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Steve J. Moore

InformIT: The Business of Understanding > Ode to Ignorance - 1 views

www.informit.com/...article.aspx

shared by Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11 - No Cached
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      This is what all of public education is struggling with right now. How do we legitimize the asking of questions and the pursuit of understanding rather than the bubbling in of "answers" we don't really get?
  • I'm a success when I do something that I myself can truly understand
  • the most essential prerequisite to understanding is to be able to admit when you don't understand something
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • Giving yourself permission not to know everything will make you relax
  • preconceptions
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      In technical writing, we must sort out all prior knowledge and place it before us and then step away from it so we can recreate it anew.
  • binary choice: I could teach about what I already knew, or I could teach about what I would like to learn
  • My expertise has always been my ignorance, my admission and acceptance of not knowing. My work comes from questions, not from answers.
  • The focus on bravado and competition in our society has helped breed into us the idea that it is impolitic, or at least impolite, to say, "I don't understand."
  • Understanding should be thought of as a continuum from data to wisdom
  • at this end of the spectrum, understanding gets increasingly personal until it is so intimate that it cannot truly be shared with others
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      So, is "technical writing" about creating information out of data (a set message) or structuring data so that others can interpret their own information from it (a personalizable message)?
  • "One of the best ways of communicating knowledge is through stories, because good stories are richly textured with details, allowing the narrative to convey a stable ground on which to build the experience."
  • Without context, information cannot exist, and the context in question must relate not only to the data's environment (where it came from, why it's being communicated, how it's arranged, etc.), but also from the context and intent of the person interpreting it.
  • rganization creates, or at least, shapes meaning
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      How do we tell "data" from "info" in our teaching practice? What does this paragraph tell you about assessing student learning and work?
  • Technology forms a near-disastrous distraction from real information and knowledge issues.
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      What is it about technology or tools that distract us from teaching kids how to learn skills in a "technical" setting?
  • complexity
  • education is so notoriously difficult: because one cannot count on one person's knowledge to transfer to another
  • This is what education should be about, but too often it is only focused on information—and worse, data—simply because those are the only forms that are easy to measure.
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      THIS.
  • Knowledge
  • experience design
  • discover processes for creating these experiences
  • Without the opportunity, willingness, or openness to interact on a personal level, much of the power of these experiences are not made available to us.
  • Wisdom is as personal as understanding gets—intimate, in fact—and it is a difficult level for many people to reach
  • sharing of wisdom is next to impossible.
  • What can only be shared is the experiences that form the building blocks for wisdom, but these need to be communicated with even more understanding of the personal contexts of our audience than with information or knowledge.
  • We cannot trick ourselves into becoming wise, and we cannot allow someone else to do it.
    • Steve J. Moore
      Steve J. Moore on 10 Aug 11
       
      What is one piece of wisdom you have learned about yourself in your own learning?
  • we need to expose people to the processes of introspection, pattern-matching, contemplation, retrospection, and interpretation so that they will have the beginnings of the tools to create wisdom
Ed Webb

My blog is my PhD | David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts - 0 views

pairadimes.davidtruss.com/my-blog-is-my-phd

blogging blogs learning

shared by Ed Webb on 01 Apr 09 - Cached
  • This blog has provided me with an opportunity to share my learning, and more than anything else it has challenged me to be accountable in a way that no other professional development ever has. It has reminded me that I love to learn and it is part of a learning process that I truly love.
anonymous

Shai Agassi's bold plan for electric cars | Video on TED.com - 0 views

www.ted.com/...i_agassi_on_electric_cars.html

TED economics

shared by anonymous on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • anonymous on 14 Apr 09
     
    I think this is an OUTSTANDING video for an economics class. There are so many questions that you could pose for discussion, too. "All electric cars sounds perfect, doesn't it? But, how will we generate the electricity for that demand?" Or, on a deeper social studies level, "DIscuss what you think would happen to those countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq whose economy is based on oil production? Support your thoughts." Do yourself a favor and watch this video. Then send it to every economics teacher you know.
  • anonymous on 14 Apr 09
     
    Another excellent TED video! THis one is perfect for your Economics classes.
tee1962 Reagan

Tech Thoughts By Jen - 0 views

jenuinetech.com/blog

shared by tee1962 Reagan on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
Michael Walker

Progressive Education - 0 views

www.alfiekohn.org/...progressive.htm

progressive education alfiekohn

shared by Michael Walker on 11 Jul 09 - Cached
  • As Jim Nehring at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell observed, “Progressive schools are the legacy of a long and proud tradition of thoughtful school practice stretching back for centuries” — including hands-on learning, multiage classrooms, and mentor-apprentice relationships — while what we generally refer to as traditional schooling “is largely the result of outdated policy changes that have calcified into conventions.”
  • Progressive educators are concerned with helping children become not only good learners but also good people
  • Learning isn’t something that happens to individual children — separate selves at separate desks. Children learn with and from one another in a caring community, and that’s true of moral as well as academic learning. Interdependence counts at least as much as independence
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Progressive schools are characterized by what I like to call a “working with” rather than a “doing to” model.
  • A sense of community and responsibility for others isn’t confined to the classroom; indeed, students are helped to locate themselves in widening circles of care that extend beyond self, beyond friends, beyond their own ethnic group, and beyond their own coun
  • “What’s the effect on students’ interest in learning, their desire to continue reading, thinking, and questioning?”
  • Alfred North Whitehead declared long ago, “A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth.” Facts and skills do matter, but only in a context and for a purpose. That’s why progressive education tends to be organized around problems, projects, and questions — rather than around lists of facts, skills, and separate disciplines
  • students play a vital role in helping to design the curriculum, formulate the questions, seek out (and create) answers, think through possibilities, and evaluate how successful they — and their teachers — have been
  • Each student is unique, so a single set of policies, expectations, or assignments would be as counterproductive as it was disrespectful.)
  • they design it with them
  • what distinguishes progressive education is that students must construct their own understanding of ideas.
  • A school that is culturally progressive is not necessarily educationally progressive. An institution can be steeped in lefty politics and multi-grain values; it can be committed to diversity, peace, and saving the planet — but remain strikingly traditional in its pedagogy
  • A truly impressive collection of research has demonstrated that when students are able to spend more time thinking about ideas than memorizing facts and practicing skills — and when they are invited to help direct their own learning — they are not only more likely to enjoy what they’re doing but to do it better.
  • Regardless of one’s values, in other words, this approach can be recommended purely on the basis of its effectiveness. And if your criteria are more ambitious — long-term retention of what’s been taught, the capacity to understand ideas and apply them to new kinds of problems, a desire to continue learning — the relative benefits of progressive education are even greater.[5]
  • Students in elementary and middle school did better in science when their teaching was “centered on projects in which they took a high degree of initiative.
  • For starters, they tell me, progressive education is not only less familiar but also much harder to do, and especially to do well. It asks a lot more of the students and at first can seem a burden to those who have figured out how to play the game in traditional classrooms — often succeeding by conventional standards without doing much real thinking. It’s also much more demanding of teachers, who have to know their subject matter inside and out if they want their students to “make sense of biology or literature” as opposed to “simply memoriz[ing] the frog’s anatomy or the sentence’s structure.”[12]  But progressive teachers also have to know a lot about pedagogy because no amount of content knowledge (say, expertise in science or English) can tell you how to facilitate learning. The belief that anyone who knows enough math can teach it is a corollary of the belief that learning is a process of passive absorption —a view that cognitive science has decisively debunked.
David Hilton

Constructivism - 0 views

carbon.cudenver.edu/...constructivism.html

constructivism education theory pedagogy teaching

shared by David Hilton on 25 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Heath Sawyer on 25 Mar 09
     
    Links, research and readings on constructivism
  • ...1 more comment...
  • David Hilton on 04 May 09
     
    Constructivist theories grew out of the work of a couple of Russians around the time of the Russian Revolution. It is radical subjectivism dressed up as science, and has no scientific credibility whatsoever. It is used by radical educators to push their barrow that nothing the teacher knows is worth the student learning and that all knowledge is innate. It's bullsh*t. Theories like this rot are part of the reason that the bottom has dropped out of Western education and we have a generation who can't write. This should be resisted by any educator with an interest in educational excellence.
  • Ken Stanton on 04 May 09
     
    David, back up your argument. If you think this is junk science, then be a real scientist and substantiate your claim. I'm a very objective thinker and will listen and gladly debate this with you, but having studied this and used it, I'm skeptical of your dissent. It is the only thing that has gotten me through our failed education system, not the reason the system has failed (unless your argument is that our system is failing due to lack of use of constructivist approaches).
  • David Hilton on 13 Jun 09
     
    Constructivism is a prime example of the dangers of deductive reasoning. Instead of starting with evidence from observed reality which the scientific method dictates (inductive reasoning) constructivism starts with theories and then makes the evidence fit the theory or else dismisses it and rationalises it away. It's the same type of thinking that has gotten all ideologues into trouble throughout history, whether it's the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazis, the hippies or the recent Wall Street bankers who drove our economy off a cliff. Any true system of thought must start with the real world as its beginning, or else it's just a bunch of people making stuff up and then defending it despite all evidence to the contrary until the weight of truth destroys them and usually the institutions they've taken over.
Dennis OConnor

The class was what I needed to help me get focused for school! « Random Thoug... - 0 views

maryalicea.wordpress.com/...help-me-get-focused-for-school

uw-stout e-learning online class librarian 21cif

shared by Dennis OConnor on 17 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Learn how to locate authentic digital primary sources in multiple formats to enhance your curriculum. Develop age appropriate learning activities that promote higher level questioning and critical thinking skills while adding excitement to student learning through engaging activities. The course is especially helpful for teachers of AP classes, teachers addressing state and national standards requiring the use of primary sources, and teachers working with National History Day activities. Materials fromTPS Direct, the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources professional development program, will be incorporated in the class.
  • Dennis OConnor on 17 Aug 09
     
    Primary Sources, Where have you been? Why have I never used primary sources? I didn't use them because I didn't know where to find the resources.I never considered all of the possibilities.
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

Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech » Student Involved Assessment - 0 views

ideasandthoughts.org/...student-involved-assessment

shared by tee1962 Reagan on 12 Jul 09 - Cached
  • tee1962 Reagan on 12 Jul 09
     
    Student involved assessment-bowl drill set
tee1962 Reagan

Teachers are key for students who like learning and remain curious - USATODAY.com - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...2009-07-05-hateschool_N.htm

shared by tee1962 Reagan on 06 Jul 09 - No Cached
  • or says, is to "maximize the likelihood that students will get the pleasurable rush that comes from successful thought.
  • So the challenge for a teacher is to find that sweet spot of mental difficulty, and to find it simultaneously for 25 students, each with a different level of preparation.
  • Rather, we remember what we think about, and that can have non-obvious consequences. During frog dissection, are students thinking about anatomy or that they find it gross?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • One way to help ensure that students think of content is to view teaching in terms of a story structure.
  • Good teachers design lessons in which students unavoidably think about the meaning or central point.
  • People differ in their abilities and in their interests, but there is no evidence for differences in learning styles.
  • The secret to getting smarter is really not a big secret: Engage in intellectual activities. Read the newspaper, watch informative documentaries, find well-written books that make intellectual content engaging. Perhaps most important; Watch less television. It's rarely enriching, and it's an enormous time-sink.
Wade Ren

Still Learning: Next Installment on Diigo - 7 views

snobles.blogspot.com/...next-installment-on-diigo.html

diigo-in-education

shared by Wade Ren on 24 Nov 09 - Cached
  • Our work started out well. We read in class a section of Antigone, and that night, they annotated spots where they saw characters developing moral dilemmas (these dilemmas are our entry point into the play -- we will eventually write compare/contrast essays on modern moral dilemmas and what we can learn from ancient dilemmas -- more on that later!). Here is an example of one of their comment threads (with their typos and all!) on this quote from Antigone to Ismene, "Yes, I'll do my duty to my brother -- / and your as well, if you're not prepared to. / I won't be caught betraying him.
  • This is only one example of many where they read each other's ideas and built their own thoughts on them. I was thrilled. We started class the next day just skimming the play -- I asked them to notice who had a moral dilemma so far just by looking at where the annotations were. They could SEE that every character so far had some kind of dilemma. We were on a roll ...
Vicki Davis

apophenia: spectacle at Web2.0 Expo... from my perspective - 11 views

www.zephoria.org/...spectacle_at_we.html

education learning backchannel

shared by Vicki Davis on 30 Nov 09 - Cached
  • about the implications of turning the backchannel into part of the frontchannel
  • I received word from the organizers that I was not going to have my laptop on stage with me.
  • only learned about the Twitter feed shortly before my talk. I didn't know whether or not it was filtered. I also didn't get to see the talks by the previous speakers so I didn't know anything about what was going up on the screen.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • I counted for the time when I could get off stage.
  • Had I known about the Twitter stream, I would've given a more pop-y talk that would've bored anyone who has heard me speak before and provided maybe 3-4 nuggets of information for folks to chew on. It would've been funny and quotable but it wouldn't have been content-wise memorable.
  • But why why why spend thousands of dollars to publicly objectify women just because you can? This is the part that makes me angry.
  • I don't mind being critiqued. I think that being a public figure automatically involves that.
  • Vicki Davis on 30 Nov 09
     
    I blogged on this yesterday, but this is a post to read and share with college level and higher who are following Web 2.0 and specifically the use of backchannels.
Suzie Nestico

David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts » Shifting Attitudes - 1 views

pairadimes.davidtruss.com/shifting-attitudes

David Truss shift education technology all_teachers bestpractices techintegrator professionaldevelopment flatclassroom influence fear collaboration

shared by Suzie Nestico on 31 Mar 11 - Cached
  • To the shifted: You have an obligation to serve others.”
  • The shift is happening now and if we aren’t shifting the learning experience for students then what kind of education are we giving them?”
  • The needs are different, but some of the scaffolding and support we offer one of these groups can also be helpful to the other.
    • Suzie Nestico
      Suzie Nestico on 31 Mar 11
       
      Very important to remember scaffolding.  This can make or break the engagement cycle with students.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • However, I think that as leaders and as change agents, we are constantly adjusting what we will do as we (also) learn and grow.
  • Attitude can also be a reference to orientation relative to the direction of travel.
  • It isn’t the network or the tool that matters, but rather that we create meaningful connections as part of our learning practice.
  • We have an obligation to shift with it, and to help those that have not shifted, or that are shifting;
  • We have an obligation to our students to look ahead and continue our own learning to support them;
  • Suzie Nestico on 31 Mar 11
     
    The "I Can't!, I Can!, I Will!" when it comes to shifting our learning environments and operating in new spaces.  Great graphics that shows where the "the shifted" can support, inspire and motivate others.
Suzie Nestico

Emotional Surplus? «Ideas and Thoughts - 4 views

ideasandthoughts.org/...1285

olweus bullying cyberbullying education high school middle school digitalcitizenship technology

shared by Suzie Nestico on 03 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Suzie Nestico on 03 Apr 11
     
    Dean Shareski talks about the importance of allowing students to use video to express themselves versus just the traditional focus on writing.  Dean shares a powerful video made by a student who is bullied to get his point across.
anonymous

iPads for Learning Getting Started…….Resource booklet for schools - 34 views

www.technologybitsbytesnibbles.info/...4707

ipad

shared by anonymous on 02 May 11 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 02 May 11
     
    Outstanding resource, detailed, thoughtful, not just a collection of links. Like a workbook actually.
Dennis OConnor

Martin Dougiamas Keynote at Moodlemoot Canada | Some Random Thoughts - 7 views

www.somerandomthoughts.com/...s-keynote-at-moodlemoot-canada

keynote martin dougiamas imoot moodle web2.0

shared by Dennis OConnor on 07 May 11 - No Cached
  • Dennis OConnor on 07 May 11
     
    An important overview for any one using Moodle, especially useful for those contemplating an upgrade to 2.0 .  (I'll make the move when we have 2.1 or 2.2.)  
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