Introit

Worcester Academy: "Three Words to the World"

Antonio Viva's group of creative writing students at Worcester Academy (MA) produced this video...in 45 minutes. How are your assignments going????? How creative are you being, in an effort to reach the students in their world???

21st Century Education: "We Are the People We've Been Waiting For" (Trailer)

44 Strategies on the Recession: Tom Peters

Virtual School - Reality and Opportunity

Prediction: by 2019, schools will have to come up with "virtual schools" as part of their crisis management plans.

The Reality
Whether it's H1N1 or some other crisis, schools will need to be able to continue schooling from outside the traditional brick-and-mortar setting, when there is no chance of returning to the physical setting within a reasonable time frame. Click here to watch a video covering what schools in Hong Kong are doing.

The Opportunity
Crises aside, a virtual school could be a tremendous new business opportunity for independent schools who are willing to explore learning beyond bricks and mortar. It may replace the physical school or it may serve to complement it. There is exciting flexibility with business models here.

Malcolm Gladwell on Meaningful Learning Environments

Here is Malcolm Gladwell in June 2009, talking about meaningful learning environments, based largely on the research he undertook for his recent book, Outliers.

What are the implications for your curriculum?

On Differentiated Instruction

Here's a compressed version of the aforementioned TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson; specifically, it's his riff on what we've been doing wrong in education...and some thoughts on how to alter our perspective.

I've posted elsewhere on differentiated instruction, for which Sir Ken is an advocate.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

One of the great challenges for education in these early years of the 21st century is how to provide students with a curriculum that allows for the individuality and creativity that are the natural outgrowth of an educational model that refuses to be stifling and one-dimensional in its methodology.

Sir Ken Robinson, who spoke at NAIS Annual Conference in 2008, can be seen here, expounding his views on education at the TED Conference. Many of us have heard this talk - and it is worth hearing again.

Oh, How the World Has Changed!

If you've paid lip service to how much the world has changed...watch this video, Did You Know? (3.0).

How will your school respond...? [It certainly won't be via mediocrity!]

Seth Godin's TED Tribes Talk

I highly recommend the following talk. It'll prompt  you to think about your school and what you're doing (or not doing). Settle in with a beverage - it's 17 minutes...but well worth your time.