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Ed Webb

The Progressive Stack and Standing for Inclusive Teaching - The Tattooed Professor - 2 views

www.thetattooedprof.com/...tanding-for-inclusive-teaching

pedagogy inclusion

shared by Ed Webb on 15 May 20 - Cached
  • There are two fundamental truths about Inclusive Pedagogy: it is an eminently desirable set of practices for teaching in higher ed, and it is an eminently difficult set of practices for teaching in higher ed
  • Put simply, the Progressive Stack is a method of ensuring that voices that are often submerged, discounted, or excluded from traditional classroom discussions get a chance to be heard
  • There are personal, cultural, learning, and social reasons people don’t speak up in class.  Students of color and women of all races, introverts, the non-conventional thinkers, those from poor previous educational backgrounds, returning or “nontraditional students,” and those from cultures where speaking out is considered rude not participatory are all likely to be silent in a class where collaboration by difference is not structured as a principle of pedagogy and organization and design.   Who loses?  Everyone.  Arguments that are smart and valuable and can change a whole conversation get lost in silence and, sometimes, shame.  When that happens, we don’t really have discussion or collaboration.  We have group think–and that is why we all lose.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Taking “stack” just means keeping a list of people who wish to participate—offer a question or comment—during the Q & A. Rather than anxiously waving your hand around and wondering if you’ll be called on, if you would like to participate, signal to me in some way (a gesture, a dance move, a traditional hand-in-the-air, meaningful eye contact, etc.) and I will add you to the list. However, we’re not just going to take stack, we are going to take progressive stack in an effort to foreground voices that are typically silenced in dominant culture. According to Justine and Zoë, two self-identified transwomen who were active in the movement, progressive stack means that “if you self-identify as trans, queer, a person of color, female, or as a member of any marginalized group you’re given priority on the list of people who want to speak – the stack. The most oppressed get to speak first.” As I take stack, I will also do my best to bump marginalized voices and those who haven’t yet had a chance to participate to the top.
  • As with any tool that confronts the effects of privilege and power head-on, the Progressive Stack makes some people uncomfortable
  • In a complete social and historical vacuum, level-playing-field equality is an excellent proposition. But in the actual lived world of our history, experiences, and interactions the idea of treating everyone uniformly “regardless of gender” or without “seeing color” simply strengthens already-entrenched inequalities
  • As the increasing number of targeted online harassment campaigns has shown us, once a concept or issue has traveled through the right-wing Outrage-Distortion Complex, there is little hope of reclaiming rational discussion. It’s been permanently stained. One might dismiss the frothing lamentations of white-genocide-via-classroom-pedagogy that bubble up from a subreddit, but the insidious trope of “reverse racism” has put its thumb on the scale enough to have distorted the conversation around the Progressive Stack
  • because the Progressive Stack calls attention to existing structures of inequality by replacing them with another structure entirely, it forces those of us who identify as white (and, particularly, male) to confront the ways in which we have been complicit in maintaining inequality
  • When you’re accustomed to privilege, even the suggestion of equality will feel like oppression
  • google “progressive stack.” Almost every result you get will take you to the fever swamps of right-wing Reddit and warmed-over piles of gamergate droppings. The common denominator is that “Progressive Stack” is simply anti-white “racism” dressed in fancy intellectual clothes
  • Giving up power, it turns out, is hard for some people. Especially when that power has been historically-constructed to be so pervasive as to render it unquestioned and indeed unseen in its hegemonic sway. Pierre Bourdieu calls this symbolic power: “For symbolic power is that invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it”
  • It means there will be times when people who are not accustomed to their identity being a source of discomfort and exclusion will have to learn–in a managed and intentional space–what that feels like.
  • there will be friction and messiness and uncomfortable adjustments, because any education worth the name involves friction and messiness and uncomfortable adjustments
Vicki Davis

MyNotes: Carnegie Learning's State of #AI in #Education #EduSky - Another Think Coming - 0 views

mglink.org/...tate-of-ai-in-education-edusky

edu_news edu_trends AI artificial_intelligence

shared by Vicki Davis on 04 Apr 25 - No Cached
  • Vicki Davis on 04 Apr 25
     
    I appreciate the rundown and detail on what Miguel Guhlin heard and his observations about a webinar he attended. His experience is much like mine. The only place we differ is I do not like the term "thought partner." AI doesn't think. It also can't be a partner. A partner implies an equal. It is a tool for thinking, perhaps. I guess I'm careful on anthropomorphising AI as the worldview I want to teach the kids. Otherwise, this is a fantastic overview and very helpful and I'll be sharing it.
Ed Webb

An unseen disadvantage : The focus on independence at American universities can undermi... - 5 views

www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/...unseen_disadvantage.htm

education students culture

shared by Ed Webb on 25 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • For middle-class students, college is “the ultimate symbol of independence” and also allows students to “distinguish themselves from their parents and realize their individual potential.” By contrast, students from working-class backgrounds are likely to have been socialized with different “rules of the game” —rules that emphasize interdependence with others (i.e., being part of a community).
  • “Many students from working-class families are influenced by limited financial resources and lack an economic safety net, and thus must rely on family and friends for support. Thus, these students’ expectations for college center around interdependent motives such as working together, connecting to others, and giving back,” said Stephens. “Given the largely independent college culture and the ways in which students’ social class backgrounds shape their motives for attending college, we questioned whether universities provide students from these different backgrounds with an equal chance of success.”
  • Admissions materials and university mission statements could be revised to reflect the importance of interdependent norms  In the classroom, professors could emphasize the importance of collaboration, require more group work, and seek to develop ongoing relationships with their students. Universities could provide students with more structured opportunities that encourage ongoing connections with peers and faculty.
Vicki Davis

Equal Access: Universal Design of Instruction - 7 views

www.washington.edu/...equal_access_udi.html

education udl teaching

shared by Vicki Davis on 21 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Vicki Davis on 21 Apr 14
     
    Excellent checklist for inclusive teaching from Sheryl Burgstahler.
Adrienne Michetti

Debbie Meier and the Dawn of Central Park East by Seymour Fliegel, City Journal Winter ... - 3 views

www.city-journal.org/article01.php

progressive education school design

shared by Adrienne Michetti on 05 Jun 10 - Cached
  • “I’ve got a problem in the Central Park East School between Debbie Meier and some of her parents,” he said. “Go see what it’s about.”
  • In 1976
  • I went over to Central Park East, which was then a fledgling alternative school just completing its second year, to introduce myself to Debbie Meier, the school’s director
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Debbie Meier has since become a nationally known authority on education, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award, but in June 1976 that wasn’t the case.
  • . What was not yet clear to outsiders was that it had been deliberately designed to thrive on conflict.
  • From the first moment I walked into a public school I was intrigued.
  • . “The principals paid lip service to us and our aspirations,” she remembers, “but the changes didn’t last.” By the end of 1973, just as she was becoming disgusted by her lack of progress working within the established system, she got a call from Bonnie Brownstein, a science coordinator in District Four. Brownstein told Meier that Superintendent Alvarado had heard about her work and wanted her to start a new school in East Harlem. Meier, attuned to the ways of educational bureaucracies, was skeptical at first, but when she met with the new superintendent, he convinced her that he was serious.
  • and she had tried to create “open classroom” programs
  • an educational method which she believed reflected the cognitive development of children, combining John Dewey’s learning theory with more recent psychological investigations of Jean Piaget.
  • Meier and her associates proposed a pedagogy based on “open classrooms” where teachers would provide children with stimulating materials, observe them working and playing with those materials, and, guided by their observations, offer each child assistance to extend his or her skills and interests.
  • Neither the parents in the neighborhood nor the other teachers in District Four understood what the school was trying to accomplish, and they regarded Meier’s efforts with attitudes ranging from indifference to outright hostility.
  • Local educational conservatives, on the other hand, were equally mistrustful of what they saw as the school’s permissiveness.
  • There would be one rule: Children would come to Central Park East because their parents chose that school for them
  • parents were required to visit with their children in order to gain admission. Beyond that, Meier set forth no policies and promised no particular results.
Adrienne Michetti

Force field analysis - 5 views

www.accel-team.com/...force_field_analysis.html

forcefield analysis change leadership statusquo teambuilding cooperative community psychology administration professionaldevelopment profdev

shared by Adrienne Michetti on 01 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Force field analysis is a management technique developed by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences, for diagnosing situations. It will be useful when looking at the variables involved in planning and implementing a change program and will undoubtedly be of use in team building projects,when attempting to overcome resistance to change.
  • driving
  • restraining
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • initiate a change and keep it goin
  • acting to restrain or decrease the driving force
  • Equilibrium is reached when the sum of the driving forces equals the sum of the restraining forces
  • present level of productivity
  • This equilibrium, or present level of productivity, can be raised or lowered by changes in the relationship between the driving and the restraining forces.
  • Managers are often in a position in which they must consider not only output but also intervening variables and not only short-term but also long-term goals. It can be seen that force field analysis provides framework that is useful in diagnosing these interrelationships.
  • Adrienne Michetti on 01 Jun 10
     
    Force field analysis is a management technique developed by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences, for diagnosing situations. It will be useful when looking at the variables involved in planning and implementing a change program and will undoubtedly be of use in team building projects,when attempting to overcome resistance to change.
Terry Elliott

World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/age-technology-will-richardson

shared by Terry Elliott on 16 Dec 08 - Cached
  • We must also expand our ability to think critically about the deluge of information now being produced by millions of amateur authors without traditional editors and researchers as gatekeepers. In fact, we need to rely on trusted members of our personal networks to help sift through the sea of stuff, locating and sharing with us the most relevant, interesting, useful bits. And we have to work together to organize it all, as long-held taxonomies of knowledge give way to a highly personalized information environment.
    • Jeff Richardson
      Jeff Richardson on 16 Dec 08
       
      Good reason for teaching dig citizenship
    • Terry Elliott
      Terry Elliott on 28 Dec 08
       
      What Will suggests here is rising complexity, but for this to succeed we don't need to fight our genetic heritage. Put yourself on the Serengeti plains, a hunter-gatherer searching for food. You are thinking critically about a deluge of data coming through your senses (modern folk discount this idea, but any time in jobs that require observation in the 'wild' (farming comes to mind) will disabuse you rather quickly that the natural world is providing a clear channel.) You are not only relying upon your own 'amateur' abilities but those of your family and extended family to filter the noise of the world to get to the signal. This tribe is the original collaborative model and if we do not try to push too hard against this still controlling 'mean gene' then we will as a matter of course become a nation of collaborative learning tribes.
  • Collaboration in these times requires our students to be able to seek out and connect with learning partners, in the process perhaps navigating cultures, time zones, and technologies. It requires that they have a vetting process for those they come into contact with: Who is this person? What are her passions? What are her credentials? What can I learn from her?
    • Terry Elliott
      Terry Elliott on 28 Dec 08
       
      Aye, aye, captain. This is the classic problem of identity and authenticity. Can I trust this person on all the levels that are important for this particular collaboration? A hidden assumption here is that students have a passion themselves to learn something from these learning partners. What will be doing in this collaboration nation to value the ebb and flow of these learners' interests? How will we handle the idiosyncratic needs of the child who one moment wants to be J.K.Rowling and the next Madonna. Or both? What are the unintended consequences of creating an truly collaborative nation? Do we know? Would this be a 'worse' world for the corporations who seek our dollars and our workers? Probably. It might subvert the corporation while at the same moment create a new body of corporate cooperation. Isn't it pretty to think so.
  • Likewise, we must make sure that others can locate and vet us.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • technical know-how is not enough. We must also be adept at negotiating, planning, and nurturing the conversation with others we may know little about -- not to mention maintaining a healthy balance between our face-to-face and virtual lives (another dance for which kids sorely need coaching).
    • Terry Elliott
      Terry Elliott on 28 Dec 08
       
      All of these skills are technical know how. We differentiate between hard and soft skills when we should be showing how they are all of a piece. I am so far from being an adequate coach on all of these matters it appalls me. I feel like the teacher who is one day ahead of his students and fears any question that skips ahead to chapters I have not read yet.
  • The Collaboration Age comes with challenges that often cause concern and fear. How do we manage our digital footprints, or our identities, in a world where we are a Google search away from both partners and predators? What are the ethics of co-creation when the nuances of copyright and intellectual property become grayer each day? When connecting and publishing are so easy, and so much of what we see is amateurish and inane, how do we ensure that what we create with others is of high quality?
    • Terry Elliott
      Terry Elliott on 28 Dec 08
       
      Partners and predators? OK, let's not in any way go down this road. This is the road our mainstream media has trod to our great disadvantage as citizens. These are not co-equal. Human brains are not naturally probablistic computer. We read about a single instance of internet predation and we equate it with all the instances of non-predation. We all have zero tolerance policies against guns in the school, yet our chances of being injured by those guns are fewer than a lightning strike. We cannot ever have this collaborative universe if we insist on a zero probability of predation. That is why, for good and ill, schools will never cross that frontier. It is in our genes. "Better safe than sorry" vs. "Risks may be our safeties in disguise."
  • Students are growing networks without us, writing Harry Potter narratives together at FanFiction.net, or trading skateboarding videos on YouTube. At school, we disconnect them not only from the technology but also from their passion and those who share it.
  • The complexities of editing information online cannot be sequestered and taught in a six-week unit. This has to be the way we do our work each day.
  • The process of collaboration begins with our willingness to share our work and our passions publicly -- a frontier that traditional schools have rarely crossed.
  • Look no further than Wikipedia to see the potential; say what you will of its veracity, no one can deny that it represents the incredible potential of working with others online for a common purpose.
  • The technologies we block in their classrooms flourish in their bedrooms
  • Anyone with a passion for something can connect to others with that same passion -- and begin to co-create and colearn the same way many of our students already do.
  • I believe that is what educators must do now. We must engage with these new technologies and their potential to expand our own understanding and methods in this vastly different landscape. We must know for ourselves how to create, grow, and navigate these collaborative spaces in safe, effective, and ethical ways. And we must be able to model those shifts for our students and counsel them effectively when they run across problems with these tools.
  • Jeff Richardson on 16 Dec 08
     
    Article by Wil Richardson on Collaboration
Vicki Davis

Blogger: Cool Cat Teacher Blog - Post a Comment - 0 views

www.blogger.com/comment.g

shared by Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08 - No Cached
  • I don't feel that any of the names mentioned act or feel like they are better than me and have even included me on many conversations
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      This blogger is a good example of someone who has jumped in with all 10 fingers and gotten to know a lot of neat people. As a relative newcomer, loonyhiker knows a lot of people. Newcomers just need to "jump in!"
  • I do love when you say, "if one person reads our blog and get something out of it.. it is important." I try to keep that in mind all the time. Numbers don't matter..people do.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Remembering each reader as an invidual is a vital thing about blogging.
  • Lisa Parisi
  • ...66 more annotations...
  • As far as the ego thing goes who cares. Your blog's this mine is that. Whoopdy do! If you're learning and growing your PLN that is what counts.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      I love Charlie's perspective on this.
  • Charlie A. Roy said.
  • I feel similar frustration. If the point is about learning than reading and commenting is a great way to add to our own creative potential.
  • Tennessee
  • Great response to a burning question/statement that most of us (well probably all of us)feel at one time or another.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      I find tennessee's comment interesting. What is the "burning" question? Do we matter? Is anyone else really out there? Is Internet realilty -- REAL reality. We are grappling with this and just now realizing that there is an emotional thing going on with it all!
  • Many of the people that I have learned the most from are not the ones involved in the "cocktail party" but rather those in the trenches doing what I love to do each and every day, just like you!
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      He has an important point -- if you're only reading the uber-popular bloggers -- you're missing the point of the blogosphere. I make it a point to find some newcomers. To me, it is like a game, I want to find new people doing great things and encourage them like so many greats like David Warlick, Darren Kuropatwa, Ewan McIntosh, and more did for me when I started.
  • agree that developing a readership takes time.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Many educators don't know the number of readers they have b/c they don't use the right tools -- I recommend consolidating to ONE feedburner feed. It just makes sense.
  • Carolyn Foote
  • Scott McLeod
  • Re: the depressing aspects of 'comment intensity,' I actually meant it to be an affirming post rather than a depressing one
  • I think that the comment intensity idea is important in this respect: I often see laments from bloggers that they don't get many comments on their posts. What the table above shows is that even those of us who are fortunate enough to have large readerships often don't get many comments. My personal median over the past 20 posts, even WITH the big spike of 89, is still only 2.5. Ewan, your blog and Vicki Davis' are similar. The point is that many, many posts don't get a lot of comments, even those by the more widely read bloggers.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      It could be encouraging for some -- for me it made me feel like I had another thing to count! Although, I see Scott's point -- his article wasn't written for me!
  • tom said...
  • Thanks for bringing this up. This has been an issue for me personally as well. OK, so nobody's IN, but the (pseudo?) community nature of blogging makes it feel that way.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Tom is right -- we all feel this way! I think the feeling of looking in on the blogosphere is one of feeling "out" looking in -- for all of us!
  • But, like other artists, we have to work a little every day whether we feel like it or not, and whether we get validation that day or not.
  • I think many of us are working at blogging because there's an element of self improvement, which implies self evaluation. Without feedback from others it's easy to be hard on ourselves.
  • Christopher D. Sessums
  • For me, the conversation is hardly closed; it is simply a matter of having something to say, something to share.The emotional commitment is another aspect of the conversation that is easily glossed over.
  • MIke Sansone
  • I've found (both with myself and those educators I've worked with in their blogging starts) that the edublogosphere is open and welcoming -- but as we engage in any cultural group (even offline), patience really is a key.Still, we sometimes measure our success by the interaction from those we look up to (esp. teachers - many of whom were probably the best students in their class, yes?)
  • Sometimes we don't see the comments -- because the talk happens offline.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      This is a very important point and one to remember -- the "quiet" audience online may be a very vocal audience offline.
  • Britt
  • I get very few comments on my blog but see through the clustermaps that I have readers each and every day, so continue to feel that the blog is benefiting me through reflection and may even be benefiting others as well.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      This is why having a statcounter or clustrmap is SO very important -- it helps you understand traffic and audience!
  • atruger
  • I NEVER get to share tools I discover because someone ALWAYS beats me to the punch...but I am ok with that.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      But you should share ANYWAY! -- we're not people breaking news -- we're talking about what we USE. So, talk and share!
  • I truly connect with what you write even though I am one of "those" people who reads but rarely comments. YOU do make a difference and so do I!
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      These comments mean so much to me!
  • Bego said...
  • the whole cocktail party analogy is just a grown up version of the kickball line-up in elementary school.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      I was always picked last there -- whew this analogy hits me close to home. I was always picked last b/c I was the worst. Even the worst kickball player needs to feel encouraged and not destroyed for getting up and kicking the ball. Even the "worst" blogger - if there is such a thing -- needs to feel encouraged sometimes too just for blogging.
  • In the blog world, change is effected by good content, and while good content isn't always noticed at first, it does eventually get a respectable position--sometimes because the cocktail group points them out.
  • How could I think to be in the same boat as John Scalzi who started in 1998 if I've only been blogging since 2007?
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Remember this -- I've been blogging just over 2 years. Strange things can happen -- consistent creation of meaningful content is important.
  • I found your blog, Vicki, because a project you do for Atomic Learning mentioned you, and your name is on the movies they use.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      I did the Web 2.0 workshop for atomic learning and many have found my blog -- actually I had to use a source that I had permission to use!!! ;-)
  • jeanette tranberg
  • 2005 - you were the only ones out there to follow
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      lol -- I started blogging in December of 2005 and had about 7 followers until mid 2006 -- but there are many who think I've been around forever!
  • Oh yes, I have felt the cocktail chill at times. I'm a norwegian edublogger, that have been following your brunks (blogdrunks) for a while. To start with - in
  • Wes told me once I twittered, that nobody should twitter alone and I could not agree more - so I don't.
  • So, from the outer side looking in: Anybody stopping by in Second Life tonight (which is today for you) for a virtual edu cocktail?I'm aka Kita Coage at Eduisland II, waiting to cocktail connect with you c",)
  • Paul Hamilton
  • For most of us, blogging is very much a personal venture.
  • I suspect that we all have a deep desire to be heard and to be accepted. The longer I'm involved in the edublogosphere, however, the more impressed and encouraged I am by the level of acceptance that there is here. It is a good thing that we don't always agree with each other. Disagreement is often at the heart of constructive conversation
  • At the same time, we are no different than the kids in our classrooms. We educators need to know that we will be accepted, no matter what we have to say and no matter how well we are able to express it. I think we help to make the edublogosphere a "safe place" for each other as we try to keep it positive and as we take advantage of the numerous opportunities to be affirming.
  • Jim Dornberg said.
  • I don't at all feel excluded from the blog "cocktail party", because just like a real cocktail party, I am drawn to the people who have something important, and engaging to say and I am content to listen and learn from them. I have seen a few of the "big names" at conferences, and even met a few of them in person. I have emailed several of them and others, or left an occasional comment, and I have been very pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful responses I have received.
  • I read many blogs, but comment rarely, and I suspect that those who read my blog do the same. So I don't feel at all excluded. I'm just happy to occasionally be part of the conversation.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Many people feel this way -- just happy to be a part of the occasional conversation.
  • Alfred Thompson
  • When I was at EduBloggerCon last spring I felt quite the outsider. There were famous people there and I was unknown. I still feel that way in the broad edublogsphere. But honestly the broad sphere is not who I am blogging for. I blog for a niche - computer science teachers. The event for that niche is SIGCSE and there I (blush) feel a bit like a star. Few of the people there know the edubloggers with much larger readership or Technorati ranks. And really reaching the CS teachers is my goal not reaching everyone who teaches general subjects.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Knowing your audience is very important.
  • There is, I believe, room for more at the top if only because the number of teachers reading blogs is still very small but we all hope it is growing. We are still at the ground floor. That makes edublogging different from tech blogging I think.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Alfred thompson is right on the money!
  • Jason Bengs
  • I think we need to all remember our focus for blogging. Mine is for reflection. I use my blog as a tool to improve my teaching. If others start to read and can learn from it, great. To my knowledge I am the only one seeing my blog right now. Which is fine with me. I don't think blogging should be a popularity contest and having a large number of readers is great, it must mean that you, and others, have something to offer that others want to emulate.
  • prof v said
  • I think you could have added three additional points. First, a suggestion on how to increase readership. I think new bloggers (myself included) are still trying to figure out how to make the connections that allow for conversations within blogs. I go back to your list of 10 tips for successful blogging, and still find things I never noticed before
  • would love to see an updated list that perhaps would include how to make sure your blog is part of an RSS feed and how to set up subscriptions for potential readers to make it easy for them to subscribe to your blog.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      If you go to my blog and search for feedburner -- that is what I use -- I've written several posts on that. I'll have to update the original 10 habits. perhaps I'll do that soon!
  • I think even you have realized that it is more difficult to break into the edublogger field as there is now so many new bloggers (just in the last two years).
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      I don't know -- I've seen some newcomers like Darren Draper jump into the blogosphere pretty quickly -- it is about getting involved in the conversation, which is easier now with twitter and webcasts at edtechtalk. Good conversationalists rise to the top.
  • Finally, I am surprised that you did not point out how you have helped new bloggers by both asking for new voices and then publishing them in your own blog. I think this is an indication that you are trying to open up the "party".
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      I always let my readers defend me. I'm not perfect, none of us. We also don't have unlimited time... so I have to do the best I can.
  • Dean Shareski
  • Isn't the whole point of web 2.0 is that it exudes democracy and equality? Those that get all concerned about rankings and ratings are, as you've suggested missing the point.
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      Dean has got it right here.
  • We often quickly want to find ways of ranking. Reminds me of the evils of current assessment practices. We tell kids to do their best and work on improving performance and yet continue to use ranking systems that is clearly a mixed message.
  • Anonymous said.
  • I'm new to this world as of Monday...yes, 4 days of immersing myself in as much ed. tech, web 2.0, online collaboration "stuff" that I can. (thanks to Lisa Thumman at Rutgers U.) Cocktail party or not, your blog and the comments people have left have increased my list of people to follow. Even a discussion about "being on the outside" has led me to the "inside". I'm thrilled to be in the company of such great minds and promise to start contributing once I wrap my brain around it all! Thanks to everyone for sharing! cmtvarok
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      A 4 day old newcomer to the edublogosphere comments.. what an amazing linkage of conversation! Wow! Older, newer, very new. Wow!
  • Mrs. V.
  • thanks for coaxing me out of my blogger drought!
    • Vicki Davis
      Vicki Davis on 12 Apr 08
       
      She wrote a great post!
  • Vicki A. Davis
  • I believe that this "post" has been made stronger by the comments, which have added to the post greater depth of meaning.
  • All over this conversation I see the change in society. We are all going through the emotions of becoming accustomed to something new... kind of like I first experienced when the Internet first came out.
  • And while, when I began blogging, I didn't really set my sights or aim for a large readership... now that it is here, I will seriously consider and appreciate each individual reader and take my job seriously
  • @tennessee -- Those in the trenches are my most important reads... I just wish there were more of us. It seems as if many teachers view blogging as a way out of the classroom when they should see it as a way to improve the classroom!
  • @scottmcleod - I believe the comment intensity is highly correlated to controversiality AND immediacy. If a lot of people SAW someone recently, they want to interact and comment (immediacy.) If someone says something very emotional or controversial, people want to comment and interact (controversiality.) While I guess looking at these stats are fine, I've found in my very short time blogging that looking too much at numbers of any kind removes my focus from what is important. When I focus intently on conversation, my blog traffic and numbers just grow. I always say "whatever is watered, grows." If I water my investigation of stats, I become a good statistician... if I water my blog but also commenting and participating in the blogosphere as a WHOLE, I become a good blogger. I'd rather be the latter. And while the post was meant to be encouraging... I have to admit I'm a competitive perfectionist and always have to reign in that aspect of my nature.
  • @christophersessums - I think the emotional nature of something is like the proverbial elephant in the Net -- it is there. It always stuns me the number of people who discuss their feelings on this when it comes up... it means that many of us are experiencing the same thing.
Dean Loberg

Education Week's Digital Directions: Building Gaming Into Science Education - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...04sciencegames_web.h01.html

gaming science

shared by Dean Loberg on 13 May 08 - Cached
  • "I've had teachers tell me,” says Eklund, “that after they introduced the game to their students, the classroom went completely silent because all of the kids were just reading." "You just don't get that kind of engagement and involvement with the story" with a textbook, he says.
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 13 May 08
       
      Is this because of the visual appeal or the storyline? I can see this happening, but does silence mean high levels of engagement?
    • Dean Loberg
      Dean Loberg on 13 May 08
       
      Assuming that they are not sleeping I think it does mean engagement, but engagement does not equal education. It depends on the content as well.
  • A report written by researchers about The River City Project for a 2006 conference concluded "that students learned biology content, that students and teachers were highly engaged, that student attendance improved, that disruptive behavior dropped, that students were building 21st-century skills in virtual communication and expression, and importantly, that using this type of technology in the classroom can facilitate good inquiry learning."
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 13 May 08
       
      Is this limited to only the River City Project alone though? How does it promote more inquiry, problem and project-based learning in other content?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • "I'm in a unique situation where there's a computer at every lab table," he says, pointing out that many teachers do not have that ratio of students to computers.
  • when the games don't work properly, but most teachers don’t have that level of technical skill, she points out.
  • "There are little things you need to know," she says, to keep the games running smoothly. "[Otherwise], it's not going to work in the classroom, and teachers aren't going to use it."
  • "If [the game] doesn't have a focus or clear reason for what they're doing, it really doesn't work," says Pokrzywinski. Adapting games to the curriculum is possible, she says, but it takes time—something many teachers don't have.
  • Brian C. Smith on 13 May 08
     
    Science and gaming
  • Dean Loberg on 13 May 08
     
    Science and gaming
Steve Dembo

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Preface and Explanation - Mark Twain - Re... - 0 views

www.readprint.com/...Mark-Twain

shared by Steve Dembo on 29 Apr 08 - Cached
  • At the end of an hour we saw a far-away town sleeping in a valley by a winding river; and beyond it on a hill, a vast gray fortress, with towers and turrets, the first I had ever seen out of a picture. ``Bridgeport?'' said I, pointing. ``Camelot,'' said he.
  • Steve Dembo on 29 Apr 08
     
    Just imagine what sort of building it must have been like, to look equally like modern day Bridgeport as well as Camelot....
  • Steve Dembo on 29 Apr 08
     
    Save Bookmark
Ruth Howard

High Scalability - High Scalability - The Amazing Collective Compute Power of... - 4 views

highscalability.com/...ower-of-the-ambient-cloud.html

high scalability clod computing mobiles processors smartphones administrator all_teachers digitalcitizenship

shared by Ruth Howard on 20 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Earlier we talked about how a single botnet could harness more compute power than our largest super computers. Well, that's just the start of it. The amount of computer power available to the Ambient Cloud will be truly astounding.
  • By 2014 one estimate is there will be 2 billion PCs. That's a giant reservoir of power to exploit, especially considering these new boxes are stuffed with multiple powerful processors and gigabytes of memory. 7 Billion Smartphones By now it's common wisdom smartphones are the computing platform of the future. It's plausible to assume the total number of mobile phones in use will roughly equal the number of people on earth. That's 7 billion smartphones. Smartphones aren't just tiny little wannabe computers anymore either. They are real computers and are getting more capable all the time.
  • One Google exec estimates that in 12 years an iPod will be able to store all the video ever produced.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • But all the compute power in the world is of little use if the cores can't talk to each other.
  • Inductive chargers will also make it easier to continually charge devices. Nokia is working on wireless charging. And devices will start harvesting energy from the surroundings. So it looks like the revolution will be fully powered.
  • . Literally billions of dollars are being invested into developing a giant sensor grids to manage power. Other grids will be set up for water, climate, pollution, terrorist attacks, traffic, and virtually everything else you can think to measure and control.
  • . Others predict the smart grid could be 1,000 times larger than the Internet.
  • Clearly this technology has obvious health and medical uses, and it may also figure into consumer and personal entertainment.
  • What if instead smartphones become the cloud?
  • In the future compute capacity will be everywhere. This is one of the amazing gifts of computer technology and also why virtualization has become such a hot datacenter trend.
  • It's out of that collective capacity that an Ambient Cloud can be formed, like a galaxy is formed from interstellar dust. We need to find a more systematic way of putting it to good use.
  • Ruth Howard on 20 Feb 10
     
    digital citizenship headed for the clouds...
Ben Rimes

Executive Summary | U.S. Department of Education - 9 views

www.ed.gov/...executive-summary

shared by Ben Rimes on 15 Mar 10 - Cached
  • regardless of background, languages, or disabilities,
  • personalized learning
  • critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and multimedia communication should be woven into all content areas.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In all these activities, technology-based assessments can provide data to drive decisions on the basis of what is best for each and every student and that in aggregate will lead to continuous improvement across our entire education system.
  • Another basic assumption is the way we organize students into age-determined groups, structure separate academic disciplines, organize learning into classes of roughly equal size with all the students in a particular class receiving the same content at the same pace, and keep these groups in place all year.
    • Ben Rimes
      Ben Rimes on 28 Mar 10
       
      For good reason at the elementary level. It's called socialization. Students that are 2 or 3 years apart can exhibit radically different thought processes, levels of self-control, but more importantly, there are huge developmental differences socially, emotionally, and physcially.
  • The NETP accepts that we do not have the luxury of time – we must act now and commit to fine-tuning and midcourse corrections as we go. Success will require leadership, collaboration, and investment at all levels of our education system – states, districts, schools, and the federal government – as well as partnerships with higher education institutions, private enterprises, and not-for-profit entities.
    • Ben Rimes
      Ben Rimes on 28 Mar 10
       
      Perhaps one of the most frightening statements in the document to a large number of school districts. Teachers quite often are able to enact a mid-course shift, and students are most always extremely flexible, but at the administration and district level change can often be glacial as such radical change could very well mean replacing the hierarchy of leadership throughout a district, shifting positions, or eliminating them, and large organizations have a tendency towards self-preservation.
  • Vicki Davis on 15 Mar 10
     
    Current update to National Education Technology plan in the USA. Highlighted with diigo with comments.
  • Ben Rimes on 28 Mar 10
     
    Current update to National Education Technology plan in the USA. Highlighted with diigo with comments.
Dave Truss

ELT notes: IWBs and the Fallacy of Integration - 7 views

eltnotes.blogspot.com/...nd-fallacy-of-integration.html

learning technologyintegration leadership mycomments

shared by Dave Truss on 20 Apr 10 - Cached
  • motivation and control. One seems to need the other, apparently. Keep the students motivated and you are a great teacher in control of the learning process. But we miss the point. Motivation has a short-term effect. New things will be old again. If we equal motivation with learning we will cling too much to it and direct our best efforts (and school budget) to gaining back control. A useless cycle that can lead us to consider extremely double-edged ideas like paying students to keep them learning.
  • We need autonomous, self-motivated students in love with the process of how humanity has learnt.
  • There is a underlying idea in the framing of our questions that needs unlearning. The belief that there are "levels", layers of complexity, hierarchies that we can detect and... well, control. But wait! Isn't that the very old way we want to truly change with new technologies?
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • We already know it's about shifting power. Tight teacher control is a hindrance to foster empowered students who own their learning paths. We need to be aware of the old way finding its way to surface in what we question.
  • Tech is tech no matter what it does. It's innovative in its nature.
  • We can tell by the huge resistance to it. If there is no resistance in the process, we are probably facing improvements and weighing their gains in efficiency points. Good enough, only it is not an innovation. Innovation is not about "more or better", it's about "different".
  • What is the school picture today? What does my working context look like?I see an illusion that technology is to be bought, taught, used in class and then we can expect everyone to be happy. This false assumption seems to be guiding managerial decisions. This is the same old story behind the idea of technology "integration".
  • I doubt formal courses can make people adopt informal ways of learning. Courses could change teacher behaviour and leave their mindset untouched.
  • students are not digital natives. They know very little about educational uses of the technology they have been using for entertainment purposes only. They are quite ready to resist thoughtful, time consuming uses of the same technology. Particularly if they have had no part in choosing or deciding together with the teacher how we would use it.
  • First things first. Stay out of the tug-of-war. It is not a moment to think if the school is wrong in imposing it and teachers are right in resisting it. It's probably the moment to get together and go ahead purposefully. This is short-term thinking, though. Somehow teachers need to communicate to managers that the buy-don't-ask is an unhealthy approach from now on.
  • Ideally, we should envision a future where authorities engage teachers in conversations before buying.
  • Innovative teaching practices require innovative management practices. Let's think of adoption models that rely on having one-to-one conversations with teachers, experimenting together, asking them how far they feel they need mentoring, identifying what makes teachers happy at work.
  • Dave Truss on 20 Apr 10
     
    We need autonomous, self-motivated students in love with the process of how humanity has learnt.
anonymous

CTEG: Critical Questions - 13 views

www.criticalteaching.org/...FAQ.html

critical thinking

shared by anonymous on 24 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Critical thinking is a set of values and cognitive strategies employed to rationally evaluate information for its potential usefulness and accuracy. In this regard, critical thinking covers three fields; Personal values embracing logic, reasoning, objectivity and internal consistency of information Skills and cognitive approaches that allow the individual to search for and evaluate different information sources An appreciation of the relationship between the application of accurate information in decision making and the probability of a predictable outcome
  • In an age of diverse media, especially with regards to the internet, information sources present confusing options. Not all information is equal. Teaching people to understand the context and cues associated with good information gives them the ability to make better informed decisions that will have the best chance of leading to those outcomes they wish for.
  • This places critical thinking at odds with philosophies that elevate some bodies of knowledge to being dogmatic and beyond question.
Ruth Howard

Half an Hour: An Operating System for the Mind - 0 views

halfanhour.blogspot.com/...operating-system-for-mind.html

literacy knowledge critical_thinking

shared by Ruth Howard on 27 Sep 09 - Cached
  • The reason I pose these questions in particular is that, while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct route into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.When you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.
  • First
  • . There are more facts in the world than anyone could know
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • Second
  • facts change
  • We need to be able to determine what is salient or important to ourselves and to others.
  • Third
  • Fourth
  • you need some mechansism to detect and reject false representations of facts
  • comparing and assessing facts
  • Fifth
  • basis for action
  • we can create facts in the world
  • Sixth
  • we need the capacity to act
  • And what we discover when we think about it this way is that it's not simple whether or not we need facts that is important, but also, what format the facts are in that is equally important, if not more important.
  • You need, in other words, need to acquire facts in a format appropriate to your knowledge system.
  • 21st century skills are, in short, an operating system for the mind.
  • They constitute the processes and capacities that make it possible for people to navigate a fact-filled landscape, a way to see, understand and acquire those facts in such a way as to be relevant and useful, and in the end, to be self-contained and autonomous agents capable of making their own decisions and directing their own lives, rather than people who need to learn ever larger piles of 'facts' in order to do even the most basic tasks.
  • What we have learned - what we are understanding, uniquely, in the 21st century - is that the nature of facts is very different from anything we thought before:
  • empowerment,
  • Today - surely we've seen enough evidence of this! - if you simply follow the rules, do what you're told, do your job and stay out of trouble, you will be led to ruin.
  • an abundance of facts will not help you, it will instead sweep you over the waterfall.
  • Dave Truss on 27 Sep 09
     
    And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct route into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.
  • Ruth Howard on 26 Feb 10
     
    while it is necessary (and possible) to teach facts to people, it comes with a price. And the price is this: facts learned in this way, and especially by rote, and especially at a younger age, take a direct root into the mind, and bypass a person's critical and reflective capacities, and indeed, become a part of those capacities in the future.\n\nWhen you teach children facts as facts, and when you do it through a process of study and drill, it doesn't occur to children to question whether or not those facts are true, or appropriate, or moral, or legal, or anything else. Rote learning is a short circuit into the brain. It's direct programming. People who study, and learn, that 2+2=4, know that 2+2=4, not because they understand the theory of mathematics, not because they have read Hilbert and understand formalism, or can refute Brouwer and reject intuitionism, but because they know (full stop) 2+2=4.\n\nI used the phrase "it's direct programming" deliberately. This is an analogy we can wrap our minds around. We can think of direct instruction as being similar to direct programming. It is, effectively, a mechanism of putting content into a learner's mind as effectively and efficiently as possible, so that when the time comes later (as it will) that the learner needs to use that fact, it is instantly and easily accessible.
tee1962 Reagan

Education Week: Top-Scoring Nations Share Strategies on Teachers - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...36global.h28.html

Finland singapore

shared by tee1962 Reagan on 06 Jul 09 - Cached
  • In Finland, Mr. Lankinen said, “people dream to be teachers.”
  • one common feature of the Singaporean and Finnish education systems—like those of some other high-achieving nations—is the respect that their societies have for educators, and the general view of teaching as a top-tier profession.
  • Finns regard having “well-trained, educated teachers” as more essential to raising student achievement, he added.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Singapore also has a thorough system for grading and evaluating teacher performance, she told the audience, and it awards bonuses for effective instruction that can equal between one and three months’ pay.
  • elite: The government recruits from the top third of graduating classes,
  • tee1962 Reagan on 06 Jul 09
     
    In Finland, Mr. Lankinen said, "people dream to be teachers."
David Hilton

BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Young Minds Force-Fed With Indigestible Texts - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...d-with-indigestible-texts.html

censorship textbooks history teaching pc education articles

shared by David Hilton on 09 Jul 09 - Cached
  • As for the teaching of history, Ms. Ravitch argues, the sort of censorship being practiced today by textbook publishers can result in all manner of distortions and simplifications. For instance, to insist that depictions of women as nurses, elementary-school teachers, clerks, secretaries, tellers and librarians perpetuate demeaning stereotypes is to minimize ''the barriers that women faced,'' and to pretend ''that the gender equality of the late 20th and early 21st centuries was a customary condition in the past.''
  • David Hilton on 09 Jul 09
     
    What do people think of this woman's criticism of education today? Are we so blinkered by ideological prejudices that we're killing what makes education exciting and effective?
Qien Kuen

A chat with Stephen Downes on OER - Creative Commons - 3 views

creativecommons.org/...17860

OER education connectivism learning

shared by Qien Kuen on 13 Oct 09 - Cached
  • My mission is to make it so that every person around the world has full access to educational opportunities and equal opportunity to make the most of their lives. Open educational resources are an important part of that because, of course, access to open materials enables all of that
  • In order to learn, we have to be active. You have to do things; we have to create things. So learning, whether it occurs in the classroom, in a formal situation or informal situation, it involves not only accessing, but remaking, remixing, repurposing, and rewriting learning resources; the creation of learning resources; the redistribution of them.
Ed Webb

Seventy-One Stories About Being Trans in School - 0 views

grace.substack.com/...-one-stories-about-being-trans

LGBT LGBTQ education college colleges universities university

shared by Ed Webb on 18 Jul 19 - Cached
  • (a) some of the biggest challenges trans students face are infrastructural, both bricks-and-mortar structures (the housing of trans students; bathroom facilities), and digital architecture (course information software, transcripts, diplomas and email databases all routinely misidentify students);(b) an overwhelming majority of students and graduates described the experience of being misgendered and/or deadnamed by their professors as an extremely common experience.
  • I do think there’s real value in hearing stories of what it feels like to be misgendered or deadnamed
  • Anti-trans academics who claim that their rights are being infringed are heard far more frequently in the mainstream media than are the students who are apparently doing the infringing.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • academic freedom is a value of deep institutional importance to the independence of the University from entrenched power. Free speech demands no such institutional defense, and is rightly deprioritized when in conflict with other interests such as equity of access to education, or the health and wellbeing of students
  • To listen to trans students and graduates is to be sure that, whatever the British gender critical academics argue, the training of the professoriate on this issue is woefully inadequate
  • Many trans and non-binary students reported challenges finding built environments where they could feel safe at college. “They keep housing me with men,” wrote one trans woman; another trans woman reported that, despite being roomed with “transphobic students,” her administrators “weren’t, in general, willing to cut me a whole lot of slack because I hadn’t legally changed my gender marker.” A trans man reported being “placed on an all-girls floor even though I stated clearly on my housing form that I’m a trans guy.” Another student described the non-accommodation of trans students as an official policy: “my school matches roommate based on assigned sex, and refuses to accommodate trans students.”
  • Many students wrote with great enthusiasm about LGBTQ support centers on campus, which provide trans students with community and guidance. One writes that “younger uni empoyees and employees who were queer or allies were actually pretty great”; another says “the campus LGBT centers at two of the institutions where I experienced […] discrimination were amazing”; another writes that “the gender equality center is really working to help students and we have queer profs and Pride programming.” Another describes the vibe at the LGBTQ center as “quite tumblr but very supportive.” Students reported valuing the opportunity to invite speakers and guests themselves, though some report a wish that more resources for such programming were available.
  • A number of students wrote to express their dismay at the poverty of counselling resources for trans students
  • A large majority of respondents – close to all - explicitly reported experiences with “deadnaming” and “misgendering” by their academic advisors – their professors and mentors. Some of these instances were “deliberate,” “malicious,” “continued,” or “transphobic,” while others were merely “ignorant” or “accidental.” One respondent reported having been taught by two kinds of teacher: “profs who never asked for pronouns and always misgendered me, and profs who asked for pronouns but would still misgender me every time and apologize every time under the guise of ‘trying their best’.”
  • Sometimes being misgendered at a key moment in one’s school career throws students into emotional disarray at an inopportune moment.
  • colleges and universities are failing to establish adequate infrastructure for trans and non-binary students (especially in respect of digital architecture, which perhaps receives less attention than bricks-and-mortar)
  • staff and faculty, far from being the mindwiped drones of the gender critical academics’ fantasy, are mostly pretty incompetent at addressing and discussing trans students
  • I have a responsibility as a teacher to ensure minimum standards of care and equitable access to education for all my trans students, but also that I have a responsibility to push back against those institutional disincentives
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