Group items tagged

 ✓ We create learning environments that are carefully crafted, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity and engaging. ✓ We develop curriculum that has greater depth than breadth. ✓ We make sure our curriculum takes into account local culture and celebrates the uniqueness of our local community. ✓ We don’t isolate skills development but let students grow their skills as they engage with important content. ✓ We construct learning environments that foster questioning, creativity and innovation, such as the maker movement and project/problem based learning. ✓ We find the courage to have serious discussions about abolishing standardized testing, classroom marks and grading, and the use of “birth year” as our primary criterion for sorting students. ✓ We lobby our governments for funds to assure true equality in education for all children. ✓ We discontinue the ranking of teachers and schools.  ✓ We replace our egg-carton grades with flexible, personalized learning that takes into account when students are ready to engage in and acquire important skills. ✓ We make time for teacher collaboration a top priority.

Their backers also say that teachers’ freedom of speech is imperiled when we penalize their out-of-school remarks. But these defenders have it backward. The truly scary restrictions on teacher speech lie inside the schoolhouse walls, not beyond them.

you can create basic PowerPoint presentations on iPhones, Androids and BlackBerrys, as long as you have Documents To Go Premium

But for those who want to create a rough draft of a presentation, or who worry about their laptop crashing on the eve of a big business meeting, Documents To Go offers the ability to cobble together a passable piece of work on the phone

Sadly, many online classes are Web-based correspondence courses where students complete worksheets and take tests. The offerings and content mirror traditional curriculums

My colleagues and I have demonstrated that online environments focused on collaboration and action, rather than reading and test-taking, can be more social, creative, substantial and personally meaningful than traditional classes

The computer’s real power lies in how it allows kids to learn and do new things in new ways unimaginable just a few years ago

Kevin Kelly co-founder of Wired magazine took the stage recently at a Web 2.0 event in San Francisco. In his keynote he discussed the 6 Trends he believes will affect our connected word. He broke these 6 trends down into 6 verbs (actions).

If the 20th century model was to measure the accuracy and ownership of information, the 21st century’s model is form and interdependence. The close thinking needed to grasp this is not beyond the reach of a typical middle school student, but it may be beyond their thinking habits.

When identifying important elements of a school culture, would you have placed the learning culture as the most important element?