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The Self-Directed Student Toolbox: 100 Web Resources for Lifelong Learners | OEDb
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<a href="http://christytucker.wordpress.com/">Experiencing E-Learning</a>:
Mainly geared toward instructors, this blog offers advice and tools for any
individual who is interested in lifelong learning.</li>
blog of proximal development » Blog Archive » Conversation with Pre-Service Teachers - Teacher as Learner
And so, the challenge is that when I try to divest myself of my teacherly voice I need to remember that this process is not about losing the voice of the expert but about losing the voice of the traditional authoritarian teacher who enters the classroom as an official persona armed with a pre-defined set of goals and very specific lesson plans for his students to follow. It is about giving the students the freedom to engage with ideas that they find relevant and interesting, not about dictating every step of their learning process.
I believe that it is important to lose the authoritarian voice, the controlling voice, but not the voice of an expert who chose to teach because of his passion for the subject. The students need to see that the instructor is someone who lives and breathes whatever it is that they’re studying, that they have in their midst someone who has a wealth of expertise.
italki - Language Exchange and Learning Community
This site helps connect people to learn languages. You can find a partner to practice your skills through IM, VOIP, etc. Also includes a Q&A and resources section.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Framework for 21st Century Learning
Framework for digital skills, broken into 4 areas
- Core subjects & 21st century themes
- Learning and Innovation Skills
- Information, Media, & Technology Skills
- Life and Career Skills
Creating Learning Communities
Resources, discussion lists, and an online book about creating learning communities, especially communities of "self-learners"
BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Google U
Jeff Jarvis asks what the disaggregated university would look like, with students and professors both picking and choosing the best of what they wanted.
Start here: Why should my son or daughter have to pick a single college and with it only the teachers and courses offered there?
Similarly, why should a professor pick just from the students accepted at his or her school? Online, the best can pick from the best, cutting out the middleman of university admissions.
Once you put all this together, students can self-organize with teachers and fellow students to learn what they want how and where they want. My hope is that this could finally lead to the lifelong education we keep nattering about but do little to actually support. And why don’t we? Because it doesn’t fit into the degree structure. And because self-organizing classes and education could cut academic institutions out of the their exclusive role in education.
Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 38 Birthday presents from CoolCatTeacher to you!
Vicki Davis shares 38 online tools that she uses
IgnitePhilly -- Five Minutes To Communicate - Practical Theory
5 minute presentation (20 slides) by Chris Lehmann on school reform and what we need for School 2.0. Several good lines in here--a bunch of memorable ideas packed into a few minutes. Assessment should be projects, not tests. Data is what kids do every day, not what they do on a test. Passion, metacognition, and lifelong learning matter. "If you want to see what kids have learned, give them a project."
Half an Hour: Things You Really Need to Learn
Like several other people, I just found this 2006 post from Stephen Downes on 10 things you should learn that you won't be taught in school. Great thoughts for lifelong learning, wherever you are in life.
1. How to predict consequences
The prediction of consequences is part science, part mathematics, and part visualization.
2. How to read
Oddly, by this I do not mean 'literacy' in the traditional sense, but rather, how to look at some text and to <span style="font-style: italic;">understand</span>, in a deep way, what is being asserted
<span style="font-weight: bold;">3. How to distinguish truth from fiction</span>
The first thing to learn is to actually question what you are told, what you read, and what you see on television. Do not simply accept what you are told. Always ask, how can you know that this is true? What evidence would lead you to believe that it is false?
<span style="font-weight: bold;">4. How to empathize</span>
Empathy isn't some sort of bargain. It isn't the application of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity">Golden Rule</a>. It is a <span style="font-style: italic;">genuine</span> feeling in yourself that operates in synch with the other person, a way of accessing their inner mental states through the sympathetic operation of your own mental states. You are polite because <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> feel bad when you are rude; you are honest because <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> feel offended when you lie.
5. How to be creative
Creativity, in other words, often operates by <span style="font-style: italic;">metaphor</span>, which means you need to learn how to <span style="font-style: italic;">find things in common</span> between the current situation and other things you know.
<span style="font-weight: bold;">6. How to communicate clearly</span>
Communicating clearly is most of all a matter of knowing what you want to say, and then employing some simple tools in order to say it.
7. How to Learn
Learning to learn is the same as learning anything else. It takes practice.
8. How to stay healthy
Finally, remember: you never have to justify protecting your own life and health.
9. How to value yourself
You can have all the knowledge and skills in the world, but they are meaningless if you do not feel personally empowered to use them; it's like owning a <a href="http://www.lamborghini.co.uk/">Lamborghini</a> and not having a driver's license.
10. How to live meaningfully
If you don't decide what is worth doing, someone will decide for you, and at some point in your life you will realize that you haven't done what is worth doing at all.
Weblogg-ed » Personalizing Education for Teachers, Too
An argument against standardizing professional development for teachers. Will we ever transform education if we expect every teacher to learn the same things at the same time in the same way? If we personalize their learning and tap into their passions, we might be able to create some real change in education though.
Teachers are learners. If they’re not, they shouldn’t be teachers.