conversational English. Almost all locals do not have email accounts or have computers skills and we see this as an opportunity to offer this to high school aged Laotian children and adults who are interested. There is also a great need for Laotian adults to become more familiar with technology and learn computer skills.

tyson on twitter

Seth's Blog: Everybody knows everything

Monday, October 22, 2012

equity and diversity

the_difference_between_equity_and_binders_full_of_anybody

Diversity is about variety, getting bodies with different genders and colors into the room. Equity is about how those bodies get in the door and what they are able to do in their posts."

grazie Jayeesha

sharing vision

how to share vision

rsanimate-ish?
http://www.cognitivemedia.co.uk/index.php/about-us/history/
[video on how rsanimate started]

prezie-ish?
http://prezi.com/ms0u89u05od4/present/?auth_key=7x20c3u&follow=u3zdnw99aclq
prezie i'm trying to share vision on

tweets this am

randoms (?) from this am's tweets

news.yc Popular (@newsycombinator)
10/19/12 5:05 AM
Free Online Education Is Now Illegal in Minnesotaj.mp/Ubkncr

similar to districts only allowing district staff to credential a kid, vs a uni prof or renowned expert..

Marlo Thomas (@MarloThomas)
10/22/12 6:44 AM
"There are no rules of architecturefor a castle in the clouds."– Gilbert K. Chesterton

Insight Labs (@insightlabs)
10/22/12 6:36 AM
@stevenbjohnson Just finished FP yesterday...the clearest framework I've found to help me understand and plan our work. Thank you.

Jose Baldaia (@Jabaldaia)
10/22/12 6:44 AM
Memories of emotional experiences are a source of creativitybit.ly/MUDohb

Jen Sigrist (@JenSigrist)
10/22/12 6:42 AM
What is good accountability? Data for imprvmnt, no judmnt, transparency, internal acctbiltyow.ly/i/12W7W #isteLF12

Max McKeown (@MaxMckeown)
10/22/12 6:41 AM
That freedom thing? Someone somewhere is working hard to take it away from us all.bit.ly/RQP3KP

http://100startup.com/
via http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/what-is-freedom/?awt_l=MgyxV&awt_m=JNHuqwAIHsnt7W

balance...

good people everywhere..
looking for the glue...
the balanced narrative... to scale equity across... to all people.

and yesterday am:

Unstuck (@unstuck)
10/21/12 8:00 AM
We embrace this sound strategy behind saying the tough "no" via @dailypath:bit.ly/PnwJNv

dig down deep.. honor your soul...

Seth's Blog: No one ever bought anything on an elevator

Sunday, October 21, 2012

facebook friends

how do they decide who shows up here?
love it when my family is all on there..

Seth's Blog: Raise and lower (more for less)

Seth's Blog: Raise and lower (more for less)

whoa.. our mindset the last several yrs..
no one is really watching...mandating.. approving.. us in the lab.

if in that space.. what would you do?

what if we trusted you?
what would remain?

perhaps.. a quiet revolution.
you come too..
up to you..

jerry michalski - tedxcopenhagen

school teaches clock is more important than your flow.

it's called: the compulsory education system.

when you look at structure of school - teachers are like a god. but in actuality - a demi-god - because of all their restrictions.

school is broken. since we can't fix it... we try to do more.. of bad things. like banging on a broken device.

over regulate
over medicate

i don't know who's nurturing good citizens

in the mean time, we've created a scarcity of

the hell would we do this..?

1. we fear

that if we let go of these systems, let people do their own thing, we will destroy civilization

2. there are 7 bill people on earth, we need

we need to use efficiency and let this grow, we need to replicate, we can't customize - that will happen with tech, right?

3. we don't trust communities to come together and actually learn

4. it's in the interest of a lot of people to have

in the system

what sort of system would you build if we trust you?

to go find abundance and trust i need to step

where there is danger, liability, controversy, consequence, opportunity,

wikipedia knows that undoing vandalism is pretty easy, and they know that the "edit this page" is an invitation for trust to come in and learn to do the dance

what does a world of abundance look like?

can learn

[imagine spending less on paperwork (and people and spaces to manage that paperwork) of mistrust and more to do things like travel. we have all we need, no? we're just dispersing it in silly ways.]

and if you did these things, they'd be

becomes a learning/teaching tool

life is that interesting, many efforts around the world to tap into that.. ie: crowdsourcing science, et al

the problem is what was just described is

in a lot of countries, and states in the US, taking your child out of school is illegal

this thing is often called

not a graceful word, also: free-range kids, edupunks

we know public ed

homeschool is outside of school, but school, have a curriculum, you're trying to pass tests,

unschool is way far removed, really child led, curiosity led, it doesn't mean you leave your child on a desert island, but it also doesn't mean you have an agenda for what your child is going to learn today, ie: today is fraction day so we're going to.. this requires really letting go, an amazing act of confidence

does sound a bit like detox, it's meant to.. it's what you do with a kid who's been in school, has absorbed all the rules and regulations, so that might mean they end up playing nintendo games for a year until they get that out of their system, you have to trust that it's going to get out of their system at some point. deschooling is a process of

assumptions of school .. just from looking at its architecture

if you want to look at how we're wired to learn, look at any

before we send them off to school

they have learned one (or multiple) languages

learned to walk, run, play, learn rules, learn how to game the rules, .. really very sophisticated stuff.

then they enter an era of stalling.. turns out is only takes about

to learn basic reading and basic math

there is only one variable that matters, just one,

the child has to want to.

turns out not everyone wants that at the same month in their lives, but that's what we've done

when you compel - for the sake of efficiency or whatever, we break their curiosity, and we end up wasting 1000's and 1000's of hours of our children's lives, and your lives and mine, in fruitless activities because we couldn't remove ourselves from the metronome of the big system

i'm using school, kind of as a decoy, as a praxi, for coercion, for the compulsory aspect

schools are cool, particularly if you want to go and if it's voluntary

schools as voluntary drop-in centers

our system of efficiency and scale has taught ocd, institutionalized violence, boredom, and dependence