Future Learning

13 12 2012

Here’s a Good documentary that stresses a lot I’ve heard before: gaming, collaboration, motivation, self-directed, guiding etc. Published in May and just made its round to me. Thanks Kim.

Students are the future, but what’s the future for students? To arm them with the relevant, timeless skills for our rapidly changing world, we need to revolutionize what it means to learn. Education innovators like Dr. Sugata Mitra, visiting professor at MIT; Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy; and Dr. Catherine Lucey, Vice Dean of Education at UCSF, are redefining how we engage young minds for a creatively and technologically-advanced future. Which of these eduvators holds the key for unlocking the learning potential inside every student?

 




The Future of Learning

7 11 2012

A short film by Ericsson:

Can ICT redefine the way we learn in the Networked Society? Technology has enabled us to interact, innovate and share in whole new ways. This dynamic shift in mindset is creating profound change throughout our society. The Future of Learning looks at one part of that change, the potential to redefine how we learn and educate. Watch as we talk with world renowned experts and educators about its potential to shift away from traditional methods of learning based on memorization and repetition to more holistic approaches that focus on individual students’ needs and self expression.

Learn more at http://www.ericsson.com/networkedsociety




What is School For?

29 10 2012

I’m sure this Seth Godin talk STOP STEALING DREAMS at TEDxYouth@BFS has made the internet rounds. In it, he asks the question “What is school for?” With the internet now connecting us all, what is the role and function of the school?

Are we asking students to collect the dots or connect them?

He talks about 8 things that can change, depending on how we answer the question.

  • Homework during the day (ask questions/explore with the teacher) and watch world class lectures at night.
  • Open book/open note all the time (no point in memorising facts now).
  • Access to any course, any where in the world, any time (don’t have to do things in chronological order that is limited to geography).
  • Precise focused education, instead of mass batched stuff.
  • No more multiple choice exams: measure experience instead of test scores.
  • Teach cooperation instead of isolation.
  • The teacher’s role transforms to a coach.
  • Lifelong learning with work happening earlier and finally the death of the famous college.

It’s an interesting watch.




Now You See It: Great Unit Questions!

31 12 2011
I’m currently reading “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn” by Cathy N. Davidson. I’m not finished, but jumped to the appendix to check some of the great questions provided for curriculum.
“Teachers at every level should be addressing the requirements, possibilities and limitations of the digital media that now structure our lives.”
Here are the majority of them:
Attention:What are the new ways that we pay attention in a digital era? How do we need to change our concepts and practices of attention for a new era? How do we learn and practice new forms of attention in a digital era?
Participation:How do we encourage meaningful interaction and participation in a digital age? How can the Internet be useful on a cultural, social or civic level?
Collaboration:Collaboration can simply reconfirm consensus, acting more as peer pressure than a lever to truly original thinking. HASTAC has cultivated the methodology of “collaboration by difference” to inspire meaningful ways of working together.

Global Consciousness: How does the World Wide Web change our responsibilities in and to the world we live in?

Design: How is information conveyed differently, effectively and beautifully in diverse digital forms? Aesthetics form a key part of digital communication. How do we understand and practice the elements of good design as part of our communication and interactive practices?

Affordance: How do we assess all of the particular network features, limitations, and liabilities of a particular technology in order to know when and how to use it to our best advantage?

Narrative/Storytelling: How do narrative elements shape the information we wish to convey, helping it to have force in a world of competing information?

Procedural (Game) Literacy: What are the new tactics and strategies of interactive games, wherein the multimedia narrative form changes because of our success or failure? How can we use game mechanics for learning and for motivation in our lives?

Critical Consumption of Information: Without a filter (editors, experts and professionals), much information on the Internet can be inaccurate, deceptive or inadequate. How do we learn to be critical? What are the standards of credibility?

Digital Divides, Digital Participation: What divisions still remain in digital culture? Who is included and excluded? How do basic aspects of economics and culture dictate not only who participates in the digital age but how they participate?

Ethics: What are the new moral imperatives of our interconnected age?

Assessment: What are the best, most fluid, most adaptive and helpful ways to measure progress and productivity, not as fixed goals, but as part of a productive process that also requires innovation and creativity?

Preservation: What are the requirements for preserving the digital world we are creating? Paper lasts. Platforms change.

Sustainability: What are the metrics for sustainability in a world where we live on more kilowatts than ever before? How do we protect the environment in a plugged-in era?

Learning, Unlearning & Relearning: Alvin Toffler has said that in the rapidly changing world of the twenty-first century, the most important skill anyone can have is the ability to stop in one’s tracks, see what isn’t working and then find new ways to unlearn old patterns and relearn how to learn. How is this process especially important in our digital world?




Designing Schools for the 21st Century

21 08 2010

In this film, architect Randall Fielding demonstrates the connection between where and how students learn in the 21st century. (You may also watch it here)




Web 3.0 – The Semantic Web

10 05 2010

It seems like every other blogger beat me to this post. Should not have let it sit in my drafts folder over the weekend. Regardless, it is interesting. (Approx. 14minutes)

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.




Distracted by Everything

3 02 2010

(…or go here)




How do you find resources?

21 01 2010

I often feel disappointed when I hear teachers discuss how they can’t find web resources for a topic. At times, teachers expect an ICT Facilitator to find these for them. Finding free resources sure is a lot easier now, but I am referring to going beyond Google. Do you have time to go beyond page 1 of 1.5 million sites (but that’s another blog entry)? What are some other alternatives?

Of course, video helps a lot now with YouTube, TeacherTube, SchoolTube and Vimeo readily available. I don’t know why I feel sad when teachers don’t use or search these options. Your internet connection isn’t so good for viewing? You don’t like the ads/comments that appear? You don’t like the related videos that appear? These are all valid points but then why not use Tooble or KeepVid to download the video onto your computer or embed it onto your own site (great reason to start a blog or wiki)?

Better yet, if teachers are struggling to find resources, why not get your class to create their own resources and then upload them to these sites, or to Slideshare, or to Issuu, or to a wiki, or to Voicethread? To me, they would be perfect opportunities for class projects as well as for assessments. Fair enough, it may take some time to get it set-up but in the long run, wouldn’t time be saved?

Students could have a sense of ownership and leave a legacy of knowledge and learning behind once the unit is finished and then students in the following years could use it or expand on it. Viewers may then rate it, comment on it, embed it or reuse it themselves. The author then slowly builds a network if they comment back and learning continues outside of the classroom. Teachers could then share it with their followers on Twitter or on a Ning they belong to. You see, not only does this benefit the student, but also the teacher. Teachers could use these sites as a source of inspiration to generate ideas or to find examples of and create a digital portfolio or an online presence.

(Hey wait a minute, this kind of sounds like authentic learning.)

art,advocacy,inspiration,visual,literacy-783eeffb1ae8c3de486aaa6eab0b6e51_h

If teachers are going to simply create text projects, why not upload them to Issuu or file2ws or to a class wiki or blog at least? That could involve peer editing wouldn’t it? We hear know and see that media collage is dominant, but at times teachers are the last ones to adapt. Why is that? Simple answer: Fear. A lot of teachers don’t wish to put their stuff out there (though we’re one of the first to snatch them up). They feel exposed. Naked. We are the knowledge kings and do not wish to be discovered as false prophets. Sorry, I sound negative and this wasn’t meant to be a rant. Give it some thought. Start small.

(photo credit)




Best Online Collaboration Tools 2009

8 12 2009

I blogged about this before here and it appears to have been updated. Robin Good has done very good! View it here in all the glory to gain insight on some of the web 2.0 tools available.

best online collab tools 2009 thumb




Curiosities & Roadside Attractions

7 10 2009

I have added a few videos under my ICT Theories and Info tab above recently that you may find interesting. One has taken inspiration from the CommonCraft team and created a video on Digital Storytelling in Plain English. Another is from Alan November (Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom) and finally, the lengthy Teaching Search in the Classroom from Google.

Other interesting reads from the web:

Michelle Obama tells International audience why the Arts Matter (from Los Angeles Times)

Schools Adopt Art as Building Block of Education (from The New York Times)

From Text on Paper to Media Collage – Art becomes the next R (from Jason Ohler via The Committed Sardine)

What’s new? 21st Century Skills (by Jamie McKenzie)

Media literacy skills have been important for decades as the news media transitioned into entertainment and a few international corporations consolidated control over information. While media literacy was important in the 1960s, it was sorely neglected. It may be even more crucial today but remains unattended by many school programs.

Digital Images for Education is “an unrivalled online image library, comprising over 500 hours of film and 56,000 photos, will be available free of charge for at least 25 years to UK higher and further education institutions from Summer 2010.”