Who Else Wants to Take Training
An excellent article (interview) that I highly recommended reading for those trying to change workplace learning. Thumbs up Team Bloomfire
And The Winner Is: Results of Amplify in 6 words
First Place with 15 Votes – Congratulations to Pat Germelman for coming up with a great description. I’ll send this over to Jane shortly so she can update the list.
“A Content Sharing and Conversation Platform”
Second Place with 11 Votes – It was close @Morgaine 
“Backbone of your personal learning environment”
A huge thanks for the community support everyone; it’s a testament to the real power of Amplify. As a small reward, take a couple of minutes from your hectic schedules and enjoy this short video, it’s just for you (all 
- Ampster’s ROCK!
PS. Don’t forget to cast your votes on Jane’s list, after-all, that was really the whole reason behind this (long) conversation!
The final result list can be seen here…
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewanalytics?formkey=dGs0TjdlQ29vVVE5MjVfQ25DNktZaWc6MQ
Learning About Amplify by Amanda Fenton
Today I gave Amanda a virtual tour of Amplify after she showed interest on #Lrnchat. Her follow-up blog post is well worth a read.
Follow Amanda on Amplify at http://amandafenton.amplify.com/
Learning about Amplify
Immediately after today’s #lrnchat, I connect with learnscape architect Paul Simbeck-Hampson who graciously took an hour of his time to orient me to Amplify. I had seen Paul tweet about it earlier in the week but wasn’t too sure how it would integrate with my PKM. After seeing him evangelize about it during #lrnchat, I decided to find out more. Thanks to screen sharing in Skype and my hastily scribbled mindmap notes, here are some of my main take-aways:Read more at reflectionsofaliteraryjourney.blogspot.com
Describe Amplify in less then six words.
I wrote a post recently ‘Amplify rising the charts‘ in relation to Jane Hart’s The Emerging List of Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 - Today I revisited the site to see how Amplify was fairing in the list and was a little disappointed to see that it had dropped down to place number 64. While looking at the list I realised that the description “Conversations around news etc‘ didn’t really do Amplify full justice.
I contacted Jane this afternoon and she asked me to provide a better version in less than six words; it needs to fit into the space above with a maximum of 5 or 6 words. While thinking of a few strap-lines myself, it occurred to me that perhaps it would be better to open up suggestions to the talented Amplify community.
So here’s the challenge Ampsters’ – come up with a new strap-line that better describes what Amplify is. I’d suggest that we add a time restraint of 24 hours for ideas, after which time I’ll create a new polling post with the responses. The voting will be open for another 24 hours and on Friday I’ll send the most popular entry over to replace the existing one in the list.
So get your thinking caps on peeps and leave your ideas in the comments.
Failure to Adopt New Learning Methods – Educational Malpractice
I like the idea that Chris Dede presents… it really is about time that outdated teaching practices were exposed and more support given to helping teachers who lack 21st tech skills.
Failure to Adopt New Learning Methods “Educational Malpractice”
by Richard Nantel on July 30, 2010
“Clinging to outdated teaching practices amounts to educational malpractice,” says Harvard professor Chris Dede. Just as doctors have a responsibility to learn new medical techniques throughout their careers, educators have a responsibility to become acquainted with and employ new learning techniques and technologies.
This article provides three tips to help convince traditional stand-up lecturers to adopt new methods and tools.
Focus on the Non-Techies
Watch Your Language
Look to DisciplinesRead more at www.brandon-hall.com
Pupils do better at school if teachers are not fixated on test results
Important post for educators, teacher, parents and students themselves…
Education has become, in many cases, a results only based scenario. I’m personally dismayed with the amount of effort that is given to passing memory style tests that clearly do not benefit the long term learning of students. It appears that change (if not revolution) in education is occurring, although ever-so slowly, hope this article helps to spell it out loud and clear.
Pupils do better at school if teachers are not fixated on test results
Children perform best in exams when teachers are not overly concerned about their test results, according to research published today.
The word “learning” was rarely heard in classrooms, he said, while teachers were more worried about their pupils’ performance in exams. They had resorted to narrowing the curriculum and drilling pupils for tests, Watkins argued, and this made the students less motivated.
In one study, some teachers were told to help pupils learn while others were told to concentrate on ensuring that their pupils performed well. The students under pressure to perform well obtained lower grades than those who were encouraged to learn.
John Holman, the director of the National Science Learning Centre, said preparing pupils for exams might lead to good grades, but this could be “at the expense of long-term learning and comprehension”.
Do you get a positive or negative feeling when you hear the word ‘Hacker’?
Having an interesting/strange/semantic conversation on Twitter about the word ‘hacking’ and its relationship to creativity and programming this evening.
Would like to poll the question to a wider audience, so please also RT with your comment… thanks.
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson why is that worrying? hacking is a form of creativity, something I try to encourage in teens I work with.
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson not at all. I think you have a very narrow view of what hacking entails/requires. Have you ever taught kids programming?
amichetti
Perhaps my hacker friends can help @simbeckhampson understand that hacking ≠ evil but does facilitate creativity.
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson aren’t hackers just creative prgrmers? they manipulate & tinker, a la Turkle. R U familiar w/her work? http://j.mp/bUlEMY
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson You’ll have to read her published work to understand what I mean, then. And no, NOT all forms of hacking are illegal.
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson you have “cognitive development” & “learning” in your profile. I’m very surprised you think so negatively about hacking.
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson hoping you are familiar also w/Seymour Papert? http://j.mp/czIS1h his and Mitch Resnick’s Constructionsim IS ALL hacking
amichetti
.@simbeckhampson Sure, I’ll ask my Twitter network right now. That’s 1,480 people (in theory).
amichetti
Hey Polly peeps: do the words “hacking,” “tinker,” or “manipulate” seem dark/negative to you? do they sound illegal? cc @simbeckhampson
Social Media Secret…
Want to transform your organisation using Social Media?
Think about this first: the secret to Social Media success is… you have to love people and sharing and learning and community and engagement and transparency and collaboration…
Urh.. No? Then save your time and money and do something else… really!
Top 5 Shared Posts
totalDyslexia Rebranded
150Insights from DevLearn 2011
127Whale Sharks Don’t Live In Fish Tanks
93The Purpose of Education
74This Is The Reason Why Social Is So Important
53
twitterInsights from DevLearn 2011
78Dyslexia Rebranded
24The Purpose of Education
24This Is The Reason Why Social Is So Important
15Do You Speak Data?
14
facebookDyslexia Rebranded
17Big Brother or is it Small Mosquito?
10This Is The Reason Why Social Is So Important
9Smart Systems Create Smarter Environments
8Whale Sharks Don’t Live In Fish Tanks
7
pinitDyslexia Rebranded
89Whale Sharks Don’t Live In Fish Tanks
33Your Words Have Power, Use Them Wisely
28Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge
18The Purpose of Education
4
linkedinInsights from DevLearn 2011
33This Is The Reason Why Social Is So Important
15How can open data help us make better decisions?
10Dyslexia Rebranded
10I Will Take The Learn Option Please
9
google +1Social Share Statistics
- 1,303
- 464
- 128
- 191
- 201
- 319
