Take a World Tour of Education

It's been a busy week, with stops in Turkmenistan, India, Australia, and the Mentawai Islands. And that was just Monday.
The first-ever Global Education Conference is underway from Nov. 15-19. This free virtual event has unleashed a world of learning opportunities for anyone with an Internet connection and a sense of curiosity. Sessions are running around the clock, with 400+ presenters eager to share their insights. Many are talking about global collaborative projects, which should be of particular interest to anyone who's involved in project-based learning.
This post for Edutopia covers all the basics, including links to recordings.
There's still plenty of time to take your own world tour. Where do you want to go next?

Today's News, Tomorrow's Projects?

In a post for Edutopia this week, I talked about developing "ripped from the headlines" projects, using the news as a launching pad for in-depth learning. The idea is to go beyond current-events discussions and bring students into the the role of problem-solver, analyst, or perhaps even advocate for change.
Conversations with teachers about this idea have me thinking about both opportunities and challenges. In a follow-up discussion on Teachers Teaching Teachers, for instance, Kevin Hodgson brought up the issue of how to fit in such projects, given the real constraints of time and curriculum. Matt Montagne emphasized the need for teachers (and students) to own a project idea if it's going to take hold. Chris Sloan cited the recent election season as an opportunity to use a real event to get students involved in a critical study of language.
In the comments to my Edutopia post, there were several inspiring examples of real-world projects--countered by a writer who argued for teaching basics first before launching into more contemporary topics in the classroom.
I'm eager to keep gathering examples of "ripped from the headlines" projects. What have you tried with your students? What were the pitfalls? The benefits? Let me know, and I'll share your wisdom in a follow-up post.

Put Out the Welcome Mat

More than a decade ago, experts took a look at the reasons why parents become involved—or not—in their children’s education. Researchers Kathleen Hoover-Dempsey and Howard Sandler narrowed their focus to these three key factors:

• · How parents view their “job description,” including their responsibility for their children’s learning
• · How confident parents feel about their ability to help their kids
• · Whether parents feel invited and welcome at school.

That third factor is the one that educators have the greatest opportunity to influence. How welcoming does your school feel to parents? (Have you ever asked them?) When you communicate with families, do you tend to pass along announcements and due dates, or invite parents to be real partners in their children’s education?

I had a chance to discover some of the creative ways schools are connecting with families while researching new publication for Edutopia. Home-to-School Connections Guide: Tips, Tech Tools, and Strategies for Improving Family-to-School Communication is just out, and you can download a free copy here.

Many of the tips you’ll find here come from colleagues and other Edutopia community members who responded to my inquiries with a host of good ideas in blogs, online discussion groups, and on Twitter. (Tip #10 includes a nifty idea from Jane Krauss about how to connect parents with their kids’ learning.)

Clearly, schools are getting more creative about connecting with parents. The guide includes examples of how they’re using Facebook and other social media to open conversations with families. Some tips offer new takes on old-fashioned ideas, such as making reading a family affair. And, of course, many ideas come from the reporting that Edutopia has done about what works in public education.

How do you forge stronger partnerships with your parents? Please share your ideas, and we’ll keep growing this conversation.

Crying for Solutions

Several years back, when I was an editor at an educational research organization, we produced materials for a federal initiative to promote school safety. Among our most popular publications was a fact sheet on strategies to prevent bullying. The solutions seemed so straightforward: Don't ignore it. Create a climate of respect. Make it safe to ask for help.
Fast forward a decade or more, and bullying persists as an issue that just won't go away. Indeed, it continues to mutate as new technologies are harnessed for the hideous cause of attacking another person's humanity.
October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Scarcely a week in, we've seen headlines about a gang in New York that viciously attacked two teens and an adult male because they happen to be gay. We've heard a candidate for governor of the same state describe gay people as "disgusting." And then refuse to apologize for his bigotry. We've heard more reports about a New Jersey college student named Tyler Clementi who jumped off a bridge after his classmates used Twitter, a webcam, and YouTube to torment him by broadcasting details of his intimate life. (OK, that happened in September.)
Clearly, this is a problem that's still crying for solutions.
What can we do to make sure we don't continue to face the same problem in another decade? For starters, take a look at a project called Not In Our School. It grew out of an anti-hate campaign called Not In Our Town, which itself grew out of a documentary by the same name. (My recent Edutopia post includes more background.) Resources for schools include no-nonsense classroom materials and a social media campaign that encourages kids to create and share their own anti-bullying messages.
Can a campaign make a difference? Take a look at the Not in Our School videos from Gunn High in Palo Alto or Shaw High School in East Cleveland, Ohio, and see for yourself. Better yet, share them with your students. And get the conversation started.

Tools for Infographics

The other day Suzie and I participated in an author talk with a special interest group for media specialists, ISTE's SIGMS. We touched on the topic of infographics and folks wanted to know what tools people use to make them.

Wouldn't you know it, Flowing Data, the infographics site I recommended to the group, just polled their readers about their design tools and the results are here!

In addition to these I know student Michael Greenberg uses InDesign, and others recommend these:

Google Spreadsheets: http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/try_out.html

Science Pipes(for biodiversity data) http://sciencepipes.org/beta/home

Tableau Public: http://www.tableausoftware.com/public

Inkscape: http://inkscape.org

Glogster (for interactive poster-making): http://www.glogster.com

Have fun with infographics and tell us about your experiences with them!

PBL, Information Literacy & Infographics

I just drafted a book chapter that includes a big treatment of infographics. I'm excited to share what I've learned and get your

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thoughts on infographics and other means for building information literacy. What are your favorite resources, methods, and tips?

PBL, Information Literacy & Infographics

Please join me on September 16 at 5:00 p/6:00m/7:00c/8:00e on Elluminate. Here is the Learn Central link to the event.

This is an infographic and a puzzle

Is it possible to determine where this signpost is situated in the world?

...click for a close look...

Wouldn't this be a fun project? Share four of five photos of signposts from around the world and have groups of kids try to figure out where they are situated. You'd have to pick photos where the signs' locations are not identified!

from the Flickr Creative Commons, #signpost

...more thinking...
This might be a "jump off" activity for a community project. Find something distinctive about your town, relate it to others around the world, put up signs. (The little town of Florence, OR has sign posts to all the Florences in the world.) More ideas:

• Origins: 1) Relate local settler or military hero statues to others, 2) Relate local commerce (mint growing in small towns in Oregon) to other regions with same commercial interest, 3) Get demographics of the area and make signs pointing to nations of origin.
  
• Events: 1) Notable disasters: big flood, tornado, and so on, 2) Birthplaces (your town spawned Jay Leno, signposts point to birthplaces of other TV figures), 3) Your annual Berry Festival or Summer Jazz Jam isn't likely the only one going...
• What would you add?