Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school

Having children causes one to (re)think seriously about education and the role of school. Education obviously is the most powerful thing in the world. And yet the old Mark Twain chestnut — "I never let school get in the way of my education" — speaks to the core of my own thinking regarding education. I am not an expert in education by any means, but like almost everyone, I have strong ideas based on my personal experiences going through formal, mass schooling. Personally, the best years where I learned the most and was inspired to study and learn on my own were surely the six years of elementary school, and then university and graduate school. Seth Godin on EducationIn this short interview, Seth Godin sums up the essence of the problem. Seth Godin on how schools teach kids to aim lowIn this short clip Seth Godin says something concerning the "lizard brain" and our fear of taking risks that reminded me of the world of live stand-up presentations in work or academia. Dr.

Presentation Zen: Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school | Leadership for Mobile Learning 6 Education SlideShares To Inspire, Improve And Innovate Your School One of the things I love about the modern web is the willingness of talented people to share their amazing content for free. Online communities that encourage individuals to share their work in return for broad exposure and the respect and credibility that this builds. One of the strongest and most vibrant communities fostering this culture is SlideShare. SlideShare is a priceless resource and one that is often overlooked when searching and creating content on the web. For example, I am part of a small group that meets regularly to share ideas. As part of this I often prepare my own slides to present, but before doing so, I will often check SlideShare to see if someone with more credibility, knowledge and experience has done this before me. With this in mind, here are six great educational SlideShares that you may like to share with your school audience. Re-envisioning Modern Pedagogy: Educators As Curators How I Flipped My Classroom The End Of Teaching Using Diigo in the Classroom

Letting Fourth Graders Solve the World’s Problems Culture Teaching Strategies John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4′x5′ plywood board and lets his 4th-graders solve them. In this TED Talk, Hunter, who’s been named one of Time Magazine’s education activists for 2012, explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches — spontaneous, and always surprising — go further than classroom lectures can. Students must deconstruct a 13-page crisis document with interlocking problems like ethnic and minority tensions, chemical and nuclear spills, oil spills, environmental disasters, water rights disputes, breakaway republics, famine, endangered species and global warming. In the process of solving these problems in class, Hunter says he hands over the reigns to students. “It’s a serious question: who is really in charge? A documentary, World Peace and Other Fourth-Grade Achievements, offers a look into how the game is played in class, and how it influences the dynamic of teachers and students.