Learning Outside the Box: Sweden debuts first classroom-less school | SmartPlanet

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Sweden debuts first classroom-less school | SmartPlanet.

It looks great. This isn’t a new concept though – Canada (and I’m sure other places too) experimented with “Open Concept” schools in the late 60’s. The design of the school in the article looks very 60’s.

I went to a high school that was a mix of wall-less classrooms and a few traditional ones. I thought it was grand but there were some kids that had real trouble with it.I think they ended up renovating and getting rid of most of the interesting spaces – few teachers were up to it.

We had English in a space made of curved, carpeted, step seating surrounding a ‘stage’ area that had several bean-bag chairs. It being the 60’s, we had a lot of bean-bag chairs.

We also had other spaces that looked very much like some of the spaces shown in the article.

If you go back a little farther – MOST schools were classroom-less: the one-room schoolhouse that covered all of 1-12 is one of those, no? I realize most still had desks in neat rows, but still…

Open spaces can present some interesting challenges – like what if the class next to you is obviously having a lot more fun than you are? How do you get the kids to ignore the “party next door”? It can also be a little distracting when you have smelly (or explosive) chemistry experiments going on next to you and you are trying to concentrate on biology.

On the whole though, I suspect that ‘learning outside the box’ helps you learn how to think outside the box.

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SOPA Supporters

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http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/16/1433222/sopa-and-pipa-so-far

Here is Slashdot’s update. It contains a link to a GoogleDoc that lists the companies that support SOPA (far as we know). It is interesting what kinds of companies are on this list – many of them sell high-end merchandise, most of them are older than the Internet, and MOST of them only use the net for marketing and communication of their physical stuff (as opposed to actually making something digital).

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Note to Faculty: Don’t Be Such a Know-It-All – Teaching – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Note to Faculty: Don’t Be Such a Know-It-All – Teaching – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

This isn’t news. I’ve been doing this for decades.

Not long after I started teaching, I came to realize that a good way to learn how to do something is by watching someone actually do it – NOT by watching someone show you the finished solution.*

I started doing programming assignments from scratch, that I had purposefully NOT worked out ahead of time. Then, after I’d been teaching for a decade or so, I had become pretty familiar with the kinds of problems the students would typically have and the usual blind alleys they would pursue – so sometimes I did problems where I was the one who followed those blind alleys and tried to implement those misconceptions.

*It has always bugged me that most instructors of math only show you the right way to do things – which is, of course, NOT how the problem was understood or solved the first time. Proofs didn’t appear right the first time – it is important for people to learn the thinking that goes on (especially the ideas that are discarded) when a proof is constructed.

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The Rise of the New Groupthink – NYTimes.com

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The Rise of the New Groupthink – NYTimes.com.

I’ve long suspected that many (if not most) people who insist on groupwork for everything do so because they can’t really produce anything on their own.

Working in groups is great and necessary, but it really is important for people to be able to work alone too. When teaching a course, I usually try and make sure that students do both: work in groups AND work alone. Also, make sure they don’t always have the same people in their groups.

When it comes to assessing published works (non-fiction), watch out for:

  • authors who ALWAYS publish alone – it often implies they don’t play well with others (i.e. can’t get along with other people; don’t know how to share; unpleasant, dishonest or worse)
  • authors who NEVER publish alone – this often implies that they can’t actually do anything (i.e. they are riding on the coattails of others)
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Gamasutra – Features – 7 Things To Know About HTML5

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Here’s why it’s best to wait a bit before developing anything non-trivial in HTML-5

Gamasutra – Features – 7 Things To Know About HTML5.

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Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives (Forbes)

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Timely.

Know anyone like this? You don’t have to be the head of a big corporation to be like this:

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives – Forbes.

 

  1. They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment (warning sign: A lack of respect)
  2. They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests (warning sign: A question of character)
  3.  They think they have all the answers (warning sign:  A leader without followers)
  4. They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them (warning sign: Executive departures)
  5. They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image (warning sign: Blatant attention-seeking)
  6. They underestimate obstacles (warning sign: Excessive hype)
  7. They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past (warning sign: Constantly referring to what worked in the past)

 

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The Value of the Designer Who Codes | Inc.com

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“Knowing the technology better means more productive arguments when there are disagreements because everyone speaks the same language.”

via The Value of the Designer Who Codes | Inc.com.

If you want to design applications you need to understand how they work. REALLY. This is also, and maybe ESPECIALLY true if you want to design learning objects. Many, if not most people designing learning applications don’t know enough about the tech they are using to understand how to really use it.

 

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Janice Harper: Top Ten Reasons to Rethink Anti-Bully Hysteria

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These are REALLY good points.

Janice Harper: Top Ten Reasons to Rethink Anti-Bully Hysteria.

 

1. In the understandable rush to eradicate mean-spirited and aggressive people in the workplace, there is a tendency to move from anti-bully to pro-mobbing and encourage people to gang up and eliminate anyone labeled a bully.

2. As awareness about bullying behavior grows, so too does the hysteria surrounding it, so that once a person is accused they are assumed to be guilty and vilified, regardless of their actual behavior or intent.

3. Even if a person does exhibit “bullying” behaviors, they are operating in the context of a specific organizational culture; the anti-bully focus is on the individual, not the organizational dynamics that might foster it.

4. By failing to distinguish interpersonal bullying from collective mobbing, much of the advice given to targets of workplace aggression may escalate their suffering by provoking management’s retaliation and transforming bullying to mobbing.

5. Workplace bullying includes a power dynamic that is absent in schoolyard bullying, and although the processes are very similar, their differences are significant. The two forms of interpersonal aggression should be discussed with different terminology, strategies and objectives.

6. The “bully” focus tends to minimize group psychology, looking for convenient scapegoats and exempting others from responsibility when their aggression is collective.

7. Just as “bullies” are viewed as inherently volatile and bad, targets are viewed as inherently passive and good, and typically advised they are morally superior and did nothing to contribute to the aggression. Such views preclude any possibility of behavioral changes for anyone involved, and flies in the face of human psychology.

8. Too much of the focus on bullies has become associated with a single political perspective, namely liberal Democrats, even though interpersonal aggression affects a diversity of political interests.

9. Aggressive behavior in the workplace does indeed damage people’s lives and livelihoods, yet by calling for the elimination of workers labeled bullies, encouraging gossip and sabotage of anyone accused of bullying, and making anonymous reports against alleged “bullies,” workplace aggression has the potential to increase.

10. The rhetoric is very negative and exclusionary, rather than focusing on how workplaces and other organizations can become more compassionate and humane toward others.

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