Create Better Impact
This TED talk by Charles Leadbeater is great. He bring into the conversation third world examples of education. Some of the great points and innovations that I think he hits on include:
1) Project based learning which has to be productive.
2) The inclusion of creativity and using games to teach.
3) Using the Chinese restaurant model – it spreads, looks different depending on where you are, but is recognizable for what it is.
Enjoy!
This post is also viewable on iTeachToo.com through this link.
Tags: Creativity, Education, games, Innovation
I get the chills when I watch The Fibonacci in Lateralus because:
1) It easily explain how the Fibbonacci sequence plays out in this popular Tool song.
2) It is a great example of how a student project can create inspire not only the student, but also others. (There are 1.5 million views of this video on Youtube)
3) I like how the words encourage pushing out into the unknown and exploration, something we want to inspire in our students.
This post is also viewable on iTeachToo.com through this link.
Looking to teach more about sustainability, renewable energy, or another cool hip topic that you just don’t feel you know enough about? Well first, don’t forget, you don’t have to know everything. That’s the great thing about allowing students to go out and find the information about what interests them.
But if you are hoping to at least make an introduction to new topics in the classroom, check out your favorite non-profit to see if they provide free curriculum, games or lesson plans. So many have begun to develop these services, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. Who better to hear about issues from than the experts?
For ease here are a few examples:
Oxfam Cool Planet for Teachers
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
This post is also viewable on iTeachToo.com through this link.
Tags: curriculum, renewable energy, Sustainability
Friday night ended with a bang as Michelle Long of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and Jay Coen Gilbert of B Lab engaged in a dialog on the issue of whether going to scale or staying local is more effective in building a sustainable economy.
Jay began with a humorous, but earnest, argument that ‘Bigger is Better’. He used examples to illustrate how scale can effect the whole on a greater level. He cited how employees of Wal-Mart, who had been discriminated against, came together to sue the company. He pointed out how as China invests in scaling solar the price per kilowatt will come under $1. And he pointed to one of the biggest challenges, and opportunities, for effecting change at scale – finding innovations that can help the 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day. He argued that these are solutions and challenges of such scale, that small, local initiatives could not effectively address them. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Local Living Economies, SVN, SVN conference
While catching up on one of the episodes of House, MD that occurred while I was away in Haiti, I noticed a theme that flowed quite well with my experience. So much so that I paused the video and began to write.
The theme was ‘privacy.’ While House and his team had a short debate on the topic and whether it was a modern innovation, totally unnecessary or socially irrelevant, I began to think of my visit to the town of Cabaret just outside of Port-au-Prince. Read the rest of this entry »