Barkles is Twitter for Debates
"Barkles can be used as a way of discussing interesting topics, conducting polls and can even be an interesting tool for getting feedback on your work.
The teacher-centered model that has dominated instruction for centuries is slowly giving way to a learner-centered model with instructors in the roles of facilitators or "guides on the side
The essential quality of learner-centeredness is most relevant when learners are personally challenged with a problem to solve, a project to complete, or a dilemma to resolve.
Learners can practice what experts in their discipline do each day, with facilitators helping them revise and try again.
Facilitators-as-instructors provide informative feedback that offers learners guidance about how they might improve their performance. Both what facilitators say and how they say it has an impact on learners.
This reinforces what we read in earlier articles for this lesson.
If praise is given, facilitators must communicate why performance is positive.
Facilitators must establish peer feedback as an expectation in delineated guidelines posted at the beginning of a course (though those guidelines may be discussed and negotiated by all learners).
they guide a developing sense of community within and between small groups.
suggests learning communities
Encouraging and ensuring a high degree of interactivity and participation is one of the most important facilitation skills according to e-learning experts
-they should guide learners in working together to become more skilled in such collaborative skills as scheduling, project management, time management, consensus building, and leadership.
We can't expect children to find their passion if we don't expose them to as many experiences as possible and let them tinker with ideas and try out different roles?
This means we need to be our own filter--a skill we must teach children.
What about schools that don’t have access---are these students the new illiterate?
are we saying anything new?--- I find that the group of educators that attends Educon tends to be of the same outlook, mindset and viewpoint. Many of the conversations we have had over the weekend are nothing new. How many times can we hash out an idea and say "We should do something about this" before something actually gets done?
what are the new conversations?---what do we really need to be discussing as we move forward into the new year?