Steli Efti

The Art of Possibility - An Amazing Teacher in Action!

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Making Real Changes in Education

Dear Supercool Friends,

the following guest post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick who writes on the subject of teaching certification.

The educational system is something that is constantly being talked about and evaluated in the United States.  Nothing solid, however, ever seems to come from these discussions.  There have been many attempts to make public education relevant and effective in the US over the years, to no avail.  It is time to make these changes happen in schools around the country. 

One of the main problems is that many schools around the country teach students how to do a variety of things that would be quite useful, if practical applications were embedded in the tasks students were asked to complete.  There has long been a “because I said so” mentality regarding the necessity of teaching certain things to students rather than showing them just why and how these skills will be of importance in the future through hands-on applications.

 

Another area where public schools in the US have fallen gravely short is in their use of technology.  Certainly there are schools that are extremely sophisticated, but technology continues to grow and develop, making it difficult for schools to keep up with what is current.  Though this may be true, many classrooms around the country have far less computers than they need and students are still resorting to pencil and paper activities that could be far more enriching if taught in a different medium. 

Teachers around the country are also very far behind when it comes to the use of technology.  School districts that are actually trying to get the latest technologies for students’ use are rapidly realizing that their teachers are very poorly prepared to use such devices.

There needs to be a widespread initiative across the country to ensure that students have access to technology, along with teachers that know how to properly use said technology.  Students this day and age learn quite differently from those who were attending school even ten or fifteen years ago, so we must make these sweeping changes to ensure that we do not lose more capable minds to the boredom so commonly found in classrooms these days.

Rather than looking at what’s wrong with the system itself, it is more important now to figure out how the mind of the modern student works and start using a new model of instruction that integrates all of the tools we now have at our disposal.  What good is it to continue advancing if it doesn’t benefit those who will eventually be running our world?

Kelly invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com.

Guest Post by Aparajith Motz Raman

Dear Supercool Friends,

today I want to give the voice to a young passionate student from India: Aparajith Motz Raman.

His blog has the fire that makes up much of the power behind Supercool School and most of us can connect to him from our own school experience. Feel inspired...

Bjoern

The Penmanship of a Fascist Student

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." So I start by quoting Adolf Hitler. We live in a world where the rule is, what we think and what we see is basically what we are. I am a student of class 11 and this is what we face. I go to a school which is half a century old and where the teacher's mindset is no younger. Totalitarianism is a better word. A student is considered a rebel if he questions a teacher. Times have changed and very few students realise that. In 1860 when the Italian Revolution took place, and the crowning of Victor Emmanuel II in 1861 happenened, the peasants were blissfully unaware of their new way of life, many had no clue about Liberal-Nationalist ideology. 148 years later, there is still no change.

I write this to make you realize, the real spirit of a student and hope that you  get a backbone and question and stand up for your say. You may think I am mad, but a rebel doesnt have to do wrong. In the eyes of the Mafia, the police is a rebel. Teachers see various kinds of students and a new set of faces every year. They say, People dont change, time changes them. Teachers dont apply to that! for a simple reason, a teacher is ment to understand the minds of students, not doubt it! the moment a teacher doubts, criticizes or comment on a student she seizes to exist. Students take life as it comes and wonder later, as to why it is so, WAKE UP! WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS, MAKE GRAPE JUICE AND THEN SIT BACK AND LAUGH AS THE WHOLE WORLD TRIES TO FIGURE OUT AS TO HOW YOU DID IT!

Facsism is awful, and that, my good friend is exactly what we find in our school lives. Teachers are humans too. To err is man, Students are not born rebels. If I am accused of teasing a girl and the dean of my institution shouts at me, I have the right to raise my voice ( not shout) and clarify the situation. The moment a nerd stands up and corrects a mistake made by a teacher the guy has guts of steel! 

What we now need is a millenarianism moment. Something that will awaken the students from a life that makes BLACK look colourful! students have a problem in thinking twice when a teacher says something, Twice is too long. Think_Act! Remember, If one word made a man the president of the world's most powerful country. That word can surely make a small difference in your life. That word, my friend, is CHANGE

If this writeup gave you the kick equivalent to that of10Vodka Shots, the job is done.  If not, either you have a very rare, teacher-friendly student relationship or simply, you are just a fragment of society's imagination

Indians Speak Up!!

Supercool Picnic

Dear Supercool Friends,

This was our Supercool Picnic this Wednesday the 3rd of December on the Union Square in San Francisco. We had some hard to find good cheese, delicious cupcakes, fruits and coffee. We enjoyed the sun, did some ice skating and talked about how to democratize education.

bjoern

Developer Intern Wanted

Dear supercool underdogs, web socialists and hidden champions!

We are searching for Developers who would like to do an "Internship" at Supercool School.

Supercool School is a highly purpose-driven startup that was founded by a team of underdogs from Europe and India to change the world using the amazing powers of learning.
We  are bulding the first demand-based online learning marketplace that empowers people to request classes, join them as students or teach them using a simple webcam. Launching our alpha version on Facebook five months ago, Supercool School has attracted over 3.000 users that requested over 300 classes ranging from "How to start a business in China" to "Advanced Java" and "Thai Soup Recipes". We're going to have our global website launch in January 2009 and are already involved in some super secret projects with well known global organizations.
We are driven by our believe in the power of learning. We believe that education is the answer to all the challenges that we face today. And even though we don't have all the solutions yet, we believe that they can be found in the hearts and minds of the people. So empowering them to learn and to develop their true potential means empowering the world to become all it can be: a better place for all of us.

We don't care for your degree, your age or your nationality ...
BUT that you're inspired and committed to accomplish great things with us.

Essential hard skills are:

- Experience with Windows and Linux development environments
- Basic knowledge of web based database driven applications
- Knowledge of especially Ruby on Rails + HTML, Javascript, CSS and SQL

Essential soft skills are:

- Purpose driven personality
- Constructive team player
- Independent, enduring and self initiative personality

Nice to haves:

- Project Experience
- Every language is a plus (especially: Greek, German, Russian, Hindi)

Responsibility:

- Modular feature and product development

Frame:

- You can start immediately
- You can work from home or in the office
- The office is in downtown San Francisco

We offer:

- A bad ass business model to change society
- An international team
- No hierarchy
- A T-Shirt
- Future full time employee in any business field + stock options
- Work with state of the art technologies (VOIP, video stream, API, Widget, Ruby, etc.)
- A lot off responsibility and challenges
- A bright future

Application:

- Send an Email with the subject "supercool internship" to bjoern@supercoolschool.com
- Attach a CV + any examples of your work
- Describe how you fullfill our expectiations stated above
- Tell us very briefly about yourself (1. What inspires you? 2. What are your goals? 3. Why are you different?)

Further Procedure:

1. You will receive an answer + quick feedback in 2-3 days
2. 30 min general Interview on skype (1st round)
3. 30 min specific Interview with extended supercool circle on skype (2nd round)
4. Final decision will be made asap but latest until the 24th of december (We will take 3-5 People)

Now that you know a bit about us, we would love to hear from you! Just contact me at bjoern@supercoolschool.com

supercool vibes to all of you,

Bjoern Lasse Herrmann

Bjoern Lasse Herrmann _ new supercool activist

Dear supercool friends,

my name is Bjoern Lasse Herrmann. I am another German dude fighting for a better "education for the future". In the coming weeks I will join Steli and Ramin posting on the supercool blog and keep you up to date with everything around and beyond supercool school. Also I will write about learning and education in general. I am looking forward for a fruitful discussion.

Science Tower, Moscow 07

I was fascinated of supercool way from the beginning. I am by heart a passionate learner and have always been a radical in the "learning institutions".

The learning of the "like minded" and the "democratization of learning" are two missions supercool school pursues. I can feel how Supercool School will change the institutional education as we know it today. I believe everybody is experiencing the intense philosophical discussions about education based on very different understandings of the definition of education and learning. This discussion shows me that the structural and mental change is under way. To some of us intuitively some traditional goals of education as the replication of "god given knowledge" (Bible ;-)), the process of social adjustment (Francis Bacon) or the guarantee of conformity among soldiers (Prussia/Japan) appear to as a dangerous atavism that is still very present in our education systems and our mindset. But the evolution of our education institutions left an aera that has been dominated by strong hierarchies (at least in the Western World) and is now heading towards something new. I believe supercool school will one driver of this supercool change for a better and more democratic learning!

Rubert Murdoch & Australian PM Join Education Revolution

Yes, it's true, Rupert Murdoch and the Australian Prime Minister join the education revolution. See what PM Kevin Rudd said:

"An education revolution is our response, investing in the quantity of money we put into the education system, the quality of that investment." (Source)

Now, should be noted that they might mean different things then we mean when we talk about an education revolution.

No matter what you think of Rupert Murdoch - he's a "big picture guy", and he says some things that we at Supercool School have been vocal about for some time already. For example - that we are still stuck with a 19th century education system in the 21st century.

Maybe we should recruit Rupert for SCS? (Na, wouldn't work... that guy has a different vibe) ;-)

Something more serious... experts warn that some of the steepest price increases in college tuitions might be just around the corner - pushing education yet further out of reach for many. Government always likes to cut the edu-budget. That's just another reason to take things in our own hands.

(I just have a friend visiting from Guinea. Education is basically being run by NGOs from what she told me, because the politicians are busy "mange l'argent" (eating money). But internet connectivity is really good in Konakry and lots of young people start to get into IT. That might be a good sign - maybe Africa will soon have it's own "Bangalore" success stories).

Ramin

Students Protesting In Italy - 1.5 Billion Euro Budget Cuts

Now we wouldn't be able to call us "education revolutionaries" if we'd not spread the word about this:
Students in Italy are protesting against huge education budget cuts - 1.5 billion Euro (that's about 1.9 billion US-Dollars).

Silvio Berlusconi's reaction to the students protests? He announced that any further protests will be broken up with police force.

You can see pictures and read more about the protests in Jared Katz's article, which has been featured by the Wall Street Journal & Newsweek online.

And I'm just gonna quote this one from freestate.tv:

"Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent provocateurs to start riots and then have the police “beat the shit out of the protesters”."

Do you think students protesting because of budget cuts should be treated like that? That's more like something I'd expect from a conspiracy movie, quiet frankly...

It just shows that we need to find new ways to educate, teach, learn and share knowledge. Because if we leave it up to the government, this is what we'll get.

Be well,

Ramin

Online Marketing Education

At Supercool School we strongly believe not just in the power of education, but also in the importance of business.

If you look at the current education system all over the world, it's pretty clear that education should NOT be laid in the government hands. Because they are really not doing a good job at all.

Business and education should go hand in hand, because let's face it: that's one of the main purposes of school. To prepare you for making a living later on. But currently, what school does is basically churning out "factory workers", in a time when the demand for factory workers is diminishing rapidly.

Last week I talked with Nick Stamoulis from Brick Marketing. Nick is also in the business of education - educating people to succeed online.

And he very much believes in the power of learning, developing your skills and wrote about Supercool School on the Social Marketing Journal. If you are interested in online marketing, then you find a whole library of knowledge waiting there for you, that ties in perfectly with the online marketing classes at Supercool school.

Want to make your websites more search engine-friendly? Check out the Search Engine Journal. Or how about Email marketing? I found a guerrilla online publicity strategy that I'll employ to get the word out about Supercool School. Local advertising? I found the strategy to get a blog featured on national media really interesting. And the Brick Marketing guys shared a really interesting tip how you can even bid on highly competitive terms for lower prices than the competition.

If you're an information junky like me, there is some dangerous stuff in there, because with all the info he shares, you can really dig deep. That's why I just LOVE the Supercool Classes, because interacting in a class with others is really the best way to get clarity and counter information overload.

Talk soon,
Ramin
PS:I know some there are some education fanatics like us out there, but they view business differently. They often think that business and academics can't join together, and yes, there definitely is a big divide between schools and coorporations. But I think that's part of the problem - because if entrepreneurs and educators unite, that's a very mighty force for the good of the world. Don't you think so?