Middle College National Consortium

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.

Microsoft education site for Digital Storytelling inthe Classroom PDF

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.

"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."

Experiments in Technology and Pedagogy

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

"I'm teaching a writing class this summer, and I recently stumbled upon an effective method for encouraging students to discuss each others' drafts. It involves their thumbs. Allow me to explain . . ."

"Corporations use TWO process form, BOTH missing entirely from dowdy lazy sloppy dishonest (Harvard) universities; a) process weaves----emediated process flows PUNCTUATED with mass workshop EVENTS b) pulsed systems---rhythms of engagement with disengagement, sameness with difference, local with global---so that mere addition of connectedness is not allowed to destroy all creativity. "

Great presentation on how to use Adobe Connect for synchronous learning by K-8 students and Encarde, a way to communicate with students and parents and keep them responding to deadlines on projects without using email, that most people read late or not at all. This virtual model could also work for SLI.

Blog on high school economics and 4th grade collaboration on Lawn Boy book that focuses on economic principles that guide a young boy's lawn mowing practice into a money maker. I like that because it takes sophisticated principles and presents them within an interesting story that grabs 4th graders and high school students. Then through a collaboration online between the two age groups, they discuss the book together through a series of Skype interviews/interactions.

"Unlike most traditional academic conferences, sessions at an unconference don't consist of one or three or five people delivering papers to an audience. Instead, they might feature project demonstrations, discussions, creative work sessions, or other formats that build on the knowledge and expertise of whoever attends. For the Texas THATCamp (and I think this is fairly typical at others), participants posted session ideas beforehand on the website, followed by a 45-minute scheduling process as THATCamp began. Topic headings generated by those initial session ideas were posted on the walls of a large meeting room, and participants circulated through the space to meet up with others interested in similar topics. After some productive chaos (which admittedly tested my structure- and schedule-loving personality a bit) the group developed a schedule of sessions that represented not only a variety of interests but also the desire to cluster certain topics into tracks. Like any conference, I frequently wanted to be in two places at once - which I see as one marker of the event's success."

Very interesting experiment by Packard Foundation to create a '"see through"filing cabinet' wiki open to the world. What would be the benefit to a class or school or educational nonprofit doing something like this?

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."

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

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.

Teaching concise writing

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."

"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

Intriguing use of drawing to understand what one reads.