Video – Did you learn anything?

[Video] Sudbury Jerusalem promo, now with English subtitles!

Michael — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 07:41:27 +0000

I posted this video a while back, but now there’s a subtitled version. Definitely worth watching if you haven’t yet!

[Videos] Invisible Learning and a Sudbury Jerusalem promo

Michael — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:09:50 +0000

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Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of serving as interpreter to John Moravec, in his talk about the Invisible Learning project, in Halle (a town near Leipzig.) I had never done this before, but once I got into it it went pretty well.

You can judge for yourself – you can watch the talk (mainly English with my attempt at German translation) online:

The Invisible Learning website – where you can read and watch more about the project – says:

“The proposed invisible learning concept is the result of several years of research and work to integrate diverse perspectives on a new paradigm of learning and human capital development that is especially relevant in the context of the 21st century. This view takes into account the impact of technological advances and changes in formal, non-formal, and informal education, in addition to the ‘fuzzy’ metaspaces in between. Within this approach, we explore a panorama of options for future development of education that is relevant today. Invisible Learning does not propose a theory, but rather establishes a metatheory capable of integrating different ideas and perspectives. This has been described as a protoparadigm, which is still in the ‘beta’ stage of construction.”

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For the Hebrew speakers amongst you, there’s also a new promotional movie about Sudbury Jerusalem:

The movie was released in honor of the school’s tenth anniversary. I was in Israel briefly, to take part in the celebrations, and just got back this past weekend. This is the main reason for the long silence on this blog – normal (almost-daily) posting is now officially the order of the day.

I hope to be able to post a subtitled version of the video soon. I also expect to post videos of my talk at the decennial events, as well as the other excellent talks given there (also given in Hebrew.)

[Video] The History of English in 10 Minutes

Michael — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:59:52 +0000

Here’s an excellent and hilarious quick primer on the history of the English language, brought to you by the Open University:

As is the norm in popular language science, 100% of the examples are words and phrases, without a word said about actual structural changes (which in many ways are more significant.) But I won’t peeve now. For a ten-minute cartoon, this is both very informative and very funny, and I can only recommend you watch it.

(H/t J.W.!)

[Video/TED] Paddy Ashdown: The global power shift

Michael — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:12:20 +0000

An excellent TED talk about the major shifts in international politics the world is going through.

Peter Gray on Video Games

Michael — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:03:42 +0000

Peter Gray, my favorite education blogger, has recently written two posts I can highly recommend:

As always, Peter does a great job of supporting his point with research, and writing some sobering posts about video games is a much-needed service for democratic schools, as well as for parents everywhere. It’s also nice to see how much his well-founded and academic post matches what I wrote about game addiction two years ago based only on anecdotal evidence.

One more link: While we’re on the topic of Peter Gray, here’s an interview he gave, very much worth watching:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_DJAZ-ByV0

Blog status comment: Over the past 10 days, I’ve had 4 exams (which, remember, I really don’t like having). Real posting will resume soon; comments are sporadically open, depending on how thick the spam is coming in – but I hope to fix that issue soon, too.

[Video/TED] Annals of the Robot Internet: Eli Pariser on Facebook and Google

Michael — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:26:11 +0000

I just watched this fascinating and slightly scary talk about what the Internet has become:

This is one of those things which I kind of knew about but never gave all that much thought. On the one hand, it’s pretty useful that I don’t have to manually sift through things I’m not interested in. On the other hand, an algorithm can’t always tell what I’m interested in, and even if it could, I like to think my interests change and I’d like to be able to see more of what’s going on and choose for myself.

Hmm.

What do you think?

[Video] Elizabeth Lesser: Take “the Other” to lunch

Michael — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 23:03:05 +0000

This excellent TED talk goes along the lines of what I’ve been thinking lately regarding Israeli politics and Israel/Palestine politics. Talking to the other sides is crucial in all conflicts, on whatever scale, internal or external — in a school, in a town, in a state, or between states. “Otherizing”, as Lesser calls it, is the seed of continued conflict and violence.

[Video] The Democratic School in Roskilde, Denmark

Michael — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:22:41 +0000

Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle has made a nice little video about Den Demokratiske Skole in Roskilde, Denmark:

I’ve had the pleasure to know the founders/staff and the fortune of spending some time in the school (it was pretty funny seeing Christina and Niels with an English voice-over rather than just talking English!)

I could quibble about some details of how the school was presented but it was mainly just nice to see positive media coverage of a Sudbury school.

[Video] Democratic Schools: Where are they Heading?

Michael — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:11:33 +0000

I participated in a panel at IDEC 2010 titled “Democratic Schools: Where are they Heading?”, moderated by Yaacov Hecht. AERO filmed the discussion and posted it (and other workshops) on the AERO blog.

Below (after the jump) is the part with my thoughts about the future of democratic education. I talked about EUDEC, the power of networks, collective outreach, and suggested we should be emphasizing that democratic education is a human rights issue. Let me know what you think.

[Video/TED] Philip K. Howard: Four ways to fix a broken legal system

Michael — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:47:00 +0000

I found this new TED Talk video by Philip K. Howard (a lawyer) about simplifying U.S. law pretty interesting. It was particularly interesting that he highlights trust as essential for the rule of law; Sudbury schools have always been based, amongst other things, on trust and on the rule of law. It’s nice to see the connection acknowledged.

About this talk

The land of the free has become a legal minefield, says Philip K. Howard — especially for teachers and doctors, whose work has been paralyzed by fear of suits. What’s the answer? A lawyer himself, Howard has four propositions for simplifying US law.

From TED.com. link