Race for an “education revolution”

By exposing a nationwide epidemic of an achievement race that can’t be won, the movie, Race to Nowhere, could become a catalyst for change. After seeing and discussing the movie,  parents, teachers, and school administrators along with local, state and federal government leaders, could be moved to start what Sir Ken Robinson calls an “education revolution” –not just fixing (reforming) what’s broken, rather starting a revolution–the creation of an education system that fills the human spirit.

We need to start with the question: “What kind of person are we trying to create?”, then race to build an education system that answers that question.

Schools say put e-devices away when they could transform instruction

Loved this post from Sam Gliksman and his quote: “Technology is transforming every aspect of our daily lives. Even further, the ways in which children access, absorb and process information is changing as a result of their exposure to technology. When you walk into many schools however, you still find technology used sparingly. The average classroom today looks much like it may have 50 years ago. School policy usually requires that students put away any devices they own.”

I know this is true of our county schools. There are a couple computers in each classroom, used just as reinforcements of lessons/lectures. Teachers are hoping to get smartboards installed in each classroom in a couple years-but wouldn’t having a “smartboard” (ie. a tablet) in each child’s hands, manipulated by them, lead to the kind of instructional transformation we need to move into the next century of learning? Children would get the right information, at the right time, at the right pace. And with a touchable interactive interface, we’d have less fidgeting, and less boredom.

Race to Nowhere exposes a broken education system

Around the country parents (including me) and students are gathering to see screenings of Race to Nowhere, an award winning documentary. The film, directed by a concerned parent, exposes a nationwide high school environment that induces stress related illnesses, and saps creativity from both teachers and students caught up in an achievement race. The race, it shows, has already been lost. Graduates are arriving to the workplace lacking skills employees seek–creative thinking, problem solving, and teamwork, to name a few.

The culprit, a standards-based education system that causes a runaway achievement race, combined with fierce competition to gain admission to the best colleges. In the race, teachers are forced to set aside good teaching practices where they might inspire a love for learning, and provide both depth and interest on a topic, and replace it with content overload leading up to a standardized test. The result, a generation of high-schoolers who are just “doing” school, and burn-out for all.

iTots-A digital learning future

As I research much needed education reform in the U.S. I’m discovering the multitude of people and organizations pushing for a new future–a digital learning future. This huffingtonpost.com article describes the need for our nation’s young people to prepare for life in a Jetson’s world, and let go of a Flintstones age. Just as we are told to limit our children’s time online, we just may find that digital learning, and a school system that supports it, could be the answer to a decades long decline in the effectiveness of our nation’s public schools.

Building low-cost eLearning–Is this Power Point?

Tight budgets describe many international non-profits and NGOs. Still they have to educate employees around the world on, say, organization policy, and project management. The eLearning Guild and LINGOS sponsor an annual competition—the eLearning Global Giveback– to develop and share courses. One finalist for this year is Population Services International’s course on “Pretesting Social Marketing Messages”.

Until we find out the winner, last year’s winning entry is worth a look. Articulate’s David Anderson and his  Tom Kuhlmann, of the super-popular award-winning blog Rapid E-Learning created a low budget interactive course (in Power Point) on “Using Communications Tools at Christian Aid”. It helps employees choose the right communications tool, like email, Skype, video conferencing, or Web Ex–to make best use of organizational resources. Tom tells us all about its development in this blog post.

The 2011 winners will be announced Thursday March 24 at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions Conference and Expo in Orlando, Florida.

Plain writing can save lives

Have you noticed your over-the-counter drug labels are easier to read? Here’s a “before and after” of a Food and Drug Administration over-the-counter standard drug label http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/before_after/overctrdrug.pdf. Adding a doses table, a larger font, a clearer layout, and using bullets instead of wordy sentences, make a huge difference in understanding. And, in this example, could save lives. More examples are on the site, and dates for upcoming meeting/seminars to learn more.

Obama signs “Plain Writing” into law–more cutting, no pasting

Our blog plans to search out companies, non-profits and NGOs that are doing a great job getting to the point, and taking the fluff and confusion out of their communications. Good timing because late last year Obama signed the Plain Writing Act into law. And, by October 13, 2011 government agencies must use plain language in any document that:

is necessary for obtaining any federal government benefit or service or filing taxes

provides information about a federal government benefit or service, or

explains to the public how to comply with a requirement that the federal government administers or enforces.

The government does have a sense of humor about the subject though, and even has a “Humor” link on the site. It offers this humorous example of how to make a sentence really blather on. They start with:

“Studies have found that more night jobs would keep youths off the streets.”

And after “9 easy steps”, including a little Latin, they get to this:

“There is no escaping the fact that it is considered very important to note that a number of various available applicable studies ipso facto have generally identified the fact that additional appropriate nocturnal employment could usually keep juvenile adolescents off thoroughfares during the night hours, including but not limited to the time prior to midnight on weeknights and/or 2 a.m. on weekends.”

Et tu Brute? What about your website and publications? Do they resemble the first or second sentence? Find us a sentence on a government website, in government document, or in one of your documents that needs some help and we’ll see what we can do. Did someone say healthcare bill?

Tags: explanatory videos, plain language

Be Google-like: use fun & games to prompt creative genius

This fun video shows techniques described in the book Gamestorming from the founder of XPlane. Looks like a fun way to spark creativity and innovation in the workplace.

Nudge Village welcomes In-Brief Videos

Nudge Village- a great online community for entrepreneurs interviewed In-Brief Videos today and welcomed us to the community.

China’s rise explained in 21 minutes!

A 21-minute video about the rise of China! This from a true scholar who understands China’s history and modern day China. Posted on TED this week. Short videos like In-Brief’s serve as a jumping off point for a more in-depth understanding of a topic.