SOPA, PIPA and 'The Blackout Protest'

Browse around the internet today and you'll see 'blackout' protests on Wikipedia, Google, Wired, Wordpress, BoingBoing and, so CNN reports, thousands of others.

What's SOPA and PIPA all about?

Good question.

Here's Wikipedia's explanation, and what Google put up today... and I'd encourage you to look at a few others.

I framed up a few discussions on this with a tale about something called 'Act 60' in Vermont education, a 'ready, fire, aim' sort of legislation which many of my long standing friends viewed as, well, let's just say 'less than than stellar.'

SOPA and PIPA as written would have a dramatic impact on the web as we know it. Some support it, some vehemently oppose it, and some are calling for it to be much more refined and by a wider audience before it's goes to vote... hence the 'ready, fire, aim' analogy.

Where do you stand on this?

Interesting questions indeed.

Holiday Wishes

Many moons ago I remember asking my Mother what she wanted for Christmas. I received an answer I didn't quite expect.

"What I'd like" she said, " is to sit around a table with all those folks who are no longer with me. I miss their voices, their quirks. I miss the way they laughed. All that time I spent going through the motions, the food, the wrapping, the gifts and how it all seemed stressful seems so foolish now. Too often, I guess I found myself wishing I could just get through the Holidays. I wish now that I spent more time talking to them about how they felt about Christmas, what their memories were, what did this day mean to them. I'd love to hear them tell some of the old stories again. I often wonder how many of those stories I never heard at all. I guess I wished I'd spent more time talking to them about who they were and what they felt when I had the chance. Sitting around the dinner table with all those folks again, that's what I want for Christmas."

Happy Holidays, AP

Exploring effort and self motivation

Here are a few quotes from a post by Seth Godin called Self Directed Effort is the Best Kind that speaks volumes about the trials of education.

"There's an entire system organized around the idea that we're too weak to deliver effort without external rewards and punishment. If you only grow on demand, you're selling yourself short. If you're only as good as your current boss/trainer/sergeant, you've given over the most important thing you have to someone else."

and...

"The thing I care the most about: what do you do when no one is looking, what do you make when it's not an immediate part of your job... how many push ups do you do, just because you can?"

What makes you tick?

What's holding you back?

Education Revisited: Homework

We've started our exploration Tech Research called Education Revisited. We challenge the perception of school, learning, teacher and student roles, and best of all we ask each student to redesign education.


Surprisingly... the results are similar year-to-year when students redesign education.


Here's one... Students want to 'do' homework differently. Here are a few that come up:

• Many would like to see homework done in class, where there's more time to work on things, especially together. We discuss the 'flipped classroom'... where lectures go home and collaborative problem solving work is done in class.
• No homework over breaks. Here's a good video on this one:

• Some sort of guidelines for planning. Most often what frustrates students the most is the inability to plan day-to-day as to how much homework they'll have.
• Homework load effects that classes they take. For students who are exceptionally busy after school, looking through the course descriptions and talking to peers about potential homework loads on classes is common practice.

Education is changing. Are we changing with it, actively trying out new systems and ideas... or are we simply saying 'it's always been this way' and / or going on 'business as usual'?


Good questions, indeed.


Engage...

Sleep

The Force is with us. We were just discussing this in class ; )

Thoughts?

The Social Media Puzzle... it moves fast

In the Social Networking we've taken on a difficult issue in Assignment 20.

Social media has threaded itself into our society. For many, it's amplified struggles with long standing battles: our penchant to entertain ourselves, struggles in how we communicate, relevancy, learning, connecting, peer pressure, social cliques, harassment, stalking... you name it. People get scared, and in many cases, justly so.

With all those issues per se, Social Media has also opened up incredible opportunities in our world to make connections and to learn.

Each student in the class has been asked to dig deep and explore the feelings of the older generation, an adult on campus and also one (or both) of their parents and / or guardians on this issue. 

These tools didn't exist 10 years ago... but every generation has had it's issues, it's distractions with gadgets, and struggled with the social issues around them. Here are a few to refresh the memory!

Just ask someone who's over the age of 30 now what their parents thought of them 'spending so much time on that ridiculous telephone,' or how they 'could spend so much time watching television!'

We were receivers back then primarily... we watched and listened for the most part. Now it's about creating, publishing and group conversations. With the advancement of technology though, computers, the internet, mobile technology, the transition from what we term web 1.0 to web 2.0 (and 3.0 on the horizon)... all those old traditional conversations are accelerated, they get magnified. If things are accelerating, than so must our resolve to teach communication and collaboration skills students need.

What does that mean for our future? Gaining some perspective of the past, present and future... we're hoping... will help ; )

Music and movies playing in a classroom?

Once we have our opening discussions in class, we play music or a movie in the background.


Here's how.


The class often chooses, or I do, music or movies. Most often we choose to play music in the background while we do group project work. We choose movies during individual project work.


Here's why.


I've always thought it's relaxing for many students. It's a degree of civility in a classroom... treating it less like school and more like a home environment, a learning environment. We started down this path seven years ago now and never looked back. After all, we don't often go home to do work and sit in uncomfortable furniture, under bright fluorescent lights, deprive ourselves of all food and water, have no complimentary music or the like, and then expect we'll do our best... do we? We seem to do this in school though, and all too often I think. I've always felt, if we put some effort into making school look, well, less like 'school,' less like an industrialized environment it'd be more civil... more inspirational. 


Most often folks don't understand why we serve up movies on the classroom. First off, I ask people to focus on their work, and not on the movie. The movies, with low volume, play in the background. We'll spike the volume when we take a break for some great scenes... the Balrog on the bridge... that sort of stuff. Of course, much like a window, there are times you look up when something great is happening, or you just need a break. Bit like real life ; )


Further, we pick movies we can learn from, ones that inspire people. Creative stuff. The ones that bring dreams to life and have great messages. Inspiration... is a good thing.


Third, it threads nicely into discussions and practices on learning to work in a different environment and to manage distractions. Many folks are used to listening to music when they work. Often times this is heavily frowned upon in school. Never really had anyone give me a good reason why. I've often said 'admitting you're easily distracted is the first step to recovery.' Do you need to reposition yourself in the room? Adjust the volume? I think it's safe to say that anyone who's worked out of the school environment has had to learn to deal with distractions and figure out how they work their best.


Fourth, Almost all of the movies we choose carry great appendices... great documentary footage about how they are made. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as an example, in the Extended Editions, carry heaps of material about crafting, problem solving, hard work, creativity, and fun. Far better to play it than just discuss it. It's too cumbersome in length to play and just watch... so, we play it while we work, stopping here and there when something great comes up.


We thread in clips too that we find about films, like this one, a look inside the new shooting of The Hobbit in 3D. New material that comes out revealing creativity, problem solving, skill development, and dedication... craft.

For some, it is distracting out of the gate, no doubt. Many have never experienced a classroom environment like we have here. I'm guessing many though will never experience a work environment like they have in a traditional school model. That statement... could lead to a lot of writing ; )


This speech by Rogier van der Heide, speaks volumes to why it makes sense to change the concept of the classroom, from the colors used, to the lighting.






I'd encourage you, if you've never done it to give it a try. Turn down some bright fluorescent lights, create an environment, and coax folks to learn from the experience. Never know what might turn up. It's worked great here.


What's next? Our work here continues to challenge the concepts of a 'master schedule' and the potential of internships. Many other schools, of course, have headed dow such paths already. Again... discussions for another post.


#edchat
cross posted at: creativeStir.blogspot.com