Blog Post # 2 Learning 2.0

Sometimes I wonder about the most trivial things like: “What came first – the chicken or the egg?” Or, “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Then I think, are these questions really important? Or is it more important to know that these things do happen without having a rhyme or reason?”

I’m driving at the point that too often we tend to spend energy and time on things that perhaps should be accepted as great mysteries and wonders of the imagination and not place too much emphasis on process (that is if you want to keep your sanity).

After watching James Surowiecki’s “The wisdom of the Crowds” and Gever Tully’s “Life’s Lesson Through Tinkering,” I immediately made the connection between rhyme and reason.

In “The Wisdom of the Crowds”, Surowiecki mentions through a crowd’s collaborative efforts, many things can be accomplished and the one (the individual) saves the mind from having the burden of solving the problem placed on his or her shoulders. Like the old saying goes: “When in Rome, do like the Romans do”. To me what it means is that the masses must have accumulated a common knowledge through various channels, therefore, there is significance in their contributed facts.

In Gever Tully’s “Life’s Lesson Through Tinkering,” the focus is not on the process but the activity of thought through collaboration. It’s a wonderful thing to see a group of kids create things through pure imagination and synergetic approaches. Here again, did the process matter? Or is it that the kids just learned something about themselves that would have otherwise been a missed opportunity to educate? To a teacher, sometimes it means having to let go of traditional methods and structure and perhaps allow nature to take its course yielding to the natural curiosity of a child.

In my search for similar approaches nurturing a child’s curiosity about learning, I came across these sites that may provide both a structured format and a virtual format in encouraging kids to learn.

The first, in my opinion, would require a structured environment in that, it employees, the used of e-learning tools to deliver a plan of course. This site is more geared towards the younger learner in basic skills (reading, writing, and object identification). It’s called e-learning for kids and is provided as free courses for children globally.

The second is more of a “Teacher’s Helper” kind of a blog for which the subject of teaching without classroom walls become an interesting subject matter. It's called: Design for Learning and it provides hints and tools as well as comments on different approaches being used in the field of education.

Since these two areas deal with the non-traditional methods of encouraging kids to learn, I thought they might be an appropriate addition to this blog. ENJOY!