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Like most people I use the phrase, “back to school.” I mean back to learning in school, but don’t say it that way. And in reality, until we shake ourselves out of the paradigm we live, we will continue to use the language of the past and act accordingly. What do we need to learn to talk and act for learning? Here are my reflections written while I was participating in a live blogging session of John Seely Brown’s keynote, Re-Imaging Dewey for the 21st Century: Learning in/for the Digital Age, from Alberta, Canada’s Banff Centre.

Thank you to “two Texas tech chicks,” Helen and Anna for live blogging with CoverItLive today. They were covering John Seely Brown’s keynote from the Emerge 2010: One-to-One Laptop Learning Summit. More on Alberta’s Emerge Laptop Learning Project can be found here.  John Seely Brown’s talk covered concepts similar to those he discusses in the video below and in a PDF of an earlier presentation, which can be found here.

More on the Homo Ludens reference can be found here. Not sure if JSB intended the connection, but it seems plausible.

P.S. I learned of this event minutes before it began. I live 2,667 miles from the Banff Centre, but techchick94 is in my Twitter community, and I noticed this tweet from her.

I think I have found a new vision, a new paradigm, a new story of learning in the 21st Century. It is creative and innovative. It is passionate and kind. It is natural and real. It leads me down a path to the truth and beauty of learning and the beauty and truth of humanity. It describes for me how we can learn to know, do, be, and live together. You will find all this in a book written by Stephanie Pace Marshall, The Power to Transform. Dr. Marshall is Founding President and President Emerita of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy®.

Dr. Marshall’s language is so powerful and universal that is it not a story for educators only. It is a story that invites conversations, conversations among educators and people from every discipline and field of inquiry or human pursuit. The more perspectives the better.

So this post is a little different. It presents you with a digital tool called a VoiceThread. Many people, including students, teachers and other educators, are using this platform to invite participation. You have to register to use the VoiceThread, but that is easy and although using it is fairly intuitive, their tutorials on the website.

In the VoiceThread I’ve created below, you’ll find seven quotes from the book, The Power to Transform. One quote per VoiceThread page, or “slide,” is presented for you to read. Here’s an example of what it looks like.

The 1st arrow points to the button you click to add your comment (text, audio, video, or file uploaded to the page). The 2nd arrow points to where you click to “turn the page” forward or backward.

You can participate in this “New Story of Learning” conversation by

• reading this VoiceThread,
• commenting on one or more pages,
• visiting Dr. Marshall’s website for more information about the book and her work, and
• reading The Power to Transform.

David Weinberger Keynote Podcast

As I was perusing today’s posts in my Google Reader, at Lucacept I came across Jenny Luca’s funny and touching story, Students are doing it for themselves, about a student, who posted to the class Ning just when Jenny needed a pick-me-UP. For me it is always good idea to remember not to take myself to seriously, to come DOWN from my perch and remember why we all put so much of ourselves into helping students become self-directed, life-long learners. I wrote this post for the fun of it, I guess.

P.S. It will help you savor the beauty of connectedness if you read Jenny’s post at some point.

DOWN. A little word with a lot of meaning.

SETTLE DOWN AND PAY ATTENTION:

“down”

Lovers of the English language might enjoy this. It is yet another example of why people learning English have trouble with the language. Learning the nuances of English makes it a difficult language. (But then, that’s probably true of many languages.)

There is a four-letter word in English that perhaps has more meanings than any other four-letter word, and that word is ‘DOWN.’ It is listed in the dictionary as being used as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].

It’s easy to understand DOWN, meaning in a lower place or position, esp. to or on the ground or another surface, but when we move about, why do go DOWN the street? And why do so many people live DOWN south while I’m living up north?

At a meeting, why does a topic sometimes make me feel DOWN, and why do people sometimes shout DOWN speakers? Why are candidates for office DOWN in the polls, and why is the secretary responsible for writing DOWN what is said?

If I am sick, I may find it hard to keep my food DOWN, but to recover I probably should DOWN my medicine. At times like that, going DOWN to the pub is out of the question. Of course, lately the ups and DOWNS in the stock market are the reason why so many people are DOWN on their luck!

At other times the little word has a real meaning. People put DOWN others they don’t like, we may decide to stand DOWN if a cause seems lost, I work DOWN the grocery list, and I always seem to be on a diet to slim DOWN.

To dressed up is special but to dress DOWN is more comfortable.

And this “down” seems confusing:

If a football team has four DOWNS to make a first DOWN, why does a player with the ball work so hard to avoid falling DOWN on each DOWN.

We shut DOWN a store at night and return home so we can lie (1) DOWN on the sofa to rest awhile, but we turn DOWN the lights when the sun is bright and we open the store in the morning.

If you plan to chop down trees, you must look DOWN your line of sight to be sure no one is in harm’s way, and (if it is cold out) be sure to wear your DOWN jacket. Also don’t forget to stare DOWN any fear you have for cutting the tree, postponing the work until another day might cause you to miss out on your sailing trip DOWN the coast.

One could go on & on, but I’ll put DOWN my mouse, for now ……. It’s time to go DOWN stairs to turn DOWN the lights and the sound from the TV for a quiet evening at home with the kids!

Oh….despite what I’ve said, there is little I can do to turn your world upside DOWN:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?

That’s right. U P

Jenny, I don’t have access to your class Ning, but if you see fit, feel free to pass this post on to the student who’s post prompted me to model this post on the post she and her dad shared with you and the class through the Ning.

1 “If you exclude the meaning “to tell an untruth” and just focus on the setting/reclining meaning of lay and lie, then the important distinction is that lay requires a direct object and lie does not. So you lie DOWN on the sofa (no direct object), but you lay the book DOWN on the table (the book is the direct object).”

Source of this quote and the correct use of lie in the post: Grammar Girl – http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/lay-versus-lie.aspx CAPITALS: mine.

KBIRI.NL – Sir Ken Robinson @ Creative Company Conference from KBIRI on Vimeo.

Blowin’ in the Wind

From MIT: New Analysis Shows Warming Could be Double Previous Estimates, May 19, 2009

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.

The new projections, published this month in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the 2003 study of just 2.4 degrees.

From the Public: Comment Section -Professor Anthony Costello: Climate Change Biggest Threat to Humans, May 14, 2009

Real scientistts using scientific data, not Junk Science , have stated by the hundreds, that the only thing that will change the earths’s climate is the sun. When will the media quit giving a platform to those who want to control us all via climate control.

Chester, WV, USA

When will these so called experts look out of the window and see what is really happening to the climate. They forecast Spain becoming a desert, and the UK having a mediteranian climate. For the past two years Spain has had record levels of rain fall plus the coldest winter for 60 years.

Pego, Spain

Image Sources:

1. www.flickr.com/photos/97831130@N00/2179047732
2. www.flickr.com/photos/49968232@N00/70584289
3. www.flickr.com/photos/49968232@N00/60865004