learning - Will Richardson on Diigo

20 Aug 09

apophenia: some thoughts on technophilia

There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it. They don't. Most of you have a better sense of how to get information from Google than the average youth. Most of you know how to navigate privacy settings of a social media tool better than the average teen. Understanding technology requires learning. Sure, there are countless youth engaged in informal learning every day when they go online. But what about all of the youth who lack access? Or who live in a community where learning how to use technology is not valued? Or who tries to engage alone? There's an ever-increasing participation gap emerging between the haves and the have-nots. What distinguishes the groups is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration. Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage.

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mustread09 shifts learning network_literacy

There are also no such things as "digital natives." Just because many of today's youth are growing up in a society dripping with technology does not mean that they inherently know how to use it. They don't. Most of you have a better sense of how to get information from Google than the average youth. Most of you know how to navigate privacy settings of a social media tool better than the average teen. Understanding technology requires learning. Sure, there are countless youth engaged in informal learning every day when they go online. But what about all of the youth who lack access? Or who live in a community where learning how to use technology is not valued? Or who tries to engage alone? There's an ever-increasing participation gap emerging between the haves and the have-nots. What distinguishes the groups is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration. Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage.

17 Aug 09

Art Education 2.0 - Using New Technology in Art Classrooms

The aim of Art Education 2.0 is to explore ways of using Web 2.0 and other digital technologies to advance best teaching practices, promote professional discourse and collaboration, encourage cultural exchanges, facilitate joint creative work, and support artistic projects, curricular activities, and professional development opportunities deemed important by our members. To join our global community, sign up for a free Ning account by filling out the profile information and uploading a profile picture. Once your registration has been approved, you can participate in forums, groups, blogging, photo and video sharing, and RSS. We welcome newbies as well as experienced technology users.

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art learning ning 4thedition

14 Jul 09

Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age | HASTAC

Young people today are learning in new ways that are both collective and egalitarian.
They are contributing to Wikipedia, commenting on blogs, teaching themselves programming and figuring out work-arounds to online video games. They follow links embedded in articles to build a deeper understanding. They comment on papers and ideas in an interactive and immediate exchange ofideas. All these acts are collaborative and democratic, and all occur amid a worldwide community of voices.

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learning shifts pres_ideas quoteable

Young people today are learning in new ways that are both collective and egalitarian.
They are contributing to Wikipedia, commenting on blogs, teaching themselves programming and figuring out work-arounds to online video games. They follow links embedded in articles to build a deeper understanding. They comment on papers and ideas in an interactive and immediate exchange ofideas. All these acts are collaborative and democratic, and all occur amid a worldwide community of voices.
Today’s learning is interactive and without walls.
10 more annotations...
- Self-learning:
- Horizontal structures:
- From presumed authority to collective credibility:
- A de-centered pedagogy:
- Networked learning:
- Open source education:
- Learning as connectivity and interactivity:
- Lifelong learning:
- Learning institutions as mobilizing networks:
- Flexible scalability and simulation:

04 Jun 09

The Impending Demise of the University

Universities are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge sweeney both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.

Meanwhile on campus, there is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there is a widening gap between the model of learning offered by many big universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up digital best learn.

www.edge.org/...edge288.html - Preview

higher_ed shifts learning pedagogy

Universities
are finally losing their monopoly on higher learning, as the web inexorably
becomes the dominant infrastructure for knowledge sweeney both as a container
and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people.

Meanwhile
on campus, there is fundamental challenge to the foundational modus operandi of the University — the model of pedagogy. Specifically, there
is a widening gap between the model of learning offered by many big
universities and the natural way that young people who have grown up
digital best learn.
- I really hate blanket statements like this though I think it is true for some schools. - on 2009-06-04
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The old-style
lecture, with the professor standing at the podium in front of a large
group of students, is still a fixture of university life on many campuses.
It's a model that is teacher-focused, one-way, one-size-fits-all and
the student is isolated in the learning process. Yet the students,
who have grown up in an interactive digital world, learn differently.
Schooled on Google and Wikipedia, they want to inquire, not rely on
the professor for a detailed roadmap. They want an animated conversation,
not a lecture. They want an interactive education, not a broadcast
one that might have been perfectly fine for the Industrial Age, or
even for boomers. These students are making new demands of universities,
and if the universities try to ignore them, they will do so at their
peril.
- Nothing really new here, is there? - on 2009-06-04
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- a deep debate on how universities function
  in a networked society.
  - We all need to be more open to this debate or conversation, even in K-12. - on 2009-06-04
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- "Broadcast learning"
  as I've called it is no longer appropriate for the digital age and for
  a new generation of students who represent the future of learning.
  - Again, nothing new here. - on 2009-06-04
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- If someone frozen 300 years ago miraculously came
  alive today and looked at the professions — a physician in an operating
  theater, a pilot in a jumbo cockpit, a engineer designing an automobile
  in a CAD system — they would surely marvel at how technologies had
  transformed the knowledge work. But if they walked into a university
  lecture hall, they would no doubt be comforted that some things have
  not changed.
  - Ugh. You're kidding me right? We can't come up with something original? - on 2009-06-04
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- My research
  suggests these critics are wrong. Growing up digital has changed the
  way their minds work in a manner that will help them handle the challenges
  of the digital age. They're used to multi-tasking, and have learned
  to handle the information overload. They expect a two-way conversation.
  What's more, growing up digital has encouraged this generation to be
  active and demanding enquirers. Rather than waiting for a trusted professor
  to tell them what's going on, they find out on their own on everything
  from Google to Wikipedia.
  - This is where he really riles me. Most of this is fiction. And I wish he would use the correct adverb. Sheesh. - on 2009-06-04
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- The professors
  who remain relevant will have to abandon the traditional lecture, and
  start listening and conversing with the students — shifting from a
  broadcast style and adopting an interactive one. Second, they should
  encourage students to discover for themselves, and learn a process
  of discovery and critical thinking instead of just memorizing the professor's
  store of information. Third, they need to encourage students to collaborate
  among themselves and with others outside the university. Finally, they
  need to tailor the style of education to their students' individual
  learning styles.
  - Again, anything new here? - on 2009-06-04
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- Smart but impatient, they like to collaborate and they reject
  one-way lectures, he notes.
  - Didn't he just say that one way lectures online was a threat? - on 2009-06-04
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- One strategy being used in this program is called just-in-time teaching;
  it is a teaching and learning strategy that combines the benefits of
  Web-based assignments and an active-learner classroom where courses are
  customized to the particular needs of the class. Warm-up questions, written
  by the students, are typically due a few hours before class, giving the
  teacher an opportunity to adjust the lesson "just in time," so
  that classroom time can be focused on the parts of the assignments that
  students struggled with. Harvard professor Eric Mazur, who uses this
  approach in his physics class, puts it this way:
  "Education is so much more than the mere transfer of information.
  The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information
  to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply
  the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar
  situations.
  - Better, but still not original thinking here. - on 2009-06-04
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- Universities should be places to learn, not to teach.
  - Der - on 2009-06-04
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- Yet the individual learning model is foreign territory for most Net Geners,
  who have grown up collaborating, sharing, and creating together online.
  - This is what he wants us to believe, but for the vast majority of kids, they haven't been doing much of this at all. - on 2009-06-04
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- Created by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology
  at Kansas State University, it is a stinging indictment of the education
  delivered by standard large-scale American university.
  - Oddly, this was the one video of Wesch's that I really didn't like. - on 2009-06-04
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- Anyone in the world can watch the entire series of lectures for some
  30 courses, such as Walter Lewin's ever-popular introductory physics
  course, which gets viewed by over 40,000 people a month on OpenCourseWear,
  MIT's version of intellectual philanthropy. Universities worldwide have
  joined the movement.
  - But why would they if they couldn't connect and collaborate and co-create etc? Or are we just expecting them to figure that out? - on 2009-06-04
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- But a credential and even the prestige of a university is rooted in
  its effectiveness as a learning institution. If these institutions
  are shown to be inferior learning environments to other alternatives
  their capacity to credential will surely diminish.
  - I do wonder about this. How will credentialing change in a transparent world? - on 2009-06-04
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- The university campus has been "a wonderful place for young people
  to go for four years to get older", as Princeton sociologist Marvin
  Dressler told me a decade ago. "While they're there they're bound
  to learn something" he said.
  - Nice quote - on 2009-06-04
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- The video lectures allow students to absorb the course content
  online — whenever it's convenient — and then get together to tinker,
  invent new things, or discuss the material.
  - Would love to know how much this happens absent the physical space. - on 2009-06-04
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- Why should a university student be restricted
  to learning from the professors at the university he or she is attending.
  - Great question, and this holds true for high schools to some extent as well. - on 2009-06-04
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- "We're more like health care. We're challenged by obstructive, non-market-based
  business models. We're also burdened by a sense that doctor knows best,
  or professor knows best."
  - That's a stretch though, too. - on 2009-06-04
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- The digital world, which has trained young minds to inquire and collaborate,
  - I really wish he would stop saying this. - on 2009-06-04
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- And sparks are flying today. There is a huge generational clash
  emerging in these institutions. It turns out that the critique of the
  university from years ago were ideas in waiting — waiting for the new
  web and a new generation of digital natives who could effectively challenge
  the old model.
  - This I agree with. - on 2009-06-04
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12 May 09

2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning

A Radically Different World

If you think our future will require better schools, you're wrong.

The future of education calls for entirely new kinds of learning environments.

If you think we will need better teachers, you're wrong.

Tomorrow’s learners will need guides who take on fundamentally different roles.

As every dimension of our world evolves so rapidly, the education challenges of tomorrow will require solutions that go far beyond today’s answers.

www.futureofed.org - Preview

learning shifts 3rdedition parent_book network_literacy

06 May 09

Complexity and Humanity - Freesouls

The challenge of the near future is to build systems that will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid the worst of what human beings are capable of, and elicit what is best.

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quoteable yochai_benkler learning schools 3rdedition

The challenge of the near future is to build systems that will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid the worst of what human beings are capable of, and elicit what is best.

05 May 09

RSA Lectures - Stephen Heppell - Learning 2016 | Teachers TV

"This isn't the time to use technology to refine the model we had before; this is a time to harness technology to let children go as far and as fast as they want."

"How do we take public service global?"

"Learning is turning global with a vengance."

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learning quoteable stephen_heppell 3rdedition

Students as 'Free Agent Learners' : April 2009 : THE Journal

What this year's survey found was that "there continues to be a digital disconnect, shall we say, between the way students are learning and living outside of school and the way they're interacting with technology inside of school," said Evans. "In fact, students tell us that they have to power down to go to school, and then, at the end of the school day, they power back up again--a real disconnect in the way students are viewing technology from the adults in their educational lives."

For one, students see significant obstacles to using technology in schools. They reported that school networks block sites that they need to access, that teachers specifically limit their use of technology, and that there are "too many rules," preventing students from using their own devices, accessing their communications tools, and even limiting their use of the technologies that the school provides.

For another, teachers and students do not view the value of various technologies in the same ways. Students place a much higher value on technology than teachers, according to the research, and do not agree on which technologies would have the greatest impact on learning.

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3rdedition digitaldivide education schools learning students

What this year's survey found was that "there continues to be a digital disconnect, shall we say, between the way students are learning and living outside of school and the way they're interacting with technology inside of school," said Evans. "In fact, students tell us that they have to power down to go to school, and then, at the end of the school day, they power back up again--a real disconnect in the way students are viewing technology from the adults in their educational lives."
For one, students see significant obstacles to using technology in schools. They reported that school networks block sites that they need to access, that teachers specifically limit their use of technology, and that there are "too many rules," preventing students from using their own devices, accessing their communications tools, and even limiting their use of the technologies that the school provides.

For another, teachers and students do not view the value of various technologies in the same ways. Students place a much higher value on technology than teachers, according to the research, and do not agree on which technologies would have the greatest impact on learning.
- Obviously, students don't know what's good for them. ;0) - on 2009-05-05
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- More than twice as many students as teachers chose online classes; more than twice as many students as teachers chose gaming; nearly three times as many students chose Internet access; and three times as many students chose mobile devices.
  - Interesting. Wonder, as always, whether this is a lack of use by adults or lack of pedagogical context. - on 2009-05-05
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- But that's much higher than parents, only 32 percent of whom said they thought their schools were doing a good job of preparing schools. Thirty-nine percent of students said they thought their schools were preparing them well for the future. This figure dropped to less than 25 percent among students who identified themselves as advanced technology users.
  - Interesting to see the level of parent support. - on 2009-05-05
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- According to research, the "big four" activities are gaming, downloading music, communications activities (such as text, IM,and e-mail), and social networking.
- And the No. 1 usage of students' personal Web sites/social networking sites is communications.
- And 19 percent of middle school and high school students are using collaborative writing tools, such as Google Docs.
  - ARe they doing that on their own or for school? - on 2009-05-05
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14 Apr 09

The Edurati Review: Emerging Trend: Collaborative Curve

However, the emerging nature of this trend relates to the utilization of a new technology -- interactive media. By 'meeting' at digital gathering points, the expertise of like minded enthusiasts, even across vast distances, accelerates the growth of ideas, knowledge, and ultimately innovation far beyond what was feasible with traditional trade publications, snail mail, or conference calls.

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shifts pres_ideas networks learning

However, the emerging nature of this trend relates to the utilization of a new technology -- interactive media. By 'meeting' at digital gathering points, the expertise of like minded enthusiasts, even across vast distances, accelerates the growth of ideas, knowledge, and ultimately innovation far beyond what was feasible with traditional trade publications, snail mail, or conference calls.
- This speaks to that network literacy idea, that adapting to the speed of all of this is outside anything we've dealt with or prepared our kids for before. Expertise and mastery on steroids when everyone is learning. And that is the difference in these networks; the passion based learning that occurs speeds up the effects for each of the nodes. - on 2009-04-14
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In the past, proximity has played a key role in meaningful collaboration. With the advent of Web 2.0 that obstacle has been effectively flattened, or at least lessened.
- Ulises Mejas: Nearness and farness are no longer physical measurements. - on 2009-04-14
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- Through our use of networking as professionals in the field of education (such as through the emerging on-line communities on twitter, wikis, skype, podcasts, blogs, etc) as well as efforts in our schools (through intentional practices such as PLC), we stand to exponentially improve the art and science of our pedagogical practices.
- By learning to utilize collaborative communities to their fullest potential, we can better implement tools that enable students to take advantage of these opportunities for their own growth. The benefits of this are two-fold. One, they have access to a broad range of content, yet depth in whatever topic they focus on. Two, If we can provide more opportunities for students to learn strategies for utilizing collaborative communities, we equip them with skills that will help them not only learn and understand more, but to apply that content in new and innovative ways.
  - Um, yeah. And continually learn. These are BIG ideas. - on 2009-04-14
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Introducing the Collaboration Curve - The Big Shift - HarvardBusiness.org

The evidence for the collaboration curve is, as yet, mostly anecdotal. But these curves may explain the rise of network-centric efforts ranging from open source software development to "crowdsourcing" to "networks of creation." In nearly all of these group efforts, rapid leaps in performance improvement arise as participants get better faster by working with others. These leaps in performance describe the shape and power of the collaboration curve, a new force in our professional and personal lives that turns the experience curve on its side, and explains why the whole of us, working, playing, and, learning together, can often be greater than the sum of our parts.

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learning collaboration network_literacy john_seely_brown

What happens, for instance, as you add more participants to a carefully-designed environment? The online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) provides an intriguing example. More than 11.5 million people around the world now play World of Warcraft. Performance in the game is measured by experience points, which are awarded to players as they successfully address progressively more difficult challenges. It takes roughly 150 hours of accumulated game play to earn the first 2 million experience points but players on average are able to earn another 8 million experience points in the next 150 hours of accumulated game play. Even though, within the game, experience points become more difficult to acquire as you advance, World of Warcraft players are improving their performance four times faster as they continue to play the game.

How? Most improve their performance by leveraging a broad set of discussion forums, wikis, databases, and instructional videos that exist outside the game. Here the players share experiences, tell stories, celebrate (and analyze) prodigious in-game achievements, and explore innovative approaches to addressing the challenges at hand. This "knowledge economy" is impressively wide and deep: in the US alone, the official forums hosted by Blizzard Entertainment contain tens of millions of postings in hundreds of forums. And those are just the forums hosted by Blizzard. Independent forums are proliferating at an even faster rate.
- What's interesting here is the self-directed passion-based learning that takes place in the context of learning the game. There are few teachers, many learners. - on 2009-04-14
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The evidence for the collaboration curve is, as yet, mostly anecdotal. But these curves may explain the rise of network-centric efforts ranging from open source software development to "crowdsourcing" to "networks of creation." In nearly all of these group efforts, rapid leaps in performance improvement arise as participants get better faster by working with others. These leaps in performance describe the shape and power of the collaboration curve, a new force in our professional and personal lives that turns the experience curve on its side, and explains why the whole of us, working, playing, and, learning together, can often be greater than the sum of our parts.
- "The whole of us, working, playing and learning together, can often be greater than the sum of our parts." Love that quote. - on 2009-04-14
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04 Mar 09

Thanks for the Add. Now Help Me with My Homework - News Features & Releases

"We read a lot in the media about how young people are using social networking sites with harmful results," agrees Christine Greenhow, Ed.D.'06, a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota who has done a new study looking into how students really use them. "The question is, can we harness this interest and passion in their online lives for educational purposes?" In research stemming from her doctoral thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Greenhow not only found an increasing awareness by Sommers and other students of the potential of these sites to express their creativity and explore their interests, but also the potential to complement lessons in more formal educational settings -- if teachers can just figure out how to use them.

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parent_book facebook classroom learning

As national magazines and newspapers debate what it means to be literate in a computer age in which students butcher language in text messages and open books less and less outside the classroom, Greenhow has found a virtual creative writing boom among students spending long hours writing stories and poetry to paste on their blogs for feedback from friends, or creating videos on social issues to bring awareness to a cause. Far from media stories about cyber bullying, meanwhile, she found that most students use the medium to reach out to their peers for emotional support and as a way to develop self-esteem. One student created a video of his intramural soccer team to entice his friends to come to his games. Another created an online radio show to express his opinions, then used Facebook to promote a URL where friends could stream it live, and then used one of Facebook's add-in applications to create a fan site for the show.
The kind of skills students are developing on social networking sites, says Greenhow, are the very same 21st century skills that educators have identified as important for the next generation of knowledge workers -- empathy, appreciation for diversity of viewpoints, and an ability to multitask and collaborate with peers on complex projects. In fact, despite cautionary tales of employers trolling social networking sites to find inappropriate Halloween pictures or drug slang laced in discussion forums, many employers are increasingly using these sites as a way to find talent. A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers cited this spring in The New York Times found that more than half of employers now use SNSs to network with job candidates. The website CareerBuilder.com even added an application to allow employers to search Facebook for candidates. "Savvy users say the sites can be effective tools for promoting one's job skills and all-around business networking," says the Times.
9 more annotations...
- Greenhow found that the teachers who were most effective in integrating the Internet into the classroom were those who subscribed to constructivism -- the theory that effective teaching allows students to construct new ideas from the expertise they already have.
  What was more surprising to her, however, is how few teachers were using the Internet at all -- and even fewer were aware of, much less using, social networking sites, despite their heavy usage by students. "It is the kids who are leading the way on this," she says. "They are forming networks with people they meet every day as well as people they have barely met. If we can't understand what kids are doing and integrate these tools into a classroom, what kind of message are we sending them? I think we'll see an even bigger disconnect than already exists."
- For Greenhow, part of that dedication comes from the potential of social networking sites to increase opportunities to students who come from lower-income or immigrant backgrounds. "If you come from a family of college-educated parents, you have a lot of people you can turn to help you make decisions. If you don't have that, if you just came to this country and are bright and hardworking, this can level the playing field." As her study has shown, the so-called "digital divide" that has separated higher and lower-income students, has narrowed, with nearly all students now able to access the Internet (even though they may not all be able to access the Internet for the same amount of time).
- Even so, with the exceptions like Theresa Sommers, few students were actually using these sites for the purpose they were ostensibly created for -- namely, networking with strangers in their intended college or career field. "The networking aspects weren't even on their radars," says Greenhow, who argues for a role in educators and guidance counselors in nudging students to take advantage of these opportunities. "Kids are conceiving of reaching out to others outside of school, they are getting there. What teachers can bring from their mindset is the added value of networking."
- If that is going to be possible, however, first teachers must learn from the students' mindsets -- that is, rolling up their sleeves and creating Facebook profile themselves.
- Already, there is some indication this is happening with the next generation of teachers. In a recent survey of one of his graduate classes, Blatt found that 100 percent of these future educators were enrolled on Facebook -- and 30 percent of them even checked their profile more than once a day.
- A more likely use of SNSs within the educational context, however, is to use them as supplements to the formal in-class learning, building upon the spontaneous sharing that students are already doing. "I can imagine teachers saying, 'I know a lot of you are on Facebook; I'd love to encourage you to share your draft work with friends, do whatever revisions are warranted, and then post your first draft on the class website,'" says Wiske. "That would be a design that took advantage of some affordances and patterns of behavior Christine is noticing without trying to commandeer these social networks as a location for structured class work."
- Harvard just produced a Facebook application called H-Link that allows users to find students online who are taking the same courses, so they can network and form study groups.
- Perhaps even more important than the impact of social networking on the classroom, however is the impact that the classroom can have on social networking, by teaching students how to be responsible "digital citizens" online. At their most basic level, these sites can be launching points to discussions on Internet ethics. "If we want kids to be digital citizens, we must model that behavior for them," says Greenhow. As it stands now, however, most schools do the exact opposite, actively discouraging student use of social networking sites by blocking them on school computers -- sending the message that they are dangerous or inappropriate. As Wiske says, "A lot of people can do a lot of damage driving cars, but we shouldn't tell kids not to drive cars."
- If teachers are going to successfully build those connections, Greenhow suggests, they must take a page from social networking sites themselves and allow student to take an active part in the discussion. "The more we understand about what motivates and engages youth to use these technologies in their everyday lives," she says, "the more we will be able to build on what they are learning in school, so they are developing the 21st century competencies that we value, and colearning or coconstructing their own educational experience."

20 Feb 09

'iTunes university' better than the real thing - science-in-society - 18 February 2009 - New Scientist

To find out how much students really can learn from podcast lectures alone - mimicking a missed class - McKinney's team presented 64 students with a single lecture on visual perception, from an introductory psychology course.

Half of the students attended the class in person and received a printout of the slides from the lecture. The other 32 downloaded a podcast that included audio from the same lecture synchronised with video of the slides. These students also received a printed handout of the material.

Students who downloaded the podcast averaged a C (71 out of 100) on the test - substantially better than those who attended the lecture, who on average mustered only a D (62).

www.newscientist.com/...etter-than-the-real-thing.html - Preview

itunes higher_ed parent_book learning

13 Feb 09

Hacking Education

www.avc.com/...hacking-educati.html - Preview

education change learning teaching parent_book

One of the problems with the traditional school model of education is that the teachers are so uneven. My kids have amazing teachers who inspire them and push them to go beyond their perceived limits. I am so thankful for them. But they also have lazy teachers who bore them to death. We've all experienced this problem. I even had it at MIT and Wharton, two of the top schools in this country. We need some way for the kids and their parents to take control of who educates them.
The existing large institutions in the world of education are the public and private schools, the colleges and universities, the testing institutions that inform them, and the unions and political system that support them. I want to help take all of them down and build something better in its place. I am not a fan of home schooling, but I understand it's appeal. I do not think I can teach my kids better than others. But I do think my kids and my wife and I need more choice of who educates them.
- Parents do need to be more empowered in this process. - on 2009-02-13
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- We will use a "revolution of the ants" to take down our education institutions and replace them with something better. We all have to start participating and engaging in educating each other. I try to do this at times on this blog. If I know something about how to calculate a burn rate, read a term sheet, or manage a portfolio in a down market, I write about it on this blog. In turn, someone reads it and education happens. Ideally, all of this content, and the content being created by my colleagues in the venture capital business will get indexed, rated, and made available in something akin to a curriculum on venture capital. It will be peer produced, open sourced, and it will be better than any class in any MBA school in the country.
  - Revolution of the ants as parental push for change. Interesting metaphor. - on 2009-02-13
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- These amazing teachers are superstars who should be available online, via web video, to millions of people. They should not be stuck in a lecture hall teaching less than a hundred kids at a time.
- We need a learning-centric educational system, not a teaching-centric one. The idea of "scaling up" superstar teachers to have one-way communication with more students presupposes that the problem is not enough students getting superstar teachers.
  - This is an excellent point, but I wonder if they are mutually exclusive. Superstar teachers are most likely superstar learners. - on 2009-02-13
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- The way that the education system will improve is by working to customize the experience to the individual, and teaching the individuals how to customize on the fly! "Power to the people" is exactly right. The power is the ability to chose and the ability to know how to chose. Without the latter the former is worthless. (What good is the right to vote if you don't have the ability or freedom to study the issues and the candidates?)

08 Jan 09

Where Is the New Learning? | EDUCAUSE

We are supporting lots of computers and many tools for individual expression and information gathering. We are extending infrastructures to support the newest digital technologies that are introduced by industry. However, at the core, we are not focused o

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Teaching and Learning Unleashed with Web 2.0 and Open Educational Resources | EDUCAUSE

Gwyn’s story illustrates how Web 2.0 and OER are creating an abundance of resources and emergent structures that enable a rich environment to support individual, personalized learning:
* an environment organized by the learner to define and achieve th

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20 Dec 08

New structures of learning: The systemic impact of connective knowledge, connectivism, and networked learning

Since Illich's 1970 vision of learning webs, society has moved progressively closer to a networked world where content and conversations are continually at our finger tips and instruction and learning are not centered on the educator. The last decade of t

elearnspace.org/...systemic_impact.htm - Preview

network_literacy learning george_siemens

15 Dec 08

Final Projects

By the time a student reaches his or her senior year at COA, he or she has experienced a new way of learning, and has been exposed to a wide variety of subject areas. At its core, a COA education draws on the recognition and examination of the connections

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Creating Personal Networks as Learning Outcome | Virtual Canuck

By letting learning emerge from rich inquiry, collaboration and publication tools, learners are able to play active roles in the creation and sustenance of their own learning contexts. These skills, the contexts and the products of course do not end when

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14 Dec 08

Learning Technologies Centre Research Blog » Knowledge, participation, and content-centric education

Shifting from a content-centric view of learning to an interaction and networked view of learning has significant implications for teaching and learning. First, it suggests that content has value to the degree that it fosters interaction, reflection, and

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12 Dec 08

Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated

In fact, though, there are different types of motivation, and the type matters more than the amount. Intrinsic motivation consists of wanting to do something for its own sake – to read, for example, just because it’s exciting to lose oneself in a story.

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