NeverEndingSearch - Joyce Valenza

The trail stops in the library to read what insights Joyce Valenza is sharing on her blog, NeverEndingSearch.

Like the new rules to survive:

Ask Later: Don’t say, “But I can’t” or “But what about. . .?” Many of us are working ahead of the rules. So, if what you plan to do is instructionally sound, if you are not breaking any rules, and if no children will be hurt in the process, then exercise some academic freedom. Do it. Make it a success. Do it before someone thinks of a reason why you should not. If you wait for explicit permission, you will miss the bus.

Train Thyself: The stuff we are working with is pretty new. Don’t wait till the big expert comes to town with the most convenient workshop. You cannot wait for the annual conference. Visit any conference that interests you via webcast or podcast. Find someone else who wants to learn, who may know a little more and train each other. Seek the training you need and learn it yourself. And this is related to another new rule. .

Read Joyce's full post here.

On using tools like Flickr:

I was showing a teacher Fastr yesterday. (Fastr is the game that pulls together Flickr images as you rush to guess how folks have tagged those images.) We are starting a new project and we wanted to introduce the importance of good tags, or lots of tags, to improve access.

Then it occurred to me that was thinking inside the box again. I was playing in English! I ran down the hall to visit with the German, French, and Spanish teachers and they went nuts over Fastr as tool to introduce and reinforce target language vocabulary, and to discuss nuance in language.

Read Joyce's full posting here.

If you have interest in improving education, then add Joyce's blog to your RSS Reader and hang in there for the ride!

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)

The trail was winding it was along and came upon this as a link within another blog. Followed the link. Had a devil of a time trying to find out what ASCD was an acronym for? Only was able to find it on the footer of the web site. Anyway, they had a conference in Anaheim, CA recently. There are lots of good postings on their blog which is what we will focus on here.

Recent posts include:

• Stand and Be Heard: Edelman's Ed. Advocacy
• Partnering to Provide Formative Assessments
• The Best and the Bard
• Around the Conference: Sunday
• Shaping the Story of the Whole Child
• Four Acceptable F Words in an Urban High School
• An Inner-City Success Story
• Around the Conference: Saturday
• Why Can't Schools Be More Like Businesses?

If you are interested in maintaining some currency with educators, this would be one place to visit.

Dangerously Irrelevant - Scott MacLeod

Our intelligence tends to produce technological and social change at a rate faster than our institutions and emotions can cope with. . . . Innovation is cumulative and the rate of change accelerates. We therefore find ourselves continually trying to accommodate new realities within inappropriate existing institutions, and trying to think about those new realities in traditional but sometimes dangerously irrelevant terms. - Gwynne Dyer

Education today and tomorrow is a subject near and dear to this Hitchhiker's heart. Hence, finding Scott's site is a good one to try and keep current in this area.

I wrote elsewhere about the Did You Know video he tweaked (originaly put together by Karl Fischer). It is impressive!

Consider adding Scott's site to your RSS Reader or don't be surprised if you find yourself dangerously irrelevant!

The Learning Circuits Blog

Ponder this:

How could informal learning have been encouraged? First of all, by concentrating the formal training less on the technical skills of the staff and more on the human skills of department heads. It could have included things like group dynamics and communication training, to say nothing of corporate culture itself (which I still don’t see as a significant item in training course catalogues). Although this type of action is formal, it represents a direct investment in informal learning and could be added to the column of strategic investment rather than "just in time" fixes. They could have encouraged rather than neglected the potential of the expensive and hard to deploy groupware (Lotus Notes) they began investing in during the 90s. They could have looked at questions of corporate architecture (some did, by the way, but not necessarily with the conscious idea of stimulating informal professional exchange). They could have adopted an attitude of “visionary evolution” focused on the long term, taking into account human behavior; but of course the obsession with quarterly results still makes that difficult. Executives with long-term vision write books rather than struggling to impose their vision in the real corporate environment they work in.

Read the full posting here.

Then ponder the next discussion:

Then it dawned on me what the numbers really mean; we are using the government's term of informal and formal learning -- if the money invested in learning falls under a training department's budget, it is counted as formal learning; if it falls only under payroll, then it is being counted as informal learning.

We are using monetary terms to define informal and formal learning. However, I think that most of us would define it more or less as Stephen Downes views it -- if it is managed by the learner it is informal, if it is managed by someone else it is formal.

Read the full posting (complete with charts) here.

And if these two teasers wet your whistle, then add this site to your RSS Reader to stay current.

In Pursuit of Happily Ever After: An East Coast Girl's Search for Love

The trail turns to the classroom today where it finds Miss BrowneyedGirlie writing at In Pursuit of Happily Ever After: An East Coast Girl's Search for Love. Miss Browneyedgirlie writes in Tales of a Substitute Student Teacher:

The one thing I failed to realize, mainly because it was the first fill-in experience with children who had no idea who I was, is that developing a bond with your students, a sense of respect, trust, and understanding, is paramount in teaching. Having the opportunity to do so while substituting is darn near impossible. Instead, the day played out with me glancing at the clock every now and then to see how much longer I needed to hold on.

Ah, yes. Those were the days. I did frequent the halls as a substitute myself and know of what she speaks. It is the truth. However in order to survive as a sub, one does have the opportunity to develop some defensive tactics. But that is for another time and place.

Here Miss Browneyedgirlie writes in Head Way Above Water:

There has also been talk around New College about the Job Fair, scheduled for March 9. My friends are terrified that we now have to start looking for real teacher jobs. Me? I say, "Bring it ON!" I'm beyond eager to begin searching for a school district in which to call home. To get to know the teachers - both new and veteran - with whom I will work closely and go to for advice. To get to have a classroom of my own, that I can decorate with pretty bulletin boards, a diverse student library, and in which I can design and teach lessons that will make them think, laugh, and expand their minds.

She also writes in Irony:

We were practicing with them during my observation, which was also being videotaped. Like I wasn't nervous enough. The children were holding up their individual cards (greater than or less than) when they had the answer to a question I placed on the board. As I noted each child's selection, I noted whether or not I'd been able to trick them.

I used this same phrasing and playful tone during Thursday's lesson and thus, didn't think anything of it. The kids are always excited that Miss Browneyedgirlie can't trick them. Well, today I did. In fact, I tricked the same girl - twice.

Some students were tricked yesterday and didn't seem phased by it. This little girl cried. On camera. With my supervisor, her classmates, and my cooperating teacher in the room. I wanted to crawl under the rug.

So if this teaser has worked, you can add Miss Browneyedgirlie to your RSS Reader of choice and follow on with her exploits as she completes student teaching and then hunts for a permanent job.