All Blog Posts (599)

Priorities need to be made.....what should we spend money on?

Hi All.... hope this finds you well. My state is about out of money.... seems many others are in a similar state of affairs. I can not help but go here: The Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan Since 2001, the United States alone has spent over $687 billion on the Iraq war. We have spent over $228 billion on the war in Afghanistan. By the end of this year, 2009, we will have allocated about a trillion dollars for these two wars. There are costs over and above the expenditures mentioned above… Continue

Added by Mike on November 23, 2009 at 7:24pm — No Comments

Fear of Failure

We have all seen people - not just our students or children, but friends and colleagues as well - who are afraid of failure. As Sir Ken Robinson points out, this fear of failure is tied to (but not the esclusive domain of) the crushing of creativity by structured education in schools. I have certainly noticed an increase in this perfectionist attitude in students, but there is one small, seemingly insignificant indicator that really has me worried. Lately, my students have been leaving answers b… Continue

Added by Ed Hitchcock on November 23, 2009 at 11:08am — 3 Comments

Marion Brady's article in Washinton Post on Nov 17th

Hi All, in case some of you did not see this, I thought I would share Marion's latest article. MEMO TO THE MEMBERS OF MY PROFESSION "We have met the enemy, and he is us," said Pogo. We educators should make the wise little opossum from Walt Kelly's comic strip our mascot. The single, worst, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot act that contributed to our loss of control of education reform happened about 20 years ago. That's when leaders of business and industry, convinced that educators either did… Continue

Added by cindy fadel on November 22, 2009 at 10:04am — 7 Comments

Mind, Brain, and Education, Kurt Fischer

Here's an article by the speaker I'm listening to now: Kurt Fischer (from Harvard). Can the Differences Between Education and Neuroscience be Overcome by Mind, Brain, and Education? A stunningly meaty article on the rise of a new field. Neuromyths; the history of education's relation to use of science to inform practice; philosophy, epistemology, a transdisciplinary collaborational framework..… Continue

Added by Connie Weber on November 21, 2009 at 4:37pm — 1 Comment

Here at the Learning and the Brain Conference...

the current speaker, Kenneth S. Kosik, is talking about "The Wikification of Knowledge." "An External Hard Drive for the Brain As a neuroscientist who spends time thinking about how people’s brains process information, this technology—and the information overflow it brings—are without a doubt changing the way human beings make decisions. Neuroscientists have increasingly come to understand memory as a fun… Continue

Added by Connie Weber on November 21, 2009 at 3:35pm — No Comments

may be the best speaker on education I've ever heard (and heaven knows I've heard a lot): Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

I'm at the Learning and the Brain Conference in Cambridge. Just want to post this link immediately. I learned of Mary Helen as a study group leader in Harvard Project Zero and Future of Learning last summer. When our group participants would come back from her sessions, there were stars in their eyes. They were dazzled, stunned. It's as if they had been deep sea diving and had just come to the surface, astonished at the worlds they had seen. I wondered, what in the world? Now I know why p… Continue

Added by Connie Weber on November 20, 2009 at 8:00pm — No Comments

My Beautiful Life

I live in a beautiful city. I think of my home town, Portland, Oregon, as the city of rainbows, for many reasons...

… Continue

Added by Ellen Pham on November 17, 2009 at 4:11am — 1 Comment

Fireside Round-Up: Monday, November 16

<== PREVIOUS - CURRENT - NEXT ==>

A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for November 2 - November 16. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on the list! :-)

Recent/Ongoing Discussions:

… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 16, 2009 at 7:37pm — No Comments

The war I am no longer fighting

I just read Ed's blog post about the very human problems they have run into while implementing some technology-assisted learning at his school. I FEEL HIS PAIN. Although the experience I am going to write about here is in no way comparable in terms of scope to what Ed has written about, I do want to share this experience, because it really has convinced me that there are actually a lot of very intelligent teachers out… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 11, 2009 at 1:00pm — 5 Comments

A Pointless War

There is a battle waging, one that we cannot possibly win. The "enemy" is too resourceful, and we are battling on their home ground. I am not talking of the conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq, but in our own halls and classrooms. I am speaking of the war to block the internet... A few years ago the decision was made to go laptop, and it was a decision I supported, because it gives every student a complete library and multimedia production studio at their fingertips. The catch-phrases being used we… Continue

Added by Ed Hitchcock on November 11, 2009 at 11:49am — 10 Comments

Making connections online: Kurt Vonnegut and Armistice Day

As someone teaching online classes and conducting my entire professional life online, I often find myself having to explain over and over and over again to people that I actually feel MORE connected this way than I ever did sitting in an office, in a building, where I had basically nothing in common with any of the people in that building. Now, teaching online, sitting, virtually, in the little node of the Internet which I occupy, connecting up with other people who teach online, other people wh… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 11, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

SHUDDER

I am a bit hesitant to post this but I've really got to say something somewhere, just to VENT… I sometimes despair about the lack of knowledge of Latin by the teachers on a Latin teachers listserve in which I participate. I don't mean lack of knowledge of the minutiae of Latin grammar or difficult vocabulary, etc. I mean what seems to be almost a complete lack of basic knowledge about the language itself. Today, for example, a teacher who participates actively in the list sent around this reques… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 5, 2009 at 10:30am — 2 Comments

The rule of 168: it's driving me crazy

The rule of 168 is a phrase I learned from my husband. What is that magic number? It is the number of hours in a week. And it is all that we have, no matter how excited and busy and important we may be - from Barack Obama to the biggest slacker at my university: we all just have 168 hours per week to work with. Well, I keep banging up against this rule in wanting to improve my classes. Every semester I get some ideas about great things we COULD be doing.. but of course anything I add to the cla… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 5, 2009 at 10:23am — No Comments

Dutiful blogging... and blogging as exploration!

Note: This is a blog post for general consumption AND for Maria. You'll see what I mean. :-) True confession: every semester I start off with this great plan to blog here at Fireside and also to keep a blog in conjunction with my online courses. DOH: I end up without the time to do that. I post sporadically here at Fireside, and I've never really had any impetus at all in keeping up a separate blog for my courses. Now, this is not to say that I do not blog - I blog every day for my class… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 3, 2009 at 9:00am — 4 Comments

Engel misses the point: you can't ignore that people teach the way they were taught!

I read with tremendous UN-enthusiasm this op-ed piece about teacher training in the New York Times this morning: Teach Your Teachers Well Susan Engel lists a series of innovations she wants to see in Colleges of Education (higher admissions standards, free fuition, more/better courses, more/better mentoring, etc. - nothing really new)… but she doesn't address to me what seems a fundamental problem: now t… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 2, 2009 at 9:44am — 5 Comments

Fireside Round-Up: Monday, November 2

<== PREVIOUS - CURRENT - NEXT ==>

A round-up of Fireside discussions and blogs for October 24 - November 2. The items listed below are in no particular order. Did I miss something??? Please add a comment to this blog post to let us know about something missing on the list! :-)

… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on November 2, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

The Educational Value of Smartmusic

… Continue

Added by Andrew on November 1, 2009 at 7:30am — 2 Comments

National Education Happenings

I participated in a webinar with the National School Board Association on Wednesday about what’s happening on Capitol Hill and the Department of Education. These are the notes I took about what’s going on: HR 3221 – funding for modernization, repair and renovation passed the House last month. It awaits action in the Senate. IDEA funding – HR 3578 and S 1652 are bipartisan bills to provide full funding for IDEA. The average cost across the nation to educate a special education stu… Continue

Added by Fred Deutsch on October 30, 2009 at 1:08pm — No Comments

Education and the Superintendency

Superintendent Kimberly Moritz commented about how an “us vs. them” attitude is a big problem for school districts because it permeates through an entire school climate. "I’ve been on the job as superintendent in my current district for a year now. When I interviewed with all of the committees one thing came through loud and clear. The BOE actually asked me at my final interview what I thought the biggest problem was and I was able to answer, “us vs. them”. That “us vs. them” is created through… Continue

Added by Fred Deutsch on October 30, 2009 at 11:52am — 1 Comment

What if School Board Members were as Connected as Teachers?

Each night before going to bed I read teacher blogs. I’m impressed how technology is transforming the classroom, and I can’t help but wonder how long it will take for technology to impact school board members like it has teachers. What if school board members, like teachers, used Nings, Personal Learning Networks, and other Web 2.0 tools to help us become better at what we do? What would that mean for our school distric… Continue

Added by Fred Deutsch on October 30, 2009 at 11:48am — No Comments

< Previous Post

Featured Blog Posts

View All

Latest Blog Posts

Blog Topics by Tags

Monthly Archives

2009

November (17)
October (16)
September (26)
August (23)
July (32)
June (23)
May (25)
April (19)
March (23)
February (28)
January (37)

2008

December (37)
November (36)
October (26)
September (24)
August (31)
July (27)
June (9)
May (14)
April (32)
March (23)
February (26)
January (60)

2007

December (4)

Welcome to
Fireside Learning: Conversations about Education

Sign Up
or Sign In

About

Connie Weber created this Ning Network.

Create a Ning Network! »

Fireside Council

Questions, problems, comments? Here is the "Fireside Council" of folks who help Connie with the administration of this site: Anna, Ian, Mike, and Or-Tal. Click on their names to visit their Profile Pages and leave comments for them with your inquiries and ideas! Meanwhile, if you have technical questions or suggestions, Laura will be glad to help.

Roll The Dice
Roll the dice... and visit a random Fireside member production online!