A great article: Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform that asks, What has this dominant paradigm actually done for public education except manufacture a crisis? Not only does it list initiatives and consequences of this paradigm (read the post!), it also suggests a paradigm shift with the following perspective: • Human freedom and empowerment are more […]
Stone Soup
From the introduction of: The Teaching Moment:a learning metaphor by Mia Lobel, Michael Neubauer, Randy Swedburg The Internet is saturated with distance education claims about learning environments, effective pedagogies, teaching modules, skill training techniques and community building models. Typing into Google: “online teaching training distance education” nets one 265,000 hits. Typically, efforts to deliver educational […]
Pizzas and Paperclips
I am combining two short posts here: —————————————– Ordering a pizza in in the near future. Turn your speakers on for this one… a little dark humour about living in a wired world. Ordering from Pizza Palace. Originally posted April 6th, 2006 —————————————– One Red Paperclip We live in a wired world where a man […]
Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology
Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology By Bonnie Skaalid I found this while procrastinating on finishing my masters paper. Disgusted with how this has transformed from a labour of interest and love to one of ‘hoop jumping’ that is just what I Googled… along with ‘education’. This is just what I […]
crisis = danger + opportunity
The first time I read that the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ included components or elements of the words ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’ was in James Lovelock’s ‘Gaia- A New Look at Life on Earth’ over 20 years ago, (see the wiki for Gaia Theory or a review of The Ages of Gaia). I have heard this […]
The purpose of a system is what it does.
Stafford Beer coined the term Cybernetics. He was a brilliant man who, among other things, wrote a novel about a very wise but forgetful wizard. This excerpt tells you what he thinks of our education system. The title alone- referring to the Education Minister- should give you a hint of what is to come. Excerpt […]
Hello world! ‘Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts’ finds a new home!
A few years ago, a friend sent me an invitation to join him on a social network and start something called a blog. I signed up and my first post, “The purpose of a system is what is does” set the metaphoric tone for my ideas and thoughts that will fill this space. Essentially, I […]