Here’s a snippet from or by each of the participants in this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Alexander Pappas, Co-founder at HourSchool

HourSchool connects people through their social networks, helping them learn from one another. We call it peer-led, social-driven learning.

Katherine von Jan, CEO of RadMatter and Managing Partner at KvJ & Company

A couple of years ago VeloCity asked Katherine von Jan: What key accomplishments are you particularly proud of?

My amazing family. Teaching disabled kids to swim and saving a child's life when I was a life guard in my teens. Taking a hiatus from college and moving to Hawaii on my own at 19. Starting my own company at 20. Creating a mobile humanitarian aid prototype to collect war stories in Kosovo and use them to prosecute war criminals at the Hague. Advising the UN on global communications strategies with the former advisor to Gorbachev. Creating a surprising new path for an industry-leading plastic producer. Being the voice of the culture in executive suites across the globe, and reframing consumers as "becomers".

...Most people who go to college don't graduate. If you gave every student in America a full scholarship to college, most students would fail or drop out. Would any other company stay in business if they failed to serve more than 60% of the market buying their product? ... We put students in the center; seeking to serve today’s students in these modern, complex times. Our work revealed unexpected ideas to help students attain a quality academic degree. We called this work "101 Wacky Ideas for Reinventing College". You can see a glimpse of our findings here on CEOs for Cities website: http://www.ceosforcities.org/101_wacky_ideas .

Jodhbir Singh, a computer engineer, empathetic educator and friend of the Innovation Lab , and writer for the Michigan Tech Lode and The Daily Bull

“Michigan Tech Lode” is a window through which Jodhbir expresses his “culture shocks and makes newcomers aware of what should and should not be done. And Jodhbir says that he writes for “The Daily Bull,” as a humour writer. I write about the American culture, people, India, language, student lifestyles, pencil, or anything that is now playing on your mind. I write stuff that should not be taken seriously..... like this description!”

In a recent post at YouthKiAwaaz , Jodhbir writes:

The underlying thing is not to do something extra but to do something different. In a decade of academic inflation when many people are going to college, getting a job is becoming a challenge; it means we should not prepare our students for the future based on present methodologies. We need to bring something new into the system only then we can create a whole new field of competition- like how many companies will be started each year by students at an engineering college.

Lisa Nielsen, an educational technologist for the NYC Department of Education

Lisa is a Google Certified Teacher , International Edublogger , International EduTwitter , and creator of The Innovative Educator blog , website , learning network , and wiki .

In addition to her blog (http://TheInnovativeEducator.blogspot.com ), her work is published in “Learning and Leading,” “Tech & Learning,” and ISTE Connect. An outspoken and passionate advocate of innovative education Lisa Nielsen is also covered by local and national media for her views on "Thinking Outside the Ban" and determining ways to harness the power of technology for instruction and providing a voice to educators and students.

Phill Pappas just published a book, One Page At A Time: Getting Through College With ADHD

Here’s an excerpt:

Class schedules

When I arrived at Michigan State University freshman orientation, we had to choose our class schedules for the upcoming semester. I was paired with a “summer orientation volunteer,” and we began scheduling my classes. It may have been because I was hung over, but I somehow didn’t notice when she convinced me to take a class that would turn out to be pure hell.

“So, you’ve got four classes so far” she said, “Do you want to schedule one more?”

“Yeah, why not” I said.

“Okay. We could de!nitely plug CSE101 in here on Mondays and Wednesdays at 8:00am.”

“Wait, what?”

“A lot of times, it’s better to get classes like this over with during your first semester, just to get them out of the way.”

“I can’t take it any later?”

“Well if you did, you would have to move the Interpersonal Communications course to another semester, and you said that you really wanted to take that class, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“I mean you can make an eight a.m. class twice a week, trust me.” Sounding like a veteran on the subject she followed up with, “Anyways, 22 One Page At A Time the other days of the week your earliest class is 10:20am, so you can sleep in on those days.”

“Yeah, you’re right” I said. “It shouldn’t be a problem twice a week.

Holy shit was I wrong.

For this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Monika Hardy @monk51295 invited a few of her colleagues:

• Thomas Steele-Maley @steelemaley
• Roberto Greco @rogre
• Mary Ann Rielly @MaryAnnRielly
• Amanda Judd @venueX
• Amy Lewark @fat4thought

to join Chris Sloan @csloan and me @paulallison to introduce why we need lab spaces to disrupt and redefine school (Lab Connections). The goal is to facilitate self-directed learning. Here’s how Monika and others introduce their work in an in-progress book they are writing:

Students in Loveland, CO crafted a four year plan of disruption to redefine school. We are just beginning year two. Year four has community/life as school, with the city as the floor plan. Who, what, when, where, how, and with whom you learn, per choice. The premise… nothing is for everyone. We’re redefining success per individual/community. We’re respectfully questioning everything, especially what public education deems as normal. Imagine if the 7 hours a day we currently call school would/could awaken indispensable people. It’s a quiet revolution.

There has been plenty of theory/research invested in what we are doing, and that will be ongoing. But mostly, we have had the privilege and delight to indulge in experimentation/failure/prototyping/etc. The following is our best attempt to capture the key elements learned from key failures. If you are so inclined, shuffle along with us. It’s a kick. You might just fall in love with it.

For more history of the lab, see this video set/documentation (reverse chronological order):redefineschool.tumblr.com

For current updates/info on the lab, see labconnections: http://labconnections.blogspot.com/p/about.html

This was a first, exploratory conversation, and one that we hope will inspire you to join as well. We'll be continuing our conversations with Monika Hardy and her colleagues in the coming weeks on Teachers Teaching Teachers. Join us every Wednesday at edtechtalk.com/live where you’ll hear and see a Livestream broadcast of our conversation, and be invited to chat and ask questions as well.

Talking about their own versions of place-based education, our guests on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers are:

• Diana Laufenberg, Zac Chase, and a student, Luna from the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia
• Woody Woodgate from Alaska
• David Pulling from Louisiana State University at Eunice

We asked Diana and Zac to come talk about an interdisciplinary project they did/are doing with juniors. Each student was invited to find a building in his/her neighborhood with a name on it, then to learn the history of that person and the building. From there, students created multimedia presentations. Diana and Zac brought this example to their conversation at last month’s Educon 2.3, and we wanted to learn more! Wait until you see this work!

David writes:

Many in my semester’s class have joined Voices on the Gulf since a couple of weeks ago, and Wednesday I’m going to give them a prompt for their first post. I’m going to start them off the same way I did the class last fall, asking them to study their back yards or neighborhoods or pastures or homes to identify some place or thing that they may take for granted and to consider the cost of losing it, etc. etc. etc. I’ll encourage them to post pix or videos as well. I’ll guide them into inquiry from there.  I hope you’ll hear from some neat students and read some neat stuff.  I’ve got an eager and industrious bunch this semester.

Also check out David’s post: Setting the table for Inquiry: Where I find myself (almost) a year after Deep Water Horizon.

If that’s not enough, our old friend from Alaska, Woody will be joining us as well. Woody has focused a lot of his scholarship and pedagogy around place-based education in rural Alaska. We have already learned a lot from him, and we look forward to re-connecting with him on Wednesday. Woody writes:

I am negotiating to go back out to rural Alaska to teach at a site that is heavily focused on what they call “relevant education” and what we have been calling place-based education.  I will be focusing on how to incorporate standards into the already established outdoor program.   Therefore, I gladly accept your invitation in hopes that I can get back up to speed with what others have been doing in this area in the last 3 years since I have been out of the classroom trenches.

Pretty exciting stuff! We hope you enjoy learning with us.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

For six years now, we've been publishing, distributing, and discussing student work online at Youth Voices. Recently we've been talking with a group of students who are working collaboratively on producing magazines built out of the content on Youth Voices.

This show follow-ups from TTT #224 - Students and Rick West help us build community - 10.27.10. Chris Sloan described our publishing plans this way to the team of folks at MagCloud:

After many years of publishing our [Judge Memorial in Salt Lake City,Utah] high school newspaper locally on newsprint, my students just published their first school “newspaper” on MagCloud: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/128339 We just distributed the issue to the students yesterday, and everybody loves the new format. Just as exciting is the fact that a group of teachers from around the country who I collaborate with are also beginning the process of having our students publish a MagCloud photo magazine created by the digital photography group at youthvoices.net. 

MagCloud’s Marketing Maven: she’s our PR and Marketing guru… When Lauren is not designing our advertisements and collateral, she’s planning our events and trade shows and keeping our social calendar full. A former US-Sailing team member, a prolific chef and our in-house fashionista, Lauren works hard to keep MagCloud busy and looking good! (MagCloud)

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

More about Scratch! More about gaming. More about social networking. Youth Voices. Voices on the Gulf. And we invited a couple of students too!

This was our fall semester kick off.

On this episode, you'll hear:

• Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Chris Sloan
• Stacey Ferguson, 5th grade teacher in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi
• Rafi Santos, graduate student at Indiana University
  
• Michael, a senior at Chris Sloan's school, Judge Memorial High School
  
• Laura Fay, 8th grade reading and Scratch teacher at Fisher Middle School in Ewing, New Jersey
• Tim Kong, a teacher who uses Scratch with his 10-year olds in New Zealand
• Kylie Peppler, an Assistant Professor in the Learning Sciences Program at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Kylie Peppler is an Assistant Professor in the Learning Sciences Program at Indiana University, Bloomington. As an artist by training, Peppler engages in research that focuses on the intersection of the the arts, media, and new technologies. A Dissertation-Year Fellowship from the Spencer Foundation as well as a UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship supported her early work in these areas. Peppler has published numerous journal articles that will or have appeared in E-Learning, Learning, Media and Technology, Teachers College Record, and The Cambridge Journal of Education on the arts, new media, and learning. She also has a recent book titled, The Computer Clubhouse: Constructionism and Creativity in Youth Communities (Teachers College Press, 2009). Peppler is currently a co-PI on two National Science Foundation funded studies on creativity in youth communities as well as a PI on a grant to study the development of systems thinking dispositions through the design of digital arts projects funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.