Summer Learning PD

In the part of the blogosphere that I read, there is currently circulating a Summer Professional Development/Learning Meme 2009 originally started by Cliff Mims.  in the spirit of this challenge, I'd like to declare the following goals for this summer:

1. Learn GarageBand
2. Read: Dan Pink's a Whole New Mind, Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future, Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, and J.F. Rischard's High Noon: 20 Global Problems and 20 Years to Solve Them.
3. Start blogging regularly, at least twice a week.
   

Rules

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2009 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

The Rules

NOTE: You do NOT have to wait to be tagged to participate in this meme.

1. Pick 1-3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
2. For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/07/09).
3. Post the above directions along with your 1-3 goals on your blog.
4. Title your post Summer Professional Development Meme 2009 and link back/trackback to http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/2447.
5. Use the following tag/ keyword/ category on your post: pdmeme09.
6. Tag 5-8 others to participate in the meme.
7. Achieve your goals and "develop professionally."
8. Commit to sharing your results on your blog during early or mid-September.

Technorati Tags: pdmeme09

Videogames

I found this TED talk on the history of videogames and where they are heading to be very disturbing.  "Part of me is just waiting to let go"

1 to 1 as a Distraction

On Thursday, Slate published this article, which criticized 1 to 1 laptop initiatives based on research from the Euro 2000 program in Romania. This is not an apples to apples comparison. The results of the study noted that student achievement dropped for students that received a subsidy to purchase a computer. When 1 to 1 laptops are deployed, all of the students receive laptops, not just a portion of them. As Alan Kay points out, the dominant technology defines the dominant task. In a case of a 1 to 1 deployment, this means that the paper and pencil exercises can be opened up to problem based learning.

Also, as Lawrence Lessig points out, technology has the effect of democratizing the means of production.

This again is a very good thing. It will hopefully enable students to take back their voices.

The other big argument in favour of 1 to 1 laptop programs is the fact that students often say that school is where they have to disconnect from the grid. (John Medina would argue that we need some time to disconnect:)

However, disconnecting for seven or eight hours every day creates a disconnect for students between school and the world that they inhabit the rest of the day and rest of the week.

Web programming and information architechture

Andrew Hinton's slide share on the nature of information architechture

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As an occasional web programmer, this notion of embedding good information architecture in the form of documents. The example of Flickr on slide 73 is especially illustrating of this principle.

Brain Rules

Jeff Utecht recently posted about John Medina's book the Brain Rules.



Jeff also provided a link to Garr Reynolds' presentation on his take on the book.

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Both of these have me believing that John Medina's Brain Rules is very much worth a read.

Technology starting to have an effect

I found an article in today's Salon in a lot of ways to be very encouraging. Kids are using technology to get at higher order thinking skills. 8/10 students surveyed understood what To Kill a Mockingbird was about. Lots more work to do. 25% of teh students surveyed could not identify Adolf Hitler's role in World History. The important thing is that Web 2.0 tools are gaining traction and students are starting to use their brains to think, rather than just cram information into.

A philosphy of Anti-teaching

I just came across Michael Wesch's Savage Minds page. He defines anti-teaching as getting students to ask good questions. To me, that is the essence of good teaching.

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