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J Black

Where's the Innovation? | always learning - 0 views

  • Tom refers to this as the “Red Queen Effect” after a scene in Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass, where Alice is shocked to be standing in the same place after running quite fast for an extended period of time and the Red Queen explains, “if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”
  • nother Hong Kong presenter, Stephen Heppell, was also careful to emphasize that the biggest challenge today is the pace of change: exponential. With this rapid pace of change there is no time for the “staircase mentality” (pilot, review etc).
  • what are we mistakenly not valuing now?
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Tom explained that innovation falls squarely in quadrant 2 of Steven Covey’s matrix: it’s “Important”, but “Not Urgent”. For example, we absolutely have to have a new math/science/reading/social studies program. The teachers can’t teach without one, so picking a new one is going to fall in quadrant 1, and ultimately, innovation gets put off until tomorrow. However, innovation has an urgency all its own and those that don’t place innovation as a priority will find themselves displaced.
  • his is a good example of the difficulty people face in conceptually realizing the advantages of bold innovation: we naturally assume that slow steady progress will be best (as we are taught from an early age, when the tortoise wins the race).
  • The time for innovation is now, as Stephen described (and Marco Torres’ slide below emphasizes), “learning is at a crossroads:” we’re looking at a choice between productivity and new approaches, those new approaches being: student portfolios; making huge leaps in our model of education, not tiny steps forward; working to produce ingenious, engaged, inspired, surprising, collegiate students; and developing learning experiences that are open-ended, project-focused, multidisciplinary.
  • I can’t remember who said this first but, “technology is just an amplifier” - technology doesn’t change the quality of teaching or learning, it will only amplify it, either in a positive or negative way. What we need to be looking at is changing our approaches to learning, not modifying our curriculum to a “newer” version of what we’ve already had for the past 20 years.
  • bsolutely fabulous. This is great stuff. I just wrote a post on Thursday arguing that the “learning management system” paradigm prevents innovation and change. If we don’t break out of it, we’re destined to get out-innovated, as you suggest.
  • I came across a great quote from Frank Tibolt this morning: “We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.”
  • “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” - Alan Kay
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    Tom explained that innovation falls squarely in quadrant 2 of Steven Covey's matrix: it's "Important", but "Not Urgent".
Heather Woodland

Technology and Education | Box of Tricks - 7 views

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    Internet resources for Education
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    Large free list of stuff for teachers online
Andrew Sapp

Dr. Helen Barrett's Electronic Portfolios - 1 views

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    I watched Dr. Barrett's webinar today; very good stuff! I think there's a great deal of her work we can use right now.
Ruth Howard

An Idea Worth Spreading: The Future is Networks « emergent by design - 27 views

  • It’s now become so incredibly complex and enmeshed, that each of us now has access to EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANET in less than 6 steps. Even with billions of people on the planet, we can reach literally anyone in 6 steps. That means we can access anyone’s resources in 6 steps. Their skills, their knowledge, their capital, their influence. Any resource.
  • ANET in less than 6 steps. Even with billions of people on the planet, we can reach literally anyone in 6 steps. That means we can access anyone’s resources in 6 steps. Their skills, their knowledge, their capital, their influence. Any resource.
  • e’ve transitioned past the point of scarcity.
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  • There is no longer such thing as scarcity.
  • There are only misallocated resources.
  • It happened right under our noses
  • strengths “come naturally.”
  • If you have any connection with your strengths
  • My strength is the ability to see patterns. It’s what enabled me to write this post. People call me “insightful.” I have the ability to see stuff that other people don’t see, even when it’s staring them right in the face. (I’ve been calling this process “metathinking,”
  • I started writing about the patterns I was seeing. Explaining trends I was seeing in simple language, distilling down big concepts into words that people could “get.
  • they’ve provided you with a free resource. They’re publicly exposing you to their network.
  • What I did was go to Listorious.com. I looked at all the Top Lists that were interesting to me, and started following every single person who I thought I could learn from. That means I looked through their tweetstream to see if it was filled with potentially useful links to info, and I also clicked through to their personal website.
  • This takes effort and time. It’s work. And it’s unpaid. So why on Earth would you waste your time doing this? Because something interesting happens when you start sending people links to information that they can turn around and apply in the real world,
  • It builds trust. This was literally a revelation for m
  • As I started interacting more with these real life humans in an online space, I couldn’t understand why people were being so nice to me and sharing information with me and providing me with resources.
  • Do you know how this makes me feel? Empowered.
  • All of this free giving and sharing actually does something tremendously valuable. It enables us.
  • It’s networks. The answer is networks. Networks solve the problem of complexity
  • It turns out, life is EXACTLY like a game. If you can access the right resources, you can win. Now here’s the kicker. Everyone can win.
  • complex system can only function with independently acting agents who collaborate.
  • a globally cooperative society, as we’ve assumed. She showed, in practice, that this could actually work.
  • This whole online thing is essentially a simulation – it mimics the actual world
  • Turns out, we’re all actually in this together, all trying to figure out a way that we can all utilize our strengths, connect, collaborate, and survive. If helping each other and building trust is the way to make it work, let’s make it work.
  • Networks self-organize.
  • The point is that we want to build trust
  • What happens when your entire organization of people, as a unit, is a network in itself, but each person also has their personal networks of relationships to draw on, which extend beyond the organization?
  • The world will keep moving. It’s accelerating at an accelerating rate. The ONLY WAY to deal with it is not to cling to the old hierarchies and silos and pride and egos. We have to understand that we can only deal with this as a fully connected system. And the really crazy part is: we already have everything we need to make this happen. It’s already in place.
  • All that needs to change is the mindset.
  • We’ll be flexible, adaptive, and intelligent, because we’ll be able to quickly and freely allocate resources where they’re needed in order to make change.
  • If you think so too, pass it on.
  • I thought that made this an idea worth spreading.
  • It’s an option that seems not only possible, but preferable, and comes with a plan that’s implementable immediately.
  • A missing element, in my view, is a simple way for participants to tangibly contribute to the growth of the network. I would love to see a curated version of Pledgebank.org woven into blogs like EBD, where ideas for enhancing the network could be proposed. These crowdfunding/crowdsourcing elements might spark donations of funds and time to enrich the commons and help the network to grow.
  • Systems – biological, social and economic – are driven by avoiding risk and moving forward. Moving forward is life – no choice. Avoiding risk is the constraints and dangers of the environment – no choice. But life does make a choice.
  • that the transparency provided by social media, especially in its revealing the structure of networks, drives the growth of trust.
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    awe and some! Complexity connectivity simplified Blogpost by Vanessa Miemis
Philippe Scheimann

Q&A on diaspora - 5 views

  • What do you think are the most important features a social network should have? How would you prioritize them? Do you plan to Build Less or go big? If building less, what is the minimal set of features you can get away with? We plan to “build less.” These are the features which we aim to complete first: 1. A good secure protocol, encrypted at every leg, including a specification for a lightweight, probably HTTPS, RESTful set of routes. We see all of this communication happening between two Diaspora servers, rather than strictly between peers. We realize there is the problem with polling with this model, but we think there are several tricks worth trying which all have their relative pros and cons: PubSub (fast and easy, requires some level of centralization), querying friends servers from the browser side and posting responses back (requires browser side decryption) to name a couple. Alternatively, we are considering going with XMPP altogether due to the ability to be able to push content between nodes, but we need to research it further to see if it is something we would want to implement. 2. A datastore and corresponding interface that can store all of your stuff in one place. MongoDB is what we are looking at for V1, but the redundancy of TahoeFS is intriguing(as well as serving a slightly different purpose). 3. A clear extension framework. Diaspora will be service-agnostic and we will need to make it easy to import from and export to any format/web service. It is also our goal to make Diaspora as content-agnostic as possible, by providing abstract data types and an easily extended UI so that whatever new content people want to store and share can be integrated without re-rewriting parts of the whole application stack. 4. Be your own OpenID provider. Having a single identity across lots of services is great, but why trust a web service to hold it? Once we are the keepers of our own data, we can also selectively allow services access to it through Oauth.
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    alternative to fb...
liza cainz

Comprehensive Help and Support for Computer Beginners - 1 views

I am a beginner when it comes to computer stuff. I really had a difficulty of mastering a digital machine like computers partly because there is no one who can teach me. I am really eager to know h...

support service Desktop computer technical services PC tech

started by liza cainz on 24 Feb 11 no follow-up yet
Steve Ransom

Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com - 9 views

  • Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      A valid criticism when technology implementation is decoupled from meaningful and effective pedagogy. You can't buy measurable change/improvement.
  • district was innovating
  • how the district was innovating.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Again, this is very different than how TEACHERS are innovating their PRACTICES. It's much more challenging than making a slick brochure that communicates how much technology your district has.
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  • there is no good way to quantify those achievements — putting them in a tough spot with voters deciding whether to bankroll this approach again
  • “We’ve jumped on bandwagons for different eras without knowing fully what we’re doing. This might just be the new bandwagon,” he said. “I hope not.”
    • Steve Ransom
       
      There's a confidence building statement for you....
  • $46.3 million for laptops, classroom projectors, networking gear and other technology for teachers and administrators.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Exactly... and how much was spent on equipping teachers to change their practices to effectively leverage this new infrastructure?
  • If we know something works
    • Steve Ransom
       
      And what is that "something"? New technology? If so, you missed the boat.
  • it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training
  • The high-level analyses that sum up these various studies, not surprisingly, give researchers pause about whether big investments in technology make sense.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Why does the argument for making schools relevant and using current cultural tools need to be backed with performance data? Give politicians and superintendents horses instead of cars and see how long that lasts.
  • Good teachers, he said, can make good use of computers, while bad teachers won’t, and they and their students could wind up becoming distracted by the technology.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Finally, a valid point.
  • “Test scores are the same, but look at all the other things students are doing: learning to use the Internet to research, learning to organize their work, learning to use professional writing tools, learning to collaborate with others.”
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Exactly. But somehow, "value" has been equated with test scores alone. Do we have a strong body of research on pencil effectiveness or clay effectiveness or chair effectiveness?
  • “It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”
  • “There is a connection between the physical hand on the paper and the words on the page,” she said. “It’s intimate.”
  • “They’re inundated with 24/7 media, so they expect it,”
    • Steve Ransom
       
      And you expect them to always engage enthusiastically with tools that are no longer relevant in their culture?
  • The 30 students in the classroom held wireless clickers into which they punched their answers. Seconds later, a pie chart appeared on the screen: 23 percent answered “True,” 70 percent “False,” and 6 percent didn’t know.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Okay... and you follow up with a totally trivial example of the power of technology in learning.
  • term” that can slide past critical analysis.
  • engagement is a “fluffy
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Very true
  • rofessor Cuban at Stanford argues that keeping children engaged requires an environment of constant novelty, which cannot be sustained.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      If that is so, why not back up your claim by linking to the source here. I have a feeling he has been misquoted and taken out of context here.
  • that computers can distract and not instruct.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Computers don't really "instruct". That's why we have teachers who are supposed to know what they are doing and why they are doing it... and monitoring kids while keeping learning meaningful.
  • guide on the side.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      But many teachers are simply not prepared for how to do this effectively. To ignore this fact is just naive.
  • Professor Cuban at Stanford
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Are they in love with Cuban or something? Perhaps they should actually look at the research... or interview other authorities. Isn't that what reporting is all about? I think this reporter must be a product of too much Google, right?
  • But she loves the fact that her two children, a fourth-grader and first-grader, are learning technology, including PowerPoint
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Again, the fact that any supporter is happy that their kids are learning PowerPoint illustrates the degree of naiveté in their understanding of technology's role in learning.
  • creating an impetus to rethink education entirely
  • Mr. Share bases his buying decisions on two main factors: what his teachers tell him they need, and his experience. For instance, he said he resisted getting the interactive whiteboards sold as Smart Boards until, one day in 2008, he saw a teacher trying to mimic the product with a jury-rigged projector setup. “It was an ‘Aha!’ moment,” he said, leading him to buy Smart Boards, made by a company called Smart Technologies.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Herein lies another huge problem. Mr. Director of Technology seems to base no decisions on what the learning and technology literature have to say... nor does he consult those who would be considered authorities on technology infused learning (emphasis on learning here)
  • This is big business.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      No kidding.
  • “Do we really need technology to learn?” she said. “It’s a very valid time to ask the question, right before this goes on the ballot.”
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Anyone who asks that should volunteer to have their home and work computer confiscated. After all, it's just a distraction, right?
MATTHEW TradeSkillsLLC Tripp

SNOW SERVER XGRID - 0 views

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    Show the virtual reality game of university administration as process outline modification effects.... for the creative commons iPhone flowchart flashcard application bluetooth projector by blockposters.com wall mural (flowmotion book style) process outline overlay GTD flowchart plus middle school conflict resolution, auto mechanic, restaurant dishwasher / salad or fry and prep, kid's homework flowchart to clean their room GTD podcast, college dorm lifestyle and roommates like kitchen / bath / laundry / living room house rules troubleshooting flowchart which at restaurant stations switches mural posters not like the poster sales places but on a leftright slide shuffle... and the following of the twitter, ning, facebook, blogs, professional journals, real time information (dissertation and thesis context realtimeline maps the duration of your college experience non-tenure) as research assistant for ecology students + sociology or anthropology + political science + nursing students... their curriculum is so technically dense that they have no time to correlate real time media to their studies... then the newsletter goes to friends and other students each week or month for 25 cents to one dollar... price decreases until the best green bloggers take over the task and perform the service for free off the ad revenue without india greenwashing. FLASH. Access free software personal development audio library (+ reverse peer review is quantification by the accreditation of the materials used by students where the quality of the paper produced by the student dictates the price of the material highlighting the reference correlations of the new paper from the scientific journal) {this means that if you write crap and students try to use it for reference and the student can only make a crap paper from your professional writing (including books) you will be heavily TAXED on your profits to reinvest into research which makes the actual intellectual collaboration advancements whic
Sharon Mumm

Pocket - 0 views

  • Pocket helps you remember stuff. It's a free cross-platformtool that lets you take notes anytime, anywhere.
  • Create notes by sending text messages to Pocket. When you log in, they appear on your dashboard.
  • Pocket is a note-taking tool rooted in simplicity and elegance, born out of frustration with existing solutions.
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    A great, easy to use virtual wall site where you can attached text, files, photos and other media to post-it notes. A great way to share and remember things online. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+&+Web+Tools
Nik Peachey

Digital-Classrooms-TedEd | PeacheyPublications.com - 0 views

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    TED Ed is a great tool for creating online lessons around videos. It enables you to structure a sequence of interactive activities around the video clip that guides the viewer towards a deeper understanding of the content. It's an ideal tool for building blended learning.
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