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What is Connected Learning

What is Connected Learning
Ninth-grader Charles Raben has seen first-hand that by connecting the many spheres of his life -- peers, interests and academic pursuits -- new learning experiences can and will present themselves in both organized and unstructured ways. In the summer of 2012, Charles utilized his photography skills and the petition website Change.org to capture and share the story of Jerry Delakas, a longtime local newsstand operator who was in danger of losing his New York City license over a technicality. "I wanted to have that experience of creating change myself." The petition-making process proved to be a life-changing learning experience for the teen. Charles has become even more engaged in school, and all of his academic work is improving as a result of all of these activities because he has an identity now. A single sentence on his photography blog eloquently bares this newfound identity: "Each face tells a story and I try to capture just that." Related:  Maker Education

The Other 21st Century Skills Many have attempted to identify the skills important for a learner today in this era of the 21st century (I know it is an overused phrase). I have an affinity towards the skills identified by Tony Wagner: Critical thinking and problem-solvingCollaboration across networks and leading by influenceAgility and adaptabilityInitiative and entrepreneurialismEffective oral and written communicationAccessing and analyzing informationCuriosity and imagination Today I viewed a slideshow created by Gallup entitled, The Economics of Human Development: The Path to Winning Again in Education. Here are some slides from this presentation. This presentation sparked my thinking about what other skills and attributes would serve the learners (of all ages) in this era of learning. GritResilienceHope and OptimismVisionSelf-RegulationEmpathy and Global Stewardship Grit Students can develop psychological resources that promote grit, tenacity, and perseverance. Resilience

Stigmergy Kind people have stigmergically translated this article into German, French, and Spanish. This article is part of a series now incorporated into : ‘Binding Chaos’. Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. In that way, subsequent actions tend to reinforce and build on each other, leading to the spontaneous emergence of coherent, apparently systematic activity. A personality based system can never allow for mass collaboration on a global scale without representation such as that seen in organizations like the United Nations. Currently, the typical response to a situation which requires an action is to create a noun, in the form of a committee, commission, organization, corporation, ngo, government body, etc. Most systems are now run by competitive organizations. Hierarchical System Consensus Hierarchy Stigmergy

What skills will you need to succeed in the future? Top 10 skills for the successful 21st-century worker Leadership Take a cross-disciplinary approach to project team- work. and following in order to prepare for your career. Many businesses are adopting a participative management style, which involves employees in decision making. George DeMetropolis University of Phoenix faculty member and leadership consultant Critical thinking Take coursework that offers an opportunity to engage in self-directed, project-based and applied learning. Communication Learn in an environment that requires participation in many modes of communication. Students hold themselves accountable and have the opportunity to hold others accountable for the good of the team. Irene Blundell University of Phoenix faculty member Productivity and accountability Select a school that provides a code of conduct in learning situations to build accountability and productivity. Collaboration Choose courses that are collaborative and measure success by team results. Adaptability Take advantage of flexible course schedules and

Culture, genes and the human revolution - Matt Ridley FOXP2 is not the only gene associated with the human revolution (3). However, it illustrates that when an evolutionary mutation is identified as crucial to the human capacity for cumulative culture, this might be a consequence rather than a cause of cultural change (8). The smallest, most trivial new habit adopted by a hominid species could— if advantageous—have led to selection of genomic variations that sharpened that habit, be it cultural exchange, creativity, technological virtuosity, or heightened empathy. This viewpoint is in line with recent understanding of the human revolution as a gradual but accelerating process, in which features of behaviorally modern human beings came together piecemeal in Africa over many tens of thousands of years (6). Recognizing the role of culture-driven gene evolution in the origins of modern humans provides a powerful reminder of how easy it is to confuse cause and effect in science. References and Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7.

How to Get Girls Into Coding WHEN I was 7 years old, I knew the capitals of most major countries and their currencies. I had to, if I wanted to track down a devious criminal mastermind in the computer game “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” On screen, the ACME Detective Agency would spit out clues like notable landmarks to help players identify the city where Carmen’s globe-trotting henchmen were hiding out. I wouldn’t learn how to pronounce Reykjavik for more than a decade, but I could tell you that its currency was called the krona. I was the child of Indian immigrants, and like any begrudging Bengal tiger cub, I penciled in fill-in-the-blank maps and memorized multiplication tables after dinner. A huge nationwide push is underway, funded by the nonprofit Code.org’s corporate and billionaire donors, from Amazon and Google to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, to introduce American schoolchildren to coding and to redefine it as a basic skill to be learned alongside the three R’s. Continue reading the main story

Construcción Colaborativa del Conocimiento A lo largo de la historia de la humanidad, los procesos creativos en sus diferentes manifestaciones (científicos, tecnológicos o artísticos) se vieron limitados por la velocidad de la propagación de ideas y por la falta de contacto entre pares separados geográficamente. Con el transcurso de los siglos se han reducido paulatinamente esas barreras, y en la actualidad pasamos por un momento de inflexión, de modo que la manera de colaborar con nuestros pares está por dar un vuelco radical. El contacto por internet está cambiando la forma de producir conocimiento. Amplios grupos han planteado nuevas dinámicas, y se han ido acercando y gravitando de manera natural unos hacia otros para plantear cómo será en el futuro el desarrollo del conocimiento y, en general, de los procesos creativos. Este trabajo deriva de la intención de formalizar, desde un punto de vista multidisciplinario, cómo va operando esta transformación.

The Importance of Thinking In- and Out-of-the-Box How to encourage creativity in a tech-based environment. GUEST COLUMN | by Wendy Marshall How do you teach a student to be creative? It used to be that educators encouraged innovation by telling children to “think outside the box” via a “sky’s the limit” approach. During our summer Makers Camp that is put on by my educational center ExplorOcean, children (ages 9-13) participate in guided projects using tools such as Little Bits, Makey Makeyand Hummingbird robotics. It is important, especially in a tech-based environment, to encourage students to think both inside and outside the box. 1. Researchers who study prodigious accomplishments talk about the 10,000-hour rule, which means in order to be able to do something notable, one must devote 10,000+ hours to mastering that discipline. 2. Requirements, guidelines, time and materials all narrow the realm in which a student is allowed to operate, making it easier for her or him to focus on the problem or issue. 3. 4. 5. Like this:

K... 3 Ways Coding and Gaming Can Enhance Learning Coding isn't just for computer science any more. Educators are finding that teaching students to write code and design games enhances learning and creates engagement. These examples illustrate how coding and games are being used across the curriculum and at all levels, as well as why great teaching is at the very heart of this innovation. Connecting With Each Learner: Inform7 (Interactive Fiction for High School) Imagine a weather-beaten oak door. It has a heavy brass knocker and a tarnished handle that doesn't look like it has been used in some time. Now go to Google Images and try to find a picture of the exact door that you have seen in your head. Now imagine that as you approach the door, you notice deep scratches along the doorframe, as if something has been trying to get in . . . or trying to hold the door closed. Yet through the power of narrative description, we are all probably picturing the same door in our heads. Great Teachers

Gamestorming Upgrade Your Brain: Resources for Coding Beginners Adam Benzion is the founder of Entirely—a Seattle startup focused on social innovation, keen on connecting more people in more places to create special things together. “Everybody in this country should learn to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.”— Steve Jobs Anyone who’s paying attention these days has probably figured out that computer programming is fast becoming the new standard of literacy in our technology-driven economy. Those with even a rudimentary knowledge of code will probably read this little article and chuckle. But for me and many other “business types,” not understanding coding has become a real handicap and a growing blind spot. As an intelligent person who’s had a successful career in the software industry and even managed to deliver as technology entrepreneur, I hate feeling left out of certain conversations because I don’t know the language. Everyone is tweaking, hacking, and experimenting. Upgrading your MBA brain is actually fun Spread the word

10 places where anyone can learn to code Teens, tweens and kids are often referred to as “digital natives.” Having grown up with the Internet, smartphones and tablets, they’re often extraordinarily adept at interacting with digital technology. But Mitch Resnick, who spoke at TEDxBeaconStreet, is skeptical of this descriptor. Sure, young people can text and chat and play games, he says, “but that doesn’t really make you fluent.” Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code Fluency, Resnick proposes in this TED Talk, comes not through interacting with new technologies, but through creating them. The point isn’t to create a generation of programmers, Resnick argues. In his talk, Resnick describes Scratch, the programming software that he and a research group at MIT Media Lab developed to allow people to easily create and share their own interactive games and animations. At Codecademy, you can take lessons on writing simple commands in JavaScript, HTML and CSS, Python and Ruby. While we’re at it: bonus!

Gamestar Mechanic

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