Parents ‘n Schools

Got this broadcast, which invites sharing…
Dear [Parents ‘n Schools],
Many recent projects about education have involved discussions with Albertans of all ages and from all walks of life.  Thanks to the thousands of contributions of Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans, Speak Out and Setting the Direction, we have a solid foundation on which to make […]

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[GLO — August 2010 — Got an iPad for my birthday… what I called “iSchool” when it was announced… it totally is… like, totally, dude.]
Budgets in government schooling are presently a nickel out of every $100 for parents and the rest for schools. But I have looked into the not-too-distant future of schooling […]

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[GLO — August 2010 — From two years ago and this site’s infancy… still think it could work…]
Early in my involvement as a volunteer board member on the board of the provincial association representing parents on school councils we were invited to review a new Powerpoint presentation that had been prepared by […]

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The most recent Fast Company magazine features a long look at Apple and its success, and includes this excerpt:
Steve Jobs has often cited this quote from Henry Ford: “If I’d have asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’ “
This is Jobs’s defense of Apple’s reluctance to listen […]

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(GLO — June 2010 — From two years ago… rings true to the ear still… Is there an App for that?… increasingly there is… increasingly there will be… The common refrain among schooler collectives is that you can’t beat having a teacher there (the professional self-interest in such refrains notwithstanding)… And up to a certain […]

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Released recently was the report of the steering committee to the Alberta Legislature in regard to last year’s “Inspiring Education” initiative.
That report can be downloaded here.
I encourage you to find your way to it and read it. It is good learning, and no doubt a sincere (if somewhat… “crafted”) distillation of the mountain of communication […]

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Startl and Scholastic are co-sponsoring an upcoming Venture Capital Summit in Education (search it out) and Fast Company magazine recently featured online an early lineup of new companies that will be at the Summit. One their editors are most excited about is “Einztein“. (www.einztein.com)
Worth taking a look at (along with another… Udemy… http://www.udemy.com… the “academy […]

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(GLO — May 2010 — Professor Christenson’s work is increasingly embraced in the world of schooling, and the world at large. Continuing innovations like New York’s “School for One” and hardware innovations like the iPad continue to work to disrupt the traditional world of schooling. This is a good, good thing. One century ago, banks […]

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Meet Dan Meyer via his recent TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-05-18&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email
then go get to know him even better at his own site:
blog.mrmeyer.com
where you will find (among a great many other useful things) this below… as fine a lesson on what “significant digits” mean as I’ve ever experienced.
GLO
gordotto@parentnschools.com
– Share with a Friend — (Particularly if that friend is a […]

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 On April 1, 2010, at his site www.shirky.com the most-excellent-thinker-and-explainer Clay Shirky published this description of institutions challenged by complexity when simplifying forces act upon them. He primarily related this to the TV industry.
We all know, Gentle Parent, what OTHER industry I believe most every word below can be readily translated to…
+++++++++++++++++
The Collapse of Complex […]

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