Well folks, I’ve arrived. I am now a Movie Director and this is my first feature. It’s a test of my new Kodak Zi6 camcorder. I bought an 8 Gig SD card for it as the internal memory is enough to capture a sneeze. Let me know how you like it fans

Learning passionately

John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist at Palo Alto Resaarch Center (and now Chief of Confusion, it would seem), in a presentation to an MIT conference back in December of last year, used the phrase: ‘passion-based learning’ to describe a highly collaborative and social mode of learning that he feels we should be moving towards in schools and beyond. He encouraged, “…situations where students who are passionate about specific topics study in groups and participate in online communities.” The social networking tools exploding around us can, he agrees, play a major role in enabling the kind of learning he is describing.

‘Passion-based learning’ is reminiscent of a phrase I have used with a number of audiences over the past few months, a phrase that I originally used to describe the Extreme Learning initiative in East Lothian and that Don Ledingham borrowed to use on the initiative’s wiki:

“…a kind of learning in which young people will be able to bring their passions firmly inside the bounds of their schooling (instead of having to defer their real interests to their lives outside of school, as is so often the case).”

This is a phrase that, no matter where I use it, always generates a nodding of heads as people think back to their own schooling. This has been as true in Costa Rica as it has been in Turkey as it has been in Scotland, and elsewhere.

Thanks to vaxzine for the pic.

The best schools, of course, have always been those that find ways to bring passion and enthusiasm and ‘fire in the belly’ into education; people, of any age, learn most deeply when they are engaged in learning about something they regard as critical to them, something they care about profoundly. And the level of understanding to be gained from engaging one’s passions can often (although not always) be enhanced and multiplied by sharing that passion with others, by working in a group that is committed to a collective and communal enthusiasm for the subject.

Final words to John Seely Brown, words that echo Ron Burnett’s thinking on the radical impossibility of teaching (taken from an article: Learning in the Digital Age):

“Learning is a remarkably social process. In truth, it occurs not as a response to teaching, but rather as a result of a social framework that fosters learning.”

Technorati Tags: john seely brown, passion-based learning, extreme learning, parc, mit, ron burnett, don ledingham

I’m going to use these free audio resources some day. I found the link via MGuhlin.net, a very profilic edublogger.  

In anticipation of a podcasting workshop I’ll be doing with folks in my school district, I’ve been looking for free, royalty-free music to share with others. Of course, folks will have to credit the creators and I’ve made plans for that, but I started the journey thinking, “There’s just not that much free music out there people can use.” Boy, was I wrong!

While you can find my list of free, royalty-free music in my wiki, the following are some new ones I stumbled upon tonight.

• Incompetech.com – Keven MacLeod has done a great job of making his music available for free use (provided you credit him, of course). Over a gig of music is available for use in podcasts and other projects (e.g. digital storytelling).
• Play It Free 100 Sample Sounds - Another collection of music that is safe to use provided you credit your source.
• BeatSuite.com – A much smaller collection, but nice collection nonetheless.
• Acid Planet’s 8-Pack – An 8pack project is an ACID file that includes eight loops arranged into a song. 8pack projects illustrate how a song is constructed in ACID software, and how easy it is to combine loops from various Sony Sound Series™ Loops and Samples libraries. Every week there will be a new 8pack project to download — for Free!

I’ll be showing folks how to incorporate this into their podcasts and digital stories over the next few months…any suggestions on what else might be useful to share?

Stephen Downes has a fullsome answer as usual. I’m quickly posting it here and will read very soon.
It was pretty much a given that most if not all of the responses to this question, posted on the Learning Circuits blog, would be “no”. So this is probably why Tony Karrer sent me an email asking whether I would contribute.

Stephen Downes has a fullsome answer as usual. I’m quickly posting it here and will read very soon.
It was pretty much a given that most if not all of the responses to this question, posted on the Learning Circuits blog, would be “no”. So this is probably why Tony Karrer sent me an email asking whether I would contribute.

indelible

Originally uploaded by stoneth.

Some excellent and moving pictures on this persons (stoneth) photostream. I am quite taken by these images as I am reminded of so many youth in my past. The pictures are also a good reminder of why I’m immersed in the work I do with groups and youth poverty and homelessness.

The range of what we see and do
Is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
That we fail to notice,
There is little we can do
To change
Until we notice
How failing to notice
Shapes our thoughts and deeds.

by R.D.Laing

In a Foreword by Stephen Covey for Alex Pattakos, Prisoners of Our Thoughts, Viktor Frankl’s Principals at Work. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004.