This week I read around the Washington Post’s “Top Secret America” portal. You can read about its methodology and see the project’s credits here.
I started with this article: “National Security Inc.” On page 10, the article describes the work of Ken Pohill, an employee of General Dynamics, a defense contractor serving multiple roles in the [...]
As I work on this year’s curriculum map, I’m trying to set up a learning space bounded by the minimum number of teacher-imposed, useful constraints necessary to promote student-directed democracy, community, and learning.
My map this year will look more course-specific than last year’s meta-map, which I think is still a useful model for project-based work. [...]
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Posted 02 July 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: #abolishgrades, Atlassian Days, Classroom management, Coaching, Curriculum map, Dan Pink, Democratic education, Drive, Edmodo, Google time, Monkseaton High School, Paul Kelly, School community, Scratch, Self-directed learning, Spaced learning, Standards, Student discipline, Timely feedback, Useful constraints
Mary Beth Hertz (@mbteach) wrote here about #ISTE10’s “Dissecting the 21st Century Teacher” panel. I commented on a few of the lines that caught my attention regarding curriculum and a teacher’s role in maintaining and delivering content. I’m torn there. There’s so much discoverable content maintained out there that it’s useful for a teacher [...]
I do seem to remember a process where you people ask me questions and I give you answers, and then I ask you questions and you give me answers, and that’s the way we find out things. I think I read that in a manual somewhere.
-Dr. Heywood Floyd,
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Posted 14 June 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: Authentic assessment, Authentic engagement, Authentic learning, Authentic work, Choice Theory, Democratic learning, Education reform, Parent involvement, Relationships, Relevance, Self-directed learning, Student blogging, Student portfolios
It doesn’t surprise me that iPods are popular, or that I like them as much as my students do. Our iPods are our 1:1 music devices, customizable reflections of our interests and emotions. They are our 1:1 identity, expression, and need-fulfillment devices. When we need to feel big, we find big music. [...]
I believe in 1:1 learning. I also acknowledge the difficulty inherent in differentiating instruction for multiple classes of 30+ students a day. I envision a school system in which students learn to take ownership of their work and acquire essential skills and understandings through self-directed curricula. I think we need to scale up models [...]
This week three girls took up what might be the most ambitious project I’ve ever suggested to a student: create a World War II museum in LittleBigPlanet, a PlayStation 3 (PS3) game. None of us has any idea what to expect (apart from students somehow sharing the unit’s content through visualization and gameplay) – the [...]
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Posted 07 March 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: Authentic engagement, Authentic learning, Authentic work, Game-based learning, Learning with games, LittleBigPlanet, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, PS3, PSN, STEM, Video games
This week we spent some time Thursday coming up with teamwork and game-play strategies for our Friday Wii collaboration contest.
Results of our strategizing were mixed with only half the groups improving from last week to this week. At this point I’m wishing I had taken a research-design course sometime in the past decade so I [...]
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Posted 27 February 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: Authentic engagement, Authentic learning, Authentic work, Collaboration, Cooperation, Game-based learning, Learn with games, Lives lost: levels won metric, Relevance, Small-group gaming, Video games
Our impromptu two week vacation at the beginning of February did little for our teamwork. It seems like we need to be together to practice cooperating.
Or, really, do we? If we had a social network (or better used our existing Edmodo network) or virtual day set up, couldn’t student teams compete with [...]
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Posted 23 February 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: Authentic engagement, Authentic learning, Authentic work, Collaboration, Cooperation, Game-based learning, Learn with games, Lives lost: levels won metric, Relevance, Small-group gaming, Video games
Here is today’s leading #edchat question:
How does the internet change the role of content and prior knowledge?
It doesn’t. Kids still need a personal stake in both to create meaning. While everyone can learn content and has prior-knowledge, school-valued content and prior knowledge remain commodities that some have and some do not. I would further [...]
