Rethinking Learning

Rethinking Learning

conversations about the future of teaching and learning

Barbara Bray

be creative, innovate, take risks, unlearn to learn

Oakland, CA

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Learning to Change - Changing to Learn
By Barbara Bray October 13, 2008 -- 09:34 AM
The keynoter for the pre-conference of K12 Online Conference Stephen Heppell shared this video on YouTube. I�ve been thinking about this for as long as I can remember. Schools have to change to keep up with our students. They use technology everyday and schools ban that technology. I worked with independent study programs where students who may have been at risk worked at home and had jobs. Once or twice a week they met at school to follow-up with assignments and sometimes to work on projects.I like the idea about using school as the place for teamwork and projects. Letting students collaborate online using: text messaging, cell phones, and social networks. Use school for teachers to collaborate. That�s what we�re doing in eCoach: providing online private and public spaces for confidential issues and sharing best practices. Also having a place for teachers to co-author projects and not reinvent the wheel. We can do it! more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Barbara Bray October 15, 2008 -- 10:23 PM

Joy in Learning
By Barbara Bray September 9, 2008 -- 08:40 AM
How many times have you heard from students "School is boring?" That doesn't have to be the case. I read Joy in School in the latest Educational Leadership and it all made sense especially now with the emphasis on testing. We need to bring back Joy and an excitement about what people learn. Not just memorization. My take on the points in this article: Make Learning Pleasurable When you were young, why did you learn? Not what you learned in school, but outside of school. Most of the time it was because you were excited about something. You wanted to learn how to ride a horse - not because it was ... more...

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How about Zenovating?
By Barbara Bray August 20, 2008 -- 10:46 AM
I haven't been keeping up with my blog. Guess you would say I have taken time to enjoy the summer. Yep! But now it's time to get back and start sharing again. I tried to figure out what innovation means in today's world so I've been doing lots of research and thinking. Learning is different today than what many of us as teachers thought it was all about. We defined learning as how we teach, what a classroom is supposed to be like, but we didn't define it from the learner's perspective. All of us are learners. The world is changing and so should what we define as "School". Especially now with information ... more...

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What does understanding mean to you?
By Barbara Bray April 26, 2008 -- 08:51 AM
In redefining what learning in the 21st century means, I reflected on what learning means to me. I see each day and moment as a learning opportunity. I just came back from a long walk in a beautiful park where the birds were chirping. It was so peaceful and a great place to reflect. I stopped at a bridge over a lake and stood quiet for ten minutes just looking around and taking everything in. I saw a colorful male mallard duck with his mate. Some questions popped into my head (even though I already knew some of the answers): Why are male birds more colorful than ... more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Roxanne Clement April 29, 2008 -- 05:26 PM

Filling the Gap
By Barbara Bray February 24, 2008 -- 09:30 AM
I�m a baby boomer. Turning 60 this year. I used to think this was old. Now I feel like it�s a new stone to turn over. Problems with getting older is mostly physical. Most of my fellow boomers are ed techies who love this stuff. They blog, comment, connect, and share maybe even more than the next generation. Like a lot of my friends I started in the 80s buying the first desktop computers. Think I had the first laptop (weighed 20 pounds) and first Apple (cost me $4,200 then). I was so with it. Loved it. Still hooked. With the new social networking tools, I�m just like my kids ... more...

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The Unlearning Curve
By Barbara Bray December 8, 2007 -- 09:33 AM
Just read Will Richardson�s blog post "Unlearning Curve" and the 10 things to unlearn. I truncated his list so please go to his blog to read his full list. Some things from his list that you might want to think about: We need to unlearn that we are the sole content experts in the classroom... the premise that we know more than our kids... that every student needs to learn the same content and at the same pace.. our fear of putting ourselves and our students �out there� ... that we continually have to block and filter access to the sites and experiences they need our help to navigate. the ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Kathleen Scott Meske January 3, 2008 -- 11:31 AM

Report says Americans are reading less
By Barbara Bray November 19, 2007 -- 07:34 AM
The National Endowment for the Arts study "To Read or Not to Read" was just released and found that an increasing number of adults in America have not even read one book in a year. [source] Some of the findings include: In 2002, only 52 percdent of Americans ages 18 to 24 read a book voluntarily, down from 59 percent in 1992. Money spent on books, adjusted for inflation, dropped 14 percent from 1985 to 2005 and has fallen dramatically since mid-1990s. The number ... more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Kathleen Scott Meske January 3, 2008 -- 11:34 AM

What will learning look like in the future?
By Barbara Bray October 3, 2007 -- 07:59 AM
I was very lucky to be invited to participate in the first convening of Innovation for the KnowledgeWorks Foundation with a very prestigious group of people from around the country. One of the goals for this convening was to develop a new vision for Professional Learning Communities in the future. The questions that kept popping up was about the future of teaching and learning. One article we read was Why Teacher Networks (Can) Work by Tricia Niesz from Phi Delta Kappan where she talks about Communities of practice in which learning and teaching are interwoven in social networks, and someday ... more...

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Reflecting on the Process
By Barbara Bray July 22, 2007 -- 08:40 PM
The process of learning is more important than the culminating activity or providing the right answers. How can we connect students to the real world? How can we create a school environment that allows enough time for reflections? Will Richardson envisions that change isn�t just the ability of students to publish, but to connect, reflect, and be able to continue the life-long skill of reflection long after the class or assignment is over. He states: �Through teaching them to use these tools to publish, are we also teaching them how to use these tools to continue the learning once ... more...

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Hidden Talent
By Barbara Bray June 30, 2007 -- 09:11 PM
Listen! Enjoy! Paul Potts singing opera on British Idol. Amazing! I believe that talent like this is more than a gift. Brings tears to my eyes! more...

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Remembering with a little humor
By Barbara Bray June 17, 2007 -- 11:57 AM
I�m dealing with something that is so new to me and realize I�m not the only one dealing wit this. I�m kind of caught in the middle - a new middle. My father has Alzheimers and I�m at that age where I forget where I put my keys. My kids are on their own but still need us. Being a baby boomer is boomeranging so here�s a fun video on remembering. more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By lifelonglearner June 17, 2007 -- 12:44 PM

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