Most Likely to Succeed @ The Kildonan School

Poster for Most Likely to Succeed.  Promotional
advertisement provided and shared by permission
of mltsfilm.org.

Having completed the first month of the 2015-2016 school year, the students of The Kildonan School have realized a fundamental fact:  we (the faculty) spend a vast amount of time discovering how they learn best.  Our pupils engage in innumerable conversations with tutors, subject matter faculty, and administrators to design those conditions under which they can receive the greatest academic benefit.  In focusing on education at the individual level, the community ensures that our students experience success while developing their particular learning strengths.

Despite the benefits of this process, we occasionally forget to extend these specific thoughts toward larger questions.  Because they concern the nature and design of education on a fundamental level, these queries also deserve our attention:

• "What is school for?"
• "What does school look like right now? 
• "Going forward, what can school be? What should it be?"
• "What do students need to know in the 21st century?"
• "If we can agree that students need to know something, how should they learn that content/skill?"

Cover of Most Likely to Succeed (print version). 
Image located at amazon.com through
The Global Achievement Gap.

Fortunately, we did not need to invent the wheel in order to probe this conversation on-campus.  Spurred by an insightful analysis of 21st century learning that he co-authored with Dr. Tony Wagner (@DrTonyWagner), Expert in Residence at Harvard University's Innovation Lab (@innovationlab), entrepreneur Ted Dintersmith (@dintersmith) teamed up with American filmmaker Greg Whiteley to create a fresh perspective on American education in the form of a documentary:  Most Likely to Succeed (@MLTSfilm).  After MLtS gained recognition at notable festivals such as Sundance and Tribeca, interested educators, administrators, community members, and entrepreneurs began a movement to spur screenings (and conversations on innovation within education) nationwide.  Passionate about the philosophy contained within the film and excited to bring the conversation to the Mid-Hudson Valley, Kildonan signed up and applied for a screening during the summer.

Fast-forward to Friday, October 9th:  the beginning of "Parents' Weekend."  During this annual celebration, parents and family members join faculty and administrators in celebrating student work, raising money for the school, and discussing student progress.  This year, after observing all of their children's classes and meditating upon the day's information over a communal meal, parents and families sat down with administrators, students, and faculty to watch Most Likely to Succeed in its entirety.  Eighty-seven individuals brought eighty-seven different educational perspectives with them to our screening.  Though our distinctions remained to color our impressions of the documentary, they nevertheless fell away due to a shared sense of earnestness.  Indeed, our common threads, already exposed by the day's preceding events, tightened and manifested as an expectant hush.

(What occurs within the film, you may wonder? For that, we refer you to mltsfilm.org to request your own screening.)

Faculty, students, alumni, and administrator representatives on the MLtS panel. 
Picture taken and owned by The Kildonan School.

At the conclusion of the film, representatives of administrators, students, faculty, and alumni came together as a panel to help the community reflect upon the documentary.  They began by discussing their own school-based experiences with dyslexia as well as their thoughts towards the future of education.  They then meditated upon Kildonan's programs using the film as a lens.  They highlighted the innovative, project-based learning (PBL) approaches practiced by the Kodiaks and Middle Years Program (MYP).  Additionally, because a majority of the panel members are (or have been) affiliates of Edge, the panel then switched gears to consider questions of 21st century learning using the program as a reference point.  We explored questions concerning self-directed learning, interdisciplinary content, organic collaboration, marketability to colleges, and the future of the program in relation to Kildonan and its Orton-Gillingham (OG)-based tutoring approach.

Due to time constraints, we adjourned the screening to a complimentary sale of Wagner and Dintersmith's book (graciously supplied by a local bookstore, Oblong Books and Music).  However, as with any good film or striking news story, the conversations did not end there; they took on a life of their own.  More than one Kildonan parent has expressed gratitude for the film, claiming that it has helped them align themselves with the School's vision, maintain faith in the face of the college application process, and even negotiate parent-teacher conferences with Kildonan staff more effectively.  The immediate school community has seen changes, too.  One junior has cited the film as his inspiration in electing to join Edge.  A freshman, too, felt inspired to ask his Science teacher to continue working on a project because he wished to present the very best product (to himself and his parents).

Image of High Tech High student at work.  Promotional advertisement provided
and shared by permission of mltsfilm.org.

As our community continues to feel the positive reverberations of this film, let's thank everyone involved in this event.  Thank you panel members for your participation; your words towards the film, towards the strategies that allow your dyslexia to work to your advantage, and towards your educational histories served as great pivot points for discussions between students, faculty, and parents.  Thank you, Dr. Mary Taft and Kevin Pendergast, for assisting the book sale and supporting this project from its inception.  Thank you, Admissions Staff and Logistics, for helping to embed this event within an already busy day; we could not have done this without you! Thank you, Oblong Books and Music, for facilitating the purchase of books for the event and thereby extending the message of MLtS across media.  The entire MLtS staff (Nora Parent, in particular) have proven endlessly generous in helping us negotiate the finer details of the screening; thank you for your aspirations and your film! Finally, thank YOU...the student, the parent, the faculty member, the administrator, the staff member, or the reader for proving brave enough to advocate for a new vision of education.

Have thoughts on the movie? Please post in the comments section below!

(P.S. Curious to see the film yourself? If you would like to host your own screening, please sign-up via mltsfilm.org.  If you would like to purchase Wagner and Dintersmith's book, we refer you first to the proper page on Oblong's site.)

FINAL: Tim Diversifies His Pursuits

Tim could have chosen to conclude his IP work in April.  Why? After facilitating writing assignments for himself, he discovered a love for the craft and realized that his writing could effect advocacy and change.  He then went about assembling his fellow IPians and developing a comprehensive Keynote for a presentation to Kildonan's Board of Trustees.  This address allowed him to celebrate IP, educate the Kildonan community on the approach, and begin to push for an independent fund for the program.  More importantly, the ensuing conversation offered him a natural scenario in which to practice his public speaking, a skill that he attributes to IP and its varied forums.  To repeat, Tim might have chosen to conclude his year's work with this event.  In so doing, he would have left the year with a strong arc/​portfolio.

But he chose not to do this.  Therefore, he - and his pursuits - proved even stronger at year's end.

Per our article announcing "Edge," Tim chose to spend the remainder of his year expanding upon his learning "process."  This final push saw him begin many smaller projects that will undoubtedly inform his Edge work next year as well as his upcoming college application process.  During the final month and a half or so, Tim explored:

(1) Blogging.  Not long before designing his presentation to the Board of Trustees, Tim worked with his tutor to create a blog "Exploring Current Events" via Blogger.com (@Blogger).  This profile serves a dual purpose.  It allows him, on one hand, to continue to develop his writing skills and to practice strategies such as audience awareness, digital literacy, research, and proofreading.  On the other hand, this blog also encourages him to extend his IP work to the Internet and share his thoughts with a larger community.  Tim has reflected upon topics ranging from the limitations of dyslexia empowerment, Steve Jobs and his approach to business, Greece's request for $300 billion of Germany, and Elon Musk (@elonmusk)'s challenge to utility companies with his "Powerwall."  Please be sure to check out Tim's blog, as he is likely to continue this profile when school resumes in September.

(2) Hard Drive Deconstruction.  During the final month of school, Tim began to dissect a hard drive in order to understand its mechanics.  He felt particularly interested in how an actuator reads the disk in addition to how a hard drive's retrieval system compares to that of a floppy disk.  Tim and the IP faculty enjoyed various conversations on the defragging process and viruses.  Ultimately, Tim proved relentless in analyzing the machine.  He even used his accidents as learning experiences, such as when - after cracking one of the magnets in the hard drive - he began to study neodymium.

(3) Networking.  Early in May, IP received a visitor in the person of Evan Donovan, a Kildonan alumnus ('13) who created a personal IP-esque structure before the program even existed.  While visiting, he and the IP faculty happened to begin speaking about 3D printers.  His college possesses two of the devices, he explained, and he uses them in order to print out the body and parts for drones.  He went on to to say more, and before he made much headway, we called in Tim to participate.  The two students lost track of the IP faculty and held a heady conversation concerning rotor databases and drone designs.  Ultimately, Evan recommended that Tim purchase a $75-$120 practice drone of the hobby variety; such a device, he assured the latter, could help him learn the basics of flight without the cost of a top-notch machine.  He also offered that he and Tim get together over the summer in order to troubleshoot the latter's drone work.  Tim readily agreed.  This evolving partnership bodes well for Tim's work next year (drone specific or otherwise).

(4) Quantum Physics and Fusion.  Tim gave the IP faculty a pleasant surprise when he approached them one day with the request to explore quantum physics.  He assured us that this branch of his studies would constitute only one week's worth of study, but fortunately, he has immersed himself in this discipline to a depth much greater than he originally expected.  During Founders' Day, for instance, he replicated the "Double-Slit Experiment" (not unlike Khaled) and went on to speak towards theories he was researching.  He felt particularly inspired by quantum computing and quantum entanglement theory for their ability to revolutionize computer effectiveness.  This interest aligned nicely with the in-roads that he forged into Lockheed Martin Skunk Works (@LockheedMartin), a company that is attempting to build a prototype that harnesses the power of fusion for commercial and defense ventures (see the video below).

Thank you, Tim, for continuing to diversify your work as a true polymath! We are proud of your progress and maturation this year, and we encourage our readers to celebrate with us by posting in the comments section below.

Descriptions of images:  A screenshot of Tim's blog, top-right (located at exploringcurrentevents.blogspot.com).  Middle left finds an graphic of a hard drive (located at www.datarecoverydublin.ie).  A hobbyist's drone, pictured at middle right (located at www.hcn.org).  Bottom left sees a graphic rendering of quantum computing (located at www.slate.com).  Kildonan and its Edge / IP program claim no ownership over the media above.

FINAL: Marcus Engages Unity's "Roll-a-Ball" Project

After encountering significant technical difficulty with his laptop and the Oculus Rift, Marcus decided to postpone his biometric research and pursue another project.  Frustrated with virtual reality (VR) for the moment, he began to delve - once again - into game design.

This time, he found a new support in the form of Unity (@unity3d).  According to the company website, Unity is "a flexible and powerful development platform for creating multi-platform 3D and 2D games and interactive experiences."  In order to begin to learn the software, Marcus chose to pursue one of the linear "Projects" offered by the site:  Roll-a-Ball.

Per its original imagining, Roll-a-Ball allows a user to control a ball while collecting cube tokens on a flat plane.  Although a simple game, it invites its creator to learn and manipulate fundamentals of game design such as game objects, coding, etc.  The Project essentially teaches itself, for it guides the author through the design process using a sequence of videos.  Even so, the act of construction is not a simple one.  The creator must scan several screens at once, and he must navigate a multitude of textual menus to create the final product.

After having worked with GameSalad, Marcus progressed quickly through the videos until he had created a mark-up of the Project.  He could have ended his work there, congratulating himself for following the program's directions to the letter.  But, admirably, he did not do this.  Instead, he proceeded to take the game well beyond its original dimensions.  He began to experiment with stages and scenes outside of the game's flat landscape, inserting new platforms and thereby activating vertical planes.  He placed ramps too, and he experimented with appropriate shadow distribution by randomizing the arrangement of his cube tokens.

Fortunately, these updates are just the beginning.  Marcus is currently programming a vertical elevator, speed boosts, and character deaths.  He has also begun to research Autodesk (@autodesk), which is a company that provides "3D design, engineering, and entertainment software" (quoted content located on the About section of the company website).  Autodesk's programs will allow Marcus to engage in advanced 3D modeling and layering for his Project.  By the time he has finished his Unity game, it may prove virtually unrecognizable to its original imagining.

We wish Marcus well as he continues this work over the summer.  We invite you to salute his efforts by posting in the comments section below.

Description of 1st image:  The final product of "Roll-a-Ball," as envisioned by Unity.  Photo located at https://code.msdn.microsoft.com.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the image above.

Description of 2nd image:  A draft of Marcus's rendering of "Roll-a-Ball."  Photo taken by IP faculty.

Bull Explores IP through Film

Enthralled by the process of learning, Bull eventually distilled his thoughts into a central question:  "What is IP?" True to character, he found this inquiry too delicious to resist.  To begin to answer it, he met with the IP faculty and discussed a video that we had watched together at the beginning of the year.  Launched by the pioneers of the Independent Project, or the students at Monument Mountain High School in Great Barrington, MA, this film began to define the program according its original imagining.  Bull had expressed interest in creating a video response earlier in the year, so we revisited the issue with him now.  Might he still be interested in such an endeavor? Might such a film answer his own question?

His answer was a resounding "yes."  Since our meeting, Bull has used a GoPro (@GoPro) camera to create a draft of his own film.  Wishing to preserve the element of surprise, he has kept the work from the eyes of the IP faculty.  He has shown no one in the program, not even a fellow student, the full piece.

On May 8th, however, Bull graced the team with a brief preview of his work.  Speaking toward the product, he remarked that he was striving for something akin to "realism."  He wished to keep the film unpolished and natural so as to capture the informal feeling of the program.  True to his intent, the scenes in his video flitted between light joviality and quiet moments of revelation.  More profound still, Bull admitted that he is perceiving an answer at long last.  After designing an octopus that continues to sprawl into infinity, he stressed that he is forming a sort of endpoint in the film, in the program, or in the cycle of the two. (As a side note, this circle conjures Vladimir Nabokov's short story "The Circle."  Bull found Nabokov's work a primary influence on his own writing earlier this year).

Ultimately, after a lengthy discussion and critique with the IP team, Bull continues production on his film.  What will it look like once he has finished it?

Description of image:  A student using a GoPro camera.  Photo located at thelantern.com.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the picture above.

Marcus Engages Unity: "Roll-a-Ball" Project

After encountering significant technical difficulty with his laptop and the Oculus Rift, Marcus decided to postpone his biometric research and pursue another project.  Frustrated with virtual reality (VR) for the moment, he began to delve - once again - into game design.

This time, he found a new support in the form of Unity (@unity3d).  According to the company website, Unity is "a flexible and powerful development platform for creating multi-platform 3D and 2D games and interactive experiences."  In order to begin to learn the software, Marcus chose to pursue one of the linear "Projects" offered by the site:  Roll-a-Ball.

Per its original imagining, Roll-a-Ball allows a user to control a ball while collecting cube tokens on a flat plane.  Although a simple game, it invites its creator to learn and manipulate fundamentals of game design such as game objects, coding, etc.  The Project essentially teaches itself, for it guides the author through the design process using a sequence of videos.  Even so, the act of construction is not a simple one.  The creator must scan several screens at once, and he must navigate a multitude of textual menus to create the final product.

After having worked with GameSalad, Marcus progressed quickly through the videos until he had created a mark-up of the Project.  He could have ended his work there, congratulating himself for following the program's directions to the letter.  But, admirably, he did not do this.  Instead, he proceeded to take the game well beyond its original dimensions.  He began to experiment with stages and scenes outside of the game's flat landscape, inserting new platforms and thereby activating vertical planes.  He placed ramps too, and he experimented with appropriate shadow distribution by randomizing the arrangement of his cube tokens.

Fortunately, these updates are just the beginning.  Marcus is currently programming a vertical elevator, speed boosts, and character deaths.  He has also begun to research Autodesk (@autodesk), which is a company that provides "3D design, engineering, and entertainment software" (quoted content located on the About section of the company website).  Autodesk's programs will allow Marcus to engage in advanced 3D modeling and layering for his Project.  By the time he has finished his Unity game, it may prove virtually unrecognizable to its original imagining.

What do you think of Marcus's project? Are you a fan of video games or gamification? Please post in the comments section below.

Description of 1st image:  The final product of "Roll-a-Ball," as envisioned by Unity.  Photo located at https://code.msdn.microsoft.com.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the image above.

Description of 2nd image:  A draft of Marcus's rendering of "Roll-a-Ball."  Photo taken by IP faculty.

Sam Chaltain: "The Art (&​ Science) of Great Teaching" @ TEDxYouthBFS

 
Former educator, writer, and education activist, Sam Chaltain (@samchaltain) partners with schools and school districts "to help them create healthy, high-functioning learning environments" (passages taken from URL of Chaltain's talk).  In this #TED Talk delivered at the Brooklyn Free School (#TEDxBFS) in 2012, Chaltain highlights the recent changes to education and advocates the need for balance:  between teacher and student, art and science, and - most fundamentally - between understandings and applications of freedom.

...the biologists are telling us that life - whether it's an ecosystem or a public school system - is best organized by principles of ecology, not hierarchy.  The quantum physicists would tell us that change - whether it's a human being or a sub-atomic particle - is best understood by principles of relationship, not force.  And we should take heed that freedom - whether it's a teacher or a student - is best unleashed through simple, shared structures, not unbounded prairies.  This is the lesson that exists for all of us.  This is what the natural world reminds of us every day.  This is what Dewey was urging us to think about one hundred years ago.  And this is our road map forward:  art and science, individual freedom and group structure.

What did you think? Please post in the comments section below.

Sugata Mitra: "School in the Cloud: What Happened after TED Prize 2013" @ TEDxUFM

Two years ago, Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (@secls) at Newcastle University (@StudentsNCL) Sugata Mitra (@Sugatam) won the 2013 TED Prize.  In the following @TEDxUFM Talk (delivered at Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala), Mitra speaks about the progress he has made over the past two years:  "I made a project for TED. ... I would build seven laboratories, seven learning laboratories.  Five of them would be in India, and two of them would be in England."  His insights remain provocative, and his passion for self-directed learning proves as infectious as ever.

Well, there are reports from all around the world that children are not asking questions to people.  Or at least if they have to ask a question to a person, they do that after they have asked their phones.  Children don't want to learn how to multiply, divide, add, and subtract because they say they already know how to do that.  It's done with phones.  Children don't want to particularly learn to read because they say there are things that can read out things to them even if they don't know how to read.  At the moment, they don't like to write by hand because they want to know why they should learn to write by hand.  Will ever do it in the rest of their lives? So what happens in a world where reading, writing, and arithmetic are treated in such a cavalier manner?

...

In Killingworth, this is a room:  it just looks like a nice lounge with computers and an XBox (@XBox)  And the teachers, when I built it, they said, 'Sugata, this is a bit too much.  Do you have any idea of what they will do with that XBox? They will do nothing else except play with the XBox.'  So I said, 'Well, that's our challenge, isn't it?' If you've gone in there to teach Geography and the students are playing with the XBox, it means that Geography is more boring than the XBox.  Then we should re-look at Geography, chuck it from the curriculum, or put it into the XBox.  Somehow.

Description of the 1st image:  Mitra's SOLE learning laboratory in Killingworth, England.  Photo located at blog.ted.com.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the above image.

For a post discussing Mitra's "The child-driven education," please click here.

For a post discussing Mitra's "Build a School in the Cloud," please click here.

Tim: Steve Jobs &​ the Ethics of Technology

Ever the savvy technology expert, Tim continues to research drones and game design.  He has begun to complement these explorations, too, by considering the ethics of technology.  This discipline concerns itself with the ethical (or moral) considerations of implementing technology in our modern age.

Tim possesses opinions that are threefold.  First, he sides with the late Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur, marketer, and inventor as well as the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.  Jobs differentiates between animals and humans in his Steve Jobs on Bicycle (see below), specifically by citing a study that measures the "efficiency of locomotion" of various animals traveling across a flat plane from Point A to Point B.  In this experiment, researchers concluded that the human cannot measure up as a rival to other animals such as the condor.  However, when the researchers then evaluated a human riding on a bicycle, they compiled data measurements that significantly dwarfed all other organisms previously measured.  After reading this research, Jobs concluded that human beings are essentially tool builders; they compensate for natural/​biological weaknesses with the materials that they create.

But Tim goes on to extend Jobs's thinking into a two-pronged critique our culture.  He argues, on one hand, that militaries may wish to curb innovation for innovation's sake due to the risk of reverse engineering.  If they launch drones without comprehensive research into drone defense, for instance, cultural enemies may seize the equipment and use them for counter-measures.  On the other hand, he argues that humans, although they utilize technology, occasionally do not experiment with this equipment to the best of their ability.  This implicit fear hinders humanity; it retards what otherwise could amount to exponential progress and growth, forcing us instead to repeatedly re-hash the same trying problems.  In this scenario, human risk a vicious circle and a technological gap:  a dissonance between our technological capabilities and the technology that we realize and produce.

What do you think of Tim's reasoning? Do you have feedback or a source that he should explore? Please post in the comments section below.

Description of 1st image:  A computer-generated representation of the ethnics of technology and transhumanism.  Photo located at abc.net.au.  Kildonan and its IP program claim now ownership over the above graphic.

Tim: Drones & Computer Programming

Marcus: Game Design & Computer Programming

Donald Clark: "More pedagogic change in 10 years than last 1000 years" @ TEDxGlasgow

CEO and one of the founders of Epic Group PLC, Donald Clark (@DonaldClarke63) is committed to the idea that #technology does - and must - play a role in education (passages taken from Clark's bio).  Having spent "30 years experience in online learning, games, simulations, social media and mobile learning projects," Clark had this to say about technology in education during a 2012 @TEDxGlasgow event:

The real scalability in education comes with the Internet because it gives us a world of digital replication for free.  A world of digital abundance where some aspects of learning content are available for anyone, anywhere, at any time.  It absolutely frees us from the tyranny of time and location. ... And that's the trick:  freeing education from a place, from a specific time.

Now if - as is clearly the case - the Internet and #socialmedia can lead young people to change the tyrannical and corrupt governments, can we really say that social media will have no role in education? How do you think those kids in Tahrir Square (@3alTahrir) learned to avoid tear gas by using Pepsi Cola (@pepsi)? How do you think those revolutions arose first through blogging, then through Facebook, then through Twitter, then through YouTube, and the ubiquity of mobile devices? We'd be fools to ignore the pedagogic lessons that are right in front of our eyes, politically and in terms of education.

What do you think? How can we use social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube educationally? Please post in the comments below.

Description of image:  Various social media channels.  Picture located at cdn.socialmediaexaminer.com.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the above graphic.

Will Richardson at TEDxNYED (2011)

American educator, parent, author, speaker, blogger, and co-publisher of Educating Modern Learners (EML) Will Richardson (@willrich45) at @TEDxNYED.

For a post discussing Richardson's "Education Leadership" at TEDxMelbourne, please click here.

Marcus: GameSalad

As he continues to study computer programming, Marcus has begun to diversify his instruction by consulting sources other than Khan Academy.  His searches have taken him to GameSalad (@gamesalad), a site that he, another IP student, and Mr. Stark are working through together.

GameSalad is an Internet portal that allows for streamlined game design.  Whereas users traditionally need to acquire rudimentary programming skills before developing games, GameSalad allows novice and expert programmers to jump into the fray and promptly begin to design.  Consumers can immediately commence product tests, enjoy easy integration of images and videos, and publish to the App Store on Macs and iPads.

What fascinating and entertaining game(s) will Marcus design this year? Might we see a prototype in the near future? We encourage you to sample GameSalad products in anticipation.  For a video detailing the creation of a game of pong, please look below:

(GameSalad logo, pictured above.  Image located at gamestorming.com.br.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over the graphic above.)

Will Richardson: "Education Leadership" at TEDxMelbourne

 
American educator, parent, author, speaker, blogger, and co-publisher of Educating Modern Learners (EML) Will Richardson (@willrich45) has been called "a trendsetter in education" by The New York Times.  He has spoken to tens of thousands of educators in more than a dozen countries about the value of online learning networks.  Two years ago, he presented at TEDxMelbourne (@TEDxMelbourne), an event that encouraged educators, parents, and students to think about the "changing nature of education and how technology can shape the future of learning" (passages taken from YouTube description of Richardson's talk).

Richardson raises some valid points that we in education must begin to discuss:

We have to start thinking differently about what school is. There's a great quote that I read by a guy by the name of Justin Reich (the Richard L. Menschel HarvardX Research Fellow, based in the Office of the President and Provost at Harvard University: @bjfr) who's a teacher at Harvard.  And he said, 'You know, the problem right now is that we're paying so much attention to the measurable part of learning that we risk neglecting the immeasurable part of learning."  And it's that immeasurable part that - right now, in a world where we have access to so much stuff - it's that immeasurable stuff, that hard-to-measure stuff that's much more important. It's that creativity, that gritty problem-solving, that persevering disposition that we have toward learning.  All that stuff that's really hard to measure? That's the stuff that our children need right now.

For a post discussing Richardson at TEDxNYED (2011), please click here.

Sugata Mitra: "Build a School in the Cloud" @ TED2013

 

One year ago, Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (@secls) at Newcastle University (@StudentsNCL) Sugata Mitra (@Sugatam) won the 2013 TED Prize (@TEDPrize).  At TED2013, he delivered his wish that the world help him "build a school in the cloud."  He essentially called upon educators, parents, and students to assist him in designing a learning experience whereby all children - located all over the world - can interact with technology and pursue meaningful questions in environments in which adults merely support and encourage them.  He also addressed these same populations to implement Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) (@schoolincloud) and to forward him the data to serve as the raw materials for upcoming publications.

What results has Mitra's "wish" engendered far? SOLE Central (@NCLsolecentral) and the beginning of classroom-based implementation of SOLEs.  

The learning revolution begins.  Will we soon see SOLE-based classrooms at Kildonan...?

So what's happening here? I think what we need to look at is ... learning as the product of educational self-organization. If you allow the educational process to self-organize, then learning emerges. It's not about making learning happen. It's about letting it happen. The teacher sets the process in motion and then she stands back in awe and watches as learning happens. I think that's what all this is pointing at.

For our previous post on Sugata Mitra's "The child-driven education," please click here.  For a link to Mitra's TED Book, Beyond the Hole in the Wall, please click here.

(SOLE Central, pictured above.  Photo located at ncl.ac.uk.  Kildonan and its IP program claim no ownership over this image.)  

For a post discussing Mitra's "The child-driven education," please click here.

For a post discussing Mitra's "School in the Cloud: What Happened after TED Prize 2013," please click here.

 

Tim: The Threat of ISIS

An astute and critical researcher, Tim is currently engaged with various projects.  In addition to learning game design through GameSalad.com and repurposing a car from which to launch a drone with a fellow IP student, he is currently examining drone operation alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and Islamic State (otherwise known as ISIS or ISIL).  Tim recognizes that the nature of ISIS - along with virtually any other story addressed by mainstream media - depends (in part) upon the news agency (international or otherwise) that a person decides to consult.  Though he encourages the reader to evaluate any story by consulting a variety of sources (such as the links below), this post will primarily utilize information from CNN.com (@CNN).

ISIS, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (a.k.a. Al-Khalifah Ibrahim), began as a splinter group within al Qaeda.  Its aim, simply stated, is to "create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria."  Tim argues that, in some ways, the organization is already operating as a "nation" by instituting independent police and food-distribution networks over its "constituents."  Over the past year, the group has garnered international attention and alarm by the United States for its gruesome executions (including crucifixions and beheadings) as well as its repeated threats to invade America and "raise [the] black flag over [the] White House."

Having examined the uproar concerning drones, Tim believes that Americans need to turn their attention away from these devices.  They need to cease diverting their attention and focus it, as he believes, upon the true threat:  ISIS.  He asks:  "Who are you scared of? The terrorist organization that crucifies, tortures and decapitates people? Or the drones that protect them from you?"

What do you think? Post a response in the comments section below.

For more information on ISIS, please consult this article from CNN, this article from Fox News (@FoxNews), any variety of articles from Al Jazeera (@AJEnglish), various resources provided by the BBC (@BBCWorld), other resources not mentioned here, or the following video interview provided by VICE News (@vicenews):

Marcus: Computer Programming with Khan Academy

After recently switching his topic from the 1960s, Marcus is currently teaching himself computer programming via "Intro to J.S.:  Drawing &​ Animation" on Khan Academy (@khanacademy).  A "not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere," Khan Academy was created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan.  The online learning portal literally contains thousands of educational resources, including a personalized learning dashboard, over 100,000 practice problems, and over 6,000 micro lectures.

What deliciously innovative programs might Marcus create and explore over the next year...?

For Khan Academy's website, please click on the following link:  http://www.khanacademy.org.  For the "Intro to J.S.:  Drawing &​ Animation," please follow the next link:  https:/​/​www.khanacademy.org/​computing/​computer-programming/​programming.

(Pictured above is the Khan Academy logo.  This photo was located on instructionalteachtalk.com.  Kildonan and the IP program claim no ownership of the above image.).  

Sugata Mitra: "The child-driven education" (2010)

The following is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (@secls) at Newcastle University (@StudentsNCL) Sugata Mitra (@Sugatam)'s 2010 #TED Talk in which he elaborates upon his ground-breaking "The Hole in the Wall" experiment and Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) (@schoolincloud).

How do we define "teachers" when children can educate themselves using technology?

For a post discussing Mitra's "Build a School in the Cloud," please click here.

For a post discussing Mitra's "School in the Cloud: What Happened after TED Prize 2013," please click here.

Charles Leadbeater: "Education innovation in the slums" (2010)

So we are on the verge, 2015, of an amazing achievement:  the schoolification of the world.  Every child up to the age of 15 who wants a place in school will be able to have one in 2015.  It's an amazing thing. But ... actually the school system is recognizably an inheritance from the 19th century, from a Bismarkian model of German schooling that got taken up by English reformers (and often by religious missionaries).  Taken up in the United States as a force of social cohesion... It's recognizably 19th century in its roots. And of course it's a huge achievement. And of course it will bring great things. It will bring skills and learning and reading. But it will also lay waste to imagination.  It will lay waste to appetite.  It will lay waste to social confidence.  It will stratify society as much as it liberates it. And we are bequeathing to the developing world school systems that they will now spend a century trying to reform. That is why we need really radical thinking and why radical thinking is now more possible and more needed than ever in how we learn.

~ Charles Leadbeater (@LeadbeaterCh), Education innovation in the slums (TED Talk (#TED), 2010)

 

Don Buckley: "Kildonan School students use design thinking to drive their own course of learning with faculty as support systems" (4/​30/​2014)

I’ve been teaching many design thinking workshops this year for NYSAIS (@NYSAISnow), helping faculty and administration understand how this creative problem solving process can be used in education. Most schools still follow a 19th century industrial model – the observation followed by a proposal to try some unproven system with the idea of preparing students for the 21st century. Design Thinking on the other hand is used as a problem solving methodology in many 21st century organizations. It’s always great to hear what people do with this creative problem solving process after they leave my workshop and head back to their schools to apply what they’ve  learned. Part of the Kildonan’s School (@KildonanSchool) curriculum is The Independent Project –  an inquiry-based, self-directed approach to learning. Here’s a great example of design thinking applied to engage students and deepen their learning:

Sandy from the Kildonan School relayed the following to me:

I got a lot out of your presentation and took one aspect of the work you did with us back to a program I initiated at my school.  It’s called the Independent Project, and students in the program drive their own course of learning with faculty as support systems, not teachers.  That has been an amazing experience for the kids because for the first time, they feel empowered by their minds and choices.  As to be expected, they also ran into “problems” being the at the helm of their own ships.  Using your template, I posed the ‘draw your problem‘ to them, and the results were remarkable and quite moving.

The conversations between students and faculty as a result of their drawings were far more revealing and complex than verbal communication alone.  Their images brought depth to their understanding of their problems and opened up better pathways for verbal communication.  One student commented on the importance of recognizing, confronting, and grappling with her problem.  She felt without that process, she would not be able to move forward and grow in meaningful ways.  In some respects, it’s a new form of educational therapy!

http:/ ​/​donbuckleyblog.wordpress.com/​2014/​04/​30/​ killdonan-school-students-use-design-thinking-to-drive-their-own-course-of-learning-with-faculty-as-support-systems/ ​