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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.
Roland Gesthuizen

Printable World Maps - Free World Maps to Print - 136 views

geography.about.com/...blxindex.htm

world free printable blackline clipart map gallery reference

shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 19 May 11 - No Cached
Jennifer Diaz liked it
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 19 May 11
     
    Free Blank Outline Printable World Maps of the Countries and Continents of the World Note that some microstates consisting of a very small territory or single small island have been excluded. The following is a complete listing of the printable world maps of every country and continent available here on my site.
Ann Steckel

endofweb / FrontPage - 0 views

endofweb.pbworks.com/FrontPage

endofweb

shared by Ann Steckel on 13 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Ann Steckel on 13 Jul 09
     
    The scenario: It's 2020 and the world has changed. Some say for the better, for others it is the worst. The internet, the technology that connects us, will be turned off in 60 days. The world leaders, controlled by BIG BUSINESS, have agreed that the internet is making the world worse, and is now too big and too powerful. It must be stopped. The resistance force, always on the move, known as the Wireless Underground will seek to rally others to form their own resistance groups and to eventually form a new www based on connecting rogue sites. Each group will have limited range of access but can extend through connecting with other groups. They say official orders have been given. The Internet is closing down, to be replaced by a single information service called the "Alternet". The underground predict that G8 world leaders will make an the announcement in Feburary 2021, but this could just ne a hoax ... but what if it's true? What will be your story?
Michael Sheehan

Learning Never Stops: First World War - A Multimedia History of World War I - 8 views

seekoutlearning.blogspot.com/...war-multimedia-history-of.html

learning world war world war i multimedia history

shared by Michael Sheehan on 15 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Michael Sheehan on 15 Mar 13
     
    A must see site for learning about World War I.
psmiley

New Kickstarter 'World of Classcraft' Lets Students Unlock Real-World Powers | Edudemic - 46 views

edudemic.com/...dents-unlock-real-world-powers

students world game

shared by psmiley on 28 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • psmiley on 28 Apr 13
     
    Gaming based on "World of Warcraft"
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.
anonymous

Art Project, powered by Google - 123 views

www.googleartproject.com

art project art resources web tools

shared by anonymous on 01 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.
  • Gerald Carey on 02 Feb 11
     
    Visit Art Museums virtually. Zoom in on the Art.
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Lisa Reas on 02 Feb 11
     
    Take virtual tours of art museums all over the world.
  • Martin Burrett on 26 Jun 11
     
    View virtual art galleries from around the world with this great Google resource. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Art,+Craft+&+Design
  • Mark Trerotola on 31 Oct 11
     
    "Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces."
  • Lauren Rosen on 02 Mar 12
     
    Museums from around the world. Nice place to view art work from multiple locations quickly.
  • anonymous on 14 Mar 13
     
    The Art Project powered by Google features interior tours of seventeen world famous art museums. Select a museum from the list on the homepage & you can virtually tour it using the same interface style you experience in Google Maps Streetview. Inside the museum, just double click to zoom to a location. You can also open a floor plan overview & click on a room to navigate to that part of the museum. The best part of the Art Project powered by Google is the option to create your own artwork collection while visiting each museum. As you're touring a museum click on the "+" symbol on any work of art see it in greater detail, to add it to your collection, & to open background information about that work of art. To create a collection you must be signed into a Google account. This is a great way to start a story or writing prompt, or to explore history & cultures.
Michael Sheehan

Learning Never Stops: 30,000 World War II Pictures, the Inauguration, and Diagrams - 4 views

seekoutlearning.blogspot.com/...000-world-war-ii-pictures.html

learning world world war ii war pictures inauguration diagrams

shared by Michael Sheehan on 26 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Michael Sheehan on 26 Jan 13
     
    Over 30,000 World War II photographs, plus create diagrams and a funny take on the Inauguration.
Martin Burrett

UKEdMag: Get their hands dirty! by @MissNina1983 - 8 views

ukedchat.com/...ir-hands-dirty-by-missnina1983

outdoor learning cooking article UKEd Magazine

shared by Martin Burrett on 16 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 16 Aug 16
     
    It is essential that children in today's 'technology focused world' get real, hands-on experiences. The only things that some of my children have in their hands, once at home, are games console controls! By making learning fun and interactive we can engage children in finding out about the world around them and their past, instilling a love of learning and giving them some practical skills to use in the real world...
Lucas Cittadino

World Class - What is World Class? - 42 views

www.bbc.co.uk/15335556

free education interactive flat global

shared by Lucas Cittadino on 29 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • BBC World Class helps UK schools to twin with schools around the globe as part of its educational legacy for the 2012 Olympics. Our mission is to support teachers in developing school-to-school partnerships, encouraging pupils to share creative work inspired by the Olympics. World Class encourages and helps children and schools get their stories on-air and online across the BBC. We provide the inspiration and resources to help teachers bring their projects to life through reports, blogs and features. Schools can also use our wealth of assembly resources - film clips, scripts and discussion ideas - on topics inspired both by the Olympics and international stories. The Schools World Service provides stories every month for schools to share. We work in partnership with the British Council and other organisations outside the BBC which facilitate school twinning. BBC World Class offers support and advice to help schools twin successfully.
anonymous

Is Real Educational Reform Possible? If So, How? | Psychology Today - 3 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...onal-reform-possible-if-so-how

education reform psychology

shared by anonymous on 21 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Children come into the world intensely motivated to learn about the physical, social, and cultural world around them; but they need freedom in order to pursue that motive.  For their first four or five years of life we generally grant them that freedom. During those first few years, without any teaching, they learn a large portion of what any human being ever learns. They learn their entire native language, from scratch. They learn the basic practical principles of physics. They learn psychology to such a degree that they become experts in how to please, annoy, manipulate, and charm the other people in their environment.  They acquire a huge store of factual knowledge.  They learn how to operate the gadgets that they are allowed to operate, even those that seem extraordinarily complex to us adults.They do all this on their own initiative, with essentially no direction from adults.
  • anonymous on 21 Nov 11
     
    "Children come into the world intensely motivated to learn about the physical, social, and cultural world around them; but they need freedom in order to pursue that motive."
robert morris

Education Theory/Constructivism and Social Constructivism - UCD - CTAG - 56 views

www.ucdoer.ie/...vism_and_Social_Constructivism

shared by robert morris on 08 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Deep roots classical antiquity. Socrates, in dialogue with his followers, asked directed questions that led his students to realize for themselves the weaknesses in their thinking.
    • Manuel Condoleon
      Manuel Condoleon on 08 Dec 14
       
      Good link to Socrates
    • robert morris
      robert morris on 08 Dec 14
       
      I think this is the essence of teaching and learning - asking questions, for nothing is really true.
  • Emphasis is on the collaborative nature of learning and the importance of cultural and social context.
    • robert morris
      robert morris on 08 Dec 14
       
      I agree - context, and culture play a very important role. And this might change from corner to corner, it can change quickly, neighbours etc
  • Believed that constructivists such as Piaget had overlooked the essentially social nature of language and consequently failed to understand that learning is a collaborative process.
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Constructivist learning environments provide multiple representations of reality
  • Multiple representations avoid oversimplification and represent the complexity of the real world
  • Constructivist learning environments emphasize authentic tasks in a meaningful context rather than abstract instruction out of context.
  • Constructivist learning environments provide learning environments such as real-world settings or case-based learnin
  • Constructivist learning environments encourage thoughtful reflection on experience.
  • Constructivist learning environments support "collaborative construction of knowledge through social negotiation, not competition among learners for recognition.
  • Jonassen (1994)
  • There is no absolute knowledge, just our interpretation of it. The acquisition of knowledge therefore requires the individual to consider the information and - based on their past experiences, personal views, and cultural background - construct an interpretation of the information that is being presented to them.
  • Teaching styles based on this approach therefore mark a conscious effort to move from these ‘traditional, objectivist models didactic, memory-oriented transmission models’ (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-centred approach.
  • Students ‘construct’ their own meaning by building on their previous knowledge and experience. New ideas and experiences are matched against existing knowledge, and the learner constructs new or adapted rules to make sense of the world
  • John Dewey (1933/1998) is often cited as the philosophical founder of this approach
  • while Vygotsky (1978) is the major theorist among the social constructivists.
  • Bruner (1990) and Piaget (1972) are considered the chief theorists among the cogn
  • Dewey
  • Piaget
  • John Dewey rejected the notion that schools should focus on repetitive, rote memorization & proposed a method of "directed living" – students would engage in real-world, practical workshops in which they would demonstrate their knowledge through creativity and collaboration
  • Piaget rejected the idea that learning was the passive assimilation of given knowledge. Instead, he proposed that learning is a dynamic process comprising successive stages of adaption to reality during which learners actively construct knowledge by creating and testing their own theories of the world.
  • A common misunderstanding regarding constructivism is that instructors should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves. This is actually confusing a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing. Constructivism assumes that all knowledge is constructed from the learner’s previous knowledge, regardless of how one is taught. Thus, even listening to a lecture involves active attempts to construct new knowledge.
  • social interaction lay at the root of good learning.
  • Bruner builds on the Socratic tradition of learning through dialogue, encouraging the learner to come to enlighten themselves through reflection
  • Careful curriculum design is essential so that one area builds upon the other. Learning must therefore be a process of discovery where learners build their own knowledge, with the active dialogue of teachers, building on their existing knowledge.
  • Social constructivism was developed by Vygotsky. He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that it was possible to separate learning from its social context.
    • robert morris
      robert morris on 08 Dec 14
       
      On Vgotsky`s side here - I don`t think you can forget the role of "social learning", peer to peer learning and the role of social interaction.
  • The basic tenet of constructivism is that students learn by doing rather than observing.
  • By the 1980s the research of Dewey and Vygotsky had blended with Piaget's work in developmental psychology into the broad approach of constructivism
  • 1. Discovery Learning (Bruner) In discovery learning, the student is placed in problem solving situations where they are required to draw on past experiences and existing knowledge to discover facts, relationships, and new information. Students are more likely to retain knowledge attained by engaging real-world and contextualised problem-solving than by traditional transmission methods. Models that are based upon discovery learning model include: guided discovery, problem-based learning, simulation-based learning, case-based learning, and incidental learning.
anonymous

Let's Go to Court:One-Point-Oh Responses to a 2.0 Reality - 55 views

www.richardemiller.com/...urtone-point-oh-responses.html

news review cyberbullying privacy twitter facebook tyler_clementi justice

shared by anonymous on 25 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 25 Dec 10
     
    The 1.0 world seeks fault; the 2.0 world allows for collaboration across time and space. How do you determine agency in the 2.0 world?
chad even

Where in the World? A Google Earth Puzzle - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic - 133 views

www.theatlantic.com/...100197

google_earth

shared by chad even on 24 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • chad even on 24 Jan 12
     
    Looking at the world through via Google Earth offers striking images of the diversity of our planet and the impact that humans have had on it. Today's entry is a puzzle -- part 2 in a series (part 1 here), this time offering multiple choices. We're challenging you to figure out where in the world each of the images below is taken. North is not always up in these pictures, and, apart from a bit of contrast, they are unaltered images provided by Google and its mapping partners. So I invite you to have a look at the images below, make your guesses, and see your score at the end. Good luck!
Martin Burrett

UKEd Magazine - Issue 51 - 7 views

ukedchat.com/...uked-magazine-issue-51

WW1 First World War 1st World War World War One World War 1 War Trenches soldiers

shared by Martin Burrett on 28 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 28 Sep 18
     
    Special World War One Commemorative Edition
Nigel Coutts

Encouraging Persistence - The Learner's Way - 5 views

thelearnersway.net/...encouraging-persistence

persistence determination attention

shared by Nigel Coutts on 09 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Nigel Coutts on 09 Nov 20
     
    "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." ― Calvin Coolidge Growing up, I had a copy of this quote on my wall. It is one of those things that stuck with me over the years. For a long time I might not have truly appreciated its wisdom. Now as a teacher in times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, its significance seems to have grown. When we can instantaneous consumers of the all of the worlds information, as we access anything and everything at the speed of light, how do we learn the value of persistence?
Adrienne Michetti

Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as "Third Places" - 52 views

jcmc.indiana.edu/...steinkuehler.html

games gaming social

shared by Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09 - Cached
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      This is, I think, why I'm more keen on today's social networks than I am on games -- games do not provide deep emotional support.
  • "bowling alone" hypothesis (Putnam, 2000), which suggests that media are displacing crucial civic and social institutions
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      Putnam - need to check this article. Interesting; not sure I agree.
  • ...80 more annotations...
  • According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
  • The evidence to date is mixed
  • A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      SO True
  • It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
  • combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
  • By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
  • loosely structured by open-ended narratives
  • They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
  • from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
  • the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
  • the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      Love this quote.
  • demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
  • first project was a traditional effects study
  • second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
  • ethnography
  • sociocultural perspective
  • as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
  • a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
  • brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
  • the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
  • In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
  • virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
  • in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
  • eight defining characteristics of third places
  • there is no default obligation
  • To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
  • the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
  • Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 19 Nov 09
       
      and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
  • Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
  • the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
  • an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
  • appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
  • conversation plays an analogous role
  • "In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
  • third places must also be easy to access
  • such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
  • accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
  • barriers to initial access.
  • "What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
  • "It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
  • affective sense
  • As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
  • engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
  • Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
  • In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
  • Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
  • Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
  • The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
  • the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
  • Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
  • create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
  • Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
  • Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
  • Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
  • operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
  • bridging social capital is inclusive.
  • This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
  • On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
  • bonding social capital is exclusive.
  • social superglue.
  • it can also result in insularity.
  • shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
  • Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
  • One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
  • While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
  • Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
  • It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
  • It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
  • In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
  • However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
  • Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
  • Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
  • Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
  • is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
  • In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
  • Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
  • it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.
Trevor Cunningham

Google World Wonders Project - 156 views

www.google.com/...worldwonders

Google maps social studies

shared by Trevor Cunningham on 16 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Trevor Cunningham on 16 Mar 13
     
    Excellent Social Studies resource.
  • Michelle Kassorla on 17 Mar 13
     
    The Google World Wonders Project is a platform which brings world heritage sites of the modern and ancient world online. Using Street View, 3D modeling and other Google technologies, we have made these amazing sites accessible to everyone across the globe. With videos, photos and in-depth information, you can now explore the world wonders from your armchair just as if you were there.
Michael Sheehan

Learning Never Stops: World War II Posters and the Statue of Liberty - 4 views

seekoutlearning.blogspot.com/...-ii-posters-and-statue-of.html

World War II Statue of liberty posters history photographs

shared by Michael Sheehan on 09 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Michael Sheehan on 09 Jan 13
     
    Digital copies of World War II poster that can be downloaded and printed! Plus, an excellent photo blog about the Statue of Liberty.
Michael Sheehan

Learning Never Stops: See the world with Google Sightseeing - 6 views

seekoutlearning.blogspot.com/...d-with-google-sightseeing.html

learning world google sightseeing education

shared by Michael Sheehan on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Michael Sheehan on 28 Jan 13
     
    Explore the world from your classroom with Google Sightseeing.
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