Also known as Alan November day. Here are nuggets from two great sessions with Alan:
Alan November
Empathy: The 21st-Century Skill
www.NovemberLearning.com blog / podcasts
Globalize the curriculum
Develop contacts with teachers and children around the world
Overseas students work harder than their teachers. How do we do that
here?
CEO of largest bank in world: most important skill for global business
= empathy
Michael Wesch (videos on YouTube
Anthropologist) – independently also says empathy
West point mission study commissioned by Petreus: old mission = win
the war
New mission = win the peace
Difference is not adding technology to old curriculum.
Do we need to change our mission?
Test scores as mission is way to fail.
Impose NCLB on other countries if we want to win
How you set up your search determines what viewpoint you get – what do
they think in turkey? Use root zone database for country codes
Assignment: what are British kids essays like on the American
revolution?
Site:sch.uk “American revolution”
Compare and contrast brit and American point of view. Find email
address of teacher who is responsible for content.
Will students be more prepared for the skype debate with the Brit students
or for test on subject: was revolution inevitable?
All content involving other countries or cultures should involve
finding their viewpoint
Starting in kindergarten!
Public schools were put in place for democracy
Tools needed to become president are blocked in most schools (social
media)
Digital Learning Farm: Students as Contributors
We have undervalued the contribution that can be made by kids in our
schools
Strategy for improving learning is to focus on the conversations
between kids
Purpose, not just relevance for school “work”
Students could design tutorials for the entire curriculum
Not grading produces better work if there is purpose in the assignment
First day of school
Give kids top ten most difficult concepts and ask them to help teach it
See hitech high
Best test scores in CA
Shift control of learning to students
And responsibility
Rich media stories of what they learned that week
Do not grade these ! Reduces quality (dan pink )
Rotating scribes (or scribe teams) as benefit to learning, sharing,
social integration , and formative feedback to teacher
-by end of year kids have written the textbook, adding much of their
own content
Team of kids: find all the applications of a cell phone for learning
Have kids contribute to building custom search engines (and teachers)
“Can I answer my own question too?”
Official researcher (rotating) finding best resources during each
lecture to place into custom search engine
Global communicator too – find global contacts related for each lesson
for authentic interaction and other viewpoints
Use kiva.com – kids raise money and decide who to give it to
Have kids create or edit wikipedia entries
