Nocking the Arrow

" Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world. " - Robert McKee It's that wonderful time of year. It's time for us to submit our content for the handful of conference sessions we'll be facilitating during the coming year. I'm fortunate enough to have been able to attend more than one hundred conferences through the years, I present at nearly all those I visit. I used to have an aversion to public speaking, that's long gone. My preparations and presentation strategies have evolved. Unfortunately, many of the so-called innovative #edtech sessions I've attended recently are still mired in the sit-n-git style of the previous century. We can do better, and if we aspire to make our classrooms places of great learning, then we must do better. ** Caution, this post is likely to contain some snarky sarcasm, but for the most part, my purpose is to share some observations and some research-based practices to help you win your con...

Shared by Bruce Dixon as part of last week's change.school provocations, HundrED.org is a Finnish organization gathering information from school leaders and change agents about the future of education. " Innovations " provides an exhibition of creative, ambitious, and purposeful educational projects from around the world. Take a look, these luminous examples challenge long-held beliefs about what typically gets prioritized in schools. Are our more traditional priorities influenced by what Seymour Sarason calls the " regularities of school culture"? In everyday terms, Sarason says, " the ways of doing business in school " can be detrimental to a school's mission and vision, yet they go largely " unexamined and unchallenged " by educators. When we have conversations beginning with " why " we start to dig into some of these issues and expose some misguided priorities. We put an appropriate focus on our beliefs about scho...

"In the abundant world in which we now find ourselves, transformation in schools must be about empowering learners to organize their own learning and about delving deeply into the subjects that interest them, to live on a “perpetual learning curve.” Those are the skills they need to be successful learners in their adult lives. The emphasis shifts from knowing to learning." -  From Master Teacher to Master Learner , Will Richardson Here is my visual interpretation of what Will Richardson calls  the perpetual learning curve of the modern learner.  I have no scientific basis for this graphic other than the influence of co-learners ( PLN contributors ) like Will Richardson , Jackie Gerstein , Jon Andrews , Aaron Davis , George Siemens , Yong Zhao , Stewart Hase ,  Alan November , and many others. Observations and Experiences - Stewart Hase states, "Learning is intrinsic to the learner. Every brain is different as a result of experience. People are nat...