:: The 4th Era ::

“I carry my thoughts about with me for a long time, often for a very long time before writing them down. I can... be sure that... I shall not forget [a theme] even years later. I change many things, discard others, and try again and again until I am satisfied: then, in my head, I begin to elaborate the work... the underlying idea never deserts me. It rises, it grows. I hear and see the image in front of me from every angle.” - Ludwig Van Beethoven (quoted by Hamberger 1952).

Gust MEES

A MUST read to understand visual thinking persons...

Thanks to http://www.scoop.it/t/engagement-based-teaching-and-learning/p/3565577490/the-mind-s-eye-an-important-metacognitive-tool-for-creative-thought  for having shared this!

Read more:

https://sites.google.com/site/creativityinpractice/home/introduction

Being Human in the Information Age
Professor Steve Fuller
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick

Even Digital Humans Need a Metaphysics: Towards a Revival of Dualism

The hypothesis of the University of Warwick’s Being Human Research Network notes that, “Human life is increasingly driven and mediated by technology and technological change with profound implications for human identity and behaviour.” Indeed, the way in which we express ‘what it means to be human’ occurs in close relationship to the technology of our age. As actors in this phenomenon we find ourselves constantly redefining who we are through the way in which we both use and understand the metaphors associated with latest technological advancements.
Recorded 16 March 2012 at the University of Warwick.

Read more, a MUST:

http://vimeo.com/46221034

Creativity isn’t a gift reserved for the artistic. It’s a process. Everyone can come up with creative ideas. I’m a former advertising Creative Director. And here are some of my secrets.

Read more, a MUST to understand on How one can get creativity...:

http://snapguide.com/guides/have-creative-ideas/

This is quite a clever and helpful device to tie together a large number of ideas about Bloom's Taxonomy in the Cognitive Domain. I highly recommend that interested readers visit the website and play with it. It's done quite well (although it would be even better if the few misspellings were attended to). Access it at http://eductechalogy.org/swfapp/blooms/wheel/engage.swf

But this gets me up on my soapbox because it highlights quite a significant oversight, in my opinion.

When Benjamin Bloom wrote his original work, he spoke of 3 domains, not just one. All 3 were, and are, of roughly equal importance in educating young people. The other 2 are the Affective Domain and the Psychomotor Domain. These correspond roughly to what, in today's parlance, might be called Social and Emotional Learning (Affective) and Mental and Physical Health (Psychomotor). Too much (or too little) emphasis on any one of the domains almost guarantees a lack of balance in childrens' learning and development. We can see this in the pejorative, hurtful names students call their peers when one of the domains assumes an unblanced priority over the others. Cognitive imbalance can lead to students being called eggheads or nerds, Affective imbalance to students being called geeks or loners, and Psychomotor imbalance to students being called dumb jocks or crazies.

It seems to me that the standards movement and the high-stakes testing movement have come to symbolize an educational environment that is seriously out of balance...with far too much emphasis on the Cognitive Domain, and too little on the Affective and Psychomotor. We have too many students who excel in one domain, and too few who are well rounded in two or three, as well as too many who do not reach their potential in any.

Furthermore, the emphasis on the separation of the Cognitive from the Affective and Psychomotor, has created structural imbalances in the operation of schools (read allocations of time, financial and material resources, personnel, and intellectual enegy) that work to the detriment of our young people and our communities.The drive toward home schooling and charter schools can be viewed as two manifestations of this structural imbalance...increasing numbers of parents view schools (especially public ones) as unsuitable places to send their children and clamor for alternatives that offer a better balance among the 3 domains.

This is a great graphic organizeer, but it represents only an exaggeratedly large part of a much more important whole. -JL

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is more complex than most people know, read further to learn… . .

Keywords for this free course: . motivation, engagement, heroes, Security-Scouts, critical thinking, stay out of the box, adapt to new technologies, be aware of the malware, nobody is perfect, knowing the dangers and risks, responsibility, responsibility of School, responsibility of IT-Admin, responsibilities of BYOD users, Apple insecurity, Insecurity of Apps, Principals responsibilities, Mobile Device Management, risks of BYOD, BYOD-Policy, IT-Security Infrastructure, Teacher-Parents Meeting, Cyberwar, Cyberwarfare, Government, Internet-Safety, IT-Security knowledge basics...

The weakest link in the Security Chain is the human! If you don’t respect certain advice you will get tricked by the Cyber-Criminals!

=> NOBODY is perfect! A security by 100% doesn’t exist! <=

Read more:

http://gustmees.wordpress.com/2012/07/07/bring-your-own-device-advantages-dangers-and-risks/

Considering BYOT / BYOD next year? Get started with this sample policy & answers to FAQs

One of the best ways to prepare students to be prepared for the world is to help them use the tools of their world responsibly. Allowing students to bring their own devices is a terrific way to do just that, but even though some schools may have the wireless capacity and infrastructure, the admins / teachers may want to have a policy in place.

Below is the policy shared with me by Tim Clark who serves as the Coordinator of Instructional Technology for Forsyth County, GA Schools.

There are so many new technologies and devices appearing on the education market every day now that it can become very difficult to determine where to spend your money, if indeed you should spend it at all. Before you make your next investment, ask yourself the following questions: RT @briankotts: 10 vital questions to ask before investing in classroom technology http://t.co/BrPWm7HZ /via @jdthomas7 #edchat #edtech #mlearning...

As all the people and computers on our planet get more and more closely connected, it's becoming increasingly useful to think of all the people and computers on the planet as a kind of global brain.

THOMAS W. MALONE is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. He was also the founding director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and one of the two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century".

Pretty much everything I'm doing now falls under the broad umbrella that I'd call collective intelligence. What does collective intelligence mean? It's important to realize that intelligence is not just something that happens inside individual brains. It also arises with groups of individuals. In fact, I'd define collective intelligence as groups of individuals acting collectively in ways that seem intelligent. By that definition, of course, collective intelligence has been around for a very long time. Families, companies, countries, and armies: those are all examples of groups of people working together in ways that at least sometimes seem intelligent.

Read more, very interesting...:

http://edge.org/conversation/collective-intelligence

Robin Good: What does curation mean from an educational viewpoint? And what is the key difference between "collecting" and "curating".

Nancy White (@NancyW), a 21st Century Learning & Innovation Specialist and the author of Innovations in Education blog, has written an excellent article, dissecting the key characterizing traits of curation, as a valuable resource to create and share knowledge. 

She truly distills some key traits of curation in a way that is clear and comprehensible to anyone.

She writes: "The first thing I realized is that in order to have value-added benefits to curating information, the collector needs to move beyond just classifying the objects under a certain theme to deeper thinking through a) synthesis and b) evaluation of the collected items.

How are they connected?"

Excellent definition. 

And then she also frames perfectly the relevance of "context" for any meaningful curation project by writing: "I believe when we curate, organization moves beyond thematic to contextual – as we start to build knowledge and understanding with each new resource that we curate.

Themes have a common unifying element – but don’t necessarily explain the “why.”

Theme supports a central idea – Context allows the learner to determine why that idea (or in this case, resource) is important.

So, as collecting progresses into curating, context becomes essential to determine what to keep, and what to discard."

But there's a lot more insight distilled in this article as Nancy captures with elegance the difference between collecting for a personal interest and curating for a specific audience. 

She finally steals my full endorsement for this article by discretely inquirying how great a value it would be to allow students to "curate" the domains of interest they need to master.

Excellent. Highly recommended. 9/10

Full article: http://d20innovation.d20blogs.org/2012/07/07/understanding-content-curation/ ;

The buzz in 1-to-1 right now is about BYOD - Bring Your Own Device - and it's not a fad and it's not going away. There's a convergence of factors causing it including:

- Hardware is diverse and at price points that are more affordable

- Schools are hyper budget conscious

- The "cloud" (previously called The Internet, the Web and the Information Superhighway) is ideal for core apps which are free or inexpensive with such as Google (although be sure to use GAFE), and Zoho

- Parents are realizing that a digital device is necessary for learning

- Schools want to be sure students possess 21st Century skills

Read more, very interesting...:

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/06/bring-your-own-device-questions-to.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheInnovativeEducator+%28The+Innovative+Educator%29

Go way beyond Internet safety. Turn students into great digital citizens.

Get all the tools you need with our FREE Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum and Parent Media Education Program. The relevant, ready-to-use instruction helps you guide students to make safe, smart, and ethical decisions in the digital world where they live, study and play.

Every day, your students are tested with each post, search, chat, text message, file download, and profile update. Will they connect with like minds or spill TMI to the wrong people?

Will they behave creatively or borrow ideas recklessly? Will they do the right thing or take shortcuts?

Read more...