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This version was saved 17 years, 2 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Jay Cross
on January 18, 2007 at 9:29:30 am
 

 

Internet Time Commons

 

This site is for us. You and me and anyone who cares to join us. It's a place to watch or join a debate. It's a place you can grab some advice or give some. This is a gift economy, barter site. As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

 

The more nodes and interconnections in a network, the more valuable it becomes. That's one reason the Commons is free. I'm trying to make a bigger pie, not take a larger slice.

 

My professional friends and I come here to tell it like it is. Or at least the way we see it. We're choosy, outspoken, and sometimes a bit eccentric. Or at that's the way I am.

 

Principles: Transparency. Progress. Collaboration. Fun. Networking.

 

Or should this be the Internet Time Crossroads??

People come from different directions and meet at the crossroads.

 

We share our thoughts and co-create fresh insights because all of us are smarter than any of us.

 

I sort of like Crossroads because it implies that people are coming from different directions.

 

 

 

The Rules here are few.

Honesty.

Civility.

Identify yourself when you post.

You must register to post.

Full disclosure when related to something you sell.

You are here at my discretion. I am judge and jury in all disputes.

 

 

 

The past is over. I am putting my work under a Creative Commons licesne for all to share. I receive little value from yesterday's white papers, blog entries, and discussion documents. You might find just what you need. I ask that when you see any entry you can improve, please do.

 

 

 

Less is more. No "2,400 Tips" ebooks full of random advice.

 

Blogging is great but it’s not without its shortcomings. The last-in first-out sequence works well to keep current entries up top. The downside is that entries fall off the bottom, never to be seen again unless Google dredges them up. Monthly archives are useless; categories, too broad; and commentary, buried.

 

I run this place. It's a reflection of what I like. I will post what I learn, and things that float by and seem too good to let go of.

 

Blog posts with legs will find a home here at the Crossroads.

 

too high-falutin'

Learning is the pathway to fulfilling work and a life of joy. Human potential knows no bounds, yet ignorance condemns most people to lives of mediocrity. Schools and formal learning provide insufficient help. This little corner of the web is dedicated to taking advantage of other forms of learning.

 

Please join the conversation. Share your experience and your wisdom. Explore with us. We aim to:

 

  • leverage the power of learning.
  • provide a platform for discussion and exchange of ideas.
  • challege the community at large to identify and share best practices in these realms.
  • share implementation stories and highlight winning solutions.
  • host Unworkshops to distribute expertise in applying web 2.0 technology to learning.

 

Most of what you find here is for sharing. Free. Just be sure you tell people where it came from.

 

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 License.

 


 

February 6-13-20-27. Entirely online. Become confident in marrying web technology to corporate learning. More...

 

 

 


 

We are exploring the intersection of unconferences and learning with Social Media Club. 


 

Writing on the Walls Retreat

 

This is the transformational business skill described in Informal Learning. You’ll come away with the ability to make drawings that inspire groups and clarify new gameplans. My attendance proves that you need no artistic skills to do this. Next session is January 19-20 in Bodega Bay, about an hour up the coast from San Francisco.

 


 

Check out Xplane's new site. Look at the projects page; it's a lesson on process graphics in itself.

 


 

Informal Learning

is now available at Amazon.

 

 

 

Coming soon: Informal Learning, the Missing Chapters

 


Pre 2003 KnowledgeBase

 

 

Articles

Blogs

Community

Design

eLearning

FirstPrinciples

Glossary

HowPeople Learn

Implementation

InformalLearning

KnowledgeManagement

Links

Meta-Learning

Metrics

OurNewsletters

PopularItems

Presentations

Psychology

Restaurants

SiteMap

SocialSoftware

StringTheory

Time

VisualLearning

OnWriting

WorkflowInstitute

 

 

Graphics

 

 

Beta forever

 

Community doc

 

wiki share

 

 

Vital docs

The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

 

An engaging and persuasive indictment of American schools. "The shocking possibility that dumb people don’t exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn’t real."

 

When award-winning teacher Gatto dropped out, he wrote this editorial that appeared in the Wall Street Journal:

 

Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents. The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the theological idea that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.

 

That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its "scientific" presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of Biology. It’s a religious notion, School is its church. I offer rituals to keep heresy at bay. I provide documentation to justify the heavenly pyramid.

 

Socrates foresaw if teaching became a formal profession, something like this would happen. Professional interest is served by making what is easy to do seem hard; by subordinating the laity to the priesthood. School is too vital a jobs-project, contract giver and protector of the social order to allow itself to be "re-formed." It has political allies to guard its marches, that’s why reforms come and go without changing much. Even reformers can’t imagine school much different.

 

David learns to read at age four; Rachel, at age nine: In normal development, when both are 13, you can’t tell which one learned first—the five-year spread means nothing at all. But in school I label Rachel "learning disabled" and slow David down a bit, too. For a paycheck, I adjust David to depend on me to tell him when to go and stop. He won’t outgrow that dependency. I identify Rachel as discount merchandise, "special education" fodder. She’ll be locked in her place forever.

 

In 30 years of teaching kids rich and poor I almost never met a learning disabled child; hardly ever met a gifted and talented one either. Like all school categories, these are sacred myths, created by human imagination. They derive from questionable values we never examine because they preserve the temple of schooling.

 

That’s the secret behind short-answer tests, bells, uniform time blocks, age grading, standardization, and all the rest of the school religion punishing our nation. There isn’t a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as fingerprints. We don’t need state-certified teachers to make education happen—that probably guarantees it won’t.

 

How much more evidence is necessary? Good schools don’t need more money or a longer year; they need real free-market choices, variety that speaks to every need and runs risks. We don’t need a national curriculum or national testing either. Both initiatives arise from ignorance of how people learn or deliberate indifference to it. I can’t teach this way any longer. If you hear of a job where I don’t have to hurt kids to make a living, let me know. Come fall I’ll be looking for work.

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