to be successful in the 21st century you’re going to have to be a learner, you’re going to have to learn how to learn, and go after things on your own. You’re going to have to be independent, curious, passionate learners, who don’t just sit back and wait for someone to tell them what they’re supposed to know, but who go out and try to figure things out for yourself. Who pursue your interests, your goals, your passions with intensity, and who actively participate in everything you do. Who go out and find other learners who are passionate about what you are passionate about and learn from them – and alongside them.

students already "want to know things." It is school that marginalizes the natural curiosity our kids enter school with. I watch my own children at home pursue learning (not related to required school work) with pure delight and tenacity. They try and try and try never feeling that their failures are wasted time or a judgment on their value as human beings. Instead, their curiosity piqued, they dive right in and learn.

School is not a place for curiosity, not a place for diving right in. It is a place were everything is prescribed, learning defined, and judgment made. The goal of school is like tracing - if the student can render an exact replica of the original they pass, they are lauded, they become the valedictorian . . . what they can't do is create, innovate, and as Ms Michlewitz accurately points out, can't formulate an independent thought or engineer a persuasive argument. They have been taught not to do that . . . much to this country's detriment.

a well-crafted website with a thoughtful teacher acting as a curator to the links can produce a body of knowledge superior to textbooks.

10 things I think teachers should unlearn…

1. Teachers know all the answers.

2. Teachers have to be in control of the class.

3. Teachers are responsible for the learning.

4.  Students are obliged to respect teachers.

5.  Learning can be measured by a letter or a number.

6.  Teachers should plan activities and then assessments.

7. Learners need to sit quietly and listen.

8. Technology integration is optional.

9.  Worksheets support learning.

10.  Homework is an essential part of learning.

if you were starting a top university today, what would it look like? You would start by gathering the very best minds from around the world, from every discipline. Since we're living in an age of abundant, not scarce, information, you'd curate the lectures carefully, with a focus on the new and original, rather than offer a course on every possible topic. You'd create a sustainable economic model by focusing on technological rather than physical infrastructure, and by getting people of means to pay for a specialized experience. You'd also construct a robust network so people could access resources whenever and from wherever they like, and you'd give them the tools to collaborate beyond the lecture hall. Why not fulfill the university's millennium-old mission by sharing ideas as freely and as widely as possible?

If you did all that, well, you'd have TED.

The creativity of the digital world is vastly different from the analog environment. There, creative is typically a static commercial art piece (or a "portfolio" of these). Creativity represented by great copy, an idea that makes a twist on a popular culture or "captures the zeitgeist," or as a piece-of-art logo and print ad, may indeed belong to the same era as those media that defined it.

In the digital world, that approach doesn't cut it. The best creative is the creation of relationships, connections and interactions. It connects tools with behaviors, locations, and objects. It creates networks or systems. To be creative there, you need to be strategic: you need to figure out who connects to whom, when and why and to what result. Simply, you need to plan for a chain reaction. These networks then give way to a collective creativity that becomes visible to all to use it, build upon it, change it, and add to it.

Ooohh... I like this!

My kid, who is "just average" according to his teacher at school, blossoms outside the traditional school environment, away from all the worksheets, behavior charts and bathroom schedules. I wish more of what he did at school brought him to life

attending school turned into a thing that we students HAD to do instead of something we wanted to do; much like taking out the trash or staying home on a Friday night

The Texas Board of Education proposed...

Calling the country’s slave trade the "Atlantic triangular trade." That refers to the trade system that included the American colonies, Europe and Africa, which, if drawn on a map with arrows from place to place, certainly looks like a triangle. The proposal is correct on the geometric merits.

On historical and moral merits, however, it fails miserably. Trying to whitewash the country’s ugly past is itself ugly, and dangerous.

This proposal was approved and then later rescinded.

They’re telling you with their mistakes what you as the teacher are doing wrong. . . . you need to look at their mistakes for qualitative information about what you need to change in your instruction to teach it right.

We need assessments that gauge students' understanding and require them to demonstrate what they know, not tests that allow students to rely solely on guessing and picking one among four canned answers.

Every librarian and their staff received pink slips in our district," said Susan Hernandez, president of the Pasadena High School Parent, Teacher and Student Association. "How does a school function without a library?

why are we still so keen on having our students memorize facts when we have no idea whether they can develop informed points of view of what those facts meant, mean or might mean to the future. Why are we using one dimensional textbooks when the stories we wish to tell can be brought to life with the multi-media experiences available to anyone with a modem and a computer? Especially, since the textbooks are coming out of Texas which wants our students to believe that evolution is a theory like creationism and that the civil rights movement created unrealistic expectations for minorities. Do we really want to codify that kind of thinking?

this article offers a good example of what so many school reformers (and journalists) get wrong:  They assume that “good teaching” consists of disgorging information to students.  The only challenge, then, is to become more skillful at “getting and holding the floor,” making kids do whatever they’re told, and avoid “veer[ing] away from the lesson plans.”  The nightmare scenario from this perspective is one where “the kids are running the classroom.”

Notice that this kind of instruction does nothing to help children think critically, understand ideas, or (heaven knows) become excited about learning.  Notice, too, that it’s an approach mostly applied to poor kids of color.  As Jonathan Kozol has observed, “Children of the suburbs learn to interrogate reality,” while “inner-city kids are trained for nonreflective acquiescence.”

If you want to talk about authentic accountability, then we have to start asking the kids if they like school. Then we have to care about their answer. And then we have to stop blaming them and reflecting on our own practices.

the restriction of learning to the moments we spend in the classroom with our students is disrespectful of our students time. Why should we set parameters on their willingness to engage in learning?

if the students fail to learn the material as shown by the usual measures, it is the students’ fault, except that the students think it’s the teacher’s fault.

To reshape pedagogy, Tapscott says that we must consider eight norms for the Net Generation: freedom, customization, scrutiny, integrity, collaboration, entertainment, speed, and innovation.

What I’m finding more and more as I visit schools that are getting more serious about “change” is that they have someone at the top who is willing to focus on the learning and not on the other crap. And you can pick these people out in a heartbeat; they are leaders AND learners, and they’re not ashamed to share the driving questions they have about their schools with those around them. They have a passion not for making AYP or top schools lists as much as they do supporting their teachers to be learners, allowing them to look at their own teaching as a deep learning experience and share that learning with others.

If you're reading this blog, you're likely someone who already takes charge of your learning and you choose what to read and absorb. You likely rarely say, "just tell me what to do" on the big issues of your job. Compliance isn't always a bad thing and there are many occasions, when we just are as invested as others and just want to get the job done without a lot of discussion or analysis. But the shift to personalized learning, if indeed you see or believe that shift, demands students and teachers to take charge. That might be the biggest challenge of all.

So when is it okay to be told what to do and when do we suggest, and even demand learners (teachers and students) to own their learning?

the kids are feeling "gob-smacked" about the whole project. They are used to having their research papers outlined for them .... gather info about the topic, produce five pages, make sure to use "x" number of sources, be sure to include ... blah, blah, blah..... We've given them minimal direction for this. Many don't know what to do. They are simply not used to being asked what is important to them. It will be interesting to watch what they do - once they stop whining and begging for direction

Why wouldn't they feel 'gob-smacked?' We've socialized them to be fact regurgitators...

I don’t want my own kids to go quietly through their lives. And I don’t want that for our RCS students either. I hope we’re graduating students who can research and analyze and take the initiative. I hope we’re graduating students who can help to solve the many problems that our world faces - making it a better place than it is today. I want our graduates to know that they have the power to do so. And so I’m always wondering, what are we doing to prepare them to be good thinkers? To let them practice these things?

Time will tell if my own kids can do more than be good students in school. I’m hopeful and optimistic, but I’m not sure that the ability to score well on the Global exam or Earth Science Regents or the 8th grade Math exam shows much more than an ability to memorize, study and take a test well.  Does this success indicate an ability to critically think, to problem solve, to collaborate, lead, initiate, communicate, analyze? To really understand the world around them and their places in it?

the promising use of technology in education is not about creating gimmicky video games or virtual worlds, but about using software and hardware to rethink the business of teaching. In that regard, technology is most effective when it can do one of three things: 1) Replace costly and inefficient activities, such as spending long amounts of time grading multiple choice questions, 2) Make it easier to manage and oversee a class, such as course management software that makes it possible for professors to see which questions students frequently got wrong; or 3) Make students more active and responsible for their learning, such as programs that tailor exercises to areas where students need help and then generate repeated problems so students can keep working on an idea until they really understand it.

Winston Churchill Middle School, Carmichael, Calif. Students participating in this GenerationYes! program assist teachers with support needs ranging from software installation to the creation and implementation of content-specific lessons. Currently, 90 percent of the students in the program go into classrooms and teach their classmates about a specific subject using technology.

Tupelo Middle School, Tupelo, Miss. Tupelo Middle School (TMS) is part of C.R.E.A.T.E for Mississippi, and 56 of its students are leaders in the Excel Tech program. Students maintain and service computers for teachers, install software, ghost machines, set up new equipment for teachers, develop PowerPoint presentations, and work on special projects for the school. TMS will become a one-to-one student to computer school in 2010–2011. The Excel Tech classes will have a major role in setting up and maintaining these 1,140 student laptops.

Lower Eastside PS 515, New York, N.Y. The MOUSE Squad has 25 participants who routinely tutor their peers in the basics of computing and work in teams to provide custom professional development courses to faculty on evenings and weekends. Students provide technical support for their school and its assortment of handheld computers, mobile labs and standard equipment. Students use their technology skills to help design the school's yearbook cover and for detailed page design.

East Garner Magnet Middle School, Garner, N.C. Students serving on the Students Working to Advance Technology (SWAT) team teach fellow classmates about technology in computer labs, take part in community service projects including teaching library patrons to use Microsoft Office, designing Web sites for teachers, assisting teachers with Internet research, and videotaping news broadcasts. Through the program, students are gaining technology training and leadership skills, and valuable community service experience.

Parkway West High School, Philadelphia, Pa. With the support of the Urban Technology Project, approximately 80 10th grade students serve as "Guides by the Side." Student experts are trained to provide project-based digital media support in kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms, including developing lesson plans, providing in-class support, working one-on-one with students in the areas of literacy, math and reading, and creating "legacy projects" to address community and school technology needs, such as tech manuals for teachers and school Web sites.

Forest Park High School, Woodbridge, Va. The VA Star program offers students a fully integrated service-learning model including a rich IT curriculum, hands-on training to refurbish and recycle used computers, and a full spectrum of community service opportunities to meet the IT needs of the school's community.

Microsoft and the Corporation for National and Community Service are working together "in meaningful ways to revitalize learning, schools, and communities through the use of technology." Above is the list of six schools and their projects. The initiatives look good and appear to be worthwhile learning experiences for students, but they're also all focused internally on tech needs and community service WITHIN the school system. It would have been nice if at least a couple of these were focused on community needs OUTSIDE of the school system instead...

This is not a big critique. What they're doing looks like good stuff. Just a suggestion for the next round!

Relatively small improvements in the skills of a nation’s workforce can have a big effect on its future economic well-being, concludes a new international study that seeks to quantify those benefits.

For the United States, the research suggests, modest gains in student achievement as measured by one international assessment could cumulatively boost the country’s gross domestic product by tens of trillions of dollars over the coming decades.

“There’s almost a one-to-one match between what people know and how well economies have grown over time,” Andreas Schleicher, the head of indicators and analysis for the education directorate at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said at a briefing held here last week to discuss the findings. “It’s not the quantity of schooling that drives success in countries, it is the quality of [learning] outcomes that we see that is explaining the relationship.”

At a CALI conference a few years ago there was a presentation by a law student (U. Cincinnati, I think) who went beyond the idea of distributing outlines of his classes on-line: he took his class notes, the readings, etc., and created his own podcasts - audio files that he distributed on-line - that consisted of his own lectures/discussions of the material covered in his classes. He was essentially creating his own on-line courses based on what he was learning in class (and he said he had 50,000+ people downloading and, presumedly, listening to these podcasts). BUT, before his first year of law school started, he met with each of his professors and told them of his plans - he wasn’t asking PERMISSION because he already had a good idea of what the law in this area was - and only one of his professors had any qualms about it, and, ultimately, there were no efforts to stop him from what he was doing and by now, I think, he probably has an entire law school education’s worth of podcasts on-line.
Having these outlines on-line just changes the scale of what our students already had available to them: the internet long ago made the exchange of all manner of information and data much easier. And, yes, this is probably why more students these days may seem to anticipate your lines of discussion and questions in class but, again, its really just a change of scale from fifteen years ago when students had to physically exchange floppy discs containing course outlines that they had written or that they had obtained from upperclassmen.

Brian Huddleston

I minimize memorization. My classroom walls are filled with posters that give key relationships and formulas. Why memorize material that is literally at their fingertips with their smart phones, textbooks, and computers?

Jerry Brodkey, via Larry Cuban