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"The vision of a modern education built around personalized learning is not new, but it is definitely tantalizing. Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age (Spectra, 1995) shares a vision of personalized learning in the future via an interactive book that possesses a conversational interface (CI) and "pseudo-intelligence," a kind of artificial intelligence (AI) that is inferior to human intelligence. It's likely that we'll see decent conversational interfaces within the next decade, and certainly applications like Google Voice are moving us much closer to this reality. AI that is capable of directing the learning needs of a human will take much longer, developing in the next 20-50 years, but we can't wait that long for the technology to catch up with education. The need for personalized learning exists in the here and now. So how does one bridge this vision of the future with the realities of the present?"

"I began blogging because I needed a way to document what I was doing, thinking and studying. My professional life is pretty hectic much of the time, and I needed a space to write down my ideas and record my thoughts before I forgot them. I could have simply used a paper based diary, but I decided when I first heard of blogging that it might fulfil the role of an e-diary for me. But this was a limited view. I quickly began to understand that writing down my ideas in blog format could also help me to organise them, hyperlink to other ideas, and encourage me to think more deeply about those ideas. In essence, blogging crystallised my thinking, and extended the scope of my knowledge. But the best was yet to come. I was quite aware that blogging is a public writing format. Once you click the Publish button, your work is online for the entire world to read. Although this took a little time for me to get my head around, I eventually came to understand that blogging is ultimately a conversation."

"A rigorous and engaging classroom….what does that look like?  Recently I tweeted a link to an article by David Price that challenged the current perception of what student engagement looks like. The article was a summation and analysis of a 20 year longitudinal study of Australian students.  Using the study, David's article addressed the following myths. 1. I can see when my students are engaged 2. They must be engaged, look at their test scores 3. They must be engaged - they're having fun The article (found here) was an incredibly interesting read but the Twitter conversation after my post was for me the most interesting part. "

"However, the current focus on initial teacher education as the be-all and end-all of teacher education ignores the importance of ongoing professional development. This should take place not only in the first years of teaching, but throughout teachers' careers. As a comparison, medicine graduates study at university for five or six years, then still need to undertake an internship of one year before being allowed to register for general practice. Most go on to undertake a further two to three years of residency before beginning specialist training. Perhaps we should be taking our cue from medicine, and treating our graduate teachers in a similar manner to medical interns and residents. Learning to teach is a process that begins at universities, but continues for an entire career."

"It's nice to see Khan getting some critical attention here-it's not particularly useful to anybody to continue to smother the project in unthinking praise; particularly not to the Khan academy itself. Many have complained that Khan's been unreceptive to criticism, and these efforts have cracked the door for a more robust conversation."

"I am still amazed at the amount of educators, who believe that Twitter holds NO VALUE for their professional learning. Many hold on to the belief that Twitter is a waste of time, used to follow celebrities, listen to gossip and bad hair day complaints. If YOU were able to get past that initial Twitter reputation, diving into the Twittersphere can be scary, OVERWHELMING and participating in this global conversation platform does not necessarily come naturally to everybody."

There has been a lot of interest in the flipped classroom.  This past week the Flipped Class Conference occurred at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park Colorado and during the pre-conference a team of flipped teachers got together to write a three-part article about the nature of the Flipped Class.  This first article is an attempt to define what the Flipped Class is and what it is NOT.

ChaCha gives free, real-time answers to any question both online at ChaCha.com and through mobile phones by either texting "ChaCha" (242-242) or using one of our mobile apps. Through our unique "ask-a-smart-friend" format, ChaCha has become the leading answers service with more than a billion questions answered to date all in a fun, conversational format perfect for those in need of fast, free answers while on-the-go.

"I was in a meeting with a prospective PhD candidate today and the conversation inevitably led to learning. He pointed out that in his lterature reviews he had uncovered a bewildering number of different, and often opposing learning theories. He was clearly impressed if not a little phased by the huge array of concepts and ideas that theorists had developed to try to explain what it means when we learn something. My response was that this was to be expected, because asking someone how they learn is similar to asking them what their favourite food is. "

"By Alfie Kohn To create the schools our children deserve, it's probably not necessary to devise specific policies and practices for every occasion.  Rather, these will follow logically from a few core principles that we devise together.  Here's a sample list of such principles, intended to start a conversation among educators, parents, and (let's not forget) the students themselves:"

"Why does Posterous shine in an education setting? Here are a few reasons: It's simple - Stay in touch beyond the classroom. In just minutes, create a Site or Group to begin sharing assignments, student work, news, and even meaningful discussions. Easily publish class materials and multimedia - Make learning fun by posting homework, podcasts, slides, and photos. Just upload. Posterous makes it look good and takes out the hassle of dealing with any 3rd party webhosts. Keep content and conversations private - Share class updates and exchange ideas in a secure setting. Control who can view and who can post with easy to manage privacy controls. Contribute as a team - Don't do it alone! Invite others to publish and subscribe. Set access controls for Contributors and Administrators. Easily manage recipient lists. Access Posterous anywhere - With our mobile apps and approach to e-mail everyone from time-pressed parents, teachers, and students can catch up on posts and activity. In this How Do I tutorial we'll be going over some uses of Posterous that are already being used by educators and students."

"The digital age has presented many and diverse challenges for copyright law. The rapid uptake of digital, networked technologies led to widespread online distribution of content, as well as the emergence of new practices and technologies that enabled digital content to be shared, reused and remixed on an unprecedented scale. But while technology provided the capacity for sharing and reuse of content to occur on a vast scale, legal restrictions on the use of copyright material hampered its negotiability in the digital environment."