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“When the Water Ends,” a 16-minute video produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, tells the story of this conflict and of the increasingly dire drought conditions facing parts of East Africa. To report this video, Evan Abramson, a 32-year-old photographer and videographer, spent two months in the region early this year, living among the herding communities. He returned with a tale that many climate scientists say will be increasingly common in the 21st century and beyond — how worsening drought in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere will pit group against group, nation against nation. As one UN official told Abramson, the clashes between Kenyan and Ethiopian pastoralists represent “some of the world’s first climate-change conflicts.”

But the story recounted in “When the Water Ends” is not only about climate change. It’s also about how deforestation and land degradation — due in large part to population pressures — are exacting a toll on impoverished farmers and nomads as the earth grows ever more barren.

The video focuses on four groups of pastoralists — the Turkana of Kenya and the Dassanech, Nyangatom, and Mursi of Ethiopia — who are among the more than two dozen tribes whose lives and culture depend on the waters of the Omo River and the body of water into which it flows, Lake Turkana.

Posted on 03/05/2011 10:17 am by Simon Davidson Project overview The current project of the inquirers.org team is a research project on the traits of successful people, and how they relate to their educational experience and learning from life outside schools and colleges. The research question is What are the traits of successful people? - What are the underlying common traits that lead to success? - Are they different in different fields/cultures - How do they link to curriculum outcomes and other effects of education? This will be developed into a book and proposals for educational reform. The main authors are Simon Davidson and Lindsey Ferrie.

We used a method that I call "collaboration by difference." Collaboration by difference is an antidote to attention blindness. It signifies that the complex and interconnected problems of our time cannot be solved by anyone alone, and that those who think they can act in an entirely focused, solitary fashion are undoubtedly missing the main point that is right there in front of them, thumping its chest and staring them in the face. Collaboration by difference respects and rewards different forms and levels of expertise, perspective, culture, age, ability, and insight, treating difference not as a deficit but as a point of distinction. It always seems more cumbersome in the short run to seek out divergent and even quirky opinions, but it turns out to be efficient in the end and necessary for success if one seeks an outcome that is unexpected and sustainable. That's what I was aiming for.

had the students each contribute a new entry or amend an existing entry on Wikipedia, or find another public forum where they could contribute to public discourse. There was still a lot of criticism about the lack of peer review in Wikipedia entries, and some professors were banning Wikipedia use in the classroom. I didn't understand that. Wikipedia is an educator's fantasy, all the world's knowledge shared voluntarily and free in a format theoretically available to all, and which anyone can edit. Instead of banning it, I challenged my students to use their knowledge to make Wikipedia better. All conceded that it had turned out to be much harder to get their work to "stick" on Wikipedia than it was to write a traditional term paper.

Purposeful reflection is a critical attribute for innovative lesson planning, for meaningful interaction with adults, for increasing student achievement, for effective supervision and evaluation, for good curriculum design, and for assessment with understanding

A reflective school culture, Prolman remarked, makes the "thought muscles" stronger for both teachers and students and is directly related to higher achievement.

Absolutely. When we think about writing at the National Writing Project, we think about multimodal composition: words, audio, video, graphic texts, etc. That said, no one is abandoning words. We’re just acknowledging that today your ability to create and publish, say, a video affords opportunities for expression that go beyond just words.

Yes, absolutely. Whether in email, texts, or posting status updates, most people in the world are probably writing and publishing more words, images, video and audio now than ever before. Facebook is one of the biggest publishing platforms in the world. It’s word dependent, but it also includes audio and video—and creating audio and video are deeply compositional. The question is how can we take advantage of the fact that so many people are now creating and circulating content to improve teaching and learning.

Going public and writing for an audience is something we always cared about. Maybe the real shift is that now it’s easier and more expansive.

among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas

And topping the list: emotional safety. No bullying. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes. They must know they are being heard

among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas

And topping the list: emotional safety. No bullying. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes. They must know they are being heard