What is Wisdom?

Jim Burke got me thinking with his post this week about wisdom. I made me look back to Chris Lehmann’s 5 min talk which he ended with the statement about teaching wisdom. Chris’ final point had been with me for awhile. Wow can I teach wisdom. Sounds cool but can it be done?

Jim’s link to this YouTube clip not only is it a great piece to watch but it made me think that maybe the “undefined wisdom” would not be that easy to teach after all.  No really! But as we are having to look at what we need to be teaching for 21st century learners are we not trying to move to teach less specific content and more thinking and problem solving skills.

Will this lead us to a wiser crowd in the long run? Or as Jim Burke ask can a crowd have wisdom? and or does an online crowd have wisdom?

Chris Lehmann in 5 mins.

Wisdom

Enjoy these and think about it!

Just finished up sitting in on Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s keynote address. For me her discussion of the personal learning network and the importance of it validates my goals on getting this network established for myself.

To follow up on this point I have ventured down the hall to Sharon Betts‘ talk on 21st centuring networking. She introduces uStream, Twitter, Ning, Social Bookmarking with Delicious and Diigo, and RSS.

Shows the ease with which you can become a broadcaster using uStream. Get an account and a camera and off you go.

Next is a Twitter talk. Explaining how and why one would want to get into twitter.

Social sites began with Ning. She recommended Classroom 2.0 ning.

Ran out of time and ended with the k12Online conference plug.

Intermission check out the coffee and the vendors. Who needs a pair of Google Sketchup socks?

Next, a presentation with Dr. Tim Tyson.  Putting your class on the Grid.

Using blogs with your classrooms. This tool allows you to share everything that you are doing in your classroom.  How to get teachers started on a blog. Fried Chicken and a quick demo.

Gets homework home, gets class news home, and allows that communication to get started.

So blogs are easy to set up and then one can use RSS feed for blogs that you want to read.

I am keeping a blog not to give me more work but to give you the parent some work to do. The parents are then responsible for reviewing with their day with their child.

Mabry Middle School an illustration of how they used a blog in their school.

Teachers each had a blog and needed to post at least once a week. Also hosted field trip blogs, and podcasts blogs.

He then demoed the use of ScreenFlow. Looks like an amazing way to get material from class out on the web.

(ECTO, ScreenFlow, wireless mic)

Lunch on the fly and a visit to Doug Snow sharing the latest from Noteshare.

Workshop of wiki use with Terri Dawson.   http://tdawson.wikispaces.com

Easy, Collaborative, Global connections

Terri uses and recommends wikispaces. The discussion, history tabs look like a nice feature that I need to investigate in PBwiki.

Interesting comment was that it is easier for students to do comments in a blog rather than a wiki. Something I will need to think about with the staff wiki that we set up.

And so that was the day in a nut shell! Now time to answer my new questions and start putting some of this new information to work in my teaching.

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday September 23, @11:26PM
from the think-of-the-children dept.

Pittsburgh Public Schools officials have enacted a policy that sets 50 percent as the minimum score a student can receive for assignments, tests and other work. District spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester. The district and teachers union issued a joint memo to ensure staff members’ compliance with the policy, which was already on the books but enforced only at some schools. At this rate, it won’t be long before schools institute double extra credit Mondays and Fridays to ensure students don’t take three day weekends.

So where are we headed?  Would this policy work at your school or district or classroom?

Does it make sense in the long term or is it a short term fix for students who are not meeting the goals of the school?

Are there not other ways get students to invest in their learning that might be more meaningful?

What is the “value” of a grade?     Especially if it is artificially set!

I personally don’t like the solution that they have arrived at but on a district wide, urban setting I certainly see that the options are limited. School size and class size playing a larger part I am sure. As I sit here with my class of 18 students I realized that we are fortunate to have a setting where we can avoid a policy like this. Our situation allows us to intervene in a more personal basis and that is the bottom line. If we can get to a personal 1to1 or small group setting the issues of students giving up due to grades is greatly reduced.

WRITING MATTERS

This appears to be a super resource for teachers and students around writing.  As a teacher it appears to be not only a resource with ideas and lessons but also a platform for publishing work online.

There are a multitude of ways to put material on the web (this blog is an example) but when working with students it is nice to have an environment where teachers and students can feel comfortable with access to the published material. This seems to be one of those “comfortable spots” on the web.

When you have time explore and see if this might be a fit for your classroom.

Let me know if you found this site to be useful in your classroom.

Last night I read a post from Chris Lehmann (principal in PA) about considering a new economic model that gets away from the “growth” based economy and tries to rework the great features about our present system but is based on “sustainability”. Chris concludes his post with:

“Because I am concerned that without a new model, the macro-level rapaciousness of a corporate capitalism as that legal organism is currently constructed will lead us into a need for more and more where we must hope that technological innovations stretch ever-dwindling resources and increase the efficiency with which humans interact with their environment outpace the need for the market to grow. And that is a frightening end-game that, to me, we are destined some day to lose.”

This morning I just finished reading Mr. Doyle’s (science teacher in NJ) reflection on the action on Wall Street and the placement or misplacement of value. Pointing out that his basil in the garden still has the same value that it had before the Dow dropped 500 points. (The frost got mine this weekend so there was some depreciation on the crop here in Appleton) He concludes with

“If children truly learned what’s worth anything, I fear expect our economy would collapse.”

These two readings point out some fairly clear limitations in the “value” system of our society. Can we plan on always getting more from the environment even if our technological progress makes our “environmental interaction more efficient”? And if as educators we educated on value and what is really worth something would it move us towards a “more sustainable” economy from the ground up? I would like to think that yes, the American system does need some reworking and that these students that we have are the ones who are going to have to get it! (We did not!) They need to be realizing that “Ultimately everything of value is connected to the ground, the sun, the air, the water.”

My 8th grade class just finished up harvesting corn from that garden that they planted last May. They had a choice of what they wanted to do with it and interestingly they did not choose the money route they did not give it away to a needy organization. The value for them in that corn was to cook it up and eat it as a class, sharing the experience with each other. Now there was some value! (and a good thing in their life)

The visit to the Fair was an annual pilgrimage that many Mainers make every year. Is it to be reminded of what is really valuable! I think it is. We go not to shop, not for entertainment, (not that it does not have either of these) but for that reminder of the important things of real value. We can see and hear about the connections to the ground, the sun, the air and the water. That is what it is about! On an individual basis we tend to get so caught up in the “Wall Street” value and marketing of things of little value that this annual gathering is a great way for us to educate ourselves and reflect about things of real value.

And remember that the good things in life are not always things!!

This looks like a great companion to all the technology workshops that I attend. It is nice that this is happening in Maine and that Gov. Baldacci is trying to to bring attention to this issue.

After reading Last Child in the Woods, which from a teaching point of view the first half was of interest, I have been dealing with how to get my students and laptops out of the building and into natural settings. When looking at technology be it laptops, Smartboards, web2.0, Wii, etc. nature is not always the first thing that comes to mind or to the workshop setting.

Here in Maine a few programs that I have been involved with where nature and tech meet are Maine Lakes Conservacy Institute and the new Maine Explorer software on the MLTI laptops. We need more of this sort of opportunity as education gets pulled towards technology and needs more nature in its delivery.

I hope that this event is as well attended as some of this falls technology gatherings.

k12onlineflyer_letter

For those of us who have been wondering why we drive all over the countryside to get training on a particular topic when we seem to have the technology at our disposal to stay put and get all the information that one might need, here is a great opportunity and example of what that might look like.  There might be something for you. Take a look and see.

You are invited to be apart of this conference if you are interested. No cost just get involved during the conference and see what you can discover, learn, fall into, etc.

Here is a link to the conference home page.

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/?p=604#comment-25756

The post looks at the added value that one brings to their professional community by having a network and presence on the internet.

“Think about that for a minute. Is your social presence, your social network, worth something? Absolutely!”

Jeff illustrates a few ideas on the value of that network. It is something that I have been working on and thought might be interesting for others to think about. I feel that if I can get it going I can have my own Professional Learning Community on the web. By posting on a blog, reading other blogs and commenting I can get a network that can help me with my teaching. Just by being there I am getting “value” and resources that I could not get other ways. Presence is the key, at what ever level you might be comfortable with. The blog roll on the left of this blog is an example of some of the blogs that I read.

Think about it! What value might it have for you?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U]