George Siemens talk: Changing schools, changing knowledge?

Credits: http://mashable.com

Sometimes, I share with you some good talks about Education. I think it is important to hear specialists and discuss their ideas.

For Music in school education, Sir George Martin, for private schools vs. public schools Sir Ken Robinson, for games at school Jane McGonigal, for re-engaging students in learning, Ali Carr-Chellman, for the future of Education, Professor Noam Chomsky, for psychology and behavior,  Steven Pinker, for outdoor education, Richard Louv, for teachers and  "alternative" education programs into the mainstream,  Bill Gates or Sir Ken Robinson

Today, I would like to share George Siemens, Professor at Athabasca University (Canada), 

in a talk about changing schools, changing knowledge.

While more and more knowledge is available to us, the amount of time for us to pay attention to it remains the same. 

• What kind of knowledge will be needed in the future, and how are we going to be acquiring it? 

• How educational institutions are contending with these challenges.

These are some questions Professor George Siemens  answers.

Education:

Interesting, isn't it? Change knowledge needs and structures are influencing the development of new learning systems and models. And it is not easy. 
A good critical talk. He provides a critical evaluation of the testing/evaluation narrative in education and of the future of education.

As an educationalist, I think these kind of talks of innovative thinkers about different subjects touching Education are always very useful to us.

It's up to us reflect and reach some conclusions.

G-Souto

29.11.2013

Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

George Siemens talki: Changing schools, changing knowledge ? by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

October in Review : The most popular posts pf the month !

David Bowie | Facebook (official)

https://www.facebook.com/davidbowie

Yes! I'm a fan of David Bowie! He is one of my favorite singers/musicians. David Bowie has been an endless game in the media and popular culture. Singer, dancer, actor, provocateur, innovator. 

The October issue of BBC History Magazine saw 10 fashion experts select the men and women they believe have set the fashion world alight over the centuries, and BBC History Magazine asked readers to vote for their favourite.  And David Bowie had been named the best-dressed Briton in history.

“Don't follow me. Look at what you want to be and go and do it, because that's the one thing you can go uniquely in life. "

Geoffrey Marsh (about David Bowie)

So this could be the quote for this post. I believe and practice the differentiation as a value by focusing on individual identity of my students. 

Well, after three busy weeks, having important work to do - the most impressive it was judging educational media as a member of the jury of MEDEA Awards - back my regularly scheduled program today! The most popular posts of the month.

And now, let's do! 

This is October in Review of the post of the month: 

I added eleven posts in October - Wow! - on different subjects. In October, I wrote posts in English, Français and Português.

Here my list of the 5 most popular, presented in most reading order. 

I am glad to see that the most-read post of October is Visiokids: Education: Sciences & 3D. 

Visokids

 | Visionarum

http://www.visionarium.pt/

O Visionarium apresenta os Visiokids (descontinuado no site), uma série televisiva em animação 3D, constituída por um total de 65 episódios, de cerca de dois minutos de duração ma RTP Ensina.

Cinco personagens – Atómico, Bit, Cósmico, Cassiopeia e Vita – que representam diferentes áreas da ciência, e que desde 23 Setembro são apresentadas diariamente na RTP2(?).

Verdade! Descobri esta série que partilho na publicação de hoje e que conjuga ciência e tecnologia. Encomendada à Insizium, uma empresa portuguesa, tem o apoio científico da Universidade do Porto.

Uma série animada em 3D a integrar com sucesso nos currículos escolares de Ciências. 

As ciências e as novas tecnologias têm um papel fundamental na educação e na sociedade.

Credits: Insizium

Education: Science & 3D

Visiokids is a 3D animation TV series (Portuguese language), made in Portugal by Isizium, focused on science, (consultancy at University of Porto) consisting of a total of 65 episodes with a minute and a half long. 

It's directed specially to children and young students aged 6-12, being an exciting, informal and accessible educational digital resource to Science (curiosities and questions present in everyday family life). The University

.

https://casadamusica.com/

Oh! What a special day! October 1 is International Music Day! And Music has always an important role on my blog.

As you already know me well as my usual readers, it would be impossible not to write about Music Day.

"No truly cultural pursuit, involving the intellect and the emotions, is complete unless it can be regarded as both an end and a means. It is an end in itself so far as it moves the aesthetic sense, gives immediate pleasure and becomes a part of our being. It is a means in the sense that it should raise us to a higher level, make us capable of going further to accomplish other, more difficult, more pregnant acts of cognition-in short, of developing our own powers and helping to develop those of the community."

Georges Duhamel, Académie Française

I think music should be taught in every school, from primary to secondary education as a serious curriculum.

The aim is not to form not only professional musicians, but to develop the appreciation, taste and critical judgment of the listener from his earliest youth, so as to train him and enable him to appreciate the beauty and wealth of musical masterpieces. 

Yuri Suzuki

https://www.instagram.com/yurisuzukilondon/

And what about special needs students? Yesterday, I read a fantastic article on FastCompany website: How to write Music in color! Absolutely! Agree!

The article is about the sound-artist|designer Yuri Suzuki ! As a dyslexic kid he learned music not through sheet music but through “Color Chaser".

Education:

"Music has the potential to achieve social and psychological transformation of children and young people. Their sensibility will be accurate. We must never waste such an opportunity as teachers! Captivating the major interests of our students about Music."

GSouto

Music, as you can read on several posts on my blog, is fundamental in Education of children and young people.

If music is thus integrated into general education, it becomes a useful auxiliary to the other subjects of School Education. 

Stephen Hawking comic

https://dd508hmafkqws.cloudfront.net/

Visual Learning in School Education: The series 'Stephen Hawking: Riddles Of Time & Space' would provide a glimpse into "the man, the myth and the legend,"

But this is not all about visual learning and Stephen Hawking. The scientist is very inspirational.

Reading The Guardian last month, I watched an incredible video about Stephen Hawking.

Education:

So, do you want a better educational digital resource that this video animation? It's a wonderful video to talk about Stephen Hawking's ideas in the classroom.

As I wrote on Videos in the Classroom : The Higgs Field, students love videos in school curriculum. They learn more watching to a video than hearing thousands words.

The old approach to school curriculum was teachers lecturing to students with lessons centered around a textbook.

Now, under a new curriculum being rolled out the last academic years, educational digital resources (videos, apps, games, infographics) and tools (tablets, smartphones and other devices) have replaced textbooks, and student-centered debate, inquiry and discussion is the main focus.

 

via Google Images Archive

Seeing pink? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It was with these words I started my post Going Pink at School: Let's do it! Remember?

An opportunity to draw attention to our girls students. Girls are growing up faster and need to be aware that it is out there and early detection is the best cure and hope of getting through this awful thing.

Unfortunally, as educators, we all have known some children and young people who have or had cancer or often coexist with cancer because they have brothers or sisters, sometimes mothers or grandmothers suffering with this disease.

via Google Images Archive

Schools can holding special programs to educate students and teachers about how survival rates increases through early detection.

I think it would be important to introduce cancer awareness in school curriculum, not only in sciences curriculum.

I know several schools that involve young students to raise awareness about this disease.

“Education helps students and teachers not only protect their families, but also their own lives,” 

I hope the activities I proposed were useful to you and had a big success among your students.

European MOOCs infographic

https://elearninginfographics.com/

Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics.

It's not the first time I write about MOOCs. MOOCs (Massive open online courses) provide online access for all. 

On the first post MOOCs in a simple way I introduced the 'a-ha' in Higher Education and completed the post with a video published on The New York Times.

Now, as a member of Open Education Europa (disabled), reading the last updates, I  found the European MOOCs Scoreboard Infographic. Please read the entire information.  

via The Next Web

MOOCs are offered not only from universities using their own or a shared platform, but also from nonprofit organizations, trade associations or single businesses or even from an individual using free online course builder tools to create their own MOOC.

The two infographics show the impact of coursera in Europe and all around the world. 

Impressive, isn't it? In just two years (this started in 2011) Coursera has grown "from a revolutionary idea to thriving community of more than 100 partners institutions, 5 million+ students from 190  countries, and 500+ courses across a diverse range of disciplines"?

So many countries, languages, and educational backgrounds represented! This is an important movement promoting lifelong education for everyone from every corner of the globe.

I hope that all of you had a great weekend and feel ready for the next week. As I do every month, I've put together a short list of the most popular posts of the previous month. 

Hoping that all of you tried some of my tips, resources or ideas to do something different at your class.

Have a great new week !

G-Souto

04.11.2013

update 27-04.2025

Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

October in Review : The most popular posts of the month by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

September round down of the most-read posts

http://www.google.com/

Show your pride for the PINK and participate at events!

Sorry about the delay. As I mentioned, sometimes I'm traveling, or have important work to do, or must write about a specific day or event. Back my regularly scheduled program today! September roundown of the most-read posts.

Let me introduce an important subject: Seeing pink? October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I will right a little post on Going Pink in School Education.

And now, let's doing! This is the round-own of teaching and learning School series of September. These are some posts sharing events or resources, tips, and tools for you. Ty something different or an idea that you adapt for your classroom.

I added six posts, on different subjects last month. Here my list of the 4 most-read of the month - presented in most reading order. This time, all the posts are written on English.

And I am glad to see that the most-read post of September is Education for Peace: International Day of Peace. If you are my regular reader you know I am pledging for Civics as a serious subject that must be intrduced among the curriculum or disciplines in School Education.

Credits: UNESCO

http://wa2.www.unesco.org/

"On this International Day of Peace, let us pledge to teach our children the value of tolerance and mutual respect.  Let us invest in the schools and teachers that will build a fair and inclusive world that embraces diversity.  Let us fight for peace and defend it with all our might."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 

International Day of Peace is celebrated on 21 September every year. This year, 2013 is devoted to peace education.

Credits: UN

http://www.un.org/

UNESCO campaigns for quality education for all going further than the basics of reading and writing. 

Education must encompass the teaching of human rights, living together and respect for others. 

Peace education is one of its key components. Every child in the world should know their rights, and learn their own history and that of other peoples, so as to be able to understand the equal dignity of cultures and draw lessons from the crimes and violence of the past.

The key to tolerant citizenship in a globalized world requires a widespread effort to train teachers and design suitable school curricula. 

MEDEA Awards 2013

http://www.media-and-learning.eu/

The 6th edition of MEDEA Awards 2013 is now judging all the entries ob this edition. 

MEDEA Awards 2013 announced its call of entries some months ago. And the deadline to send send projects as participants was end on September 30, 2013.

As you know I am participating at MEDEA Awards since 2009. So I am glad to promote such an interesting project that encourages innovation and good practices in the use of media in Education.

The aim of the MEDEA Awards is "to encourage innovation and good practice in the use of media (audio, video, graphics and animation) in education." 

The awards also recognize and promote excellence in the production and pedagogical design of media-rich learning resources.

Innovation and good practices are possible better with the new technologies always giving us fantastic resources. 

The 'screen-generation' is used to be online all the time. So, innovative educators understood the meaning of changing academic practices and go to digital. Mobile devices really pushed up for pedagogical applications.

All finalists will be notified in the beginning of December and will be invited to take part in the awards ceremony taking place during the Media & Learning Conference 2013, December 12-13, Brussels, where the final winners will be announced.

http://www.greatconference.eu/

"How can we bring attention of policy makers to the significant potential of games? This  issue will be addressed by the GREAT Lisbon Conference on Games & TEL."

Claudio Dondi

The Great Lx International Conference on Games and TEL took place in Lisbon, Portugal last 15-16 September 2013 at ISCTE-IUL.

Great LX | Auditorium

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/

Interesting opportunity to participate, listen and share the last concepts about the current paradigms and evolution of Games in Education (GBL) Training (SG) and Technology Enchanced Learninig (TEL)

Great Lx Conference

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/

For one long day, speakers, researchers, practitioners, producers, skate holders and participants shared  interesting ideas and experiences.

I joined key speakers and round tables at the Great Auditorium. I am an independent researcher on TEL and I was very curious to hear about the new ideas.

TEL, Games (GBL & SG), and MOOCs were on my best interests.

Claudio Dondi

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/

I was very interested on key note speaker Claudio Dondi analysis about the role of ICT in learning moving the change on E&T and bringing a great challenge for the shift on paradigm in Europe. 

I know Claudio Dondi from different international conferences. The last one, in Brussels, at the European Forum on Learning Futures and Innovation, where I had a presentation at VISIR workshop on the 19th March, 2013 with Giordano Koch and Jan Pawlowski.

Claudio Dondi is one of best European researcher and expert and his thoughts are always very important.

Claudio Dondi made a splendid evaluation with remarkable key notes and items that I have the chance to hear. You can access to his communication here

It is very important to understand the new challenges until 2020. As the final rapporteur pointed:

• We have to work harder on the issues above. 

• MOOCs are not inclusive. 

• Less focus on thecnology and more in people.

www.google.com

And my last post for today is Léon Foucault: a Doodle in Physics Curriculum. No, it was not about Nicolau Copernicus ! The interactive Google doodle of September 18th was about the celebration of the 194th anniversary of the French physicist Léon Foucault. Tje doodle is based on the Foucault pendulum - an innovative device Foucault created to demonstrate the effect of the earth’s rotation.

Credits: UCDavis

http://physics.ucdavis.edu/

Education:

“His teachers described him as lazy, he did not submit work on time, so that his mother had to employ tutors to educate him at home."

As we know, sometimes, the best students in school are not the 'genius' ! Einstein, and a good number of great scientists, musicians or poets demonstrate that.

From time to time we discover 'little genius' among our students! They are not the brightest in the classroom, but we feel that they have something special ! And we do everything to help them to understand their natural skills so they could develop later and find their own way.

They are disconnected from the curriculum, distracted, sometimes with a difficult behaviour or too shy. And we encourage them as 'special' students who need a different kind of help in school.

Well, the Google doodle will be a good interactive digital resource to introduce in your curriculum, if you a are teaching Physics.

The doodle allows students to manipulate the swinging bob according to where on earth they happen to be.

Level: Secondary Education

Final thoughts:

Teachers, of course, always make the difference!

Today’s 21st Century world is totally different from the world of previous generations, and from the world in which I, and most of today’s teachers/educators, grew up.  

Why, then, can’t we learn to "break free" from the past and change or adapt old patterns/behaviors to match students' needs today, and enhance teaching and learning in today's world?

"Do not confine your students to your own learning for they were born in another time."

G-Souto

13.10.2013
Copyright © 2013G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

September round down of the most-read posts by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.