YouTube - RalfKSAT12.avi - 0 views
Khan Academy - 0 views
Calhoun School: Steve's Blog Is it Learning or Training? - 0 views
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proponents claim, the methods “work,” as represented by higher test scores. Because, they add, the methods are efficient, meaning you can produce results with brutal economic efficiency and large classes. And, in ed policy-speak, the systematized, highly structured methodologies are “scaleable,” easily replicated and exported to other schools.
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Anyone intensely “drilled” in facts or simple algorithms will demonstrate superior performance when tested on short-term retention. The students in programs like that at Williamsburg Collegiate are being trained to give the “right” answers, but they are learning little or nothing. Other evidence exposes the folly of these practices, as test score gains among younger students are not holding as the same students move into older grades. But the policy response in most places is reflexive, not reflective. Drill them more and test ‘em again!
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Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this approach to education is that it disregards, often punishes, the qualities that most characterize real learning. Children are discouraged from expressing a point of view – no time for that and it isn’t on the test. Creativity is irrelevant. Children who are sensitive and poetic are devalued, forced into quick, aggressive responses by a drill sergeant teacher. Critical thinking is not welcome. Where is the space for empathy and imagination? What about the child whose unique intelligence is the ability to visualize something beautiful, to see another possible way to solve a problem, to turn a history assignment into a song?
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YouTube - Sintel - 0 views
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"Sintel" is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film. This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.
drop.io video - 0 views
The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and ... - Google Books - 0 views
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Why do professors all tend to think alike? What makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects should be required? Why do teachers and scholars find it so difficult to transcend the limits of their disciplines? Why, in short, are problems that should be easy for universities to solve so intractable? The answer, Louis Menand argues, is that the institutional structure and the educational philosophy of higher education have remained the same for one hundred years, while faculties and student bodies have radically changed and technology has drastically transformed the way people produce and disseminate knowledge. At a time when competition to get into and succeed in college has never been more intense, universities are providing a less-useful education. Sparking a long-overdue debate about the future of American education, The Marketplace of Ideas examines what professors and students--and all the rest of us--might be better off without, while assessing what it is worth saving in our traditional university institutions.
whatmyplnmeans - home - 0 views
Google Voice - 0 views
TeachPaperless: A Short Presentation on Using Google Wave in the Foreign Language Class... - 0 views
TweetChat - 0 views
Stanford offers more free online classes for the world - 0 views
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Participants view short interactive video clips that include live quizzes and instant feedback that allow them to quickly determine their understanding of the material and to work on problem areas. At the same time, participants help each other through online discussions similar to a comment thread on a social networking site. Those enrolled in the free classes do not get Stanford credit for their work, but they do receive a statement of accomplishment if they successfully complete a course.
Cell phone novels come of age › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion - 0 views
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“Teenage girls began messaging with pagers in the early ’90s,” says Mizuko Ito, a research scientist who studies cell phone use among Japanese youth. “Because of this, Japan was the first country to have widespread mobile communications, even before mobile phones became affordable and popular.” Ito sees in the rise of cell phone novels a high degree of media and gadget literacy, a cultural willingness to experiment with new technologies, and a desire for private space and intimate communication.
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The way it works is this: novels are posted by members of cell phone community sites to be downloaded for free and read on other cell phones. Reading often takes place in crowded trains during long commutes. The works are published in 70-word installments, or abbreviated chapters that are the ideal length to be read between shorter train stops. This means that, despite small cell phone screens, lots of white space is left for ease of reading. Multiple short lines of compressed sentences, mostly composed of fragmentary dialogue, are strung together with lots of cell phone-only symbols. The resulting works are emotional, fast-paced and highly visual, with an impact not unlike manga.
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Following Starts, other publishers like Goma and Asuki Media Works moved in to cherry pick cell phone novel sites online and put out the next big hit. The number of cell phone novels in print began skyrocketing in 2006, when 22 books hit the shelves; the following year, there were 98. Even a no-name author with a cell phone novel publishing deal enjoyed a first run of between 50,000 and 100,000 copies.
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Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger and communities of practice - 1 views
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Supposing learning is social and comes largely from of our experience of participating in daily life? It was this thought that formed the basis of a significant rethinking of learning theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s by two researchers from very different disciplines - Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. Their model of situated learning proposed that learning involved a process of engagement in a 'community of practice'.
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When looking closely at everyday activity, she has argued, it is clear that 'learning is ubiquitous in ongoing activity, though often unrecognized as such' (Lave 1993: 5).
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Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour: a tribe learning to survive, a band of artists seeking new forms of expression, a group of engineers working on similar problems, a clique of pupils defining their identity in the school, a network of surgeons exploring novel techniques, a gathering of first-time managers helping each other cope. In a nutshell: Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. (Wenger circa 2007)
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SpeEdChange: What a good IEP looks like... - 0 views
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Does your IEP include the student's assessment of their own strengths, needs, issues, desires? If it does not, it can not possibly be a "good IEP." The IEP is not a tool for the school's convenience. It is a plan designed to help the student become the best, most successful, most independent human that student can possibly be. And if does not begin with the student speaking for him or herself, it will fail to do that.
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The "Individualized Education Program [Plan]," is the central "paperwork" component of American "Special Education" - and, in other forms, not uncommon in other nations. Unfortunately, it is typically (almost always) a deficit-model statement, listing all that is "wrong" with the student
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The very idea of 'behind'-ness is what's under attack here, A. When you standardize what it means to be an educated child, you create a line in the sand that defines some kids as 'ahead' and some kids as 'behind.' As anyone with a learning disability knows, these sorts of lines are increasingly arbitrary the more you examine them. They shut you out for all manner of reason. They create a situation where those who are 'ahead' get a free bonus happy career, and those who are 'behind' get either the short stick or the sanctimony. Or both.
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Blog Day - 0 views
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BlogDay posting instructions: Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2010 Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2010 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org