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We need to remember that the 'personal' is about emancipation, not about being alone. Learners need to remember that the connections are still needed, they just need to go out and make them, they will not be provided. The side effect to the power granted, is that simply 'doing the work' (read: posting my response to my blog) is not the end of the work. The work needs to be connected to others, learning is still about people.

The Fundación Internacional para la Educación Holista was founded in 1992 by Dr. Ramon Gallegos Nava in Guadalajara, Mexico, aim to spread holistic education in Mexico and all over the world as a response to current crisis from environmental degradation to mecanicist education which has trained human beings with a predatory consciousness. The Fundacion seeks emerge of a new planetary conscousness through a new educational paradigm of wholeness nature, that allows to teach human beings capable to live together in a responsible way in sustainability communities. To overcome predatory consciousness based on greed, materialism, and self-centered, the Fundacion points out what important is to know our truly nature as human beings, the core of holistic education is our genuine spirituality -understanding it in a no dogmatic way, spirituality is our truly nature which lead us to have a sentiment of gratitude for life and reverence for our planet in which we live. Holistic education is a pedagogy of universal love to all beings.

The metaphors of education systems speak volumes about what each system ultimately achieves. Ask any student to compare education or school to something completely different, and you'll likely get a list that looks like this: "School is a prison," "School is hell," "School is a babysitter," or "School is a machine." Sadly, many schools are run quite like this last example-students enter the machine, are shuffled through a number of arbitrary gears, are forcefully bent to fit those gears, move according to bells, and leave the machine knowing they'll be back the next day to repeat the process until they become the desired product of the machine.

Oh my goodness - this is terrible. A florida teen committeed suicide via webcam. This is horrible. Knowing how to report online crime is something we need to be able to do - a sort of e911 for online is what we need.

From Steve Hargadon: "I've started a new community at http://www.FutureofEducation.com to providing an opportunity for those who care about education to share their voices and ideas on charting the course of education in a networked world. It's a place for thoughtful discussion on an incredibly important topic. The site will launch officially at the end of the month with the start of a weekly interview series, but I'm inviting some participation now because of an email Carol Broos (http://www.classroom20.com/profile/beatechie) sent out. Carol is one of twelve teachers who have been invited to participate in a round table discussion concerning the direction of education the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Jan 21. She was sent the following questions, and is asking for feedback and ideas. You can respond either at the new http://www.FutureofEducation.com site or her wiki at http://education20.pbwiki.com/FrontPage. Here are the questions: 1. What is the one most important education issue you wish Secretary Duncan to focus on during his tenure and why? 2. How shall the tenets of the No Child Left Behind act be altered or invigorated? What are its positives? How can its negatives be improved? 3. How should the new administration respond to the nation's need for better prepared and more qualified teachers? 4.What should the new administration do to increase student engagement in mathematics, the sciences and the arts? 5. How should funding equity issues be addressed? There is also a discussion topic on what questions were not asked that might have been." This seems to be a great thing!

This incredible post by Beth Kanter is a must read for anyone in IT or working with web 2.0 and professional development. Understanding the intrisic value of a newcomer is so important for anyone working in these feels. Newcomers have more power now than they could ever imagine. Newcomers, speak out and give your opinion. The power is in your newness and guess what, if you wait till you're an "expert" then you're just like all the other experts out there. Also, it is better to be a newcomer than a latecomer!

The importance of a newcomer

Example of a teacher posterous blog - instead of teaching them how to blog, just let them use their email!

Doug Belshaw is encouraging his teachers to use posterous to communicate to students and parents. Literally, they send an e-mail to posterous and it creates a blog automatically for them. This is an example of a PE teacher. Now this is cool. DON'T teach teachers how to blog - use something they already know, email and just have them email it instead. Now how is that for a great idea!

Tools for blind to move into Second Life

This is a write up from Jacek Antonelli, an artist and Scripter in Second Life, who attended Louise Later's session in Second Life on accesibilities in Second Life. They reviewed two scripts that will help people with limited or no vision enjoy second life without visual feedback! This is so exciting! They need volunteers to help them develop the scripts - everyone working on this project is either blind or has a disability. Now, this is something to get behind. Great job Jacek!

Another group of teachers is forming to talk about flattening the classrooms w/ their students who are under age 11. This discussion is open to anyone who joins in. Feel free to join and discuss here. Grassroots movements to connect such as these are cropping up everywhere in many places, not just here. But this is a model example of how it is happening. These are "teacherpreneurs" in action!

Example of how teachers connect to "flatten" their classrooms.

"It is merely about developing faith that it'll work." "Faith is critical to all innovation." "Faith, as we've seen is the cornerstone that keeps our organizations together. Faith is the cornerstone of our humanity; we can't live without it."

Students talking about trends on the Horizon report are amazing me!

Time for K12 online conference proposals: "We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual "K12 Online Conference" for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities." Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this year and are detailed below. The deadline for proposal submission is June 23, 2008. Selected presentations will be announced at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, USA on July 2.

K12 online 2008 call for proposals.

We're done. Firefox 3 is going to be launched very soon. In anticipation of this long-awaited event, the folks in the Mozilla community have been writing extensively about the new and improved features you'll see in the browser. The new features cover the full range from huge and game-changing to ones so subtle you may not notice them until you realize that using Firefox is just somehow easier and better. The range of improved features is similar - whole back-end systems have been rebuilt from scratch, while other features have been tweaked slightly or redesigned in small ways. Overall the result is the fastest, safest, slimmest, and easiest to use version of Firefox yet. We hope you like it.

The mission of the Concord Consortium is to foster equity and self-realization through improved education. The greatest and most underexploited opportunity for advancing this mission is through educational technologies. We know that students at all ages are capable of learning more, earlier, and at a far deeper level than is currently achieved and we have seen this kind of learning in well-designed schools that have creative teachers and use excellent, computer-based materials. Our goal is to make this the norm.

EduCon 2.1 is both a conversation and a conference. And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas -- from the very practical to the big dreams.

A social network for elementary students.

A social network for first and second graders -- this is free. Cheryl says it is a little bit "clunky" -- access is not so fast, however, it is a growing free tool for very young children.

It is about building capacity! That is where leadership on all levels is needed! It needs to happen across districts, in schools, and even 'one teacher at a time'!

There is a technology war coming. Actually it is already here but most of us haven't yet notice. It is a war not about technology but because of technology, a war over how we as a culture embrace technology. It is a war that threatens venerable institutions and, to a certain extent, threatens what many people think of as their very way of life.

This from my email: "This is Natasha Dantzig for the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference. I'm writing to let you know that organizers of the TED Prize have announced an open challenge in support of author and philanthropist Dave Eggers and his 2008 TED Prize wish to collect 1,000 stories of private citizens engaged in their local public schools. Each year, three individuals are granted the TED Prize, which provides winners with a wish to change the world, $100,000 in seed money, and the support of the TED community in making the wish come true. As an extension of Eggers initial wish, the open challenge asks individuals to design and implement new projects for local public school students. The three winning entries will receive a pass to the sold out TED2009 Conference to be held in Long Beach, California on February 4-7, 2009. " Good luck with sharing. I find it interesting that the projects that are emerging between public and private schools and crossing the lines and boundaries between us (which is what we should be doing) could only be submitted by a public school person and then, may not be considered because it can only be for public school students. In some ways, the writing of the proposal itself is limiting because it doesn't see the vision of what is truly happening in education.

Website for underserved classrooms in the US -- register your classroom.

This is a great program sponsored by Office Max and Jones New York in the Classroom. Make sure that you SIGN UP NOW as a teacher and register. Office Max is having a big awards day October 1st and selection is starting now. If you don't have enough resources, this is a GREAT way to funnel assistance into your classroom. You don't know until you ask, and the best teachers are one's who overcome excuses. US only. So, overcome that excuse and join in the site now!