Adventures in Learning

imagininglearning: Art gives young people the means to express...

Sat, 25 May 2013 08:14:02 -0700

Art gives young people the means to express and unleash their true potential! Tests on the other hand limits their expression to fit neatly on a scan tron. We choose art!

You should see how young people dream when we give them paint and a blank canvas to vision their ideal education in our listening session.

Imagining Learning is working with young people to transform #edu using Art, storytelling +voice! Watch this video to see our listening session process! http://bit.ly/15IE8P6

Cooperative Catalyst | Changing Education as We Speak

Fri, 24 May 2013 20:26:49 -0700

Cooperative Catalyst | Changing Education as We Speak:

Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: 4 Ways to Provoke Change In Our Education System

Fri, 24 May 2013 20:05:50 -0700

Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: 4 Ways to Provoke Change In Our Education System:

1) Listen to the learners.

When we provide the space to listen to what students want from their education, something transformative happens. We gain great insight into how to improve our current system while honoring the ideas of young people. And students often feel empowered to actively create the change they’re seeking. If Jeff Bliss had access to Imagining Learning or Student Voice, he may have felt empowered inside the classroom instead of on his way out of it.

Imagining Learning: A movement begun five years ago, Imagining Learning uses the power of Listening Sessions to provoke change. Each session allows a group of teens to express themselves — through writing, discussion, and painting — about what they envision for education. Many of these students have been so moved by the experience that they’ve gone on to become education activists in and outside their schools. Imagining Learning is running a campaign to raise $25,000 to accomplish their goal of hosting listening sessions in all 50 states before presenting their findings at an exhibit in Washington, D.C. With 20 listening sessions complete already, Imagining Learning has built a movement founded on respect for students as teachers.

Student Voice: Student Voice “strives to create an international network of empowered students by providing them with the tools they need to use their voice in policy discussions.” This organization hosts #StuVoice chats on Twitter every Monday at 8:30 Eastern, and just last month they held the first Student Voice Summit in Dell’s New York City office. They welcome and post education-related content written by students and aim to work with all stakeholders — students, parents, teachers, policy makers, and community members to “bring the student voice to life.” This organization was started just last year and has already started connecting people in powerful ways.

We can do better … and Youth Voices is doing it! Please give a gift to make it happen.

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:39:03 -0700

seecantrill:

Back in February I wrote a blog post about a Connected Learning webinar that was interesting to me mostly because of the contributions of Chappelle Campbell, a student at The Bronx Academy Senior High. and her teacher Paul Allison, an English Teacher at the same school and a member of the New York City Writing Project.

I titled the post “We can do better” inspired by Paul Allison’s statement:

We can do better than Facebook on other sites that we … manufacture ourselves.

Paul’s statement emerged in a conversation about how to bring digital media and learning together. I think few of us would argue him when he says that we can “Do better than Facebook” when it comes to teaching and learning. But “manufacture it ourselves”? What is Paul talking about?! What are they manufacturing that could even be close to something like Facebook and is what ways does it have anything to do with learning?

Paul Allison is one of the founders of Youth Voices, a school-based social network that was started in 2003 by a group of National Writing Project teachers. And since 2003, Paul and these teachers, along with their students, developers, writers, artists and fellow travelers in the emerging field of digital networked media, have been working to create a forum that embraces social and networked ways of learning and sharing that is, I would argue, better than Facebook.

They have worked hard to create a robust social network that is open and public that kids can access and have control of their own work, even within the walls of formal schools and institutions. And to create a place and space online that connects students across classrooms so that they can write, read, compose, share and engage with each and deepen their research interests, passions and work together alongside their teachers. In order to do this, Paul and this team of teachers have listened first and foremost to students to find out what kinds of things would guide them in going deep into their passions, would help them connect with others, and that wouldn’t feel “schooly” but instead authentic to their emotional and intellectual growth.

And out of this in-depth work, they have created a uniquely rich and openly networked interest-driven and personalized learning environment for youth. An environment that has been co-constructed by its stakeholders and supports democratic principles of teaching and connected learning.

Ten years later, Youth Voices continues to grow and develop. This summer, the Youth Voices team in New York is looking for help to offer scholarships to a Youth Voices Summer Program that will make it possible for youth from the Bronx to find and explore their passions in the supported, connected, academic environment of Lehman College, CUNY. The mission at Youth Voices is to be a place online where students from across the nation (and globally, when possible) can engage other young people in conversations about real topics that they see happening in the world. The Youth Voices Summer Program would provide youth and teacher mentors an opportunity to connect to both an online, as well as a face-to-face, community of networked learners.

While this summer might, on the surface, simply involve fifteen students from the Bronx working alongside five dedicated teachers, the implications of what they learn can have far wider impact. Youth often need support and encouragement to connect their interests to wider communities and ideas so that they can deepen their creative and academic processes. And teachers need opportunities to mentor but also to learn from what’s possible when youth deeply engage in their own learning in their own ways and for their own purposes. These are key ideas within the framework of Connected Learning, the core component of the Summer of Making and Connecting, where work from the Youth Voices Summer Program will be connected and shared. Therefore, the 2013 Youth Voices Summer Program will provide a blueprint that teachers around the country can use to implement connected, blended, passion-based, online learning, while at the same time making the instructional shifts we need to help students find success in the Common Core Learning Standards.

Fifteen students from the Bronx. Five dedicated teachers. A summer of learning together that could change their lives — and change the way kids learn all across America.

Please give what you can to make it happen.

ps. If you need more convincing that this is passionate and important work, spend 12 minutes watching Paul’s screencast on Why we want students to work on Youth Voices.

"Asking young people to step into a circle of trust and authenticity and share their inner wisdom, a..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:36:02 -0700

““Asking young people to step into a circle of trust and authenticity and share their inner wisdom, a wisdom they often don’t know they actually have sometimes, is a beautiful experience. But as you might imagine, young people today are so wary of adults and their methods of manipulation, coercion, pushing their own agenda, etc., that it requires an absolutely pure environment for them to decide they will open up.””

- Charlie Kouns A Thin Line Between Silence and Voice

Introducing IncitED: The Crowdfunding Community for Education...

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:04:12 -0700

Introducing IncitED: The Crowdfunding Community for Education (by IncitEDcrowdfunding)

IncitED is the crowdfunding community for education where teachers and education supporters can fund, share, and replicate important education initiatives worldwide. Visit IncitED at www.incited.org.

Our classroom for today!

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:07:15 -0700

Our classroom for today!

"For most of our young people, there is a very thin space between their inner light and the dimming..."

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:03:15 -0700

“For most of our young people, there is a very thin space between their inner light and the dimming of it….I realized that today the greatest gift we can give our young people is to create a larger space between their inner light and the dimming of it. Not just a larger space, but the largest space our hearts can possibly conceive.”-”

- Charlie Kouns Imagining Learning founding steward

A Thin Line Between Silence and Voice

Myths About Youth Voice

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:30:56 -0700

Myths About Youth Voice:

imagininglearning:

By Adam Fletcher

Via http://www.freechild.org

It is great to sit in a room of allies and people who “get it”, but most people work in high pressure environments where Youth Voice seems quaint or non-essential. Following are some myths and realities for people who want to think “outside the box”.

MYTH #1: Youth Voice sounds good on paper, but my school/program/ organization/community/region/ agency/situation is different.

REALITY: While it is true that each community is different, Youth Voice is always present, whether or not it is utilized. It is important to remember that what works immediately and effectively in one may not have the same results in another; however, that is why every community needs to make its own space for Youth Voice. By recognizing the desperate necessity of engaging young people, all kinds of communities can benefit. Community groups, organizations, schools, and neighborhoods across Washington are relying on Youth Voice because young people are relying on them. Start by engaging young people in small and doable tasks, and work your way into larger projects over time. Eventually your community will have a successfully customized strategy for Youth Voice.

MYTH #2: Youth Voice is all about youth.

REALITY: Youth Voice cannot ever be “all about youth.” Without recognizing a larger community around them, young people and adult allies cannot call for Youth Voice. By specifically engaging young people, communities recognize Youth Voice as being about more than young people. Youth Voice is about children, youth, and adults working in common - together. Youth Voice is about communities and democracy, and other people.

MYTH #3: We only need to focus on Youth Voice when there are problems to deal with.

REALITY: Anyone who works with communities needs Youth Voice everyday to keep them honest, connected, effective, and realistic. And let’s face it – our communities have never existed without challenges – perhaps that is because we keep waiting to engage young people. Young people can contribute to everyday projects as well as crisis intervention.

MYTH #4: It is too hard to engage young people when I can just do the work myself.

REALITY: Any seasoned Youth Voice practitioner will tell you that it is an everyday challenge to engage young people. However, there are everyday rewards as well: adults feel more satisfaction about their jobs, that organizations become more successful meeting their missions, and that youth feel more connected to the world around them. Young people are also resources in and of themselves: our communities cannot afford to deny the abilities they possess any longer, and with their seemingly boundless capacity to contribute, children and youth may be our state’s most sustainable, renewable energy source!

To Give Students an Education, Give Them a Voice (Guest Post by Daniel Kao)

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:26:03 -0700

cooperativecatalyst:

The role of a teacher is evolving. As industries, technologies, and the needs in the world change, so does our approach to preparing the next generation for their lives ahead of them.

In the past, teachers presented information in an organized and…

View Post

imagininglearning: (via TTT#349 Crowdfunding to Rethink Ed-...

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:56:32 -0700

imagininglearning:

(via TTT#349 Crowdfunding to Rethink Ed- IncitED’s Campaigns: Open Road, Imagining Learning, Youth Voices - Plus: Spokes 5.15.13 | EdTechTalk)

On this episode of TTT we invite you to go to IncitED to learn more about these projects and support them if you can:

Imagining Learning - Creating a National Collective Voice through Listening

Open Road Learning Community for Teens: Learning Without School (It’s Natural)

Youth Voices Summer Program: Connected Learning with the NYC Writing Project

Look for the Spokes campaign on Kickstarter.

Whether or not you plan to or can not make a contribution to one of these campaigns, please join us for a conversation about crowdfunding on this episode of TTT.

We are joined by the following on this episode of TTT:

Jaime R. Wood and Peter Lindberg from IncitED

IncitED is the crowdfunding community for education where ed supporters can fund, share, and replicate important education initiatives worldwide. http://incited.org

David Loitz and Charles Kouns from Imagining Learning

Imagining Learning is working to create a national collective voice on the wisdom of young people on how they would reinvent education. http://bit.ly/15IE8P6
http://www.facebook.com/imagininglearning
http://www.twitter.com/imaginingl
http://www.imagininglearning.us
Charlie’s Ted Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDQd04BfkpI
What is a Listening session? video http://youtu.be/GhTZ58I495w

Alan Burnce from Open Road

Providing individualized, non-coercive education that empowers teens to direct their own learning and fulfill their potential.
openroadteens.org http://www.incited.org/projects/9

Turner Bohlen and Claire O’Connell from Spokes talk about their plan to ride bikes across America to work for passion-based education for high school students and to find a mentor for every high school student in America!

We’re people who love what we do. And we all love teaching!
http://www.spokesamerica.org

Karen Fasimpaur and Paul Oh to help us talk about a Youth Voices Summer Program that will be part of The National Writing Project’s Educator Innovator Initiative http://blog.nwp.org/educatorinnovator/ this summer.

Youth Voices is a site where students share, distribute & discuss their digital work online.
http://youthvoices.net
More info at http://www.youthvoices.net/summer2013

(via Giving It Away : NPR) This program just hit me right...

Mon, 20 May 2013 23:18:10 -0700

(via Giving It Away : NPR)

This program just hit me right in my heart. It speaks exactly what were doing with Imagining Learning (www.incited.org/projects/13). Favorite quote ” You have to receive to be able to give” Its not always easy to ask people to give to your passion projects, but I know what Imagining Learning is doing in service of a transformed world. It is service of my future children and the children of today. There is no time to wait, We must co-create a new world with our young people. I believe so strongly in this! Please join me now in donating! If you know me, you know I have a passion for this work and know that I would only ask for you to give because I know you share my vision! Please donate by following this link www.imagininglearning.us and then message me! Also listen to this powerful program!

Imagining Learning: Asking Young People How They Would Change...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:37:48 -0700

Imagining Learning: Asking Young People How They Would Change Education! (by cwk4328)

You can help us reach over 50 communities in the next year by donating.
You can help amplify and activate young people’s visions of education by donating a few dollars.
You can help bring a major exhibition of Youth Voice and Vision to Washington DC in 2015!
You can be part of a documentary film showcases what young people are experiencing in school and how they are creating changing it.

You can do all this and more by just donating 5-10 dollars! We have had over 50 donors pledge money to our campaign in the first week. Our goal is to reach 1000 donors by June 13th!

I know we can do it, I have see tumblr do some amazing things. At the moment I have 39,000 followers. I just need 1000 of you to step up to the plate! Be part of the change!

If you enjoy all the content I post on Adventures in Learning, think of this as a small way to give back. I know my supporters are generous! I seen it over and over again! Take 5 minutes and go donate now. Message me and tell me you donated. I have special AIL gifts for everyone that donates and messages me.

3 steps to helping:

1. Donate 5-25 dollars

2. Reblog this post!

3. Message me

Thank you in advance!

-Adventures in Learning

imagininglearning: What is Imagining Learning? Imagining...

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:50:53 -0700

imagininglearning:

What is Imagining Learning?

Imagining Learning is working to create a national collective voice on the wisdom of young people on how they would reinvent education.

Mission
Plant a new educational seed that nourishes the life force of every young person.

Description

Imagining Learning is a research and creative journey seeking to answer the question, “How do we educate young people to thrive in a world of possibility?” Through Listening Sessions we are focused on creating a national collective voice of teens (ages 13 - 19), as to how they would answer this question.

There is an innate wisdom in young people about the educational process that combined with their creativity and passion for changing their education, makes them a powerful resource in the search for new answers. Unfortunately, they are not being invited to the table. Our intention with the Listening Sessions we are conducting is to create a collective voice of young people whose wisdom and creativity awaken adults into action.

We are currently conducting Listening Sessions with teens all across America. We also are presenting our findings at various speaking venues, workshops and educational conferences.

My finalist Entry

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:42:38 -0700

My finalist Entry:

wondftba:

The Adobe Youth Voices Aspire Awards is a global challenge that invites youth to creatively express their vision for driving change in local communities and to present potential solutions through visual storytelling.

People of tumblr, please share your powers with me.

I am one of the finalist in adobe’s youth voice film contest for animation, and I would love to win the audience favorite award, which would boost my college application to become a film major significantly.

The audience favorite is decided through social media score which is apparently gauged through twitter and facebook.

So please, like and share this video and help me win the audience favorite award.

"I often wondered why you call us your future instead of your now?"

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:40:38 -0700

““I often wondered why you call us your future instead of your now?””

- Ashlee Chapman, Multnomah Youth Commission and Resolutions Northwest

Via IDEA Senior Fellow Darcy Bedortha

Follow Imagining Learning on Facebook

(via imagininglearning)

The Rise of the Sharing Economy

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:39:00 -0700

goyalnikhil:

Boston Magazine has a great feature this month on why Americans are questioning the tenet of owning something.

After defining ourselves for generations by our possessions—cars, houses, books, music—a dramatic cultural shift is under way. In the wake of a collapsed economy and a warming planet, what matters to a growing number of Americans is not so much ownership as access. And that has made Boston ground zero for a powerful new force in modern life: The sharing economy.

Cooperative Catalyst | Changing Education as We Speak

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:37:02 -0700

Cooperative Catalyst | Changing Education as We Speak:

cooperativecatalyst:

Active Conversations

A Thin Line Between Silence and Voice

Ten Reasons to Abolish Homework (And Five Alternatives)

Springtime in Education

Victim Shaming, Rapist Celebrating Society: The Lessons Children are Learning

Education in the 20th Century: A Reflection

The Finland Phenomenon - a film about schools

Homework: Help or Hassle?

What is My Grading Philosophy?

What Factors Influence Educational Systems?

My Global Life, Our Global Living

"There is no greater gift we can give our future generations, than to co-create – with our young..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:24:38 -0700

““There is no greater gift we can give our future generations, than to co-create – with our young people today, a learning journey that turns their light into a bonfire.””

- Charlie Kouns

A Thin Line Between Silence and Voice

(via imagininglearning)

We don't Create Change by Testing

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:25:00 -0700

Can anyone point to any place (school, community, state) where testing has had a long term effect on the deepening of learning? Where is the study that states testing has positively effected the community around the schools where they are used?

I would love to see data not driven by raises in test scores, but instead by practical signs of real system change. Did testing help to increase the student engagement, the community involvement, Teacher satisfaction with their professional lives? How about positively effecting the local economy, or the rate of hope among students that they had access to good jobs and future learning opportunities?

Why don’t we ask for this data? Why is it only math scores and reading scores? I think we don’t have these types of conversations because the testing industry has made us believe that testing will create the change we seek. We fight against the testing companies and testing, but instead we should be asking them to prove their worth.

We don’t create change by testing. We create change by supporting teachers, by providing funding to education, by solving poverty, by empowering students to have a voice in how learning happens, by encouraging and providing the freedom for teachers to develop learning that is relevant, place based, real world, connective and that can only happen if others learn together.

It is not even that testing sucks, it is just bad science and a waste of money, time and effort. It had a role to play at first, but it now being used to punish teachers, students and communities instead of shining a light on the injustices and racism of our economic and educational system. The idea that testings is in any way helping learning is outdated at best and pure propaganda at worst.

Testing is a distraction, it is like trying to heal a dying tree by cutting off one of the branches. The roots of our current system are rotten. We need to let it die, and plant a new tree. Tree seed organically and so too will schools where learning is happening

-Adventures in Learning

In response to this thread on Facebook