being too empathetic can be an extreme in the way selfishness is an extreme. I know this because I fall sometimes towards that extreme and it’s disturbing to continually absor other people’s emotions or distress.
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a way to pay compliments to the original post/poster of external content
When our students read and write they draw upon their knowledge of stories – sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. The language and words and patterns become known and understood, matched and linked together. Over time, students develop what we can term a ‘mental model‘. That is to say, the more we read, the more we understand, the more we develop a ‘model’ of different types of stories and their respective worlds.
We know that the earlier we read, and the greater the volume of our reading, the more fine grained and precise our ‘mental model’. For many children who join school, they are well on the way with being read to and the shape of stories – mental models – are already emerging in their minds. By secondary school, I can teach a gothic story, but most students could write a good attempt with little to no teaching. The shape of the story is already well formed in their minds.
The charmingly neurotic singer/songwriter/producer talks about bucking the macho pop Svengali archetype, his Bruce Springsteen obsession, and the personal tragedy that fuels his own songs.
Google’s caution around images of gorillas illustrates a shortcoming of existing machine-learning technology. With enough data and computing power, software can be trained to categorize images or transcribe speech to a high level of accuracy. But it can’t easily go beyond the experience of that training. And even the very best algorithms lack the ability to use common sense, or abstract concepts, to refine their interpretation of the world as humans do.
Through using digital tools in the cloud, governance at Larkrise Primary School has been made more effective and easier to manage. Though we’d recommend it, this is not about the technology, but about a shift in culture. There is more we could do and would love to connect with others using similar approaches.
The Four Moves blog is maintained by Mike Caulfield, who has been helping teachers integrate digital citizenship skills into the classroom for over 10 years. It is based on research conducted by Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew, which found that students lack knowledge of basic web techniques for verification and source assessment, which puts them at the mercy of misinformation.
Reading a book is the answer for a lot of what troubles me. When I’ve had to much screen time–read a book! When I’m tired from work and want to turn on the TV–read a book. When I’m frustrated with the current state of things in this country–read a book. When I can’t shut down the voices in my head because I’m spinning out about something–read a book.
Kathleen Morris has also written an extensive post providing further links and support.
I’m into Year Two (of two) leading digital strategy for the K-12 system here in PEI. I landed in a wonderful situation where almost all the hardware (computers and wires) system-wide had just been replaced when I arrived, and where the educators and curriculum/governance people involved are intere… I don’t particularly care if your tech project is perfect, or all the lights blink or whatever… what I care about is how much you’ve grown through that process. Did you develop your search literacies when you got stuck? Did you hit your timelines? Did your goal change as you learned more about the process?
Today, value isn’t created by filling a slot, it’s created by connection. By the combinations created by people. By the magic that comes from diversity of opinion, background and motivation. Connection leads to ideas, to solutions, to breakthroughs.
Tim Berners-Lee, Jimmy Wales, Wendy Hall and more on how we can reset the net
Researchers find that much of the damage done by being poor comes from feeling poor.
Martin McKay from Texthelp discusses the use of data from 12 million users to develop a set of nationalised writing norms.
Profile Picture for Alan Levine aka CogDogAlan Levine aka CogDog (CogDogBlog)A poorly wrapped present for 2018, a new SPLOT. It’s really more of an extension, the SPLOT Box is an extension/update of the older TRU Sounder one (made for building collections of audio content). As a media “jukebox-ish” thing, this one can offer a site to share/collection audio content.
One of my big takeaways from Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well is the fact that we often have multiple issues present in any feedback conversation that confuse, disorient and lead to conflict. When this occurs we need to be explicit and signpost that this is the case with a statement like, “I think that there are two topics here. Let’s discuss each topic fully, but separately, as both are important. Ok. Let’s loop back to the start and start with the first topic.”
If you are thinking ahead about your year… and the kinds of inquiries you might engage your students in, consider an inquiry into the ocean – and our connection to it – as one of your learning contexts. Resources abound. There is no shortage of experts and organisations and plenty of rock pools still left to gaze upon in wonder. If you are asking yourself : What’s worth inquiring into? You might find this video clip helps answer that question. How will your teaching contribute to the imperative to care for this precious blue planet in 2018?
PersonaliSed learning for me involves student choice, students helping define the direction of the learning and students showcasing their learning in ways that are personal. Education technology’s role in this scenario is an enabler allowing the student access to information that they want, connection to resources and people that can help them in that learning and to create their own solution / product / showcase. PersonaliZed learning wants the technology to be in control, pushing or elevating the student through pre-determined content and concepts – Khan Academy without the choice is what springs into my head. Like you point out, the Z version promises what the s version has been shown to be capable of but reduces it all down to (in your words) “various modular ‘fun’ activities under the trending veneer of gamification.”
In pre-internet times, connecting with colleagues (and/or experts) having shared interests often depended on proximity. Twitter now enables those connections to become possible where once it might have been much less common.
When children are tiny, they are reliant on the gentle nurturing of adults. They need us to play with them, to give them lots of warmth and attention and love. As they grow older we can be a bit tougher on them, show them how to stand up in the world that they live in, and help them succeed. But when they are tiny we need to handle them gently. And they are only tiny for a very short while. So maybe we should all tread softly, lest we tread upon their dreams.