Category Archive for ‘Education’ at melanie mcbride online

Archive for the 'Education' Category

Getting educational in Second Life

Published on March 22, 2008 in gaming, Classroom2.0, Education and Announcements. 7 Comments

Back in 2003, when Second Life arrived on the internets, I was not in a position to take part. My computer wasn’t fast enough and I didn’t have the time available. Since then, I resisted joining on the grounds that it seemed really materialistic and commercial. While there were indeed interesting things happening there, what I saw seemed too close to the social hierarchies of first-life.

Over time, and as I became more involved in education, I discovered the growing numbers of educators and world changers flocking to SL. This gave me a compelling reason to invest my time there. And I finally made the plunge this weekend - four years too late but better late than never. What I found there was indeed compelling.

So there I am in the image above (note: my avatar is temporary) enjoying a conversation with a few other educators in a professor’s virtual condo. Aftewards, Smartlak and I roamed around Eduisland, Athens and a few other places. Here are some photos I took of our first adventure.

Eternally grateful to Prentiss for help getting started. Great to meet Leigh, Mal, and Fred Special thanks to Knowclue for rollerskates and Leigh for the tour of your beautiful space. Hope to meet many more geeky big brains in SL and take part in some of the forward thinking education innovation taking place there.

Yours in-world,

Verdana Madrid

2 million reasons not to Facebook through class

Published on March 8, 2008 in Future, Classroom2.0 and Education. 2 Comments

From the start of elementary school until high school graduation, students spend two million minutes preparing for their future. Director Chad Heeter’s documentary 2 Million Minutes explores the dramatic differences between the way Western students spend that time versus students in China and India.

Teaching and learning 2.0: Turn up the good, turn down the suck

Published on March 8, 2008 in Best practices, Engagement, Classroom2.0 and Education. 1 Comment

University of Texas professor David Parry is my idea of the future of education. According to Parry:

“The more we try to put those walls up, and say “I’m a professor, I only talk inside the class” the more irrelevant we become.”

I cannot agree more. This is what Paulo Freire was talking about when he talked about pedagogies of praxis (action v. theory). Especially in relation to the web. Continue reading ‘Teaching and learning 2.0: Turn up the good, turn down the suck’

Howard Rheingold: “Training attention” with wired learners

Published on February 25, 2008 in Engagement, Teaching, Learning, Classroom2.0 and Education. 0 Comments

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In his latest vlog post, Howard Rheingold addresses an increasingly difficult problem for educators: Attention in a hypermediated age. Rheingold takes things beyond the usual “let’s debate multitasking - good or bad?” to the real heart of the matter: How to focus the wired mind?

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Classroom2.0: Twitter, del.icio.us and participatory learning

Published on February 10, 2008 in Engagement, Learning, Web2.0, Classroom2.0 and Education. 5 Comments

I do not use a textbook. It is not that I dislike textbooks. It is that my textbook is the web. My textbook is YOU and ME and NOW.

Instead of a book, I add all relevant readings, videos or examples to my course delicious bookmarks.

That’s my virtual, live, textbook - licensed under Creative Commons. And students don’t have to blow 60 bucks on it either. And they can subscribe to this textbook using their favourite feed reader.

Right now v. back then

As I explained to my class, the most important stuff to know about the web is what’s happening RIGHT NOW. I may share a video or article in a couple of weeks that has yet to be written. Course readings are not mandatory - because I share most of the stuff in-class but secondary. If students are confused or if they want to dig deeper, they’ve got Youtube tutorials, how to’s and hundreds of articles and research supporting everything I’m talking about in the course.

For example, this past week, we watched Howard Rheingold’s most recent Vlog post about social bookmarking in which Howard explains stuff I have been talking about (but with more pizazz). Howard is a great teacher. I think it’s because Howard is an artist at heart - artists explore and play. Traditional academia is still very non-creative and non-playful/exploratory - it’s still very much a closed system where things have to be proven and approved before they are anointed with merit (the very definition of laggard). Thankfully, as Howard’s example testifies, times are changing.

Twitter for teaching and learning

In the spirit of Right Now teaching and learning, I decided to try out Twitter this week as a means of offering the students a back channel as well as an opportunity to learn more about emergent content delivery systems and build on their developing knowledge of RSS, aggregation and microformats (all new to them).

Continue reading ‘Classroom2.0: Twitter, del.icio.us and participatory learning’

Students 2.0

Published on December 5, 2007 in Engagement, Classroom2.0 and Education. 0 Comments

Like I’ve said before, wired students need wired classrooms - and teachers. More evidence, courtesy of the students of Kansas State University and their wired professor Michael Wesch.Read more about the video here.

Teaching and learning: Diversity is key

Published on November 6, 2007 in Inspirations, Engagement, Learning and Education. 0 Comments

Traditionally, students with learning challenges are labeled, stigmatized and streamed. Difference gets defined as deficit, and deficit comes to define identity. In some schools, this is still the case.

One of the most inspiring figures I learned about at teacher’s college is pediatric professor Mel Levine, whose original research and approaches have helped to redefine what we mean by special education. Levine’s research draws attention to the way that learning differences are typically framed as deficits - a logic that obscured the learner’s strengths. Levine identified how our traditional education system privileges one type of mind over all others. From Levine’s interview with NPR:

“Levine delivers the same message, that all people — and especially students — are wired differently. He preaches the virtues of helping kids understand their strengths and weaknesses as part of understanding the way learning works.” (NPR)

Continue reading ‘Teaching and learning: Diversity is key’

Do schools kill creativity?

Published on September 4, 2007 in Creativity, Future, Innovation, Learning, Education and Technology. 0 Comments

Sir Ken Robinson, from his TED talk on creativity

If you haven’t done so already, you must watch Sir Ken Robinson’s wonderful TED conference talk “Do schools kill creativity.” He’s got the timing and wit of a comedian combined with the uncommon insights into future of learning and business. View it here.

According to Robinson, the problem with creativity is not that we lack it, but that we don’t really get much of a chance to nurture or explore it. And this isn’t our fault. Robinson says we’ve unlearned it as a result of traditional learning models that privilege literacy and numeracy above other forms of learning and effectively “kill” the original gift of creativity we all possess.

Continue reading ‘Do schools kill creativity?’