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Tracy Tuten

Tech Learning TL Advisor Blog and Ed Tech Ticker Blogs from TL Blog Staff - TechLearnin... - 60 views

www.techlearning.com/31582

learning storytelling publishing sme

shared by Tracy Tuten on 20 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Mixbook (or Mixbook for Educators) is a photo-based creation platform that offers hundreds of layouts and backgrounds to choose from along with customizable frames and text to make your book beautiful. Just pick a layout, drag-and-drop your photos into the photo slots, and edit to your heart's content.
  • Though the site's examples suggest using the books to gather wedding, travel, and baby albums, this program can absolutely used to create stories around historic photographs and artifacts, original art, to produce a class yearbook, to share an oral or personal history or journey, to tell the story of a field trip.  Mixbook for Educators now offers a secure collaborative environment for sharing their ebooks, as well as discounts on printed products, should you choose to print.  (A similar option is Scrapblog.)
  • Storybird, a collaborative storybook building space designed for ages 3-13, inspires young writers to create text around the work of professional artists and the collection of art is growing. Two (or more) people create a Storybird in a round robin fashion by writing their own text and inserting pictures. They then have the option of sharing their Storybird privately or publicly on the network. The final product can be printed (soon), watched on screen, played with like a toy, or shared through a worldwide library. Storybird is also a simple publishing platform for writers and artists that allows them to experiment, publish their stories, and connect with their fans.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Myth and Legend Creator 2 shares a collection of traditional stories from England and around the world to hear and read. The site offers historical context for each story, story time lines and maps, ideas for use of the story in the classroom, and student work inspired by the story.  The Story Creator--with its libraries of backgrounds, characters, props, text bubbles, sound and video recording tools, and options to upload--provides students easy opportunities to create their own versions of traditional stories.
  • The Historic Tale Construction Kit is similar in that it helps students construct stories around a theme, in this case stories set in the middle ages with movable, scalable beasts, folks, braves, buildings. and old-style text.
  • Tikatok is a platform devoted to kid book publishing at a variety of levels.  Children have the option of exploring a collection of interactive story templates called StorySparks prompts, personalizing an existing book with their own names in Books2Go, with their own names, or starting from scratch in Create Your Own Book. Tikatok’s Classroom Program allows teachers to share lesson plans, view and edit students' work online, encourage collaboration, and track writing progress.
  • Big Universe is both an online library and a publishing and sharing community for grades K through 8.  Using Big Universe Author, students may create, research, and collaborate on books using a library of more than 7000 images and interactive tools.
  • Tracy Tuten on 20 Aug 10
     
    Digital publishing tools for creating story books
Mrs. Lail2

How Self-Expression Damaged My Students - Robert Pondiscio - The Atlantic - 47 views

www.theatlantic.com/...262656

education English Writing

shared by Mrs. Lail2 on 25 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
  • But good writers don't just do stuff. They know stuff. They have knowledge of the world that enlivens their prose and provides the ability to create examples and analogies. They have big vocabularies and solid command of the conventions of language and grammar. And if this is not explicitly taught, it will rarely develop by osmosis among children who do not grow up in language-rich homes.
chad even

Crayola Digi-Color - 113 views

www.crayola.com/...index.cfm

art

shared by chad even on 25 Nov 11 - Cached
  • chad even on 25 Nov 11
     
    Crayola's online drawing canvas provides students with a blank canvas on which they can draw using virtual markers, crayons, pencils, and paints. Drawings cannot be saved online, but they can be printed. Pre-K Teachers looking for coloring pages can create their own or have students create their own using Crayola's Create & Color tool. Create & Color provides templates for creating custom coloring pages. You can pick a background template and modify it by adding speech bubbles and pictures. Coloring pages cannot be saved online, but they can be printed.
Lauren Rosen

Learn It In 5 - YouTube interactive videos - 3 views

www.learnitin5.com/YouTube-interactive-videos

youtube video storytelling

shared by Lauren Rosen on 01 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Lauren Rosen on 01 Apr 11
     
    Make your youtube videos a quiz or create an interactive create your own adventure story. Start the story, students create the endings as videos and users can choose which ending they want, or have students first create the middles and then choose a middle different from their own to then create an ending. What are your ideas?
Gregory Louie

Re-ordering bookmarks - 118 views

Hi Maggie, I would love to see both a user's personal rating system combined with a reader's rating system - kinda like editor's comments & reader's comments on Amazon. Creating lists could also ...

bookmarks

started by Mr Burks on 11 Nov 08 4 follow-ups, last by Gregory Louie on 28 May 09
tapiatanova

A Social Network Can Be a Learning Network - The Digital Campus - The Chronicle of High... - 98 views

chronicle.com/...129609

social network sociallearning Social Media learning education millenials socialnetworking socialbookmarking pln ple optometry

shared by tapiatanova on 08 Nov 11 - No Cached
Kate Pok liked it
  • Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."
    • trisha_poole
      trisha_poole on 08 Nov 11
       
      Very important - social pedagogies for authentic tasks - a key for integrating SNTs in the classroom.
    • Daniel Spielmann
      Daniel Spielmann on 09 Nov 11
       
      Agreed, for connectivism see also www.connectivism.ca
  • External audiences certainly motivate students to do their best work. But students can also serve as their own authentic audience when asked to create meaningful work to share with one another.
    • Daniel Spielmann
      Daniel Spielmann on 09 Nov 11
       
      The last sentence is especially important in institutional contexts where the staff voices their distrust against "open scholarship" (Weller 2011), web 2.0 and/or open education. Where "privacy" is deemed the most important thing in dealing with new technologies, advocates of an external audience have to be prepared for certain questions.
    • tapiatanova
      tapiatanova on 03 Jan 14
       
      yes! nothing but barriers! However, it is unclear if the worries about pravacy are in regards to students or is it instructors who fear teaching in the open. everyone cites FERPA and protection of student identities, but I have yet to hear any student refusing to work in the open...
  • Students most likely won't find this difficult. After all, you're asking them to surf the Web and tag pages they like. That's something they do via Facebook every day. By having them share course-related content with their peers in the class, however, you'll tap into their desires to be part of your course's learning community. And you might be surprised by the resources they find and share.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • back-channel conversations
  • While keynote speakers and session leaders are speaking, audience members are sharing highlights, asking questions, and conversing with colleagues on Twitter
    • trisha_poole
      trisha_poole on 08 Nov 11
       
      An effective use of Twitter that can be translated to classrooms.
    • Daniel Spielmann
      Daniel Spielmann on 09 Nov 11
       
      All classrooms?
    • John Dorn
      John Dorn on 09 Nov 11
       
      classrooms where students are motivated to learn. Will this work in a HS classroom where kids just view their phones as a means to check up on people? Maybe if they can see "cool" class could be if they were responsible for the freedoms that would be needed to use twitter or other similar sites.
  • Ask your students to create accounts on Twitter or some other back-channel tool and share ideas that occur to them in your course. You might give them specific assignments, as does the University of Connecticut's Margaret Rubega, who asks students in her ornithology class to tweet about birds they see. During a face-to-face class session, you could have students discuss their reading in small groups and share observations on the back channel. Or you could simply ask them to post a single question about the week's reading they would like to discuss.
  • A back channel provides students a way to stay connected to the course and their fellow students. Students are often able to integrate back channels into their daily lives, checking for and sending updates on their smartphones, for instance. That helps the class become more of a community and gives students another way to learn from each other.
  • Deep learning is hard work, and students need to be well motivated in order to pursue it. Extrinsic factors like grades aren't sufficient—they motivate competitive students toward strategic learning and risk-averse students to surface learning.
  • Social pedagogies provide a way to tap into a set of intrinsic motivations that we often overlook: people's desire to be part of a community and to share what they know with that community.
  • Online, social pedagogies can play an important role in creating such a community. These are strong motivators, and we can make use of them in the courses we teach.
  • The papers they wrote for my course weren't just academic exercises; they were authentic expressions of learning, open to the world as part of their "digital footprints."
    • Daniel Spielmann
      Daniel Spielmann on 09 Nov 11
       
      Yes, but what is the relation between such writing and ("proper"?) academic writing?
  • Collaborative documents need not be text-based works. Sarah C. Stiles, a sociologist at Georgetown, has had her students create collaborative timelines showing the activities of characters in a text, using a presentation tool called Prezi.com. I used that tool to have my cryptography students create a map of the debate over security and privacy. They worked in small groups to brainstorm arguments, and contributed those arguments to a shared debate map synchronously during class.
  • Daniel Spielmann on 09 Nov 11
     
    A great blog post on social pedagogies and how they can be incorporated in university/college classes. A good understanding of creating authentic learning experiences through social media.
  • John Dorn on 09 Nov 11
     
    A great blog post on social pedagogies and how they can be incorporated in university/college classes. A good understanding of creating authentic learning experiences through social media.
  • tapiatanova on 03 Jan 14
     
    A great blog post on social pedagogies and how they can be incorporated in university/college classes. A good understanding of creating authentic learning experiences through social media.
Rae Sanchez

easel.ly | create and share visual ideas online - 186 views

www.easel.ly

visualization infographics infographic web tool create tools

shared by Rae Sanchez on 08 May 12 - No Cached
    • Scott Kinkoph
      Scott Kinkoph on 18 Jun 12
       
      Create easy infographics with Easel.ly
  • Elizabeth Resnick on 08 May 12
     
    Create Free Infographics.  Drag and Drop pre-designed themes and vector assets onto your canvas for easy creation and customization of rich infographics.   We currently support Firefox, Chrome and Safari.  Sorry Internet Explorer…
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Trevor Cunningham on 12 May 12
     
    Create infographics online.
  • Mark Swartz on 12 May 12
     
    Create your own infographic...
  • Randy Rodgers on 15 Aug 12
     
    Create infographics with these very helpful tools--backgrounds, objects, shapes, themes, more.
  • Deborah Baillesderr on 06 Oct 14
     
    Create infographics!
Christopher Lee

Creating a Wordsearch using Google Spreadsheets - 1 views

blog.pamelafox.org/...g-wordsearch-using-google.html

gapps googleapps gdocs wordsearch activator vocabulary spreadsheets

shared by Christopher Lee on 25 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Christopher Lee on 25 Jul 12
     
    SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2009 Creating a Wordsearch using Google Spreadsheets I'm a fan of alternative learning and testing techniques. Back when I was the teaching assistant for the "History of Video Games" class (yes, that's a real class), I gave the final exam as an illustrated crossword puzzle. It was surprisingly hard to find software for creating that crossword, so I hoped to make a Spreadsheets gadget to make it easier. Unfortunately, crossword-solving algorithms that run entirely in JavaScript are hard to find, and I gave up and went for second best: a wordsearch gadget. (A big thanks to Robert Klein for the wordsearch JavaScript library.) Here are steps for using the gadget: Create a new spreadsheet, and put a list of words in the first column. (Or, alternatively, use an existing spreadsheet that has a column of words you're interested in). My sample spreadsheet has a simple animals wordlist: Click on the "Insert" menu and then select "Gadget..." This presents you with various categories of gadgets to choose from (similar to the iGoogle directory). My gadget isn't yet in the gallery, so you'll need to select "Custom" and then type in the URL to the gadget: The gadget will appear embedded in the current worksheet, and it will prompt you to select a range of data to send to the gadget. Select all the cells that contain the desired words, and you should see the Range text field update with the range. If it doesn't work, you can always manually type it in. You can now customize the number of rows and columns. The default is 10 by 10, but if you have more words, you likely want a larger wordsearch. Click "Apply", and see the generated output. You have a few options for how you use the wordsearch. You can play with it immediately, inside that gadget, or you can use the option on the gadget menu to move the gadget to its own sheet and use it there. Note that each time you reload the spreadsheet, the wordsearch will be randomly generated with a new layout - so
Tonya Thomas

EduTech Ideas: Win An iPad And More! - 1 views

edudemic.com/...lay-edtech-bingo-win-ipad-more

play edtech bingo ipad resources tools

shared by Tonya Thomas on 20 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Make (and use) a Twitter account for one of your classes – You’ll need to provide us the link to the Twitter profile you’ve created (example: www.twitter.com/edudemic)
  • Use Skype (or similar service) to have your students connect with someone(s) for a project, interview, ‘pen pal’ class activity – Provide a short description of who your students connected with, and the purpose of their task (and if they used a service other than Skype, what service was it!?)
  • Make a Facebook page for one of your classes (and use it) – You’ll need to provide the link to the Facebook page that you’ve created (example: www.facebook.com/edudemic)
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Create flashcard sets for a unit of study using a flashcard app – Tell us what app you used, what unit of study you created the cards for, and how it worked out (did the students use/enjoy them, did you find them to be more helpful than a different method of studying, etc?)
  • Make a Learnist board – You’ll need to provide the link to your board (example: http://learni.st/users/jeff.dunn/boards/3803-must-see-education-news)
  • ClassDojo
  • Use Google Docs/Drive to grade students’ work instead collecting and handing back papers – Take a screenshot of one of the documents that shows us your comments/grading, etc, and upload it into the form. (Don’t forget to blur out any student personal information if necessary!)
  • Use Animoto as part of a class project or class work – You’ll need to provide us the link to the video/slideshow you’ve created.
  • Start a class blog – You’ll need to provide us the link to the blog you’ve created.
  • Create a google site for your class – Take a screenshot of your class page and upload it into the form.
  • Create an interactive storybook – Provide either a link or upload the storybook into the form
anonymous

Create quasi bigger tiles with Picslice » Symbaloo EDU - 49 views

www.symbalooedu.com/...asi-bigger-tiles-with-picslice

shared by anonymous on 26 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • The downloaded slices all start with numbers. In this case, Slice 1 is the the top left, Slice 4 is the bottom left.  
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 26 Nov 13
       
      Notice position of tiles
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 26 Nov 13
       
      VOOC 1 - Outcomes
  • Did you know you can edit pictures to create 2×2 or 3×3 or 4×2 tiles in order to group certain links or create a quasi-bigger tile (when using the same link for all tiles). A great way to create visually appealing webmixes, emphasize links or areas as well as for younger students to easily click their way through your resources. Find out how to use Picslice to create bigger tiles on Symbaloo:
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 26 Nov 13
       
      Vooc 2
  • anonymous on 26 Nov 13
     
    How to create large tiles on Symbaloo
Kathy Malsbenden

Springnote | Tour - 68 views

www.springnote.com/create

notebooks blogs wikis create read collaborate organize

shared by Kathy Malsbenden on 27 May 10 - Cached
  • Create Springnote is a great way for you to create notebooks for ideas, interests, multimedia, projects, and documents
  • Kathy Malsbenden on 27 May 10
     
    Create Springnote is a great way for you to create notebooks for ideas, interests, multimedia, projects, and documents
Kathleen N

the.Planet | the.News | YOU.edit |You.Report - 0 views

www.pbs.org/...story.php

PBS medialiteracy education

shared by Kathleen N on 26 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Kathleen N on 26 Apr 09
     
    Site for MS-HS students ;lesson plans for teachers YOU.edit will go online in the spring of 2009. Students will be able to create their own interactive videos through the YOU.edit online editing tool that will be available in early 2009. This tool will allow students to create online reports drawn from the digital files that comprise a completed the.News segment. These component parts include video, music, graphics, interviews, and narration. YOU.edit will go online in the spring of 2009. Students will be able to create their own interactive videos through the YOU.edit online editing tool that will be available in early 2009. This tool will allow students to create online reports drawn from the digital files that comprise a completed the.News segment. These component parts include video, music, graphics, interviews, and narration.
Kimberly LaPrairie

picturing the thirties - 2 views

americanart.si.edu/...index.html

history virtual social_studies smithsonian museum EED427 photos video virtual worlds

shared by Kimberly LaPrairie on 23 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Kimberly LaPrairie on 23 Sep 09
     
    "Picturing the 1930s," a new educational web site created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with the University of Virginia, allows teachers and students to explore the 1930s through paintings, artist memorabilia, historical documents, newsreels, period photographs, music, and video. Using PrimaryAccess, a web-based teaching tool developed at the university's Curry Center for Technology and Teacher Education, visitors can select images, write text, and record narration in the style of a documentary filmmaker. They can then screen their video in a virtual theater. PrimaryAccess is the first online tool that allows students to combine their own text, historical images from primary sources, and audio narration to create short online documentary films linked to social studies standards of learning, said Glen Bull, co-director of the Curry Center. Since the first version was developed in collaboration with U.Va.'s Center for Digital History and piloted in a local elementary school in 2005, more than 9,000 users worldwide have created more than 20,000 short movies. In creating digital documentaries, students embed facts and events in a narrative context that can enhance their retention and understanding of the material, said Curry research scientist Bill Ferster, who developed the application with Bull. Besides increasing their knowledge about the period, "Picturing the 1930s" enhances students' visual literacy skills, Ferster noted, adding that PrimaryAccess "offers teachers another tool to bring history alive."
Marc Patton

Quia - 47 views

www.quia.com

Teaching_Ideas Teaching_Tools Mathematics Online_Learning_Environments

shared by Marc Patton on 13 Jun 11 - Cached
  • Anne-Mette Krejberg on 13 Jun 11
     
    Quia web - create your own ... costs 49$ 
  • Marc Patton on 07 Sep 12
     
    IXL Practice makes perfect, and IXL makes math practice fun! IXL allows teachers and parents to monitor the progress of their students and motivate them through interactive games and practice questions. Widely recognized as the Web's most comprehensive math site, IXL offers a dynamic and enjoyable environment for children to practice math. Students who use IXL are succeeding like never before. Quia Web Quia Web provides educators with learning tools to create, customize, and share their curriculum online. Quia Web pioneered and brought the "create-your-own" concept to educators around the world-giving them the freedom to go beyond publisher-provided materials and create their own interactive, online experiences for their students. Quia Books Quia Books are Web-based versions of workbooks and textbooks, and are produced in partnership with the world's leading publishers. Built on our award-winning technology platform, Quia books engage students and make the learning process more satisfying through interactive exercises replete with vibrant color, sound, and images. Educators reap the timesaving benefits of computer-based grading and tracking and can fully customize Quia books based on individual course materials.
anonymous

iBooks Author workshop - 20 views

In 2013 Chenango Forks sponsored the first area iBooks workshop and the results were amazing. More than 30 participants from around the area learned, collaborated and created iBooks for use in thei...

iBooks electronic textbooks mobile learning Apple

started by anonymous on 22 Jun 15 no follow-up yet
Mike Wassom

RubiStar Home - 34 views

rubistar.4teachers.org

Rubric assessment tools

shared by Mike Wassom on 12 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Want to make exemplary rubrics in a short amount of time? Try RubiStar out! Registered users can save and edit rubrics online. You can access them from home, school, or on the road. Registration and use of this tool is free, so click the Register link in the login area to the right to get started now.
    • Mike Wassom
      Mike Wassom on 14 Aug 13
       
      a sticky note!
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 12 Mar 11
     
    "Want to make exemplary rubrics in a short amount of time? Try RubiStar out! Registered users can save and edit rubrics online. You can access them from home, school, or on the road. Registration and use of this tool is free, so click the Register link in the login area to the right to get started now."
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 12 Mar 11
     
    Interesting online tool for generating rubrics.
  • Andrea Lorenzo on 01 Aug 11
     
    Create rubrics for any activity
  • Amanda Nichols on 03 Aug 11
     
    A free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics
  • Jenna Ervin on 03 Oct 11
     
    RubiStar is a free online tool to help teachers create quality rubrics. Users may create original rubrics, save and edit custom rubrics, or search the site for content specific rubrics submitted by other users. Site includes rubric templates for: Oral presentations, Multimedia, Math, Writing, Products, Reading, Art, Work Skills, Science, and Music.
  • Rick Wade on 05 Jul 12
     
    rubric creating and sharing database
  • Mike Wassom on 14 Aug 13
     
    Create rubrics for any activity
Kathleen N

ClassJump.com - free websites for teachers - 0 views

classjump.com/index.php

teacher website portal

shared by Kathleen N on 02 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Kathleen N on 02 Apr 09
     
    Post homework, Upload Documents to share with the class Post upcoming events to your calendar, Post articles of interest and links to resources, Receive documents uploaded by students Start a class message board, just for you and your students Create unlimited numbers of photo albums
  • Kathleen N on 02 Apr 09
     
    Post homework Upload Documents to share with the class Post upcoming events to your calendar Post articles of interest and links to resources Receive documents uploaded by students Start a class message board, just for you and your students Create unlimited numbers of photo albums Post homework Upload Documents to share with the class Post upcoming events to your calendar Post articles of interest and links to resources Receive documents uploaded by students Start a class message board, just for you and your students Create unlimited numbers of photo albums Upload Documents to share with the class Post upcoming events to your calendar Post articles of interest and links to resources Receive documents uploaded by students Start a class message board, just for you and your students Create unlimited numbers of photo albums
Andrew McCluskey

Occupy Your Brain - 111 views

schoolingtheworld.org/...occupy

education education reform education system schooling pedagogy indigenous indigenous pedagogies knowledge alternative education standardization state standards national standards global standards power authority intellect

shared by Andrew McCluskey on 11 Feb 13 - No Cached
Ant Heald liked it
  • One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority.
  • Once learning is institutionalized under a central authority, both freedom for the individual and respect for the local are radically curtailed.  The child in a classroom generally finds herself in a situation where she may not move, speak, laugh, sing, eat, drink, read, think her own thoughts, or even  use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure.
  • In what should be considered a chilling development, there are murmurings of the idea of creating global standards for education – in other words, the creation of a single centralized authority dictating what every child on the planet must learn.
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • In “developed” societies, we are so accustomed to centralized control over learning that it has become functionally invisible to us, and most people accept it as natural, inevitable, and consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy.   We assume that this central authority, because it is associated with something that seems like an unequivocal good – “education” – must itself be fundamentally good, a sort of benevolent dictatorship of the intellect. 
  • We endorse strict legal codes which render this process compulsory, and in a truly Orwellian twist, many of us now view it as a fundamental human right to be legally compelled to learn what a higher authority tells us to learn.
  • And yet the idea of centrally-controlled education is as problematic as the idea of centrally-controlled media – and for exactly the same reasons.
  • The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect all forms of communication, information-sharing, knowledge, opinion and belief – what the Supreme Court has termed “the sphere of intellect and spirit” – from government control.
  • by the mid-19th century, with Indians still to conquer and waves of immigrants to assimilate, the temptation to find a way to manage the minds of an increasingly diverse and independent-minded population became too great to resist, and the idea of the Common School was born.
  • We would keep our freedom of speech and press, but first we would all be well-schooled by those in power.
  • A deeply democratic idea — the free and equal education of every child — was wedded to a deeply anti-democratic idea — that this education would be controlled from the top down by state-appointed educrats.
  • The fundamental point of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that the apparatus of democratic government has been completely bought and paid for by a tiny number of grotesquely wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbying groups.  Our votes no longer matter.  Our wishes no longer count.  Our power as citizens has been sold to the highest bidder.
  • Our kids are so drowned in disconnected information that it becomes quite random what they do and don’t remember, and they’re so overburdened with endless homework and tests that they have little time or energy to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around them.
  • If in ten years we can create Wikipedia out of thin air, what could we create if we trusted our children, our teachers, our parents, our neighbors, to generate community learning webs that are open, alive, and responsive to individual needs and aspirations?  What could we create if instead of trying to “scale up” every innovation into a monolithic bureaucracy we “scaled down” to allow local and individual control, freedom, experimentation, and diversity?
  • The most academically “gifted” students excel at obedience, instinctively shaping their thinking to the prescribed curriculum and unconsciously framing out of their awareness ideas that won’t earn the praise of their superiors.  Those who resist sitting still for this process are marginalized, labeled as less intelligent or even as mildly brain-damaged, and, increasingly, drugged into compliance.
  • the very root, the very essence, of any theory of democratic liberty is a basic trust in the fundamental intelligence of the ordinary person.   Democracy rests on the premise that the ordinary person — the waitress, the carpenter, the shopkeeper — is competent to make her own judgments about matters of domestic policy, international affairs, taxes, justice, peace, and war, and that the government must abide by the decisions of ordinary people, not vice versa.  Of course that’s not the way our system really works, and never has been.   But most of us recall at some deep level of our beings that any vision of a just world relies on this fundamental respect for the common sense of the ordinary human being.
  • This is what we spend our childhood in school unlearning. 
  • If before we reach the age of majority we must submit our brains for twelve years of evaluation and control by government experts, are we then truly free to exercise our vote according to the dictates of our own common sense and conscience?  Do we even know what our own common sense is anymore?
  • We live in a country where a serious candidate for the Presidency is unaware that China has nuclear weapons, where half the population does not understand that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, where nobody pays attention as Congress dismantles the securities regulations that limit the power of the banks, where 45% of American high school students graduate without knowing that the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.   At what point do we begin to ask ourselves if we are trying to control quality in the wrong way?
  • Human beings, collaborating with one another in voluntary relationships, communicating and checking and counter-checking and elaborating and expanding on one another’s knowledge and intelligence, have created a collective public resource more vast and more alive than anything that has ever existed on the planet.
  • But this is not a paeon to technology; this is about what human intelligence is capable of when people are free to interact in open, horizontal, non-hierarchical networks of communication and collaboration.
  • Positive social change has occurred not through top-down, hierarchically controlled organizations, but through what the Berkana Institute calls “emergence,” where people begin networking and forming voluntary communities of practice. When the goal is to maximize the functioning of human intelligence, you need to activate the unique skills, talents, and knowledge bases of diverse individuals, not put everybody through a uniform mill to produce uniform results. 
  • You need a non-punitive structure that encourages collaboration rather than competition, risk-taking rather than mistake-avoidance, and innovation rather than repetition of known quantities.
  • if we really want to return power to the 99% in a lasting, stable, sustainable way, we need to begin the work of creating open, egalitarian, horizontal networks of learning in our communities.
  • They are taught to focus on competing with each other and gaming the system rather than on gaining a deep understanding of the way power flows through their world.
  • And what could we create, what ecological problems could we solve, what despair might we alleviate, if instead of imposing our rigid curriculum and the destructive economy it serves on the entire world, we embraced as part of our vast collective intelligence the wisdom and knowledge of the world’s thousands of sustainable indigenous cultures?
  • They knew this about their situation: nobody was on their side.  Certainly not the moneyed classes and the economic system, and not the government, either.  So if they were going to change anything, it had to come out of themselves.
  • As our climate heats up, as mountaintops are removed from Orissa to West Virginia, as the oceans fill with plastic and soils become too contaminated to grow food, as the economy crumbles and children go hungry and the 0.001% grows so concentrated, so powerful, so wealthy that democracy becomes impossible, it’s time to ask ourselves; who’s educating us?  To what end?  The Adivasis are occupying their forests and mountains as our children are occupying our cities and parks.  But they understand that the first thing they must take back is their common sense. 
  • They must occupy their brains.
  • Isn’t it time for us to do the same?
  • Andrew McCluskey on 11 Feb 13
     
    Carol Black, creator of the documentary, "Schooling the World" discusses the conflicting ideas of centralized control of education and standardization against the so-called freedom to think independently--"what the Supreme Court has termed 'the sphere of intellect and spirit" (Black, 2012). Root questions: "who's educating us? to what end?" (Black, 2012).
  • Andrew McCluskey on 11 Feb 13
     
    This is a must read. Carol Black echoes here many of the ideas of Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and the like.
Michele Brown

Pixton | World's Best Way to Make & Share Comics - 70 views

www.pixton.com

comics cartoon

shared by Michele Brown on 21 Jul 10 - Cached

  • Unleash your creativity! Fun, quick and easy to use.
    Tell your story your way.

  • Unleash your creativity! Fun, quick and easy to use
  • Create real comic layouts. Edit the shape and position of each comic panel. Express yourself. Unlimited range of expression. Move your characters into any pose. Style your words. Give text and speech bubbles personality in any language. Add your own images. Upload photos and personalize with your own art. Make your own art. Group objects to create original characters, props and backgrounds. Show your personality. Design characters of any age — people and other animals. Fast and easy. Kickstart your creativity with presets, shortcuts and templates. Make 'em laugh! Share instantly with friends, family, classmates and colleagues.  
  • adria kempner on 21 Jul 10
     
    Comic strip generator. Requires login
  • Martin Burrett on 04 Aug 11
     
    Pixton is a widely used comic strip maker. The personal account is free. So many options and the click and drag editing is really easy to use. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+&+Web+Tools
  • Michele Brown on 20 Aug 13
     
    Create comics
Sue Dowdell

Any Elementary Teachers using Diigo? - 101 views

I've used Diigo teacher account to set up accounts for my 105 fifth graders this past spring. I put all students in a main group (Colonial Resources) and then students studying a particular colony ...

Elementary intermediate

started by Rachel Peters on 02 Jul 09 6 follow-ups, last by Sue Dowdell on 10 Jul 09
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