Conference Session Proposals
Educon 2.2 (due Nov. 1, 2009)
http://educon22.wikispaces.com/Call+For+Sessions
My proposal as submitted: The Academy and the You-niverse
Here follows a kind of hodge-podge of notes as I think my way towards this conversation...
Last year's sessions:
http://educon21.wikispaces.com/Conversations
Tweet from @eduinnovation: Professional Development often suffers from "curse of knowing." Presenter clearly sees context of application, while we struggle to find context #edchat
You-niversity: college search and fit in the age of personalization
You-niversal Access: college search & fit in the age of personalization
The Academy and the You-niverse: college search & fit in the internet age
Personal computers and the internet have increasingly enabled end users to personalize and customize their experience. If you have an iPod, you have your own radio station with listener base of one, perfectly tailored to your tastes. If you use a credit card, you can now get one whose face displays a photo of your choosing.
Where do I fit in? I stand at the door. Or maybe I stand on the street, in front of a lot of doors. I watch students checking out the doors, trying to imagine themselves into an unknown future. And I try to help.
Here's me. Here's my kid doing the baby freeze he taught himself by watching YouTube.
http://rethinkingadmissions.blogs.wfu.edu/2009/10/21/generational-labels-and-institutional-identity/
College Without High School: A Teenager's Guide to Skipping High School & Going to College: Blake Boles: Books
"Most of the best tennis players are homeschooled now." -- senior admissions officer, unnamed Ivy League institution
EduCause's Richard Katz:
http://www.educause.edu/thetowerandthecloud/PUB7202d
(via Joshua Kim's excerpt: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology_and_learning/)
http://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/how-does-internet-change-our-idea-human-nature
If the twentieth-century paradigm for the brain is the hardwired CPU, I would argue that the new paradigm for the twenty-first century brain is the iPod or iPhone, with 75,000 possible Apps (and counting) available for downloading, some created by developers, others by users, all in constant need of updates and customising. There's an App for just about everything in the twenty-first century brain because a changing world needs a brain that is not a product but an interactive processor.
An ability to react with alacrity - with cheerful readiness - requires us to understand and appreciate the interactive nature of our brain, our humanity, and our society. We're not there yet. We have not yet taken full advantage of our capacity for change, individually or collectively.
~ Cathy Davidson
How do colleges encourage creative self-expression through their application process?
Which college will be the first one to require digital portfolio submissions?
"Online education is a runaway best seller."
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Online-Education-Growing/8663
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/consumer_protection.html
"Students make customer choices based on available information, interests, abilities and life circumstances that will mostly determine whether they succeed in obtaining an education with a meaningful credential. The problem is our higher education marketplace today does not account for this customer focus that is so important to success. In large measure, this is because education policies that guide this marketplace are largely crafted by the dominant voices in higher education—colleges and universities with the resources to sway elected officials. Students as customers have no voice in this policy conversation."
The admisssions process in one in which people are being transformed into data (via the application process), and also one in which imagined landscapes are being made real (via campus visits, publications, etc.).
http://www.racetonowhere.com/trailer
What would it look like if students were approaching this process not only as consumers, but at learners?
On imagining your way into the unknown future:
Kurzweil began working on the software for the device in 2002, even though he didn't think it would be feasible for another four years. He eventually met his projection in the summer of 2006 with a portable unit he admitted was cumbersome. Less than two years after that model was produced, Kurzweil now has the entire thing working on a standard-size, feature-packed cell phone. He pulled out a prototype and had it read a passage about advancing artificial intelligence that impressed the crowd, and drew a round of hollers and applause.
(excerpted from http://www.committedsardine.com/blogpost.cfm?blogID=425)
What is college FOR?
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/nov/10/crisp/
Paul Miller on the nature of data in the internet age:
http://www.slideshare.net/cloudofdata/why-linked-data-2457996
"The Web is about connections. Data is still often siloed. Making data networked takes effort, but is worth it."
ConnectEdu developing a "Super App" at the meta level (above Common App, above Universal App)
Johns Hopkins floating student-generated content to the top in this guide to majors:
http://hopkins.typepad.com/academics/
College of Charleston's downloadable school tour:
http://news.cofc.edu/2009/12/college-launches-nations-first-walking-tour-app/
Hints of parental resistance:
"Well, consider me mad and not going to take it anymore. I want to see a widespread protest in response, the formation of a group of powerful people intentionally not signing up for prep classes. A cadre of folks working to make sure their 3 year olds refuse to sit still for an hour, and actively discourage them from taking questions from strangers (whatever that means). Those are the people I plan to surround myself and my kids with, and we'll fight to protect childhood, at whatever cost. That, I think, is what being the "adult" is all about."
http://eduoptimists.blogspot.com/2009/11/resisting-end-of-childhood.html
How one family won the battle to ban homework:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-one-family-won-the-battle-to-ban-homework/article1367357/
Nuts and Bolts: presentation "how to"
Different ways of thinking about "audience"
http://ideasandthoughts.org/2009/11/20/why-audience-matters/
Protocols which will help me keep my session from being just a presentation:
Realms of expertise and interest (take off on realms of concern and influence)
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/doc/realms_concern_influence.pdf
Affinity mapping
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/doc/affinity_mapping.pdf
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