Middle College National Consortium

The basis for using digital media for learning on campus and off. The introduction to a book.

"But many of the problems we face today are COMPLEX, and methods to solve simple and complicated problems will not work with complex ones. One of the ways we addressed simple & complicated problems was through training. Training works well when you have clear and measurable objectives. However, there are no clear objectives with complex problems. Learning as we probe the problem, we gain insight and our practices are emergent (emerging from our interaction with the changing environment and the problem). Training looks backwards, at what worked in the past (good & best practices), and creates a controlled environment to develop knowledge and skills."

A free resource that delves into Google's lesster known search tools. Google Books, Google Scholar, Google News. How to access Google Books advanced search.

Very interesting stats on education--check out Education 2.0, how technology enhanced learning, etc. Socrato! website

Website from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. "...the social organization of the research enterprise is badly broken and a very different alternative is needed. " Part of a series on "networked improvement community" that "creates the purposeful collective action needed to solve complex educational problems."

Constructing a Discourse of Inquiry: Findings from a Five-year Ethnography at One Elementary School research article by Louise Jennings and Heidi Mills, 2009. Very interesting study for what they are studying and where they are studying it--SC! Resembles our SLI work; need to read the study in full.

Article by Amy Cavender on issues and gains from using eportfolios with college students. Mentions several eportfolio possibilities in article and in comments, such as Google Sites, Mahara, Yola, Weebly, or WordPress.

drawing online applications

provocative article, March 10, 2011, about asking one question about your work: You know you've really done your job when [what happens]?

""Describe your preparation for and participation during discussion: note-taking, responding to e-mailed discussion questions and prompts, office hours, addressing or raising questions during discussion. How would you like your own participation to change, develop, or continue?"" I encounter a version of this "you didn't inform us" from students and teachers who can't find items in the top two topic blocks of their community. I don't know how to redesign the community to achieve more clarity. Maybe the answer lies in having "open office hours online" to offer digestible (i.e., not too long) explicit orientations to the community.

Intriguing use of drawing to understand what one reads.

"The relationship between innovation and learning is about finding a relationship between what is familiar and what is strange. Creativity and imagination are both maps that allow us to do that. Imagination is a quality we all have, and it is an unlimited resource. The goal of education, training, and innovation spaces is to create and structure an environment where imagination can flourish. Those environments need to possess three qualities: A Space to Ask "What If" In order for imagination to flourish, there must be an opportunity to see things as other than they currently are or appear to be. This begins with a simple question: What if? It is a process of introducing something strange and perhaps even demonstrably untrue into our current situation or perspective. The imagination has to reconcile what is imagined within the boundaries of what is actual and therefore must understand how the world would have to change in order to make what is imagined a reality. Tools and Technique to Re-Imagine Context The work of imagination only has a payoff if it can be put into practice. That means that the context needs to be shaped and articulated in a meaningful way. In the 21st century we are surrounded by tools that allow us to reshape and re-imagine context all the time. From social network sites, to video and music distribution, to web design and production, we are surrounded by opportunities not just to create new content, but literally to transform the context in which that content has meaning. A Network of Imagination Imagination can only flourish when there is a networked collection of people to share that imaginative vision, embellish it, and develop it. What we have elsewhere called "networks of imagination" are shared tools of communication and in some cases co-presence that allow groups of people to construct those imagined realities in practical and concrete ways. Today's networked technology is more than just a conduit to communicate info

The following excerpt says so much to me..."goal state is initially only partially described" (every time!); the need to "scaffold the work of leaders" while "making a more improvisational style of collaboration possible". These phrases express truth and performance goals for me. "Her research on leadership in creative collaboration online explores how people can collaborate across distance on projects where the goal state is initially only partially described. Amy and her students are creating tools both to support existing creative collaborative practice by scaffolding the work of leaders, and also to try to transform that practice by making a more improvisational style of collaboration possible."

Teaching concise writing

Microsoft education site for Digital Storytelling inthe Classroom PDF

Action Research tips for college bound teens to work together on a project, specifically that challenging phase when team members don't yet know what they want to work on.

Excellent description of what we tried to start with first year of IL-SLI--now I know we are onto something!

I love this video--it gives me the terminology to explain this new age learning approach to IL teachers--orient, declare, network, cluster, focus--for the long trip and shorter side-trips.

short video (<2 minutes) on how knowledge is created in a MOOC. How does the MOOC approach resemble/depart from existing IL-SLI design? How should it affect what we try to do this year in IL-SLI for IL teachers? For IL students? Does the MOOC label help or hurt explaining IL-SLI intent and set-up?

W.R. Drexler video (5 minutes) on 21st century students--3 days a week in class, two days online. Teacher is a facilitator of students building their personal learning network to learn and assess information, gather ideas, organize them, make meaning of them, and share with others.