Flat World Education

Grow a Knowledge Tree on blogspot.

Leaving one international school for another is hard work. Months in advance of the recruitment fairs, resumes are updated and reference letters requested. Most teachers register with either ISS or Search Associates which gives them access to databases of information. Schools use the databases to search for candidates, and candidates search for schools.

One of our young leaving teachers will attend a recruitment fair in Bangkok in January, so she is sorting through possible schools determining which she might be interested in. She is investigating the programs offered, living conditions, salary scale, cost of living, air quality, and so on. Since this is her second time in the process, she is trying to be more prepared than she was at the first fair she attended three years ago.

Yesterday at lunch she questioned how to ask administrators about their programs. Suggested questions were

1. What is the basis for the curriculum? content standards, IBO or other set program, government syllabus? other?
2. What is the process for managing the curriculum?
3. At what stage of development is the curriculum mapping process?
4. What technology is used to develop and maintain curriculum maps?
5. How much of the curriculum is available for public viewing?
6. How much of the curriculum would an incoming teacher have access to before arriving at the school?
7. Is there a school-wide assessment philosophy?
8. What are philosophies and guidelines for teaching methodologies?
9. What process is established for assessing and reporting student achievement?
10. What process is in place to ensure collaborative planning time.

Wearing my other hat, I suggested that she ask what technology is available to deliver instruction. I like the list from growK12 classroom which included: interactive board, projector, copy-cam, document camera, laptops, printer, speaker. I don’t know many schools that would provide all of the items on the list, but the more the better.

The Thinking Stick by Jeff Utech has additional questions in an article on Interviewing Questions for Schools Going 1:1.

turnitin.com is a powerful tool to improve student learning. Our teachers tend to view it only as a plagiarism detection tool, but I will emphasize three functions this week in the upcoming workshop for teachers.

1. Turnitin’s Originality Checking ensures originality, as well as use of proper citation.
2. Peer Review lets you organize students to review each other’s work and deliver clear, timely comments.
3. GradeMark offers a rich set of tools for clear mark-ups, custom feedback and standardized rubrics.

turnitin.com has changed since I used it last year with my classes, so I am working my way through the tutorials to prepare for the workshop. I will use some of the tutorials, but will also take the teachers through the 3 steps of the turnitin Write Cycle.

I am reminded to practice what I preach.

It became so common to see videos of Sarah Palin blundering through interviews, that I forgot to use critical viewing and listening skills. I helped to spread a video of Sarah Palin doing an interview while turkeys were slaughtered in the background.

The first link below is the interview by Sarah Palin with the turkeys being slaughtered. It spread virally across various social network platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs. The second link shows her pardoning a turkey, and then conducting the interview. Note the difference in the camera angle of the two segments.

• The segment of the Interview that I helped spread
• The Turkey Pardon and Interview

The link below is to a discussion of the irony of the interview and the need to look at personal perspective.

• Grammar Girl’s discussion of irony and personal perspective

My confession: I taught at a middle school boarding school where we did a chicken harvest each autumn. Every student and teacher had to participate in some fashion. Yes, most of the students became vegetarians for the next month, but they also understood that meat does not originate in supermarkets. It comes from somewhere.

Lessons:

1. Viewing skills: What a difference camera angle and editing does to the final message of a video. I teach this, but I forgot to think about it or apply the knowledge.
2. Listening skills: Thank-you to Grammar Girl for reminding me to listen, and to think about personal perspective.
3. Science: Besides remembering to use listening and viewing skills, we need to help students develop perspective on food production and natural cycles.

What is Tweetsgiving?

Update: They raised enough money in 48 hours to build the classroom. Thanks to Twitter.

Tweetsgiving is a Twitter celebration of gratitude and giving created by Epic Change, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The project aims to demonstrate the power of the social web by raising $10,000 in 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania.

TweetsGiving will be held from Tuesday, 11.25.08 (12pm EST) to Thursday, 11.27.08 (12pm EST).

At this week’s Wednesday inservice session (2:45-4:00) the elementary teachers will work on developing their Units of Inquiry. Jon will facilitate this session. The middle school and high school teachers will work on MYP topics. Kirsten will present a short summary of the MYP progress this semester. Then the subject area groups: Language A, Language B, Sciences, Physical Education, Humanities, Arts, Technology, Math will share their vision, the tasks they have decided to tackle, and the task they are starting with first.  This will give everyone an idea about where each other stands now.

I shared this link with the curriculum team. Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age. I would like to use a portion of it in an all-faculty meeting yet this semester.

“Little research has been done to understand how investments in girls impact economic growth and the health and well-being of communities. This lack of data reveals how pervasively girls have been overlooked. For millions of girls across the developing world, there are no systems to record their birth, their citizenship, or even their identity. However, the existing research suggests their impact can reach much farther than expected.”

• View The Girl Effect
• Become a fan of the Girl Effect on Facebook.

A Nun from the school spoke at Mass today. She said schools perpetuate poverty. The children of well-educated get good educations and qualify for good jobs. The children of poor families get poor or no education, and qualify for manual labor jobs, at best. The Rainbow school program is their way fo trying to help the children of poverty in Calcutta, India.

“This program was started in 1985 by a group of class IX and class X students. It began with the idea of establishing a school-within-a-school at Loreto for street children. The program, which started as an afternoon activity for volunteers, progressed into a major project for the Loreto school. Growing increasingly organized and structured, it became an integral part of the school’s identity and its child-to-child teaching and learning program. It now has a designated group of staff including a coordinator, nurses and social workers. This program is open to absolutely any street children who are interested in getting a basic education. They are allowed to come into the school at any convenient time for them, and for those who do not have a place to stay; they are very welcome to spend the night at Loreto.”

I will try to sort things by placing ICT topics on Flat World Schools SWOT on blogspot.

Social topics, curriculum specific topics, school program topics will remain here.

To reformat, reorganize and refocus this blog, I have moved it to blogspot. The new blog is called Flat World Schools SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. The topics will be SWOT analysis for education in the 21st century.

See you there.