Supercool School

Supercool School Presenting at DEMO Spring 2010 (Video)

Could Tablet Computers Revolutionize Education?

Our friend Nathaniel from Change.org wrote a post today about the potential impact of tablet computers on education. Read the full article here.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe that tablets will really get into our schools and universities or are they a powerful platform for learning apps like Supercool School?

Below a short video of how the textbook industry is imagining the impact of tablets on education:

Supercool School Interview With Edukwest

A couple of days ago we had the pleasure to talk to Edublogger Kirsten Winkler from Edukwest about the future of education and Supercool School. Check out it!

Great List of Hashtags For Educators

I just read a post on Karlana's World regarding #hashtags for education - it's a great article and I encourage everyone to read it who is an active educator on twitter. You'll learn how to use #hashtags and how to monitor the most useful #hashtags for edcucation and learning.

Below you find a great collection of #hashtags for Education Resources from her post:

#education	#educators	#teachers
#educational	#edublog	#lrnchat
#web20	#writechat	#classrooms
#teacher-librarian	#english-teacher	#teach-me
#great_teaching	#social-media	#multi-media
#learning	#learn	#elearning
#edtech	#liveclass20	#tech
#librarian	#edu	#teachertuesday
#mashable	#opened	#followfriday
#writegoal	#writers	#readers
#parenting	#moodle	#linkedin
#edchat	#classroom_rules	#i-teach
#new-media	#edreform	#slideshare
#classroom20	#OLTips	#pln
#educhat	#classroom_displays	#i_can_teach_you
#curriculum	#NCLB	#ning
#readwriteweb	#secondlife	#litchat
#books	#kindergarten	#higered
#biology	#health	#science
#pde	#math	#educause

Hashtags for Educational Conferences and Groups:

#catwest	#edweek09	#telaed09
#eatit09	#steconf	#opened09
#ncsl	#ccstech	#scbwi09
#tedtalks	#METC_CSD	#DEN
#edrnd	#ecs09	#LearnCentral

Via Karlana's World Blog: The #Hashtag Phenom :: Education

How about TEDxEDU? Ideas Worth Spreading For Education!

  ?

At the TEDxSilicon Valley event I was lucky to sit next to Jessica Mah and discuss some ideas about education and learning.

One of the main aspects that we both love about TED is that it brings people together from different backgrounds and different fields (like art, design, music, philanthropy, business etc) allowing powerful ideas to spread between disciplines and therefore inspire people for more positive change.

Well, why not do this specifically for education? A TED event for education - TEDxEDU! :)

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could connect world-class educators and people in the learning field from all kinds of disciplines to come together and share ideas worth spreading in education?

Hell yeah it would! :)

We would get teachers, principals, trainers, tutors, students, technologist, artists, philosophers, scientists & entrepreneurs from all around the world to connect, inspire and EDUCATE each other about new ideas in the world of education.

So what do you think? And what would a speaker wish list look like for TEDxEDU?

Looking forward to hear your thoughts...

Much power!

Steli

Announcing the Educators 2.0 Summit 2010 - A Virtual Event Uniting Educators Around The World To Discuss The Future Of Education!

We've had some amazing education events in the past on this blog. One of our favorites where events like the Edublogger Event 08 and Edublogger Event 09 resulting in tons of amazing posts & discussions about the future of education and learning.

Today, it's my pleasure to announce the Educators 2.0 Summit 2010 that will be the next step in bringing together educators world-wide to discuss the future of learning in live virtual classroom sessions (we're going to have talks & open discussion rounds). It's going to be a two day event. Stay tuned - we're going to announce dates/times and speakers soon! I promise it's going to be amazing! ;)

In the meantime join our open community on Educators 2.0

Much power to you

Steli

PS. If you're interested in giving a talk or moderating a session at the Educators 2.0 Summit please contact me at steli at supercool school dot com!

Example: Educators 2.0 - A Supercool School For Educators World-Wide

Hey folks! After our exciting launch I'm planning to let you know about all the cool use cases we see with Supercool School.

Today I want to introduce you to Educators 2.0 - The first live online school for innovative and tech savvy educators world-wide! The goal of this Supercool School is to empower educators globally to connect and educate each other about using the web and new technologies to teach/train people more successfully. It's completely open to anyone who is willing to connect, share knowledge, request or offer classes. If you are educating people using new technologies - you are invited :")

Obviously we will use Educators 2.0 also as a platform to teach people how to use Supercool School and bring together all users who have created their own Supercool School to share their experience with each other and learn from others how to successfully grow your next generation online school

Another goal of Educators 2.0 is to bring training and education professionals together and help them understand how to use next generation technologies for their organizations and how to make social learning succeed within their companies and organizations.

Check out our our enterprise offerings and also our LinkedIn Educators 2.0 group for more info.

In the meantime why don't you have a look at these new class requests and offerings:

• Make Moodle courses available as AICC in other LMS
  
• Intro to Social Media
  
• How to use twitter in school?
  
• How to Use Supercool School?

I hope to see you soon in a class on Educators 2.0 :)

Much power to you!

Steli

High IQs For Rich Kids, Low IQs For Poor Kids

Apparently, that's still how it is. On average, rich kids score way better than poor kids on IQ tests.

And apparently, the big majority of people still think that this is because of genetics. That's of course a very convenient explanation, because then you really can't do much about it. If it's genetics, then it's fate, right?

In comes professor Richard Nisbett. He recently published a book on the subject and has lots of evidence that shows: the correlation between IQ and income has very little to do with genetics, and very much with early childhood influences and belief systems.

For one thing - professor Nisbett showed that if you do nothing else but teach high-school kids that they can improve their IQ and intelligence, that will motivate them to study more, which will in turn really improve their IQ. This works specially well for girls, who seem to believe that they are at a genetic disadvantage when it comes to mathematics.

Now, that shouldn't be too difficult to implement, if you think about it. Telling kids: Hey, you might not have scored the way you wanted to at an IQ test, but the good thing is, you can do something about it.

But apparently, it's too much to ask from public schools.

That's why at Supercool School, our goal is not just to provide access to education, but to make learning fun. Supercool School is about a very different mindset when it comes to learning. It's about adventures of the mind. It's about exploring possibilities. That is very different from what public schools do right now: determining limitations.

Shalom,

Ramin

Good Schools For The Rich, The Rest For The Rest

Pretty much everyone that I met in Thailand that has money (the kind of money that can provide you with a very comfortable lifestyle any place in the world) is sending their kids either
    a) to ultra-expensive international schools in Thailand or
    b) (more likely) to study overseas (usually in England or the USA).

And to me, it's pretty obvious why. I can't tell you how many people I met that have a master's degree in English, whose command of the English language can be summarized like that:

"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm fine, thank you, and you?"
"Sorry."
"What is your name?"
"Excuse me please."
"Yes."
"No."
"Handsome."
"Beautiful."
"Happy."
"Smile!"
"Do you like Thai food?"
"Very good."
"Speak Thai."
"Sing a song."
"Drink whisky."
"Enjoy!"
"Welcome."
"Bye, bye."

Considering the fact, that they achieved this amazing amount of fluency in just six years of high-school and four years of university education, I think that is pretty impressive. It's a pretty impressive evidence of incapacity - what do these universities do to slow down the learning process so much? No wonder that "hi-so" (high society) children are sent to either overseas or to international private schools with five-star amenities behind high walls.

I mean, keep the high-school aside - who remembers anything they learned in high-school, right? But four years where you do nothing but study English, and this is the result? What do they do with these students? Freeze them for four years, wake them up, play them a 15 minute English introduction CD and hand them their diploma?

Well, one thing I know is that they are taught to avoid mistakes like hell. If that means not trying to get it right, so you risk not making a mistake, then so be it.

You think we can do better than that? You bet we can! The kids growing up are all tech-savvy, the internet is their new playground. Once Supercool School reaches it's tipping point, I hope that nobody will have to waste four years and many years of savings to learning something that can be learned in one Supercool Class for free.

Dibidabadoo,
Ramin

PS: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. - Niels Bohr

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