i think.

future home of "conversations" ning site.


"After all, what is education but a process by which a person begins to learn how to learn?" Peter Ustinov Dear Me
ieducation


edtalk
talked
edupunk
education


talk: to have a conversation
a place where they can converse uninterrupted

italk - interactive talking

what should we be talking about - you say?
let's talk about what we're supposed to be doing - in ed (k12) - in life - to make the world a better place

iremark - interactive noticing of things that deserve attention



infinite thinking machine
unboxed thinking
unboxed conversations
keep your coins i want change - logo
why
edupunk
just meant it
converse
remark.able  an act or instance of noticing something, especially something that deserves attention
an act or instance of noticing something, especially something that deserves attention
unusual or exceptional, and attracting attention because of this




ideas for groups:    any suggestions? any you want to lead?
in my head
students
teachers
tsd
e2t2
math/ap/dmi
tv
chess
robotics
stuco



ideas for beginning topics:
why learn
why should your district continue
why do we exist as an institution
what's the value of being together in a room
student buy-in that we are giving them things of value (if they feel like from being in your class you are going to change the world - that's worth bottling)
what's the purpose of lecture
attention literacy - a probe of mindfulness - notice what you are doing - where you are allowing distractions. open laptop - takes notes on wiki - no lap top - they discuss/ 5 out of 40 can have laptop on  - if 6 then everyone closes them. he sends tweets to kids who are off task -  how are you deploying your attention. rss and twitter. it's a stream - don't need to read it all - it's about sampling
1/2 say they can't learn w/o laptop to take notes, 1/2 say they appreciate an authoritarian to tell them to close their laptop - accept that we are going to do more online than in class

edupunk
visual hygiene

education is in the heart of the listener not in tihe voide of the teacher

a wild animal as opposed to a caged animal knows chaos and can adapt to it
from leanring upload http://thinwalls.edublogs.org/2008/11/11/learning/

“Who are stronger in our interconnected society than
the networked?” – unknown
“This is a social revolution, not a technological one,
and its most revolutionary aspect may be the ways in
which it empowers us to rethink education and the
teacher-student relationship in an almost limitless
variety of ways.” – Micheal Wesch

We've learned two
important things in the last couple of years: we are
much more resourceful than the old models have
assumed (which is why gatekeepers have to go), and
we have much more interests than the old models have
assumed (which is why we need a much richer offering
than products and services can provide). And as you
may have noticed: we're determined to pursue our
interests and use our resources. In our pursuit our
societies are being rearranged because they are too
strict, too inhibiting, and they're not good enough in
fulfilling our basic human needs.
- Steven Devijver

One aspect of who we are
becomes more and more clear as we're drifting away
from each other : what we all have in common. These
are three things which I call the three human
universals:
1. The fact that we all want to be treated as
human beings, all of the time.
2. The fact that we all make mistakes.
3. The fact that we're all different.
- sd

Such a strategy has little to do with technology
or technological affluence and everything to do with
strategy and strategic decisions. Because constant
change is about people a strategy of constant change is
based on three human universals:
• We're all humans and we all want to be treated
as humans all of the time.
• We all make mistakes. When those mistakes
are rectified gracefully remarkable stories
are being created.
• We all have our own cultures and values that
don't always match but we all try to do good.

Accepting constant change starts by doing these
three things:
• Treating everybody you deal with in your life as
human beings, always. That means listing to
them, talking to them, spending time with
them and building and maintaining
relationships with them.
• Admitting your mistakes and correcting them
to the best of your abilities and accepting other
people's mistakes.
• Accepting that while sometimes in conflict
situations you're right and they're wrong
people don't mean to create trouble. They just
want to be treated as humans when they feel
they're being treated unfairly, even when
they're wrong about something. Treating
people as human beings, listening to them and
spending time with them especially in conflict
situations is an extremely effective way to
resolve conflicts and make friends.

the plan
discover
design
do
sd

This exact same mechanism – involving people
in any cause and giving it a soul – can be put to use to
have any kind of consequence: social, commercial,
market share. All that is required are two things:
1. You have to invite people into your space and
you have to give them something they can and
want to care about (this is so important, I can't
stress it enough). To achieve this you'll have to
live your relationships with these people by the
three human universals, otherwise you'll chase
them away.
2. You have to design your intentions – call it a
campaign if you want – in such a way that
every single person's involvement gets you one
step closer to your objectives, whatever they
are.
Clearly, what is required is a strategy that has people
and story telling at it's core. A strategy of constant
change is exactly such a strategy.
sd

“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better
Lincoln per sd

Transparency is the only currency that can buy
trust so any strategy has to be transparent for the
people in the organization you want to change.
sd


When we're nearly constantly connected to each
other – or at least have the option to connect when we
have the intention – we get a chance to learn from
other people's stories. Online we find a much bigger
wealth of stories from people like us compared to
books, newspapers, magazine or television. sd

http://school2school.ning.com/

http://school2school.ning.com/

in general, I think the kids need to share stories with each other, mainly to understand the differences between them so they can find the similarities
it's all about stories
let's not put the technology first
it's all about stories, the question is: how to get those stories out
there are many ways to go about this, it could actually be a lot of fun
once you have an idea about that the technology becomes an afterthought, as it should be
I mean, for each kid there are already so many things to figure out
where do they live? Have they always lived there? what do they care about? which sports do they play? what's they family like? ...
then the schools: what does the neighborhood look like? how far from the schools do the kids live? what's special about this neighborhood? what are the people like? how is the neighborhood involved in the schools? ...
the colorado and south african cultures are so different, there's so much stuff to talk about
did you know for example that the first homo sapiens are thought to have lived in caves along the south african coast, and that they spread from there?
and there will be the world cup next year -they're going completely crazy about that
yeah, they just had the confederation cup last week, as a general repitition for the world cup, the south african went wild!

on stories:
Stories mobilize our emotions. Stories teach us
something on how to be human. Stories inspire.
Through the emotions we feel when listening to stories
we learn about values. Stories have a specific structure
which triggers our emotions. A story consists of a plot
and a moral. The moral is the felt experience by which
we learn about value. The moral is created by the plot.
The plot of a story consists itself of three part:
character (protagonist), choice and outcome. We can
identify emotionally with the character (otherwise it's
a lousy story) and the choice is a value decision (like
we all make all the time). The outcome teaches us
something on the consequence of sticking to the values
in the story. Combined these three plot elements
creates the moral (values).
When we hear a story we expect it's being told
for a reason. This means we expect a point (“get to the
point”) and we also expect there's a reason to tell this
story. That is why telling stories is a complicated affair.
We have to tell stories honestly – otherwise we'll be
thought to be a cheat – and we have to be honest as to
why we tell the stories we tell – otherwise we'll be
looked at suspiciously. Whenever we hear a story we
like we're not only learning something about values,
we're also making value decisions on the story and the
person that tells it.
We have two ways of looking at the world:
cognitive and emotional. The cognitive perspective

The most important role of stories in a strategy
of constant change is the creation of community and a


movement. Don't get me wrong, you're not going to
create a community just for the sake of it. Instead
you're going to offer people interactions they want to
have and with those go stories. You're going to build a
movement around your values. You will build on three
kinds of stories to build your movement: the story of
self, the story of us and the story of now.
The story of self explains why any individual –
you, a colleague, a customer, anybody who is or wants
to be involved with your organization and your
community – is here. That person talks about her
background, what brought her to this point, her family,
anything that's relevant for her and she want others to
know. Every person who somehow connected with the
Obama campaign had such a story of self and each
story was unique and amazing. Life-long republicans
turned Obama supporters (Obamicans), people
without health care having hope for the first time,
people working two or three jobs who hope to get a
better deal, people disillusioned with politics who
found new hope. Each story is amazing because it
involves a person we can relate to and situations we
can relate to, a choice or decision we can relate to and
an outcome. And simply by spreading these stories the
Obama campaign did something extremely powerful:
it gave the campaign a soul and a purpose and it made
this moment even more important than it already was.
The story of us explains what values we have in
common. This best example probably comes from
Obama's 2004 democratic convention speech: there
are no red states or blue states, there's the United
States; we have gay friends in the red states and we
worship an awesome god in the blue states. These are
just some examples of how the excitement around a
community can be turned into more powerful feelings.
These very simple stories of just 10 or 20 words can
rally people and make them come together. Because
they build on top of a sense of community and they
make us even more sensitive for more community and
more leadership.
The story of now is the one that drives people to
action and creates a movement. It creates motivation.
The word motive comes from the Latin verb movere
which means to move. The story of now tells why we
have to act now, come together now. For most people
this starts as an active exploration that leads to
discovery. Others volunteer. Yet the story of now that
was crafted very carefully by the Obama campaign to
make sure the various ways in which people responded
lead to three outcomes: donating, volunteering and
going out and vote.
You can use the same combination – why am I
here, what do we have in common, what's special
about now – and use it for two purposes: grow your
community – first within your organization and then
beyond, and grow your business. What you'll have to
do for this to happen is three things:
• Let as many people as possible that care about
what you do tell their story, and let that be a
chance for them to meet other people.
• Tell a story of all of you together and what you
have in common.
• Tell a story of what is to be done, and design
that story and the resulting actions taken by
people very carefully.
The story of self gives people a chance to relate to each
other. The story of us gives people a chance to relate to
the bigger community which they have created and are
now part of. The story of now gives people a chance to
act on their convictions and beliefs and do some good,
for each other, for the community or for outsiders.
31 of


being created it can always be adjusted. But the
intention to change and to build a movement out of an
organization that will be able to deal with change for
ever is not only irreplaceable, it's something money
cannot buy. In the introduction five questions were
asked:
1. What would success look like for your
organization, according to you? After the
organization has changed itself into an
organization of constant change and after
running its business for one or two or three
years, where should the organization be?
2. Who else in your organization might have a
similar view on the future of your
organization?
3. Who are the people in the core team and why
are they there?
4. What do we want to do together?
5. What's special about this moment?
The introduction introduced the concept of a core

A community is automatically built when people
can connect to each other and build relationships. The
relationships are the prove they have things in
common: interests and resources that they want to put
to good use for the benefit of those interests. For your
community to be successful your community has grow
from within the organization. Too many organizations
rush to the free social networks due to some marketing
people chatting all day with some of their customers.
There may be extra revenue made this way, but
making more revenue is not the point.
The point is for the organization to be able to
deal with constant change, and that won't happen
because of a few people in the marketing department,
unless these people are leaders. In fact, your
organization won't re-invent itself if the relationships
between people in the organization are not reinvented.
The relationships between people in your
organization defines your organization. You may not
have looked at your organization in this way before,
but those relationships defines how your organizations
work. People that have power over others by relying on
a 'sensible' systems of accountability are likely to have
the biggest influence on the relationships in the
organization, and therefore decide on the course of the
organization more than other people.
Community is the opposite of a system of
accountability. In a community people share values
they care about and everybody who also cares about
those values can join. Their relationships are based on
those values because that's their interest. These
communities will have to replace your systems of
accountability. If it's important for the management of
your organization to respect budgets and make a profit
they'll have to create a community with other people in
the organization that share these values. If
management can't find those people, or if people don't
like or trust management enough to have friendly
conversations and build personal relationships they'll
still have a lot of work to do.
In short, anything that's important for people