WHY NOT SAVE THE WORLD?

There is an issue in educational reform that is often noted but inadequately discussed.

Individualized instruction and/or tutoring is probably the single most effective means of raising performance.  It is easy to understand why it isn’t discussed in reform circles as individualized tutoring is seen as far too expensive to be practical.

A classroom teacher simply doesn’t have the time or resources to individualize instruction for each student.  At the same time, we know that the uniqueness of individual cognitive development coupled with the impact of the proper or improper timing of instruction can make the difference between alienation from or love of learning.

What will happen when artificial intelligence advances to the point where expert cognitive tutors can facilitate individual learning?

Imagine an educational system in which each individual learner can follow their own intrinsically motivated curiosities and be guided by expert cognitive tutors.  How would that unleash the creative energy of students?

Also, imagine a world in which a teacher’s passions guided their curriculum and students came to them without the physical constraints of time or place.  How would that transform their teaching?

Imagine a world in which individuals self-selected their own educational paths.  Would society collapse without the current one-size-fits-all extrinsic controls on what students learn?  Or would society flourish as individuals blossomed to their fullest capacities?

I don’t know.   But I do believe that technology is making such rapid progress that such an imagined world will be possible in my lifetime.   And I believe in Thomas Friedman’s premise that in today’s flat world, whatever can be conceived will be acheived.   So dear friends, in your opinion, how would this possibility change the world?

Does this experience sound familiar?

Ideas and more ideas abound in your mind. You have so many inspirations, you don’t know where to put them. Couple that with the inspirations you find on the internet, you simply cannot keep track of them all.

And then there’s ….

Paper, paper, paper. They mound up on your desk, get stuffed into files, and overflow into boxes.

and …

Email, email and more email. You have tried having separate accounts. One for listservs, groups and other interests, one for friends and family and one for work. But entropy takes its course as the borders get fuzzy and they start to merge into an undefined and unmanageable blob.

We live in exciting times. We do more and more in less time than every before. Yet with all this stuff, things get lost & tasks can go uncompleted.

So how does one keep track of all this stuff?

Inspired by David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” methodology, here’s how I started:

1. I decluttered over 1000 items in four different email accounts by:
   • Unsubscribing to any mass mailing that I no longer needed.
   • Providing rational storage using the “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology
     • Creating 5 status buckets
       • Action (Take action - items that can be completed in less than 2 minutes)
       • Next Action (Important items that will take more than 2 minutes)
       • Waiting On (Items that can be completed once something else arrives)
       • Someday (Ideas that may be useful someday)
       • Finished (To be filed into folders)
   • Using the email search engine or filter to sort through my items and:
     • deleting more than one item at at time
     • or grouping them into completed project file folders
     • or sorting them into their appropriate status buckets

Using this method I reduced all my inboxes to zero! The energy this releases is phenomenal.

Now I can routinely empty my mailbox daily. I sort them into the five status buckets. I then review the action bucket and act immediately on those items and move them to another status, usually waiting or finished. At the end of the day, I review the next action bucket to see what I need to process or schedule.

Wow! What a difference GTD has made in my life. The loose ends are closed up. Minute details are handled quickly. Long-term items formerly lost are now in process. I feel like I’m humming.

A confession: Up to this point, I’ve been posting articles rather aimlessly. I have just been trying to learn the technology…getting my feet wet by writing a few posts now and then. I look back and see that the articles were written in the spur of the moment. This has occurred when I come across something extraordinary during my binges of web surfing. The inspirational impulse must reach a certain critical threshold before I take the time to actually write a blog post for I’d rather surf to explore new territories in the vast ocean of the web. The process of exploration accompanied by a few blog entries is fun and personally satisfying, but I am aware that it will lead to a body of fragmented and unfocused blog posts.

As a result of this, I have attempted to give the blog some shape by classifying and tagging my posts. I have also been looking through my interests for a unifying passion. My hope was that by finding it, I would be able to generate enough discipline to stay focused.

Now I know myself well enough to state unequivocally that my interests are stubbornly broad. They span a large range of educational, scientific and global topics. It is a reasonable expectation that these fields will change substantially as educational reform, scientific progress and global change accelerates. That understanding put me in a bit of a quandary trying to come up with an theme that could be sustained over time.

I had begun to realize that I need to define my audience. I asked myself, “Who am I writing for and why am I writing.” It sounds all so simple and obvious doesn’t it? Yet for me, the simple and obvious was obscured by the flood of ideas on the Internet and the pleasure of responding in the moment.

The epiphany came after I was invited to talk to a group of lateral entry teacher-candidates. That invitation stirred my mind into a frenzy of questions and ideas.

1. What do I hope to leave behind for future generations?
   
2. What would I tell these young teachers about my love of teaching?… in the context of the realities posed by working in a public school?
3. How does one find what is essential to the heart and soul of a teacher’s practice? …and how are they preserved in a highly-regulated, regimented and scrutinized environment?

Ahhhh…it is within these questions focused for that particular audience that lies a fountain of ideas for a lifetime of blogging.

And so it is, let the blogging begin!

Diigo

I’m publishing this article from Diigo, a social bookmarking tool that has a simple and powerful tag filter.

Why I am switching to Diigo from Google notebooks

The context:  Over the years bookmarking tools have evolved with ever increasing ease-of-use and power.  Yet many times the migration pathway to new technology presents a formidable barrier to adoption, despite the desire for greater functionality.

In my case, I have accumulated an archive of hundreds of bookmarks.  Most of these have been organized in the traditional way (folders, sub-folders) and reside primarily in my browser.  Occasionally, I need to dip in and find a bookmark, but flipping through folders and sub-folders or trying to remember and appropriate search term is terribly inefficient.

First, Google Notebooks came to my rescue:  Google Notebooks provided a more efficient means of organizing and tracking bookmarks thematically, despite its inability to upload and convert my existing bookmarks, the functionality was compelling.  I made the switch.  Their excellent search engine provides rapid results plus as an added bonus it is incredibly easy to highlight relevant text from within websites. 

Enter Diigo:  So why switch?  Features, features and more features.  Diigo is as easy to use as Google Notebooks with many more features.   These are the features that attract me most.

1.  Bookmarking and highlighting multiple blocks of text.
2.  Easy-to-use sticky notes and tagging form for rapid bookmarking.
3.  A powerful tag filter for rapid searching at all grain sizes.
4.  A method within Diigo to publish to my blog in Edublogs.  (I’m doing that now!)

As a classroom teacher , I am intrigued by:

1.  The possibility of creating a shared resource with other like-minded teachers.
2.  Marking up webpages and sharing sticky notes with my students.
3.  The possibility that student’s themselves can mark-up nd share their thoughts with others students.

About publishing to a blog

Right now, I am writing within Diigo.  I have set  up Diigo to publish to my Edublogs account.  So as I surf the web and come across an interesting website, I can highlight the most relevant text then right-click to bookmark, tag and write a sticky note to comment.  In the same drop-down menu, I can "blog this," which I am doing now.

Here’s the link to a description of a joint venture to produce collaborative video for wikimedia.  This will go into my Diigo bookmarks with the tags, Web 2.0, authoring, video production.

Cheers and happy surfing.
 

Main Page - Devwiki

There is nothing quite like a music video to inspire students. Here is a list of some of my favorite inspirational videos.

1. Aint Gonna Hold Us Back (D-I-G-I-T-A-L): Inspiring girls to pursue careers in technology.
Download Video: Posted by interwrite at TeacherTube.com.

2. Water Buffalo Movie: Inspiring all of us to take simple actions that can make a profound difference.

3. Will.I.Am’s Yes We Can: A call to hope and change

4. Global Run: One middle school’s approach to global action.

Stay inspired!