למידה, אינטרנט ... ומה שביניהם

Declare a five-year moratorium on the use of all textbooks.

Since with two or three exceptions all texts are not only boring but based on the assumption that knowledge exists prior to, independent of, and altogether outside of the learner, they are either worthless or harmful. If it is impossible to function without textbooks, provide every student with a notebook filled with blank pages and have him compose his own text.

תוויות: ויקי, שימוש בבתי ספר

תוויות: הרהורים, מידענות

Despite Time -- which, as a pillar of the mainstream press is of course free of the hyperbole so common on the Web -- the Web isn't even You. It's us. And that is the problem.

Your wildly unflattering picture of life on the Web could also be painted of life before the Web. People chatter endlessly. They believe the most appalling things. They express prejudices that would peel the paint off a park bench. They waste their time watching endless hours of TV, wear jerseys as if they were members of the local sports team, are fooled by politicians who don't even lie convincingly....

The problem endemic to the Web even before anyone gave the Web version numbers -- and the problem that leads to your issue with "cockroaches" -- is that because anyone can contribute and because there are no centralized gatekeepers, there's too much stuff and too many voices, most of which any one person has no interest in. But, the Web is also the continuing struggle to deal with that problem. From the most basic tools of the early Internet, starting with UseNet discussion threads, through Wikipedia, and sites that enable users to tag online resources, the Web invents ways to pull together ideas and information, finding the connections and relationships that keep the "miscellaneous" from staying that way.

תוויות: כלים חברתיים, מורים

a moratorium on further textbook purchasing in the United States of America for public schools

The purchase of paper-based textbooks, along with the dearth of analog testing materials now flooding most public K-12 schools, represents an enormous WASTE of taxpayer money which should be spent on more relevant and flexible curriculum resources and tools for learners: Namely, wireless, mobile computing devices (laptops) and digital curriculum materials.

• potential to be more up to date and current
• potential to meet varied learning styles and needs (based on preferences, abilities and disabilities)
• capacity for interactivity, promoting engaged learning
• potential to support differentiation and self-directed learning
• capacity to support multiple assessment methods, including ongoing assessment

This subject has been emerging at my school over the past 3 years. 2 years ago, our district chose not to purchase reading basals...they didn't say don't use the old basals, they just put the textbook money to good use purchasing leveled readers, online subscriptions, and providing a reading coach for every building. Last year, they followed suit by not adopting a new math text. The same year, curriculum teams for science and social studies worked to create online interactive curriculum guides to support use of technology in all classrooms, and integration of these subjects into communication arts. I am holding my breath, waiting for someone to realize what it is that we are really doing....teachers? parents? who will be the first to say "where are your textbooks?" Perhaps the tides have turned here, and teachers will need to ride the wave, or crash and burn! I will do everything I can to teach anyone who wants to learn to surf the wave! Keep your fingers crossed everyone:)

תוויות: שימוש בבתי ספר

I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about the tools I will use next term with my classes (21classes? Edublogs? Ning? Wikispaces? PBWiki? MindMeister?) only to discover that what I’m really interested in is preparing the ground for learning.

I don’t want to structure and pre-define. I do not want to create a community or a social network for my students. Instead, I want to create the conditions necessary for the right kind of environment to emerge. Building an environment for the students is likely to result in failure: environments and communities need to be built with the students, with their full participation, through their work and their interactions with and about texts. It’s not just about choosing a blogging platform and letting the kids in. We need to move beyond the traditional approach of “pick the tools, add students and stir.”

Unfortunately, my curriculum is still to a large extent dominated by units, lessons, assignments. Those are the realities of teaching and learning in North America in the 21st century - it’s not about the process, it’s about the product.

תוויות: בלוגים, הוראה, כלים חברתיים, שימוש בבתי ספר

How children lost the right to roam in four generations

It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision.

Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom.

the mental health of 21st-century children is at risk because they are missing out on the exposure to the natural world enjoyed by past generations.

תוויות: הרהורים

"We explore, we discover and we share,” she said. And both “are absolutely wonderful jobs."

תוויות: הוראה

Blog postings will always be commodity content: there's a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else's work. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they're definitely easy to write. But they don't build sustainable value.

It might take you only an hour to write a blog posting on some current controversy, but a thousand other people can do that as well (in fact, they'll sometimes do it better, as shown above). And customers don't want to pay for such a tiny increment of knowledge. Sure, sometimes a single paragraph holds the idea that can increase a site's conversion rate so much that a reader should have paid a million dollars to read it. But they don't know that in advance, so they won't pay.

In contrast, in-depth content that takes much longer to create is beyond the abilities of the lesser experts. A thousand monkeys writing for 1,000 hours doesn't add up to Shakespeare. They'll actually create a thousand low-to-medium-quality postings that aren't integrated and that don't give readers a comprehensive understanding of the topic -- even if those readers suffer through all 1,000 blogs.

the sole reason for an expert’s activities are to further and advance his/her standing for financial gains. That is, the effort is meant to propel one’s business stature ahead, a game we are not all involved in by a large shot.

I write blogs (and wiki postings) to capture thoughts as they emerge over the event horizon of my richly and chaotically interconnected brain. Sometimes I get responses, sometimes I go in and edit them myself. But it's a process. Sometime later, I return to a posting, pick it up, dust it off, and start writing an article for publication based on a posting or two.

תוויות: בלוגים, הרהורים, כתיבה

רמתו של התוכן המיוצר במהפכה החברתית המכונה "Web 2.0" נמוכה מאוד, ולמעשה ייתכן שהאינטרנט בגירסתו הקודמת, זו המכונה היום רטרואקטיבית "Web 1.0" היה יותר מעניין, יותר תוסס, יותר אמין, פשוט יותר טוב.

תופעות אשר יצרו היפר-אינפלציה בתכנים ירודים, העתקה סיטונאית של יצירות וטקסטים וניצול האנונימיות של הרשת לביצוע עבירות שונות, לרבות מעשים פליליים.

משתלבת בוויכוח המתנהל באינטרנט דובר האנגלית, בשאלה אם התופעה המכונה תכנים מבוססי גולשים מדרדרת את התרבות ביגון שאולה.