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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

greg satell - tent city

When leadership fails, innovation goes underground and people learn to hack to get by.

The term has resonance because it points to a truth that we all know but often forget. Bosses want to see results and everybody wants to impress them. However, it is often easier to create the illusion of success. Tractors and railroads provide concrete output, but they often obscure the fact that people need to hack to survive.
And it is the hacking that produces change. There is no plan to guide it nor a metric to evaluate it, because it arises when plans and metrics leave needs unmet. People do what they need to get by, often under the guise of secrecy. Leaders are always the last to know that their private carriages are passing by Potemkin villages.

So, if you want to create an innovation revolution, don’t go in search of a messiah, find your tent city instead. You can be sure it is close by, but it is usually hiding, waiting to be set free.

john seeley brown - entrepreneurial learner

check out Jeff's great post on John's work/voice here on dmlcentral.
super video.

Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Learner

how many stories can be recast in the network age

the game has changed

connected - but not finished
a conversation rather than a production...

d weinberger - too big to know

how do you reframe the conceptual lens?

if you aren't comfortable tinkering - you are going to have anxiety..

key part of play is a space of safety and permission..

the human spirit

oh my...

Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann)
10/9/12 6:43 AM
Seriously? This is malpractice in my opinion: Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in Schoolnyti.ms/QOSLFX

Saul Kaplan (@skap5)
10/9/12 6:30 AM
Reasonable man adapts himself to the world; unreasonable 1 persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. G B Shaw@almadakaj

Elizabeth Stefanski (@elithechef)
10/9/12 6:28 AM
Modifying the kid rather than transforming the environment #fail 'Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School'nyti.ms/QaNRSx

imagine instead...

The math expectation of speculator is zero.

via

Greg Satell (@Digitaltonto)
10/9/12 6:39 AM
The Mathematics of "Anything Can Happen"p.ost.im/p/dFdHSn

fav part at 34 seconds...

via

cathy-davidson/standardizing-human-ability

If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? If there is no fixed standard of educational success, do learning disabilities exist?

Monday, October 8, 2012

the glue, the narrative

looking for the glue.. the cohesive structure george siemens talked about several years ago..

then Judah Schiller and Christine Arena here: why-education-needs-a-new-brand

high recommended reads...

from the last:
So how do we make people care?

If we could devise provocative and ongoing messaging--a relevant pitch that appeals to people’s immediate lives and illuminates the possibilities rather than the problems in education--we could unify businesses, teachers, communities, and political leaders around a singular goal. We could move learning forward, let go of mediocre standards and encourage transparent communication within districts. By scaling success stories and applauding visionaries who have made real impact, we can compel citizens to start caring. Educational progress has been stifled by red tape, political mistrust, and inefficient practices for too long; these barriers will only be removed when we start viewing education as a priority.

Ultimately, we must re-brand education to invigorate the American public, to generate a sense of optimism, and to partake in risk-taking measures rather than circular, bureaucratic arguments. While the EdNation Summit underscored areas of opportunity in education, there were few discussions on how we can move beyond incremental, predictable improvements to truly revolutionize the education infrastructure. It is not enough to indulge in dreams. We must be able to make mistakes, to let go of what we know is not working, and demand solutions from our state legislatures and most revered brands.

working on facilitating curiosities - because.. well.. we've gotten good at killing creativity/curiosity.. we have a dependency on dependency.

_______________________

found the above.. after i had written this up for aj.. so very fitting.

via this: a-misfits-calling-and-the-one-and-only-spot-at-misfit-camp/

Describe your calling in one sentence. *
Equity, everyone getting a go at finding the thing they can’t not do, at becoming indispensable.

What's the name of your project? *
a quiet revolution

Describe your project. *
Short version:
Redefining public education, changing the law’s focus from seat time and test scores to:
1. everyone is known by someone (relationship); 2. everyone talks to themselves daily (self-assess).

Long version:
Imagine freeing up all the people in school buildings, that 7 hrs a day, those 12+ yrs. Imagine those 16,000+ hours spent on knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do, rather than doing what you’re told. Imagine all the expert self-directed and life-long learners.
Imagine the solutions to problems that matter, are sitting in classrooms, and rather than solving real problems, we have them prepping for tests on ie: rationalizing a denominator.
Imagine that most of our problems might not even exist, [for one - global suicide rate is one every 40 seconds - most people aren’t getting a chance to be themself], if we weren’t so accepting of the current dogma: 5 year olds trained to sit still, color in the lines, and attain an age appropriate level of reading of books they often have little interest in.

We did imagine that. We imagined it so much, that now, we can’t not take it on. We are seeking to set people free, from this zombie-like mindset, of doing what we’re told. We no longer think it a ridiculous feat, but rather, marvel that most people seem to wonder if it’s legal to think for themselves. We are reclaiming the public in public ed. We are seeking to free up the self-directed learner in every person by facilitating their curiosities.

Our current dilemma, the solution is too simple for most (academics) to accept in a timely manner. [we believe the quiet revolution is happening, we are seeking to hasten it along - because life is too short to not]
The more we depend on proof for validation, the more we fear uncertainty (Descartes). What the world needs is self-directed passionate people. (ask any mom, any college admission office/prof, any CEO, ask yourself..)
The mental roadblock is, we have no means for credentialing self-directed learners in a world caught up in this data driven craze of proof. The too simple of a solution: set people free in spaces of permission where they have nothing to prove.

We’ve been in an intense mode of experimenting, with what it means to be human and alive. After four years in this incubator space, we believe we’ve come up with a narrative that could start anywhere, today, and go everywhere, changing the world for good. There are so many incredible innovations and projects and people, doing amazing things, but there is no glue, no cohesive structure, to make betterness (Haque) equitable.
Rather than scaling any of these innovations, we believe the answer lies in scaling the individual.

new:
Long version:
k. so i wrote out the project i’m totally embedded in. then i thought about it. then i rewrote it from a completely different angle. i streamlined it to it’s essence... to me personally.
you can see the about page of our site for a brief lowdown, the details, on the how we see this quiet revolution playing out. it’s all documented and fermented in the work/mission/project we’ve carried out over the last four years.. [in loveland - surreal no?]

my soul project then.. ? the unleashing of the this revolution. the coming out phase. it’s very critical, i’m thinking, that it be done with a bold and intentional focus on simplicity. it really doesn’t matter how sure any of us are of the solution, if people can’t hear it, taste it, see it, smell it, feel it, ...believe it. every day.
the last four years seem to me more like 20 years ..of intense research. this pursuit of equity, it wakes me every day. it keeps me up at night. sleep seems so trivial. the belief that people are good and that we have all we need tears at my senses most every moment .. why haven’t we yet moved forward on this?
i’ve seen too much, know too much. too many people have let me in, too close, too vulnerable. i’ve been privy to a wilderness space. i’ve seen a narrative that can change the world, via an equitable, and most important, a doable means, to give every individual a go.
i believe that in our cognitive mega-surplus, in our zombie-fied busyness, we’re missing a simple, a breathtakingly beautiful, solution. a solution every soul craves.

simplicity has it’s curse. Descartes (and many others) wrote about it often. our thinking, our cognition, our academics and rulers, those we applaud and hale, and ourselves, our own egos, keep us from simplicity. we can’t accept/imagine that simplicity is enough. we’ve trained ourselves to obsess with complexity. it makes us feel strong. but it’s false. nothing is provable. knowledge won’t save us. complexity is keeping us from embracing uncertainty. and uncertainty is all we have. we’ve got to learn to swim with it, be vulnerable in it.

simplicity has it’s blessing. this can turn on a dime. it needs no training, no prep. people just need to be set free. it can start anywhere, and go everywhere. if we scale each individual, we’ll see an exponentiated exponentiation.

help me guys. my project,.. it’s clarity for the coming out of the project we’ve been experimenting with the last four years. that public ed is the vehicle to social change. can we make this narrative so useful, so user friendly, so everyday-ish? how can we make it show up everywhere.. so that people can’t not miss its allure?
help me pulse this out.. it’s there. brilliant people, mostly youth, have found and crafted and experimented with it. i have absolutely no doubt, it’s there. it’s here. among us.
how to make it easy on the hearts, and eyes, and ears, of people everywhere? that’s my project.
we have to give this a try. it’s a misfit solution. everyone is a genius, everyone is a misfit. every soul craves this free space..
once every 40 seconds, globally, someone takes their own life. that’s the war we can win. the war that will matter.
setting people free. waking them up. in spaces of permission and stillness, where they have nothing to prove.

i’ve seen it. it’s making me crazy we haven’t yet.
we can’t not.

people are good.
we have all we need.
help me wake us up.
no?

a friend writes:
We are all misfits. We all feel a little different, a little out of place, a little crazy. Why? Because we have all been labeled in some way by someone else who doesn’t really know who we really are. Labeled by parents, teachers, bosses, peers. These labels create a prison that we put ourselves in, trying to live up to expectations and trying to prove to ourselves that we are worthy…trying to prove to everyone else that we are worthy. This is useless energy spent on keeping our egos inflated and in full effect. It all makes us crazy. But if we change the mindset from what we “should” be, to being in a space of permission for who we “are”, we change our world. We are worthy, we are who we are. Not anyone else. We have to be ourselves, because that is exactly how we live life fully. Our souls crave it. Every person on this planet can connect with this truth. We want to be free…free to experiment, free to be ourselves, free to find that thing we can’t not do. That’s why this is so important. We need to change the system, because it is literally killing us. We want to redefine public education so that we all embrace the “misfit” in ourselves. Because different is good. Be You.

Do you currently have a site for this project? *
http://thebelab.blogspot.com/p/about.html

In one sentence, how will this change your life?*
It already is, I’m learning to swim in perpetual beta, to embrace uncertainty, to set myself free, daily.

In one sentence, how will this change the world?*
People are good, we don’t need to micromanage them, we just need to set them free.

___________________

cathy davidson & dan ariely course

how do we know what we know

Professor Dan Ariely has called this the “predictably irrational” aspect of human nature, that we believe ourselves to be logical, rational actors but, quite predictably, we deceive ourselves about how rational we are.

The “surprise” of literature is the narrative ending which catches us short and makes us think or rethink our ideas about human nature. Professor Davidson argues that these moments of disruption and distraction--when suddenly we are forced to see our own habits and behavior in a new way (“now you see it!”)--are a good opportunity to catch ourselves in our predictable irrationality.

This method emphasizes the process of moving from personally thinking through an idea to making it convincing in practice--especially in collaboration with others. Besides being an important workplace skill, working together to make ideas public prompts what John Seely Brown calls “metacognition,” an ability to think about our thinking. In literary and cultural criticism, this has been described as “defamiliarization” (being introspective about our own habits and reflexes).

via
knowing-ourselves-and-world-public-course-dan-ariely-and-cathy-david

facilitate curiosity

Ira Socol (@irasocol)
10/8/12 6:35 AM
Creating Dependence on Authority - via @trescolumnae - joyfullatinlearning.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/pat…and not just in Special Education

our dependence on dependence..

on to creativity... no?
to facilitating curiosity....

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201209/children-s-freedom-has-declined-so-has-their-creativity

via this from diane: http://dianeravitch.net/2012/10/08/creativity-declines-as-testing-increases/

We are the great innovators, specialists in figuring out new ways of doing things and new things to do. Perhaps this derives from our frontier beginnings, or from our unique form of democracy with its emphasis on individual freedom and respect for nonconformity.

Kim, who is a professor of education at the College of William and Mary, analyzed scores on a battery of measures of creativity—called the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT)—collected from normative samples of schoolchildren in kindergarten through twelfth grade over several decades. According to Kim’s analyses, the scores on these tests at all grade levels began to decline somewhere between 1984 and 1990 and have continued to decline ever since. The drops in scores are highly significant statistically and in some cases very large. In Kim’s words, the data indicate that “children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.”

Seth's Blog: The curious imperative

Seth's Blog: The curious imperative

couch this in e McWilliams imperative of being usefully ignorant..

dear Ed.. we need to be more transparent with the I don't know.. and curiosity phase. we spend so much time ( money, talent, people, et al ) on prep and training and presentation.

people need this useful ignorance modeled. and then time and space and permission... to do it themselves

Sunday, October 7, 2012

yong zhao - common core

is-there-evidence-to-support-the-common-core-my-questions-to-new-york-education-commissioner-king/

So I am still looking for evidence…

a narrative for all people

from this post of Diane's - should students rate teachers
to this post of Larry's - what ed reformers did with student surveys
to this post of Felix's - the actual post - what ed reformer did w/student surveys

my response below is to all of it... be to Felix's post in particular..
i think you can only comment on the reuter site if you join, and i think you have to pay to join..
so just commenting here

so odd that we call so much attention to the very thing we have been doing to students for years now.

hopeful.. that now that we feel it, experience it, we understand the ridiculous-ness of it, the inhumanity of it, of standardized testing... and grades.. et al...having to prove things.. that are not even provable. (ie: PISA via Zhao, AP via Mazur, humanity via Davidson, ...)

let's be about setting people free.. no?
in spaces of permission .. with nothing to prove.

zoom way out.. most of our time, talent, money, humanity.. is spent on the thing we would absolutely call out.. if it was done to us.

what does it mean to be human and alive,... human capital, a people agenda...
let's play in that sandbox for a bit...

Saturday, October 6, 2012

shimon schocken

ultimate self-learner - surrounded himself with a manterage of mentors
such is the power of self-study
life-long tenacious self-learners

2:45 min - educators don't necessarily have to teach, but rather, provide an environment and resources that tease out natural ability to learn on your own, self-study, self-empowerment

impossible to connect with the soul of the machine - with all the
if you want kids to understand how computers work in the marrow of their bones.. have them build it

10 min - these people could care less about grades... doing it because of one motivation only - tremendous passion to learn
we're obsessed with grades because we're obsessed with data, yet grading takes away all the fun of failing, huge part of ed is about failing
orwell - mistakes are the portals of discovery
we don't tolerate mistakes and we worship grades
grading became degrading...
so let's upgrade

the trick is to surround yourself with brilliant people... because it's all about people

high tech.. schmai tech - the most important thing is to be a mench

mench: to be human and to do the right thing...

Seth's Blog: Get the listing

Seth's Blog: Get the listing

Our ego demands that we spend all day polishing the average instead of seeking out the exceptional.

dear public ed..
rather than spending ourselves on polishing the average (the efficient, the "safe"), perhaps we seek out the exceptional - of each individual.

let's scale the individuals.
facilitate curiosities...
no?

A Misfit's Calling and the One and Only Spot at Misfit Camp | Pursuit of Everything

Friday, October 5, 2012

simple

conversations ongoing.. but especially tonight.

the simplicity of the change is getting in the way.
call it over indulgence of cognition, call it cognitive surplus, call it ego..

descartes talked about it...
that things that were most important, got overlooked, passed by, because it was so hard for the highly academic to admit to simplicity. they knew that other academics would question the simplicity. he said it was the academics that would keep us from betterness. (totally my paraphrase... intentionally bringing in umair's betterness image)

the little prince references it...
the important things are impossible to see with the eyes.

richard saul wurman addresses it...
how we all act like we know stuff in order to not look dumb.. he calls us out... imagine what we're missing in those moments of protecting our egos.

kim scheinberg addresses it...
if you go in a room/space with an agenda... you miss the experience, you miss the person you're in the room/space with

how can we make this message of simplicity, easy on the ears... heavy on the heart...
how can we help others see that simplicity doesn't mean less, it means an equitable more...

perhaps in just holding to it. holding to the simplicity - no matter how ridiculous it may feel, or others may claim it to be.

perhaps in remembering roger martin's charge to boldly stand your ground... by simply realizing we live in a world of reliability-oriented people... ones that are used to thriving (ego-wise, not good or bad, just ego) on the academically efficient....very pyramid/linear thinking...
perhaps by simply acknowledging that.
and in that acknowledgement, you gird yourself, you maintain yourself, your energy, ....rather than spending it on fighting or folding..

so.. my dear mary ann tweets dear ira's post...
which he writes as he's wrestles with sleep..(not the point, or is it? , as we seek to wake people up - no aj?)...
perhaps this simplicity is best seen in stories of the past... because it is so unbelievable that simplicity might just be the answer we are seeking.
perhaps if we see it lived out in history, not fiction, not sci-fi, but actually....
perhaps the story of Louis Pasteur - the simplicity of the washing of hands. the giving up of ego - for the sake of lives. because we care. because we can.
imagine it not taking us 40 more years. imagine we decide simplicity is ok. imagine we see with our hearts... that scaling the individual is the simplist route we've ever taken.. and that that freedom.. could change the world.

vehicle to social change.
let's just see...
no?

via cristian next day - if we knew it'd be done....
how to open up people to the truth..
this will come after people are awakened...

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

blogging - student voice

http://connectedlearning.tv/jabiz-raisdana-authentic-student-blogging-empowering-student-voice-social-media-age

today via Paul:

Paul Allison

Yesterday 7:29 PM - Public

Please join us on +Teachers Teaching Teachers with +Cliff Manning and +Lucy Neale from DigitalMe digitalme.co.uk and makewaves makewav.es and +Matt Hardy , co-founder of Kidblog kidblog.org Join us at edtechtalk.com/ttt at 2PM PT/5PM ET/http://goo.gl/vEftR NOTICE THE EARLIER TIME

supporter to reporter via digitalme - cliff and lucy

kid blog - matt

million dollar blocks

million-dollar-blocks-map-incarcerations-costs/

"One of the things we noticed right away when legislators and others started to see this, is they talked about this issue differently. Instead of getting stuck in the 'being soft, get tough [on crime]' paradox, they started to talk about neighborhoods ...

via blas

via teny:
http://www.nonviolenceinstitute.org/

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

play

today i had the pleasure of hanging out with more brilliant people.
brought together because of Nirvan, because of Caine, because of play.

at the top of the hour... i love what Nirvan had to say.. that he happened on Caine's arcade and got lost in the wonder of play -

find Nirvan's page and the hangout link here

love what isaiah has to say 37 min in... choice matters

Amy posted this on facebook today as well...

improving transparency

increasing self-direction and collaboration

nothing holding us back except our own mentality about play

rediscover play

colin ward - child in the city

we don't need a worker's revolution
we need a player's uprising

Monday, October 1, 2012

the brain - as non-linear portfolio

monika

jake

cristian

sierra

satori

willow

sonya

kristen

antero

we're imagining this as an alternative means to standardized testing..
a self-assessment

we're currently doing it by hand - which
in a way is a compromise (focus on nodes/accolades)
in a way is good (you are reflecting in yet another way)
to jump start us..

we'd rather be doing/being cool things and the nodes just come from out talking/sharing.. and too, the tech then connects us per like nodes (initially)
see more on the app here.

that's what the app - we hope - will do. create this trail.. as we use tech as our fake mother per se (talking to the app daily - imagine people that don't have their mom or whoever right there to talk to.. but also.. in need of an echo chamber.. that stillness... where they are truly talking about what matters to them.. no judgment) - so that everyone is known by someone via this listening of curiosities..

so the nodes represent:
curiosities, connections (to people, ideas, knowledge), things you actually do..

thanks to jerry's michalski for directing us to this idea/site et al. he's been working on his brain for 15 years.

imagine this:

[one major reason for shift/flip/whatever - given by denise pope in her research at stanford. we had been using the figure 75%, but she share recently on steve hargadon's future of ed, over 90% of kids are saying they cheat. [the 75% was from the kids i have been working with, that 75% cheat or cram the night before a test, either way, not remembering it - say a week later]
so - while we continue to end each sentence in regard to public ed with: and they did (or didn't) do well on the test, or ...they are above/below average.. what do those test scores, that data we are using, what do they really represent? if at best, for most, it represents ability to put in print, for a weeks time, what's more risky? perhaps what we're doing now. perhaps what we're considering - playing it safe - is much more risky. no?]

would love to get as many - hand made (as opposed to tech made via an app) - via this site: http://www.thebrain.com/ examples from different people as possible.
if you decide to help/join in... remember, we're experimenting.. no right or wrong way to do this.

for technical help.. Jake has tinkered quite a bit with it.. for instance.. in order for others to see your brain... you need to make it public.. Jake has also found a way to make certain nodes non-public..

we can also gather and skype with Jerry - the original brain if anyone is interested.

thanks guys.

what matters most

John Hagel (@jhagel)
10/1/12 6:47 AM
Are we really serious about learning? Some hard questions from @cdnorman bit.ly/O0fpfN via@JenniferSertl

serious learning means non-doing....

Deborah Kauffman (@DSKauffman)
10/1/12 6:20 AM
Love this list marcandangel.com/2012/10/01/8-w… via@marcandangel

umair haque (@umairh)
9/30/12 6:27 PM
What Kind of Misfit are You? - Umair Haque - @HarvardBiz:bit.ly/nlCHwP

David Truss (@datruss)
10/1/12 6:22 AM
Updated with Slide show & links to the recorded session~7 Ways to Transform Your Classroom2di.me/7trans4m

so this is one of my dear mentors.. that pushed us OUT of the classroom three-four years ago.

he is one of the edge thinkers on the edge of teacher movement..
we can't seem to let go of the content. the compulsion of a content.

kids aren't asking... where is this content used or seen in the real world... they are asking... do I need it now?

I had amazing mentors coming into the classroom.. from all over.. ie:showing where logs are used in the real world, et al. not satisfying. they just wanted to do stuff.. then ask how or why or .... in the middle of their doing...

so anyway... his post is the shiny thing to a lot of school people.. with one of our biggest roadblocks, compulsion/assumption of a said content, still.. right at the core of all energies.