May 2013
12 posts
Eddie Huang: Me, Myself, and Why
From the Skillshare Penny Conference:
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Ken Robinson: How to Escape Education's Death...
There’s a new TED talk from Ken Robinson:
Also, check out Ken Robinson’s curated playlist of 10 TED talks on education:
http://www.ted.com/playlists/124/ken_robinson_10_talks_on_educ.html
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THNKR: The Future of Learning
THNKR is hosting a panel event with The 92nd Street Y in New York City on May 21!
PANELISTS Abigail Besdin, SKILLSHARE Joe Hall, GHETTO FILM SCHOOL Jake Schwartz, GENERAL ASSEMBLY Joel Rose, NEW CLASSROOMS INNOVATION PARTNERS Moderated by New York Times journalist LAURA PAPPANO.
Meet the other panelists: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…
Abigail Besdin from the education team at...
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Aasif Mandvi: Stay Out of School
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David Foster Wallace: This Is Water
A great new video excerpted from David Foster Wallace’s brilliant 2005 Kenyon College commencement address. We miss him dearly:
“If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay...
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Richard Feynman on Curiosity
Dale Dougherty: The Maker Education Initiative
From last year’s Maker Faire Bay Area (this year’s starts in just two weeks, on May 18):
“Forget the courses. Forget the test scores. Let’s look at what the kids [are] actually doing…The goal really is to figure out how to get making into kids lives…This is an antidote to standardized education. This is really authentic learning…”
–Dale Dougherty, Founder of MAKE...
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Education Cities: The City As One Big School
From Education Cities, an initiative founded by Israeli democratic educator Yaacov Hecht:
Education Cities – Vision
An Education City perceives the education system as an essential instrument for a citywide development, and the city as a central instrument in the education system’s development.
The city as one big school – An education city is a social educational network, a tangible network...
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Tupac Shakur, Age 17, On School
April 2013
12 posts
Federal Student Loan Rates: Double, Double, Toil...
A recent New York Times article reports that a coalition of student advocacy groups has released an issue brief opposing a potential doubling of federal student loan interest rate, from 3.4% to 6.8%. The brief projects that the federal government will reap over $36 billion in revenue this year from heavily indebted college and graduate students. Meanwhile nearly 6 million students are in default...
The Onion: College Pride
Man Has Alarming Level Of Pride In Institution That Left Him $50,000 In Debt, Inadequately Prepared For Job Market
The Onion nails it, as usual:
Calling his college experience “the greatest four years of [his] life,” 27-year-old University of Miami alumnus Mark Felder maintains a startling level of pride in his alma mater, a private academic institution that left him $50,000 in debt and...
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Seth Godin: What Is Your Art?
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HourSchool: What Have You Always Wanted To Do?
The Austin-based HourSchool has created a unique platform for learning, by encouraging individuals to connect with their community through the pursuit of self-directed missions. Achieving something you have “always wanted to do” usually requires learning new things, and thus each mission entails specifying topics to learn, and organizing or attending classes, workshops, and...
Seth Godin: We Are All Artists Now
From Seth Godin:
A revolution is here, our revolution, and it is shining a light on what we’ve known deep down for a long time—you are capable of making a difference, of being bold, and of changing more than you are willing to admit. You are capable of making art.
Why Make Art?
Because you must. The new connected economy demands it and will reward you for nothing else.
Because you can. Art is...
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Arooj Ahmad: Changing Education
“The practical solution for students lies in two key improvements that must take hold in today’s education system: relevant holistic curricula and freedom of choice…By doing this, students will be encouraged to self-direct their learning and develop a passion. If schools are doing their jobs, students will no longer be asking ‘When am I ever going to use this?’ and will...
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Skillshare School of Design: Art School For The...
The Skillshare School of Design is ready to upend the unsustainable model of absurdly overpriced art school, as Wired makes clear in its recent article on the launch of the new Skillshare school, noting the extraordinarily high-level talent teaching at remarkably low class prices, with a project-based format that channels many of the most powerful elements of the in-person school experience:
...
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Calvin & Hobbes: I'll Connect The Dots My Own Way
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“Any experience, however trivial in its first appearance, is capable of assuming...”
– John Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 225
March 2013
20 posts
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Rabindranath Tagore: Education and Freedom
“I was brought up in an atmosphere of aspiration, aspiration for the expansion of the human spirit. We in our home sought freedom of power in our language, freedom of imagination in our literature, freedom of soul in our religious creeds and that of mind in our social environment. Such an opportunity has given me confidence in the power of education which is one with life and only which...
These Are Your Lifetimes. Use Them.
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:
“You have 11 opportunities to be great at something,” and since you can master more than one thing at a time, that number can be multiplied. It’s never too late to be reborn, reinvent yourself, and start learning something new. So, what will you be in your next life?
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Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Education
from informalandlifelonglearning:
“There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Education
"People Who Buy Things Are Suckers." →
Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson has the maker spirit.
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Science + Hip Hop = Genius
The wonderful new web channel THNKR has produced an inspiring series of videos featuring Dr. Christopher Emdin, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has partnered with GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan to launch “a pilot program to use hip hop to teach science in 10 New York City public schools.”
In the video below, Dr. Emdin explains his educational philosophy,...
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The 7 Powerful Idea Shifts In Learning Today →
From Classroom Aid:
1. Digital & Research Literacy
Digital literacy is a trend that involves the consumption, comprehension, and curation of digital media. This is directly tied to research literacy, as both digital and digitized data sources serve as primary research resources.
2. Shift From Standards To Habits
The shift from purely academic standards to critical thinking habits supports...
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Defend Public Education Day: Students Call For...
imagininglearning:
On February 23rd, students gathered to discuss what is wrong with the current education system and how they could get their voices heard. From there, the students developed an action plan to have their voices heard.
We, the students, are standing up for our education. We no longer want to be part of the cookie-cutter system where everyone is taught the same and forced to...
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OpenIDEO: University Students Take on Real Design...
From OpenIDEO:
Wyn Griffiths is the Product Design Course Leader at Middlesex University (MDX). For two weeks, at the beginning of December 2012, he cancelled all classes across the three years of his Product Design course, to bring students and staff together to work on the OpenIDEO Workplace Wellness Challenge. Together, they worked under the banner of ‘compete with the issue, not one...
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TED Blog: Youth On The Future of Learning
From the TED blog:
After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own, 2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.”
In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask kids big questions, and find big...
Redefine School: Be You. A Quiet Revolution
From www.redefineschool.com (be you. a quiet revolution):
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THNKR: Thinking and Feeling With Maira Kalman
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Schooling the World: The White Man's Last Burden
From www.schoolingtheworld.org/resources/educators:
1. Discussion Guide
Go deeper. Our Discussion Guide has 50 beautifully illustrated pages of questions, ideas for discussion, facts and information, and group and individual activities that can be adapted for middle school, high school, college, and adult professional development groups. Ideas for filmmaking projects, fiction writing, visual...
Learning and Enjoyment: It's Evolution, Baby
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9889999/Chimps-solve-puzzles-for-the-thrill-of-it-researchers-find.html
Lifehacker: Get A Liberal Arts Education For Free... →
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TEDYou: Skillshare Edition
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“How one person’s abilities compare in quantity with those of another is...”
– John Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 179
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To Wonder Again, Fearlessly
Great words on the learning revolution from David Loitz, at cooperativecatalyst and adventuresinlearning:
People, problems, and wonder | Cooperative Catalyst
It is past time we designed schools to be wondrous places. It is past time we designed schools to keep kids full of wonder. It is past time we taught one another how to wonder again, fearlessly. It is past time we stopped confusing...
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Break & Make: Education With Skillshare and IDEO
From skillshare:
IDEO is partnering with Skillshare + 92YTribeca to host the Break & Make series, a gathering of New York’s leading creators and thinkers for intimate talks in the areas of education, health and money. Who’s breaking digital barriers? Who’s making new markets? Meet the new creators and disruptors and explore the future before it unfolds. IDEO is kicking off the series on...
February 2013
20 posts
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Sugata Mitra, TED Prize 2013: Self-Organized...
Sugata Mitra, the education researcher who delivered the wonderful “Child-Driven Education” TED talk about his experiments studying children in an Indian slum who learned on their own how to use an internet-connected computer set up on the street, was awarded the 2013 TED Prize, which provides $1 million to support a project envisioned by one brilliant thinker each year. His TED...
Search Institute: Empowering Youth →
Institute For The Future: The Future of Learning
Fascinating project from the IFTF, The Future of Learning: Reimagining the Higher Education Landscape:
Higher education worldwide is entering a period of creative disruption. In many ways, the space is poised to experience challenges similar to those facing journalism, manufacturing, and finance all at once, as novel funding structures, new international institutions, applied research into...
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“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but...”
– Rabindranath Tagore, “My School” in Personality (1917)
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Design & Thinking
About Design & Thinking:
How do we fully engage organizations to think about the changing landscape of business, culture and society? Inspired by design thinking, this documentary grabs businessman, designers, social change-makers and individuals to portrait what they have in common when facing this ambiguous 21st century. What is design thinking? How is it applied in business models? How...
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The Essential Elements of Agile Schools
Steve Peha, tech entrepreneur and founder of Teaching That Makes Sense, has adapted the concept of “agile development” from software development to reconceptualize how schools might more effectively organize their productive activity and perceive their mission. He has boiled the agile education philosophy down to twelve “Essential Elements of Agile Schools”:
1. Agile...
