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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.
Randolph Hollingsworth

Call for Submissions - US Dept of Labor Employment and Training Administration - 27 views

www.doleta.gov/...SGA-DFA-PY-10-03.pdf

open educational resource grants OER opencontent

shared by Randolph Hollingsworth on 31 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Randolph Hollingsworth on 31 Jan 11
     
    See also statement by Labor Dept (http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/eta20101436.htm) and White House (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/20/new-job-training-and-education-grants-program-launched) and Chronicle article at http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/2-billion-federal-program-could-be-windfall-for-open-online-learning/29167 $2-Billion Federal Program Could Be 'Windfall' for Open Online Learning January 22, 2011, 9:49 am By Marc Parry "The Obama administration is encouraging the development of high-quality immersive online-learning environments. It suggests courses with simulations, with constant feedback, and with interactive software that can tailor instruction and tutoring to individual students. It likes courses that students can use to teach themselves. And it demands open access to everything: "All online and technology-enabled courses must permit free public use and distribution, including the ability to re-use course modules, via an online repository for learning materials to be established by the federal government.... That's because the government is requiring that all work supported by the grants be made available under what's known as a "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License," which Mr. Green described as 'one of the most open content licenses that exists.'"
Philip Pulley

MentorMob: What's On Your Learning Playlist? | MentorMob Blog - 53 views

www.mentormob.com/...hats-on-your-learning-playlist

learning playlist education resources technology

shared by Philip Pulley on 09 Jun 12 - No Cached
    • Philip Pulley
      Philip Pulley on 09 Jun 12
       
      Great new collaboration tool for students and much more 21st Century
  • A few months ago, I discovered MentorMob (MM), which allows any user to create “Learning Playlists” to share or open up to other fellow learners who might want to add or edit the content in the playlist. The end product is the ultimate learning tool for students, especially when the playlist is populated with high-quality content, including visual, audio and interactive elements
  • Philip Pulley on 09 Jun 12
     
    Explains playlists on MentorMob blog, how to create and use them.
oconnortammy

Education World: Are You a Techno-Constructivist? - 33 views

www.educationworld.com/...tech005.shtml

EDGI M2T2

shared by oconnortammy on 24 Apr 17 - Cached
  • not only complements instruction but redefines it.
    • missboess
      missboess on 24 Apr 17
       
      This statement encompasses what I am trying to achieve in this resource design assessment. It also clearly links to the SMAR model of best ICT use in education, by implementing learning experience with technology that 'redefines' the activity. Meaning the activity is something that could not be done without the technology used.
  • help children build on their own experiences, construct their own meanings, create products, and solve problems successfully.
    • missboess
      missboess on 24 Apr 17
       
      Encompasses the constructivist theory I am using in the resource design and furthermore links to the method of inquiry.
  • long-term problem-solving and product-generating tasks
    • missboess
      missboess on 24 Apr 17
       
      In my resource design students will take part in a long term water sustainability project. A website will assist them in attaining access to multiple resources, communication with the outerworld (blogging) and creating products such as videos, visuals etc.
    • oconnortammy
      oconnortammy on 24 Apr 17
       
      How are you helping your students to connect to the outside world? Are they having dialogues with others?
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • See The Webquest Page or WebQuest.org for endless materials.)
    • missboess
      missboess on 24 Apr 17
       
      Webquest was used as an inspiration for my resource design, as it provides a useful platform for inquiry units to be created. There are endless examples on there. I really recommend you have a look at them. I decided to create my own website on weebly, as it provided more options and interactivity.
Florence Dujardin

Using Wenger's Communities of Practice to Explore a New Teacher Cohort - Journal of Tea... - 14 views

jte.sagepub.com/...62.abstract

CPD induction communities_of_practice portfolio qualitative blogging PhD

shared by Florence Dujardin on 28 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Florence Dujardin on 28 Jan 11
     
    This qualitative study explores a cohort professional development experience that brought new teachers together every few weeks from across an urban school district. Observation data were analyzed through Wenger's (1998) Communities of Practice social learning framework. The purpose was to examine how a cohort can be a valuable resource of new teacher support, particularly in areas where novices, who are being prepared largely through alternative routes, start their careers in some of the most challenging teaching assignments. Key theoretical insights resulting from the analysis include (a) the importance of interactivity of the Wenger elements, (b) the centrality of the community component, and (c) the implications of what legitimate peripheral participation looks like for a solely novice community of practice. Implications of these theoretical considerations are discussed and then linked to possibilities for practice and research to supplement current, traditional induction and mentoring practices.
clconzen

20 Technology Skills that Every Educator Should Have | Digital Learning Environments - 171 views

www.guide2digitallearning.com/...lls_every_educator_should_have

edtech

shared by clconzen on 06 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • could be/might be used in a classroom.
\ 1.    Google Tools Knowledge2.    Google Earth Knowledge3.    Wiki Knowledge4.    Blogging Knowledge5.    Spreadsheets Skills6.    Database Skills7.    Social Bookmarking Knowledge8.    Social Networking Knowledge9.    Web Resources in content area 10.    Web Searching skills11.    Web2.0 Tools 12.    Interactive White Board skills (SmartBoard and Promethean)13.    Website design and management skills14.    Presentation Tools 15.    IM knowledge16.    Video and Podcasting
  • Julie Whitehead on 21 Mar 11
     
    lists skills with resources
  • clconzen on 27 May 12
     
    Useful re: Tech Competencies - 20 Technology Skills that Every Educator Should Have http://t.co/5y2u1ECH #edtech
Katt Blackwell-Starnes

using diigo with students - 568 views

I'm interested to see where this conversation goes next. There's some great information and pointers here. Thanks for the blog link, Andy. I'll be keeping up with what you're writing. In just ove...

diigo students bookmarking

started by Andy Whiteway on 16 Mar 09 8 follow-ups, last by Katt Blackwell-Starnes on 11 Oct 09
Jeff Ferrell liked it
Heidi Ames

Web 2.0 That Works - home - 5 views

web2thatworks.wikispaces.com

tools resources

shared by Heidi Ames on 23 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Jenny Gough on 23 Jul 12
     
    "Diigo -- highlight and comment on student blogs Wikis or Google Sites -- http://wikispaces.com or http://sites.google.com/ Voicethread-- http://voicethread.com - example: http://voicethread.com/?#q.b1240008.i667294 -- create space to display or share student work across classrooms, across school/district, and/or with larger school community Create interactive "Bulletin Boards" that highlight levels of work/performance Interactive work gallery/critiques Gallery of VoiceThread in education projects - http://voicethread.com/about/library/"
  • Heidi Ames on 23 Jul 12
     
    Twitter Hashtag: #W2TW12 Full Session Description This Classroom Instruction That Works "Cool Tools" session focuses on how we can integrate Web 2.0 tools with research-based effective instructional practices identified by Marzano's meta-research. Come explore tools that support effective instruction while making learning fun and engaging for all students.
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