Three Dutch teachers and two Flemings are talking during the break of a conference. After a few minutes, the Dutch are engaged in an intense conversation and the Flemings are just watching.
What went wrong? The Dutch tried (in the Dutch way) to involve the Flemings into the conversation But they were not aware of cultural differences.

Intercultural sensitivity
Dealing with uncertainty and tension
Attentive communication, empathy
knowledge about differences and similarities in cultures
information about values and legal systems, norms for interaction
interest in other cultures
confidence in diverse settings
awareness about one’s cultural knowledge
capability to adapt behavior,
a repertoire of behavioral responses to situations

image: In Dutch a person with low CQ is called a peasant on wooden shoes. (Een boer op klompen)

Motivation, will power

Teachers can make a student want to learn. Teachers should try to connect their teaching to the reasons for learning of their students.

Reasons for people wanting to learn:

Learning is fun to me
I am curious
I expect the consequences of Not learning to be harmful, or unpleasant
I will get acceptance of peers, teacher parents if I learn
I am good at learning, it makes me feel good, increases my self-esteem (I am addicted to learning)
I want a good career and learning this will help
I would like to be able to learn certain skills for everyday use

You could replace <learn> with other words like <work>, <do healthy things> and adapt the other words. (I want a good looking body and doing healthy things will help)
It is important to discuss the process of motivation with the student. When students know the process they can use this to motivate each other and themselves.

Teacher should help by

being enthousiastic
showing curiosity
make use of kreativity of students
make sure students are active
make tasks more relevant to students
change activities
use surprises
make use of fellow students.

21st century skills

I did a quick translation of Framework for 21st Century Learning 2-page PDF in Dutch.
I do not think the 21^st Century is a good label for new learning and new teaching of today. People in 2097 will think it funny when they read these labels from 2013. The 21^st century only did start yesterday.

(Copyright of immage Patrnership for 21st century skills, One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 700, Washington DC 20001, http://www.p21.org, 202-312-6429. use-of-p21-content)

Into the wild – Technology for open educational resources

By Amber Thomas, Lorna M. Campbell, Phil Barker and Martin Hawksey (Eds). December 2012

Reflections on three years of the UK OER Programmes.

Between 2009 and 2012 the Higher Education Funding Council funded a series of programmes to encourage higher education institutions in the UK to release existing educational content as Open Educational Resources. The HEFCE funded UK OER Programme was run and managed by the JISC and the Higher Education Academy. The JISC CETIS “OER Technology Support Project” provided support for technical innovation across this programme. This book synthesises and reflects on the approaches taken and lessons learnt across the Programme and by the Support Project.

This book is not intended as a beginners guide or a technical manual, instead it is an expert synthesis of the key technical issues arising from a national publicly-funded programme. It is intended for people working with technology to support the creation, management, dissemination and tracking of open educational resources, and particularly those who design digital infrastructure and services at institutional and national level.

More publications on OER and OPen Education on
Jisc Cetis Publications

Questions, how to make questions and learn more

How to make good questions?

You could do this exercise on your own or with some (up to 4) students. It is sort of brainstorming. Making questions is a great way to learn. Questions are great help to remember and understand. You will get better test results when you do use this exercise on your homework.

Start making questions

write down as many questions on the subject as possible
do not discuss, answer, or assess the questions, just write down
write the questions in good language
change statements to questions

Improve your questions if possible:

mark each question as open or closed ending question
what are the better questions, open or closed?
change open in closed or reverse if necessary

Pick the best questions:

pick the best questions
why are these questions the best?

Use your questions

How do you use your questions now?

What do we teach? Happy Easter

Tony Wagner, the Harvard education specialist, says the goal of education today should not be to make every child “college ready” but “innovation ready” — ready to add value to whatever they do. (nytimes)

Students must learn to be curious, persistent, and willing to take risks. They must be able to find new opportunities or create their own — a disposition that will be increasingly important as many traditional careers disappear.”

We teach and test things most students are not interested in, maybe nothing in school is exciting for your child. and will never need, and facts that they can find on internet and will forget as soon as the test is over.

So xMOOCs for young students which are build to teach facts only is a diasaster to education. Of course some facts and basic skills are needed, but the facts and information should be learned in a connecivist way, because of the need for connectivist skills and creativity, innovation and curiosity.

We could ask some ethical questions when universtities and colleges are using xMOOCs to teach students.

Do these courses teach students the right skills and habits?

These xMOOCs are still experimental, so schools should be carefull when applying these experiments to students. Scientists do have standards and regulations for exposing testees (subjects) to experiments.

Testing for facts makes students learn facts and kills curiosity and motivation.

Image The Moongate Garden, designed by architect Jean Paul Carlhian, Smithsonian Wash DC.

Human downgrading #etmooc #activism #cyborg

b0203-projetagricole

The gravest danger of offloading work is not a robot uprising but a human downgrading. Work hones skills, challenges cognition, ... It also makes the experience of genuine idling, in contrast to frenzied leisure time, even more valuable. (The Barbed Gift of Leisure By Mark Kingwell)
Some questions:

How do we educate our children to live in a world of robots, cyborgs and computer connections? A cyborg is a digital citizen In an economy where jobs appear from nowhere it’s difficult to know what training to get, though I’d guess any form of general literacy should be primary. Jobs that need to get done will get done and not necessarily by the most qualified but often by those both willing and confident to do them. (Scott Johnson). We could think of the knowmad here. ( The knowmad is mobile and learns with anybody, anywhere, anytime. As such, the place we now know as school may be too small and perhaps unable to contain the range of learning engagements necessary for those with nomadic tendencies. )

What does this image of the near future mean to poor people, without education? People still in need of human upgrading. What kind of social action is required? Do we teach a thing called ‘social activism’? Procedo consultando su twitter l’hashtag #socialactivism; trovo significativa è l’infografica proposta «Giovani adulti: il futuro dell’attivismo sociale». (Proceed by consulting on the twitter hashtag # socialactivism, I find significant is the proposal infographic “Young adults: the future of social activism.”)
A Twitter search on “action” only gives book promotion and sales tweets.
Social activism on the internet:

avaaz.org
See wikipedia for a list of methods, activists and actions.
Amnesty International
Teaching for social justice
Environment action
feminism and technics
What do your students know about social action and internet?
Digital civil rights. BOF EFF

Digital Citizenship, digital literacy

In the 21st century digital literacy ( No Dutch page on this subject in Wikipedia) belongs to the basic skills of the educated person. It is a prerequisite in order to function in the information society. Digital literacy demands, like language skills and numeracy, a formation process that everyone must go through for a long time. Therefore it is an important subject in the curriculum. Current courses in this field do not prepare students for the information society. The government must implement a comprehensive change in secondary education to improve digital information and communication. Otherwise the Netherlands will be lagging behind and leading position as a knowledge and innovation economy will be in danger.
(Bron )

In 1997, Paul Gilster wrote a book entitled Digital literacy (New York: Wiley).

Digital Citizenship has aspects and components:
Digital Access: full electronic participation in society.
Digital Commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods
Digital Communication: electronic exchange of information.
Digital Literacy: process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology.
Digital Etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure.
Digital Law: electronic responsibility for actions and deeds
Digital Rights & Responsibilities: those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world.
digital civil rights.
Digital Health & Wellness: physical and psychological well-being in a digital technology world.
Digital Security (self-protection): electronic precautions to guarantee safety.[http://digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html]
Digital identity, Bonnie Stewart
Digital networking and connecting

source image: http://ace.nsw.gov.au/social/being_skilled/being-skilled-foundation-skills/