joe Wickert's blog

Great Ted talk on letting students choose what and how they learn, just like in a Big Picture Advisory.

Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish -- and how current education culture works against them. In a funny, stirring talk he tells us how to get out of the educational "death valley" we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html

Interesting reading on Education Week.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/07/18/36zhao_ep.h31.html

Free registration to get to article.

In its second year, THE HOMELESSNESS SHORT FILM COMPETITION 2012 was launched today, a  national competition for secondary school students and part of the on‐going philanthropic initiative,  which aims to raise awareness about homelessness in our community.  The patron, Cate Blanchett, has  been a long‐term supporter of this cause.

Charles Leadbeater went looking for radical new forms of education in around the world and found Big Picture as a model for the future.

I'm sure most have you have seen at least one of the terrific videos put out by TED - "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". If not get there now and enjoy - www.ted.com

TED have now luanched TED-ED. The idea is to capture the best lessons from the best educators, record them and animate them.

You can submit lessons here - http://education.ted.com/

It's a cool idea, I don't know if the focus on delivering "lessons" is a bit limited, the same old model of content delivered from the front of the class. Where are the students in this?

We all know that great images and sound can add to your media productions.

Often schools get concerned about the copyright implications.

Scratch is a programming language that allows users to create, share and remix interactive stories and games. It's aimed at educators and builds strong mathematical and scientific concepts.

Scratch is designed with learning and education in mind. As young people create and share projects in Scratch, they develop important design and problem-solving skills, learning how to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

Jen McCutcheon from Te Kura correspondence school shared this video portrait of Josh with us. Josh is pursuing his internship with NZ Fire Service.

We are proud to support this initiative from our partners at The Caledonia Foundation.

ATOM and the partners behind THE OASIS documentary Schools Initiative - Shark Island Productions and The Caledonia Foundation - take pleasure in inviting teachers and lecturers to a presentation workshop about the next phase of THE OASIS Outreach and Education Campaign.

THE OASIS initiative is designed to assist teachers to develop the capacities and knowledge of young Australians to become concerned, committed citizens and leaders of the future in social policy.