Nocking the Arrow

“Life without community has produced, for many, a life style consisting mainly of a home-to-work-and-back-again shuttle. Social well-being and psychological health depend upon community.  Third places are informal gathering places.  They are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy, but sadly, they constitute a diminishing aspect of the social landscape." - Ray Oldenburg Who remembers " Cheers "?  The television third place of libated conversation and humor, where everyone knows your name. Are we creating school-based places where climate and community become positively established?   Left to their own devices, students and staff will build segregated hangout bubbles in hallways, offices, and nooks beneath stairwells.  Third places are comfortable confines between the private life of home and the prearranged areas of school and work. Informal and inviting, Oldenburg says third places offer tremendous opportun...

People who know me have experienced my affinity for the latest technology gadgets. This doesn't apply to my transportation; older is better. I have a bicycle that's 30 years old, I have a car, originally purchased by my parents, that's nearly fifty years old, and my daily transportation is a truck that's twelve years old. A few weeks ago, my old truck had a loping idle, and fluctuating RPMs with the cruise control set during highway driving.   How would a modern learner , a parent with two college-age children, and two more in high school, solve this problem, inexpensively? Identify the Problem :  I heard the strange pulse of the 4.7-liter engine and observed the fluctuating tachometer while driving. My observations and experiences helped me identify a problem.  Inquiry :   What is causing the fluctuating engine speed? Am I able to fix it? Not only did I need to gain some knowledge about the truck, I needed to assess my mechanical repair abiliti...

Wanting a break from last week's IETC conference in Springfield, I decided to walk across the street to the AMC-8 theater to see " Big Hero 6 ". I thoroughly enjoyed my second viewing of " Big Hero 6 " with a big bag of popcorn and a large Coke. If you are a teacher or a student, you will love this movie, not only because it's a captivating story, but also because it features themes currently prominent in learning and education. A box-office hit, here are six themes from this movie that will have teachers and students laughing and cheering from their theater seats. STEM EDUCATION - 14 year old robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada uses his engineering skills to inventively help his heroic friends overcome an evil adversary. Science, math, and technology are featured problem solving tools for Hiro and his robot friend, Baymax. When times get tough, Hiro encourages his friends to find solutions through creativity and innovation. Credit to Disney for trut...

Personally and professionally speaking, I am reborn as a result of finding purpose and focus with my informal learning. Interactions with my personal learning network (PLN) made me realize that my informal learning time was more relevant and authentic than what I had experienced in the classroom, or through forced professional development offerings. My interest and research in heutagogy and life-wide learning clarified two important revelations.   First, I have been associated with schools and education nearly my entire life, yet I don’t recall anyone taking extended time to help me learn how to learn .   Second, this graphic provided by the US Department of Education alerted me to the fact that we spend two-thirds of our life, and sometimes more, learning informally. These two revelations combined with my own recently found informal learning experiences made me take pause and ask... “OMG! If we aren’t feeding our students with the passions and the skills ...

Informal learning is the primary source of knowledge for every single one of us. To clarify, for most people, approximately two-thirds of our lifetime is spent learning informally, or outside formal education environments. As you can see from this graphic provided by the U.S. Department of Education , the percentage of our waking hours spent learning in formal educational environments increases at the onset of elementary school, but then decreases dramatically following high school graduation. Learning supported through Internet connections and social networks is impacting the time spent in formal learning environments as more people choose opportunities other than college to continue their education. Knowing this information, educators that want to make a life-long impact on their students' learning should consider embracing the characteristics that feed informal learning. This can be accomplished by emphasizing a growth mindset, a love of learning, and an entrepreneurial spirit  ...