Disqus - Latest Comments for JimiB

Re: United Nations 2.0

Jimi Ballard — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:32:14 -0000

They may not have a broad reach yet, but there is a group of net-savvy kids already working to support the MDGs. Three students in different parts of the U.S., working collaboratively online have formed an organization they call Lil' MDGs.

In their own words, "Lil' MDGs educates, inspires, engages, and empowers children in all corners of the world to help solve serious local and global issues. Lil' MDGs believes that inspiring young people to help achieve the eight MDGs-which range from halving extreme poverty to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS by the target date of 2015-is vital to meeting them. Lil' MDGs realizes that while many children around the world are concerned about the global issues, many do not know how to help or get involved. Lil' MDGs is, therefore, trying to mobilize young children as a driving force behind the efforts to achieve the goals." http://www.lilmdgs.org/

Maybe the kids'll save the world.

Re: Students to school administrators: What we know that you don’t.

Jimi Ballard — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:53:14 -0000

I really like that 2nd truth - "Learning communities have no boundaries." That's such a powerful statement. Even more so in that it was a student who realized it and gave voice to the truth. Hopefully the Principals attending the conference really listen. But unfortunately, much of school policy is out of their hands. Often they are bound to implementing school board policies that are driven by local government or community standards.

The ones who can really influence school board policies are the parents who live and pay taxes in their communities. The good news is that some of those parents are learning from their own children about the power of net to organize, collaborate, and engender social/political change.

According to a recent Washington Post article - "For a new generation of well-wired activists in the Washington region, it's not enough to speak at Parent-Teacher Association or late-night school board meetings. They are going head-to-head with superintendents through e-mail blitzes, social networking Web sites, online petitions, partnerships with business and student groups, and research that mines a mountain of electronic data on school performance. These parent insurgents are gaining influence -- and getting things changed." - http://www.washingtonpost.c...

Perhaps Rod and Blake also need to deliver their message to parents as well as administrators. Then, when the parents make good use of their newly acquired online savvy, they will deliver the right message.

Re: The evidence refutes allegations in Maclean’s

Jimi Ballard — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:33:35 -0000

I couldn’t agree with you more. The most common response to change is to resist it, usually out of fear and ignorance. While others in my generation may react to the cultural changes arriving with the Net Generation with fear, I see much that makes me hopeful for a better world in the future.

Perhaps the best way to judge Net Gen'ers is by the fruit of their labors. Not having access to your survey data, I refer to anecdotal data collected by my former organization, the Oracle Education Foundation. The OEF runs a global competition, ThinkQuest, in which teams of students build websites on educational topics. The ThinkQuest Library hosts over 7,000 similar websites created by students since the competition began in 1996. Just a quick review of some winning sites from the last few years provides many great examples to counter Maich’s negative views. Here a few links:

Global Censorship in the Digital Age: http://library.thinkquest.o...
Sustainability: http://library.thinkquest.o...
Time for Tolerance, http://library.thinkquest.o...
Hash That – Can you keep a secret?: http://library.thinkquest.o...
Bhopal: A Continuing Tragedy: http://library.thinkquest.o...
An Empty Hive: http://library.thinkquest.o...

Are these Net-Gen’ers spoiled and lazy? Or does blending work and play mean that work continues outside the school day or the 40 hour work-week. Perhaps consistent praise and positive feedback yields better results than following my generation’s sardonic dictum - “the beatings will continue until morale improves”. Are they shallow, lacking depth of knowledge? Maybe using new technologies and collaboration are just more effective ways to work and actually yield deeper results than outdated, pipelined, solitary work styles? Are they selfish? Or does their deep introspection and self-examination allow them to better see themselves in everyone and generate greater compassion recognizing that we are much more alike than we are different.

Are all Net Gen’ers like these examples? Of course not - every generation has its losers. If that’s what you are looking for, that’s all you will find. Take a closer look. There are plenty of examples of creativity, depth, and selflessness to be found.

Re: Google for the Next Generation

Jimi Ballard — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:21:55 -0000

My younger daughter got a new game system in December. In one of her favorite games, she travels around a virtual town meeting its residents, trading items with them, holds down a paid job and has saved enough money to trade-up to a larger house to hold all the stuff she has accumulated. In the real world, I’ve noticed her asking more questions about jobs and how much things really cost. What a great learning experience for a first grader!

Virtual worlds as training simulators are likely to play an increasing role in the lives of post-NetGen’ers. The exciting thing about that is that the designers of those simulation systems will be today’s NetGen’ers. Who knows what they will come up with?

Re: Goodbye to the ’sage on the stage’

Jimi Ballard — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:04:51 -0000

A few years ago I had the opportunity to meet with the Shanghai Education Committee and discuss their efforts to change how education and teaching are conducted in China. They expressed great interest in training their teachers to conduct project based learning exercises that would teach students to work more creatively and collaboratively.

On that same trip, I toured an elementary school in Taiyuan, a city in the Shanxi province. Observing the typical Chinese classrooms consisting of 60 to 90 well mannered students sitting politely in their desks all lined up to face the lecturing teacher, it struck me that a physical problem had to be addressed before the teachers and students could even attempt to change their style of learning. Without physical space to group students into smaller teams facing each other around a table, and without a suitable student/teacher ratio to guide young learners in a culturally new way of working, the only option left, unfortunately, is the traditional drill and kill lecture style. For a country with such an immense population as China, the resource and logistics problems to transform education are enormous.

Yet, here in the U.S., we have many educators who have already been trained in how to conduct collaborative, project based learning. And while inner city schools may face similar space constraints and teacher ratio problems as I observed in Taiyuan, many suburban public and private schools don’t have those issues to overcome. Why, then isn’t more interactive, collaborative learning happening? Perhaps our emphasis on content based standardized testing to meet government mandated targets gets in the way of innovation, creativity, and critical thinking.

So in China, there is a desire to change despite the logistical barriers. Here, we have a wealth of resources but not the intent to change. How do we change our way of thinking?