Creating Significant Learning Environments
Clayton R. Wright has released his the 30th edition of the conference list. The list below covers selected events focused primarily on the use of technology in educational settings and on teaching, learning, and educational administration. Only listings until June 2014 are complete as dates, locations, or URLs are not available for a number of events held after June 2014.
Educational Technology and Education Conferences January to June 2014 Clayton R Wright
This well made video Monopoly of Dreams is a wonderful example of why we need to help our young people learn how to cultivate their passions as opposed to simply trying to follow them. To many of the young people in the video were not able to really identify what they were really passionate about and would be interested in pursuing if money were no object.
In the blog post Follow Your Passion is Crappy Advice Joshua Fields Millburn points to the work and research of Cal Newport, a 30-year-old assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University, who is exploring why some people lead successful, enjoyable, meaningful lives while so many others do not. Newport points out that while the advice of following your passions which is “regurgitated everywhere” on the internet and in the above video is appealing because it’s both simple and daring it is empty because he has found that most people don’t have preexisting passions.
In contrast Newport recommends that you “cultivate” your passions which implies that you work toward building passion for your something whether it is your job, your studies or other aspect of your life. He also points out that this is a longer process that requires you to approach your work like a craftsman.
Honing your ability, and then leveraging your value, once good, to shape your working life toward the type of lifestyle that resonates with you.
This is where a parent’s and especially a father’s role is so important. Because our children often are not even aware of what their passions are it is our responsibility to create and foster an environment in which it is not only safe but crucial for our children to explore, experiment and experience the fullness and diversity of life so that their passions can develop and grow. Helping our children, especially our teen agers, cultivate their passions is the next step in this process.
This leads me to ponder:
Are we modelling a life of cultivating our own passions?
Does our walk match our talk?
Have we created an environment where the exploration and cultivation of passions is safe and rewarding?
New Council to Develop Standards, Best Practices for Online Learning – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout
When I first read this article my first reaction was to post a comment suggesting that there are many well established standards of quality for online education. So when I scrolled through all the comments it was clear that almost everyone who commented had the same idea. Except for the sarcasm the first commentator Steve Foerster really captures the essence of what I was planning to say:
You’d think that online education were some new thing no one had ever heard of before. Why this and not one of the existing organizations focused in this area? I wonder sometimes whether anyone out there is better at reinventing the wheel than higher education administrators. They seem to be masters of leaping to the front of whatever parade they see and shouting “Follow me!”
I also have to agree with DrDave8563 who stated:
…Except instead of leaping to the front of this parade, they are leaping somewhere into the middle of the last third of the parade shouting “Follow me!” This parade has been going on since the Bulletin Board days – it’s hardly something new. There is a great deal of history and data about online education that already exists in both for-profit and not-for-profit realms.
There are many educators like myself who have been teaching online since the early 90’s and we have all seen a healthy complement of standards developed from organization like the Sloan Consortium, Quality Matters or any one of the many Universities who have been involved in online learning since its inception. So when I read the following statement by Hunter R. Rawlings III, the president of the Association of American Universities I have to sadly admit just how out of touch some of our academic leaders can be:
I think too many people are trying to deliver final judgment on the quality of online education, on the value of online education. It is just much too early in my mind to give any kind of final judgment. Let’s give this some time, and some real scrutiny.
We know what constitutes effective learning and exceptional learning designs. The technology plays a secondary role to effective learning design and whether the courses happens fully online, in a blended format or fully face2face we KNOW what good constitutes good education. I have always been hesitant to pile on and take shots at academic administrators because I have spent time in senior leadership so I understand the challenges. However, I have to admit that this is one time when a group of administrators are publicly demonstrating just how out of touch they are with the reality of the learning environment and the research. As one of my peers was so apt to point out with their comment this is an example of the
“blind leading the sighted”
On a positive note, I expect this group of academic heavy hitters to leverage their positions and influence and produce a report that will satisfy the online learner critics.
