Geoff Johnson: Education is plagued by the ‘New Stupid’ There seem to be three possibilities when it comes to a responsible analysis of the financial management abilities of school districts, trustees and school district fiscal officers. First, trustees and their secretary-treasurers shouldn’t be trusted with grocery money. Second, there is some vast trustee political conspiracy to embarrass the minister of education and his governing party. And third, it is actually the government that, with a series of uninformed or even deliberately misleading statements, continues to impoverish public education. The first possibility seems unlikely. School district secretary-treasurers, usually the organizational chief financial officer, are a sober and abstemious bunch who take pride in requiring an explanation for every dollar that manages to make it as far as the expenditure column. They squeeze every dollar, as the saying goes, until the loonie screams and pleads for mercy. Beyond possible. The third possibility has some traction. And the game is on.
Le Réseau National de la Médiation numérique Le Réseau National de la Médiation Numérique (RNMN) a été créé suite à la demande exprimée par les acteurs de tous horizons lors de la consultation publique menée de juillet à octobre 2014 relative à la constitution de ce Réseau. Ses objectifs principaux sont : C'est ce que rappelait Axelle Lemaire, Secrétaire d'Etat en charge du Numérique, lors des Assises de la Médiation Numérique à Bordeaux le 9 octobre 2014 et que vous pouvez réécouter dans la vidéo suivante: Lire la vidéo sur DailyMotion - lire la retranscription du discours Ce Réseau, associé à une signalétique spécifique, cherche ainsi à faire connaître et à promouvoir l'ensemble des acteurs volontaires engagés dans des actions innovantes, associant les domaines du social, du culturel et de l’économique, grâce au numérique, au sein de réseaux déjà existants.
How Do We Learn? How Should We Learn? If I ask you or your students, “How do you learn,” how many of you could clearly articulate this process? If you can, are the strategies you’re using the best ones for learning? Furthermore, if the research on the process of learning is compared to the practices being implemented in school, does this research influence school practices? During my school years, I noticed there was a problem with how I was being asked to learn. The unintended consequences of these artificial and unnatural ways of learning include believing that learning is or should be difficult, painful, disciplined, and not fun. Benedict Carey informs us that “most of our instincts about learning are misplaced, incomplete, or flat wrong” and “rooted more in superstition than in science.” Instead of making assumptions about the best and most natural learning strategies, it is best to research and study this process. What follows are some of those strategies that research has indicated are some of the better ones.
Tear Down This Wall! A New Architecture for Blended Learning Success To maximize the benefits of blended learning, we’ll need to rethink not just the system architecture of schooling, but also the physical architecture of schools themselves. Heather Staker and I tackled this topic in chapter seven of our recent book, Blended, but it is clear that we still need more designers and architects thinking about how schools should change their physical design, clarifying the principles underlying these changes, and illuminating the path to move from today’s egg-crate boxes to designs fit for the future. Over the last several months I have had the opportunity to connect with Larry Kearns, an architect at Wheeler Kearns Architects, who focuses on projects with ambitious social, economic and environmental goals and worked on the design for Intrinsic Schools in Chicago, a cutting-edge blended-learning school. What follows is a Q&A addressing the issues raised above. The interview appears in two parts: the first focuses on the design behind Intrinsic Schools. Sure.
Resources On The Social Side Of Education Reform Updates to this post will be posted here. For the past few months, we have been insisting, through this blog series, on the idea that education reform has a social dimension or level that often is overlooked in mainstream debate and policy. Under this broad theme, we've covered diverse issues ranging from how teachers' social capital can increase their human capital to how personnel churn can undermine reform efforts, or how too much individual talent can impede a team's overall performance. This collection of issues may prompt a number of important questions: What exactly is the "social side?" This social side perspective does a few things: A number of authors and their research have shaped this perspective. How to Best Add Value: Strike a Balance Between the Individual and the Organization by Susan Moore Johnson. I have also compiled a list of videos, blog posts, news articles, books and papers that speak to the principles underpinning the social side perspective. Videos Blogs
Des e.learning center au service du e.learning ? J’évoque régulièrement dans ces colonnes les questions pédagogiques liées au e.learning. Notre système de formation, comme le reste de la société, est en tension (1) notamment parce qu’il oscille entre un monde ancien qui se fracture et un monde nouveau qui peine à se dessiner. Ce mouvement pendulaire qui va du modèle vertical vers le modèle horizontal, recompose les espaces de formation. Nous devons nous poser la question suivante : Dans quels espaces physiques et virtuels apprendra t-on dans un avenir proche ? Il s’agit ici d’une question globale qui engage à argumenter dans un périmètre triangulaire délimité par les compétences de l’État, les compétences des collectivités locales et les enjeux stratégiques du e.learning. Les espaces de travail futurs, notamment les dispositifs de e.learning, qu’ils soient dans les universités ou dans les établissements du secondaire seront imaginés dans ce triangle. La formation initiale est un enjeux fort pour l’avenir de notre société. WordPress:
Permanently Disrupting Education - With Cellphones | Te@chThought Permanently Disrupting Education. With Smartphones. by Terry Heick The concept of disruption is an apt one in our fluid, digital, and almost destructively social world. In response to the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it’s not surprising to see that trend continue now that technology has caught up with our inherently rebellious ways. Access for everyone to everything, a principal the Khan Academy is built on. While on a macro and truly global level we’re from far from reaching this utopian view of universal accessibility to platforms, information, and thus opportunity, the groundswell is indeed pushing for that. Of course, with this kind of access comes disruption. Modern smartphones have the chance to change all of this. Disruption isn’t always a comfortable process. In classrooms across the globes, learners are being educated in information-scarce environments. Can’t analyze. Can’t evaluate. Can’t synthesize. Of course, learners are human, so they rebel. Factors 1. 2. 3. 1.
Un parcours M@gistère pour se former aux usages des outils nomades au CDI Daniela Brun est professeure-documentaliste à la Délégation académique au numérique éducatif de l'académie de Versailles. Son parcours intitulé "Tablettes et autres outils nomades au CDI" est proposé aux professeurs-documentalistes de l'académie de Versailles dans le cadre d'une formation hybride [1] qui comprend deux journées de stage en présentiel et des activités à distance tutorées d'une durée d'environ six heures réparties sur un mois. Il est également accessible à tous en autoformation (inscription libre mais nécessitant une authentification académique) à l'adresse : Pourquoi cette thématique de formation ? Daniela Brun : Les collectivités équipent de plus en plus d'établissements en tablettes. Or, la richesse des tablettes réside dans la diversité de leurs fonctionnalités et leur mobilité. Pourquoi un parcours propre aux professeurs documentalistes ? Comment s'organise ce parcours ?
20 new education products for tech-savvy students | Daily Genius The economics of both state-provided and private education are always making life difficult for those who spend their days balancing budgets. Schools don’t have a lot of money. Even the rich ones. The result is that, right across the industry, even in the private sector where the institution itself is dedicated to its own margins, there is a suspicion about suppliers who chase a profit. This isn’t about the profit motive in private schools – that’s an issue that bears longer discussion than this piece – but about how those running schools, somehow, seem to live in a world where they assume that everyone – from those who drive the buses to those who make the lunches to those who make the apps that keep children educated even on their mobiles – are all doing it from higher motives. Surely, the thought goes, no-one does this for the money, no-one would exploit the education of a child in that way?
« Des pierres et du ciment » au service de l’interaction pédagogique Billets en rapports – les « e.learning center » au service du e.learning – Au lieu de sanctuariser l’école – De l’utopie de la négation du corps …- La classe connectée … J’utiliserai dans cet article le terme d’architecture mais entendu comme l’architecture d’intérieur au sens ou le définit l’UNAID (Union Nationale des Architectes d’Intérieur, Designer) : « Participant de plain-pied à l’acte de construire, l’architecte d’intérieur exerce son art depuis l’élaboration et l’agencement des volumes d’un bâtiment jusqu’à la mise en scène des objets qui vont faire la qualité, la cohérence et le plaisir d’habiter un espace accordé au plus juste des besoins comme des goûts de ses clients » Ma réflexion sur l’espace de formation m’a amené, lors cette année universitaire (2013-2014), à visiter plusieurs lieux de formation aménagés à titre expérimental. J’ai entendu plusieurs acceptions pour qualifier ces lieux, learning center, fablab, atelier de co-working. Le learning center Le FabLab J'aime :
K-12 Librarians' Roles Shift to Meet Digital Demands | Education Week A Washington state district treats librarians as digital mentors By Carol Brzozowski School libraries across the country are trying to forge a new identity, prompted largely by the need to re-establish their relevance in the age of blended learning. In the Vancouver, Wash., school district, those efforts are being guided by Mark Ray, a librarian who has worked to transform the school library program in his 23,000-student system from feeling outdated and irrelevant into one of the most exemplary programs in the United States, served by 35 “teacher-librarians.” Librarians have traditionally served an important role in school systems as teachers, particularly in teaching students how to access information. In Vancouver, the first challenge was getting the message about libraries’ relevance understood by teachers and librarians themselves, as well as by district decisionmakers, said Mr. Teacher-librarians are hired and evaluated by Vancouver’s school principals. Investing in PD Ms. Mr.
De la nécessaire redéfinition du métier d'enseignant Les débats autour de l’école ont ceci d’inquiétants qu’ils ne parlent jamais de l’éducation, mais d’une certaine image de l’école qui n’a jamais existé. Ils sont révélateurs d’une méconnaissance totale du métier d’enseignant que l’on définit encore principalement comme transmetteur de connaissance. Il va de soi que si enseigner c’est transmettre la culture, c’est aussi et surtout la mise en place de conditions adaptées à chacun afin que tous s’approprient cette culture. Une mutation du métier Le but de l’école n’est pas que l’élève soit cultivé (fonction passive) mais qu’il se cultive. Délivrer les élèves c’est administrer à chacun ce qui est utile pour lui. Un passage de culture Je ne me ferai pas avoir par la critique conservatrice car toute culture vise son propre dépassement. C’est pourquoi enseigner, ce n’est plus faire un cours pour 25 élèves (euh… 28-29-30 !)