(by 2 people)
This lens is about my book, 109 IDEAS for Virtual Learning which was published in early 2006. It is the 4th book I have written on how the Internet is at last liberating learning from the dusty doldrums of traditional learning. Titanic change has made schools as we have known them relics - and increasingly destructively so for our youngest generations.
But the news is actually very good. What hasn't work is not being patched up. Something completely new is replacing it. There are several facets to this large and complete change. The modules of a Squidoo lens are an ideal way to set them out separately. I invite you to dig into the modules that interest you.
I also invite you to order my book through the Amazon module. In doing so you will receive the 109 IDEAS in which I describe the exciting synergy that is spelling the end of ignorance and separation. It's a global and beautiful thing.
Foreword by John Seely Brown
John Seely Brown is former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation, Director Emeritus, Xerox PARC, author (with Paul Duguid), The Social Life of Information, and author (with John Hagel), The Only Sustainable Edge
From the Foreword:
It is hard not to open up any newspaper on any day and not read about the need for reinventing education. Tom Friedman in his seminal book, The World is Flat, makes dramatically clear the competitive threat the USA faces from Asia in today's globalized knowledge economy and none other than Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, calls for the reinvention of education for the 21st Century. Yes, many of us have a gut feeling that somehow we must take a fresh approach to education in the 21st century. But taking a fresh approach requires new lenses to see the vast resources that could be marshaled to meet the challenges of not only reinventing education but also setting the stage for creating a culture of learning.
Within this context I opened up Judy Breck's manuscript, 109 Ideas for virtual learning - how open content will help close the digital divide, with great anticipation and I was certainly not disappointed. Indeed, Judy instantly grasps the real potential of the networked (digital) age to open up an ecology of learning, opportunities for both formal and informal learning.
It is hard not to open up any newspaper on any day and not read about the need for reinventing education. Tom Friedman in his seminal book, The World is Flat, makes dramatically clear the competitive threat the USA faces from Asia in today's globalized knowledge economy and none other than Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, calls for the reinvention of education for the 21st Century. Yes, many of us have a gut feeling that somehow we must take a fresh approach to education in the 21st century. But taking a fresh approach requires new lenses to see the vast resources that could be marshaled to meet the challenges of not only reinventing education but also setting the stage for creating a culture of learning.
Within this context I opened up Judy Breck's manuscript, 109 Ideas for virtual learning - how open content will help close the digital divide, with great anticipation and I was certainly not disappointed. Indeed, Judy instantly grasps the real potential of the networked (digital) age to open up an ecology of learning, opportunities for both formal and informal learning.
Endorsements for 109 IDEAS
Marshall (Mike) SmithThe William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
"For millennia access to much of the world's knowledge has been limited to the rich and powerful. The Internet creates the opportunity to reduce inequalities, if the information on the Internet is open and free. Judy Breck provides a comprehensive and compelling introduction to a rapidly growing worldwide movement to make this opportunity a reality."
Howard Rheingold
Author of Smart Mobs
"Judy Breck is onto something -- something big. If you are interested in the future of knowledge and learning, her big idea will be useful to you."
Dr. Sam Pitroda
Chair, National Knowledge Commission, India
"Anyone planning or making policy for education will be inspired and informed by this book. Judy Breck shifts the focus both from fixing what is broken and from bogging down in technology - saying neither is necessary. Her vision of globally networked knowledge dynamically moving within the internet and individually through students' mobile computers and minds returns the adventure and joy to learning. In the world she shows us, a child in a rural village anywhere will literally learn from the same pages as the most privileged scholars on earth."
Mystified Parents, beam into where your kids are
For parents of the MEdia Generation, 109 IDEAS will explain to you how your kids learn from the digital media that envelopes them. MEdia Gen learns dynamically and apprentices at making knowledge.
Teachers, the future is yours!
109 IDEAS will describe the future of your profession and make you feel very good about what that will be. You are already emerging from the unconnected, chopped up education of standards, grades, and assessment into the new global virtual knowledge ecology where you will be the guides and mentors of upcoming genrations.
Hey Geek Dude - knowing tech doesn't teach you this. . .
109 IDEAS is about something technology does not teach you: what ideas do when they interact with each other and with human visitors as they inhabit a digital network. The ideas in the digital network act a lot like they do in your mind. It's a beautiful thing.
Philosophers and Futurists: it's the network genius!
The most important IDEA in the book is this: the network, patterning structure of what a mind can know is mirrored in the network, patterning structure of the open Internet. That idea is not only theoretically elegant. It is so powerful that it has been a self-fulfiilling prophecy: over the past decade as what is known by humankind has spontaneously nestled into the internet and begun interconnecting itself into a cognitive network imbedded in the digital network we call the Internet.
GoldenSwamp.com - Judy Breck's blog
Here I post examples of excellent online open content for learning websites - really cool place to learn. I also post comments about virtual learning.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bySmartMobs.com blog
Judy Breck blogs here.
This is Howard Rheingold's blog, where he and others whom he has invited on to his blogging team, including Judy Breck, post on subjects from his book Smart Mobs: the Next Social Revolution
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byIDEAS about the new virtual learning from GoldenSwamp.com
- What the Golden Swamp is
- Like the blogosphere, within the open Internet a network of what is known by humankind has formed to created a global virtual knowledge ecology. That is why the swamp that is the Internet is golden, as this link explains.
- Subject Sampler of awesome links for learning
- Access dozens of awesome free websites for learning here, organized by subject. These are samples of thousands upon thousands of fresh, authoritative webpages which are better for study and learning than the old fashioned printed learning materials our kids are forced to use.
- Open Content for Learning
- This link explains why online learning content that is blocked off by require subscription and/or payment rapidly deteriorates. The best content to learn from is open and free - because it is better content!
- Mobile learning
- This link explains that wired schools are obsolete. Wireless mobile laptops, and soon phones, are becoming the basic learning tool.
- Connectivity, the answer to ending ignorance and separation
- This large website is devoted to showing the cognitive power of networks. I built it to illustrated my 2004 book of the same title.
Books by Lensmaster Judy Breck
109 Ideas for Virtual Learning: How Open Content Will Help Close the Digital Divide (Digital Learning Series)
Foreword by John Seely Brown
Amazon Price: $44.95 (as of 10/11/2008)
Connectivity, the Answer to Ending Ignorance and Separation: Can You Hear Me Yet?
Amazon Price: (as of 10/11/2008)
