I just recently submitted the final draft of my upcoming book to the editor, and I came across this page from Scott Meyers that has some good advice: Scott Meyers: Advice to Prospective Book Authors.
It’s long, but if you are thinking about writing a book, then it’s worth a read. It has some great advice.
What do you think of having a summer “off”? Do you think kids suffer from being away from school for 2 months in the summer?
I think it is essential. I worry about what we lose when kids don’t have free time.
I was listening to a radio program the other day that talked about how to limit the screen time of our kids. One caller said she had trouble getting anything done because although they had a fully fenced yard, she couldn’t let them out unless she was with them. She also said she couldn’t have them help her in the kitchen because she was worried they might get hurt. She *was* willing to let her kids play with safe toys or listen to audio tapes in the kitchen while she worked.
Hmmmm.
Does anyone else worry that in our desire to fill our kids’ lives with safe, educational things that we are preventing them from having a real childhood?
Of course it’s important for them to go to the best schools and have the best jobs – if that’s your bag. Personally, I think it is more important to learn to love life and learning, have respect for the world and its inhabitants (ALL of them), take responsibility for your own actions (and the consequences),learn how to be alone (without being lonely), and have the time to discover your talents, desires (and even fears).
How many of those people we recognize as extraordinary talents in anything learned they had those talents through school or some thing their parents made them do? A few, to be sure, but certainly not all and maybe not even most.
At a time when many have just finished either high school, or something in higher ed, this is worth watching.
More than once.
“Published on 3 Oct 2013
Comedian-musician Tim Minchin addresses graduates at the University of Western Australia where he was presented with an Honorary Doctor of Letters Degree. Minchin is a graduate of UWA. Note: the video has been slightly edited from the full-length version for brevity.”
Here they are, in brief:
This post is a further exploration of the “How do we re-teach something?” question raised in a previous post.
Suppose, for whatever reason, you (the teacher) realize your students didn’t understand something you have already ‘covered’. What should you do?
The LAST thing you should do is conclude they just aren’t smart or motivated enough to get it.
ALWAYS start off assuming that they didn’t get it because YOU didn’t present it in a way that worked for them.
It seems to be one of the “in” things right now. What does it really mean? Is it always a good thing? How can it be implemented in a way that is meaningful?
What Do We Really Mean When We Say ‘Personalized Learning’? | MindShift | KQED News.
What does it really mean?
According to this article, some people think that personalized learning is letting the student go through a prescribed set of activities or work at their own pace. I agree with the article that this isn’t really it. What they are describing is more in line with Programmed Instruction, although it’s still missing the actual personalized part. That would require assessing the student and only requiring them to do those parts that they need to (I talk about a variety of different kinds of instruction in my upcoming book).
According to the article:
(A) truly personalized learning experience requires student choice, is individualized, meaningful and resource rich.
Apparently, THIS is personalized learning:
So, personalized learning is about learning how I want, what I want, when I want, where I want and why I want.
Is it always a good thing?
I would say no. Allowing for a considerable degree of variability, sure. Allowing for this approach sometimes, also sure. But one thing I have learned in my 35+ years of teaching: most of us don’t know what we don’t know. Sounds obvious right? But think about it. If students are given too much control of and choice over their own learning, we are likely to end up with a generation that is even more selfish (and therefor less empathetic) than they are now. We can’t afford that.
How can it be implemented in a way that is meaningful?
Apparently learning to print and write is no longer important after grade one. the focus will be on keyboarding.
Why? Did anyone give any serious thought to what we might lose by not teaching people how to write by hand? As it turns out, we could be losing something important.
What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades – The New York Times.
Turns out learning to print has a different effect from learning to write, and that BOTH are important.
Why do we keep doing this? Why do we automatically assume that anything new must be better than anything old when it comes to education. We are forever dumping existing knowledge and skills and techniques and replacing them whatever is new and shiny and ‘cool’ without understanding the benefits of either.
That doesn’t make any sense.
We’ve tossed out the teaching of Latin. Sure, no-one speaks Latin anymore, but what do we lose when we only learn one language?
What do we lose when we no longer memorize anything? Is it really just as good to be able to look things up? How is our thinking, our creativity changed when we have long passages of prose or Shakespeare memorized in our heads?
Did anyone bother to find out?
We are in such a rush to embrace all things new that we too seldom look at what we are really doing. We should.
For anyone who’s ever wondered what it means for a game to be 1st person, isometric, top-down, etc, here’s a handy illustrated guide:
Types of Game Perspectives | Mozzastryl.
Here are some simplified images:
I’ve been pondering this for some time now.
It is easier now than ever before in history to get your word out there. This blog is an excellent example. All I need is a little bit of computer knowledge and to have access to one. I don’t need to know the first thing about how any of it works, and so long as I have access to some public space that lets me use their computer (like a library) I don’t need to own anything.
Anyone with these two qualifications can now broadcast their ideas and opinions to the whole world. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing. Now, I’m absolutely NOT in favour of censorship, but at the same time, I also think that not all opinions are of equal value.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
-Isaac Asimov
What if people actually had to know something about the technology they used before they were able to use it?
