Is School Killing Creativity?

John Bryant at the Governor's Institute for Financial Education

Operation Hope is a most appropriate name for an initiative that helps disenfranchised people make investments in their own futures. Tonight, John Bryant, an entrepreneur from Los Angeles, California, spoke to a hundred Pennsylvanian teachers, who are spending a week at Elizabethtown College being inundated by dozens of top quality financial education programs that are designed to prod students into success. The teachers were enthralled with his message urging them to be foot soldiers in the fight to restore financial well-being in the midst of the global "reset" of the economy. He said that Americans must have the courage to work hard. He spoke about the economic downturn being a global crisis. The speech was inspirational, superbly crafted to appeal to teachers' desire to be part of the solution, not the problem. The timing was perfect; our action plans are due tomorrow. I'm just wondering... Where was the word "ENERGY"??????? Why was the word "ENVIRONMENT" mentioned only once???? Aren't energy, environment and economy all words that must always be used together? Have those other two topics faded so quickly, just because we are no longer paying higher prices at the pump? Are we really all about the "language of money?" Is a less materialistic life at all possible for us?

Get a Reusable Bag

Food, Inc.

Looking forward to this movie! Thanks for the recommendation, Michael Pollan.

Library Thing

Library Thing is a fantastic app for everyone who has a passion for reading. Several years ago, I realized that there were a finite number of books I would be able to read in the rest of my lifetime; hence, I've been more careful about my selection. Library Thing allows you to rate and review the books you've read, keep a list of the books that you want to read in the future, and create author or tag clouds from your library, but the feature I like the best is following interesting libraries. Try it, and invite me to see your library!

President Obama on Climate Change

XO

How can we change the world?

Connections through common interest

Who would have thought that I would be on-line chatting with a manager of a clothing manufacturing company in Bangladesh? A Web 2.0 tool called Skype has allowed me to connect with Peace Fashion, a company that produces a wide variety of men's, women's and children's apparel. I was searching for a way to help my students learn about the textile industry, and the solution appeared in my Skype in-box. We both belong to the Fashion Industry Network, which is a group of people who are either working or studying in the textile industry. The presentation, sent by Md. Jakirul Islam, included photos of the working environment. I'm hoping that soon we'll be able to invite a representative from the company into our classroom as a guest speaker via Skype. In a couple of weeks, the class is visiting 10,000 Villages to learn about Fair Trade. Maybe we can facilitate a Fair Trade connection between Bangladesh and the United States.

Voice Thread

We've been using a great tool for on-line collaboration called Voice Thread. The students in the Child Development classes researched current issues affecting children, uploaded an image to represent the topic and narrated their voice threads. Then they viewed their classmates' images and listened to the narrations. Each student was able to make a few comments on the voice threads of topics of their choice. The application was easy to learn. I'd like to use the students' pictures or first names, but they seemed to prefer to remain anonymous. Many of the students used topics that affected them directly. Many thanks to Joan for sharing this application in the Web 2.0 class this summer. I've embedded the Voice Thread in the side bar. You can hear the narrations, but it's difficult to read the text of the comments at this scale. Here is the link to the actual presentation on the Voice Thread website, Speaking Up for Children. Check out the Voice Thread and make a few comments!