Suggestions for This Community

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Betts on January 9, 2009 at 5:23pm

Perhaps we should invite the new Secretary of Education to join.
I have been posting ideas and feedback to the change.gov pages and this seems like a great forum to hear from those in the trenches.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy on January 9, 2009 at 5:38pm

Add a spell check to the WYSIWYG! :)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on January 9, 2009 at 5:45pm

OK, so I'm notoriously bad in this area. What did you find?

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Permalink Reply by Lance Winslow on January 9, 2009 at 6:04pm

I'd like to discuss the need for "financial literacy" in school. For instance, kids should understand "compounded interest" and balancing a checkbook, budgeting, credit card debt. Retirement savings and general financial responsibility. They use to teach this in school but it seems so many kids don't get it and immediately get into trouble. These are essential life skills, we need to prepare kids for their own future, while preparing education for the use of future technologies. Think on this.

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Permalink Reply by Connie Weber on January 10, 2009 at 7:58am

Yes, me, too, Lance. I'm all about economics--I think we and the students we teach need to understand economy and particularly the global economy, the reality of our current era and for the future of the world in general. Hot, Flat, and Crowded is my favorite book for a general orientation for adults. Where could we go with that for students? Besides the very important practical personal skills you're talking about, I think we need overall perspective. What's going on in our current age? Where should our priorities lie? What's possible?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on January 10, 2009 at 8:03am

Hi, Lance! I think you should start this as a discussion forum thread, "The Need for Financial Literacy." That would be a good way to get dialog around the idea!

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Permalink Reply by garyb on January 23, 2009 at 6:16pm

maybe the idea that all western economies rely on unsustainable indefinite growth..eg..we live in exponential times! would get across sooner if money examples were included

$2000 invested in year1 will out perform $2000 invested each year for ten years at year10..assuming a positive ROI and inflation of more than 2%

in current economics..all bets are off..this economy has never existed before...all the traditional 'rules' turn out not to be rules...just patterns.

the idea of credit, is the basis for this unsustainable addiction to growth...teachers are perhaps one of the protected species in the current credit crisis...the only hope is education of the next generation

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Bassill on January 10, 2009 at 8:57am

In the Classroom ning page, one discussion was asking about concept maps, or visualization tools, being used by students in classrooms. Some really interesting examples were provided.

I would encourage this group to try to engage youth, and adults, in visualizing the strategies that need to be put in place, and sustained, in order for every child entering first grade today to be graduating from high school in 12 years and be working in a 21st century job in 20 years.

Instead of thinking about learning, think about how a building is first shown as a drawing, then a set of blueprints. Large buildings might have thousands of pages of blueprints. However they all start with the foundation and then work page by page to the top. On each page drawings show how people should work together to accomplish what is described on that page. If someone does not do their job, or if someone is not paid so they can't do their job, the building project either can't go to the next stage, or may crumble in the future because of poor construction.

Here's an example that I created that illustrates a sequence of supports starting in elementary school and moving to jobs. Some could argue that I need a pre-school, or even a pre-natal section. I would not disagree. If the talent and creativity of kids all over the country were unleashed, maybe they could build, and share, blueprints that the adult world would follow in building strategies that help all kids move more successfully to their adult lives and responsibilities.

Since so many education technology people are part of Classroom, why not encourage such a project?

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Mespoulet on January 26, 2009 at 10:23am

Dear Steve,

My problem with Classroom 2.0 or with this new F.o.E ning is that i think that contributions are mainly "americano-centered" :) and also only english Future of Education... So i hope that we'll have here the opportunity to think about global education in a global way. We have many things to do and share not only between America and Europe, but also with Africa and Asia... So my suggestion is to build here together a global workshop with teachers from all over the world not only american teachers... I'm so curious to learn about differences and similarities between our educational systems...

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Permalink Reply by Ric Barline on February 2, 2009 at 7:54pm

Hi Vincent. Have you heard about the George Lucas Foundation's publication called Edutopia? The February 2008 issue had a terrific article that is relevant to your post here. It was titled As the World Learns: Education as a Vital Global Marketplace Represents the Future. Here is a link to the article: link to article

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on February 3, 2009 at 7:23am

Great point and perspective. This network is what we make of it, and I'm hoping there will be global contribution. Networks tend to have a life of their own (see my post at http://www.stevehargadon.com/2009/01/some-things-ive-learned-about-...) and attempts to steer them too much from the top can backfire. So the best thing to do is to jump in and talk about the things you want to talk about here!

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