Understanding the needs that organizations have for eLearning is challenging, not only due to the rate of change of technology and the high level of uncertainty, but also because of emerging opportunities for careers and new industry directions. Companies and individuals who are in the front lines in satisfying needs are well positioned to provide important insights about the directions of change

Writer Mark Barnes was kind enough to send us an excerpt from his upcoming book! Enjoy! Not too long ago, after nearly two decades as a classroom teacher, I was ready to walk away from education. A particularly tough group of students made me feel like a failure. I knew most of them learned little or nothing in an entire school year, so I wondered why I should continue. That summer everything changed. I decided to return to my classroom the following year, but things were going to be different. I threw out literally every method I’d used in my career. Rules and consequences disappeared, along with homework, worksheets and number and letter grades. I created what I call a Results Only Learning Environment, or ROLE. The transformation was remarkably successful. Following is a brief excerpt from the book I’ve written on results-only learning, ROLE Reversal.   "The girl I’ll call Sasha was off to a rough start in her seventh grade year. The first grading period saw very little from Sasha. She completed roughly one-third of one major language arts project and did nothing on a second. Asked to review material covered on a web-based diagnostic tool, so she could retake it and improve her poor score, once again Sasha did not produce. In-class activities were done haphazardly, with little attention to detail. Feedback from the teacher, for the most part, was ignored. "At the end of the marking period, it was time for reflection, self-evaluation and a final grade. I met with Sasha, as I did with every student, and we discussed her production. When I asked Sasha for her thoughts, she admitted that the results were not what she had hoped for. She gave no excuses. Because the administration at the middle school where I teach mandates that teachers assign quarterly grades, I told Sasha that a formal grade had to go on the report card. This was a new concept, because there were no points, percentages or grades on any activity for the entire first nine weeks of school in our class. " ‘So put a grade on your production for Quarter One," I said. Tears rolled down Sasha’s face, a heart wrenching sight, as I hated to see her punished by a grade. In between sobs, her chin resting weakly on her chest, Sasha whispered, "I guess it has to be an F." When I asked if she was certain, Sasha nodded affirmatively. At this moment I realized that a Results Only Learning Environment would forever change how I taught and how my students learned. The roles were reversing. Students were assessing their own learning, and their self-evaluations were providing me with the information I needed to create better learning opportunities in my classroom. Education was changing into something truly revolutionary. "One grading period later, Sasha was up to a C, and she continued to progress throughout the year. She is one of dozens of examples of students who have thrived in a unique classroom that ignores the fundamental methods that teachers across America use daily - worksheets, homework, multiple-choice tests, rewards and punishments and a standard grading system. This book will share many examples of students like Sasha, who have taken charge of their own learning and assessment in what I call a Results Only Learning Environment. This transformative approach to teaching is based on research, theory and practice of people like, Daniel Pink, Alfie Kohn, Steven Krashen and Donalyn Miller. Although these authors and educators are referenced in several places throughout the book, most evidence of the effectiveness of results-only learning is based on my own practical experience and the almost uncanny success of my students." Later chapters of ROLE Reversal explain the student-centered, project-based learning approach of the ROLE. The complete elimination of rules and consequences is explored, and detailed examples of year-long projects and narrative feedback that accompanies them are supplied. Like Sasha, students grade themselves, and they do so with frightening accuracy.   If any of these concepts intrigue you, please feel free to chime in.   Related articles Books for Teachers: There Are No Shortcuts(enoughofthecattalk.com) Children’s books(daydreamsofahero.wordpress.com) "Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement" (cshmsfaculty.wordpress.com)

New technologies create opportunities. They can also destroy your business in the blink of an eye, and leave you without the resources needed to land on your feet.  Waves of disruptive technologies have been distinguishing features of industrial revolutions, and we can trace typical responses to them by taking a look at the first European industrial revolution. An early knee-jerk reaction

Podcast Special_ ISTE Newbie Project Winner @Cybraryman Congratulations to Jerry Blumengarten who has been named the Newbie for ISTE12. Many of you know him by his Twitter handle,@cybraryman1. I was not planning on doing theISTE Newbie Project this year.  I had organized and managed this project for the last three years and I simply needed a break. There is a lot of work that goes into making this project work that happens behind the scenes and I did not have the time to do it this year. But last week all of that week when I received an email from Suzie Nestico. She had been contacted by Jeff Bradbury who runsTeacherCast and Ron Peck who is one of the co-founders of #sschat and the SSChat Ning. They were looking for a way to get Jerry to San Diego so he could attend his very first ISTE. Jerry is one of those rare people who has found a way to give more than he takes from his personal learning network. He started out creating a website for his school in 1999, but by the next year had developed a site for all educators with hundreds of great resources and links. The website grew and now has over 500 pages and 30,000 links. It is considered the "go-to" website for information on just about anything. Many educators sing the praises of this wealth of information and sharing on a level that no one in education can come close to. In addition, this individual is an active member of several chats on Twitter. #Edchat, #ntchat, #gtchat, #elemchat, #engchat, #sschat and #ptchat are just a few of the chats he contributes to and moderates on a regular basis. This amazingly generous person deserves everything we can do for him and more. Please thank Jerry for all he has done by making a donation to get him to San Diego.  A ChipIn donation widget is located on the ISTE Newbie Site. Related articles Cybrary Man’s Update Education Twitter hashtags (newtrierlibrary.blogspot.com) Twitter Education List: Reflection (alettsportfolio.wordpress.com) Perspective Change With A Tweet (dimensionallearning.wordpress.com)

What was really great about your college experience? What would you tell someone who is considering going to your dear alma mater?  Tips? Tricks? Lessons Learned? Fill out the questionnaire here and share what you experienced. Then, take a free read of E-Learning Success: From Courses to Careers - free ebook! You may also win a free e-symposium from AAPG - just complete the survey and send an

Guest Post by: Lisa Cooley What is passion? Why does it deserve a place in our classrooms? The root of the word passion is not love or lust or overwhelming emotion. It is suffering. It is the thing that you love and need to do so much that you are willing to go through anything to learn it. (Kind of like me and this thing I have about changing education.) Maybe it’s stretching the point to think that five-year-olds entering Kindergarten have passions, but for my money, they are the most passionate people I know! For five years they have been following their passions, and adults have marveled at how cute they are while doing it. Then they enter school. This series examines the problems that can be solved by making students’ passions the first priority in the classroom, the school, the district. What does it mean to make passion the first priority? Here’s the first problem on my list. 1. Most adults don’t understand what it means to respect children. Kids need to understand from their very first day of school that who they are, what is inside them, what they value about themselves, is held to be important by grownups-so school really is a place for them. This scenario comes from the book, The Passion-Driven Classroom, by Angela Maiers and Amy Sandvold (now available on Kindle!) Houston is passionate about trucks, cars, and super heroes, struggles a bit with reading, and has an average I.Q. Interestingly, he barely meets minimum requirements for frst grade. He comes to school and plays the game. He sits through calendar time getting the big idea that it’s about the days of the week, counting and patterns, yet the truth is he really doesn’t care. He thinks, "What’s the big deal? It’s Wednesday. I can look at the calendar myself. The teacher-lady will tell me what day it is anyway." He goes through the motions of "sounding-out" the short vowels and reading the guided book of the week, Dan Can Fan his Tan Can. He memorizes the code, yet scores in the lower middle stanine on his developmental assessment. Next, the students are directed to follow the usual writing routine: Write your name frst, then copy and respond to the writing prompt of the day. Today’s prompt reads, "The best thing ever about school is…" Houston gets excited and draws a picture of a car. He thinks it’s the best writing work he’s completed so far this year. He thinks, "Finally, something I’m interested in and know a lot about!" Proud of his work, he hopes to publish it in his classroom library. He writes his rendition of the prompt at the top, "The frst car I ever made." remembering that he was supposed to write his name frst, he draws an arrow from his name to the beginning of his writing. He gets his paper back, a couple days later with the directions to do it over, this time, following the directions. Houston is confused. He did the best diagram with the best writing ever, and he didn’t do it right. And this happens again and again, day after day, until his passion for learning is lost As far back as elementary school, a disregard of who kids are enters and takes hold of them. But kids don’t generally take this rejection and turn it outward, where it belongs. They turn it inward, and it becomes part of them. They feel separate and apart; they try to fit in better, but kids can’t be other than who they are. Who can? We need to respect kids, not for who we want them to be, or who they are as long as they follow our rules. To get respect, you have to give respect. In this area, we as adults, the people in control, need to be very self-critical, all the time. The needs and desires of kids are so completely neglected that I give myself this thought experiment: what would happen if the feelings of kids were to beelevated above adults? Who has the more uncorrupted mind? Who is this school for, anyway? To find the passions of children is to demonstrate to them them that, in the words of Angela Maiers, they matter. And they matter not only to other kids, but those people in charge: adults. I currently have four more items on my list of problems that the passion-driven classroom would solve. Please add yours! Without passion, any kind of school change is just the same ol’ same ol’. This post was original published on http://waldo.villagesoup.com/blog/blogpost/passion-solves-problems-first-in-a-series/813623

Game-based learning continues to be one of the most engaging methods of learning for childing (as for adults), and fun, engaging learning apps can be very effective as well. Welcome to an interview with Lindsey Hill, Lead for Reading Engagement Innovation at Evanced Solutions and Evanced Games. 1.    What is your name and your relation to elearning?   Hello, Susan. My name is Lindsey Hill. I’m

Guest post by Lisa Cooley "Kids don’t want to learn. They don’t put in the work. They don’t fulfill their potential." Why not? In too many schoolchildren, the hunger to learn that we saw when they were toddlers is gone. Toddlers seize their education with both hands, stumble and run and fall and get up, ready to learn more. But inside our schools there are kids who don’t seem to care about learning at all. Some kids care but have no confidence in their abilities; some kids stress out about homework and grades and adult approval. Few kids seem motivated, ignited, by something deep inside them, which is fulfilled by hard work and achievement of mastery which school is helping them to accomplish. Where’s the love of learning? What’s been lost? How did we lose it? How can we get it back? Too many kids in the public school system are bringing passivity to school with them, and I’m going to give very short shrift to all the particulars of why and how and whose fault it is (well, ok, here’s a little more shrift: it’s the fault of the system that we all have given our tacit approval to, by our inability to stand up and change it. It’s not the teachers. It’s not the parents. It’s not the administrators. That’s too easy. I place a lot of blame, but we allshoulder it, including myself.*) Some teachers are better at it than others, this business of getting kids interested in stuff they don’t care about. Lots of professional development has been devoted to it. There are whole libraries of books on the subject. How do you teach kids to love math? How do you make history come alive? How do you turn kids on to the mysteries of science? So many strategies, so many methods, while kids shrug, look out the window, fingers itching for the keypad to their phones. We have convinced ourselves that we know, much better than children do, what’s important, what they need to learn, and why, and when. The possibility of "doing school" differently can be scary. Better the devil we know. Right? Wouldn’t it have just made sense to pay close attention to who these kids are instead of being in such an all-afire hurry to teach them stuff? I mean, not only having an "Identity Day," although I like the idea. How about an Identity Year? If the public school system was a book, then the first page, the page that said: "First find their passions," was left out. Adults have been floundering about ever since, trying to find it, that piece that would make kids love learning. Start with passion and see where children will lead you. Respect what they need to learn right now, give them time and space to do what drives them, and see what doors it opens. Have faith in them. Let’s stop making end-runs around the problem of motivating kids to learn. Go to the source, find out what’s inside kids and how we can help them make pursue their dreams of who they need to be. Without passion, any kind of school change is just the same ol’ same ol’. This post was original published at  The Minds of Kids

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