Group items tagged

Beware of big, abstract nouns.

When it comes to creativity, my own view is that the music, drama and other creative skills my own offspring have gained, have mostly been acquired outside of school.

Universities were failing badly on the three skills they studied; critical thinking, complex reasoning and communications

Across the Arab world young people have collaborated on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to bring down entire regimes. Not one of them has been on a digital literacy course.

Pushing rounded, sophisticated, informal skills into a square, subject-defined environment is not the answer.

we will only make growth sustainable “if we make our growth inclusive.”

They have been bathed in bits; computers, the internet, and interactive technologies are a fundamental part of the experience of youth. To them, technology is like the air. When young people today use digital devices, they are interacting, searching, authenticating, remembering, collaborating, composing their thoughts, and organizing information. They interact with the media and know how to inform themselves and use technology to get things done.

China’s disciplined command-and-control style work force could ultimately be trumped by a massive force of Indian professionals who are creative, collaborative, entrepreneurial and life- long learners.

The irresistible force to cut government spending is confronted with the immoveable object of essential services, entitlements, military spending and extraordinary expenditures stemming from corporate bailouts and fiscal stimulation. 

What’s needed is a Wikinomics approach — embracing more agile, networked structures enabled by global networks for new kinds of collaboration. Nation states would continue to play a central role but can overcome their silo thinking and behavior by sharing information more effectively, cooperating on real-time networks, and basing their decisions more deeply in the processes of multi-stakeholder networks.

Understandably social media, mobility and the relentless digital revolution continues to drive change and cause concern in everything from intellectual property to youth revolutions.

4.2 Ensure that every student and educator has at least one Internet access device and appropriate software and resources for research, communication, multimedia content creation, and collaboration for use in and out of school

5.2 Rethink basic assumptions in our education system that inhibit leveraging technology to improve learning, starting with our current practice of organizing student and educator learning around seat time instead of the demonstration of competencies

Convening education stakeholders, in person and online, to share content, insights, and expertise and to collaborate on key elements of this plan. Ideas and best practices that emerge from these convenings will be shared throughout our education system

Utilization of a loose governance through light leadership roles in the initial launch, such as, community organizer, expert voice/subject matter expert, cognitive coaches, moderator/facilitator, help desk or support. Then build to an evolving leadership pattern that focuses on self-directed learning and self-governance.

Careful selection of a community organizer who should have passion, vision, enthusiasm, a clear understanding of professional practice, who is visionary and must not be afraid of innovation or changes

Creation of profile customization, identity tools, subgroup areas and activities to build trust and sense of community

Creation of a tool set that should enable like-minded individuals to form subgroups around shared goals and interests

Tools not rules – When possible use tools to help members self-govern

Inclusion of expert voices with name recognition that will bring newcomers and experienced community members together to share and learn from each other

Initiate regular content around relevant provocative issues and help members develop a sense of ownership

New media conducive to fostering participation can indeed increase the freedoms Clinton outlined, just as the printing press, the postal service, the telegraph, and the telephone did before.

Despite this basic truth -- that communicative freedom is good for political freedom -- the instrumental mode of Internet statecraft is still problematic.

THE THEATER OF COLLAPSE

Opinions are first transmitted by the media, and then they get echoed by friends, family members, and colleagues. It is in this second, social step that political opinions are formed. This is the step in which the Internet in general, and social media in particular, can make a difference. As with the printing press, the Internet spreads not just media consumption but media production as well -- it allows people to privately and publicly articulate and debate a welter of conflicting views.

This condition of shared awareness -- which is increasingly evident in all modern states -- creates what is commonly called "the dictator's dilemma" but that might more accurately be described by the phrase coined by the media theorist Briggs: "the conservative dilemma," so named because it applies not only to autocrats but also to democratic governments and to religious and business leaders. The dilemma is created by new media that increase public access to speech or assembly; with the spread of such media, whether photocopiers or Web browsers, a state accustomed to having a monopoly on public speech finds itself called to account for anomalies between its view of events and the public's. The two responses to the conservative dilemma are censorship and propaganda. But neither of these is as effective a source of control as the enforced silence of the citizens. The state will censor critics or produce propaganda as it needs to, but both of those actions have higher costs than simply not having any critics to silence or reply to in the first place. But if a government were to shut down Internet access or ban cell phones, it would risk radicalizing otherwise pro-regime citizens or harming the economy.

Several features common to these learning sites can guide other schools interested in transforming teaching and learning with technology as a component. Each of these schools Erased content area boundaries. Units and projects focus on integrating and applying skills. Set up methods to teach and assess students through projects, with the emphasis on doing, not remembering content. Continued to address state standards and perform well on state-assessments. Gave students freedom and responsibility to use digital tools as they see fit, rather than predefining how technology should be used for learning.

Peer-to-peer learning: Games are increasingly social. Whether they involve guilds or teams jointly accomplishing missions, asynchronous collaboration over social networks or sourcing advice from interest-driven communities to help solve tricky challenges, games naturally drive peer-to-peer and peer-to-mentor social interactions.

21st Century skill development: Games are complex. Whether it is a 5-year-old parsing a Pokemon card or a 15-year-old optimizing a city in SimCity, games can foster critical skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, systems thinking, digital media literacy, creativity and collaboration. Given that many of the jobs that will emerge in 21st century have not yet been invented, these 'portable' skills are particularly important.

Building Instructional Practices

They have invested massively in how they recruit, train and support teachers, to attract and retain the best.

Duncan’s view is that challenging teachers to rise to new levels — by using student achievement data in calculating salaries, by increasing competition through innovation and charters — is not anti-teacher.

How we recruit, train, support, evaluate and compensate their successors “is going to shape public education for the next 30 years,” said Duncan. We have to get this right.

All good ideas, but if we want better teachers we also need better parents — parents who turn off the TV and video games, make sure homework is completed, encourage reading and elevate learning as the most important life skill. The more we demand from teachers the more we have to demand from students and parents. That’s the Contract for America that will truly ensure our national security.