15 Fascinating Facts About the History of Home Education

Home education appeals to a surprisingly broad range of families, each with their own unique motivations for pursuing the method. Despite the myriad misconceptions about students’ social aptitude or ability to perform once they hit college, it remains an unyielding component of the education industry. But homeschooling gets so bogged down in theory and curricula, many take little time to ponder its extremely active, controversial history. By no means is this list even the slightest iota comprehensive, but it does pick out a few interesting, relevant tidbits.
I want more »

iCould Should Be Essential Component of Your Personal Success Plan

icould should become an essential component to every student's personal success plan.  The site gives visitors the inside story of how careers work. The icould storytellers relate, in their own words, their real life career journeys. There are over a thousand easy to search,varied and unique career videos as well as hundreds of written articles. From telecoms engineers to police officers, from landscape gardeners to web designers, from engine drivers to zookeepers; they talk about what they do, what it’s like, how they came to be where they are and their hopes for the future. They also share the times they’ve messed up, had difficulties and set-backs as well as their opportunities and experience of achievement and success. The video stories – as well as articles – talk about real issues, such as problems at home, taking a year out, failing exams and coping with redundancy. In addition to being able to look at people via careers, visitors can also look by searching life themes like Making a difference, Apprenticeship, Passion, School stories -negative.

An essential component of personal success plans is finding heroes and helpers.  Heroes and Helpers are people that students believe inspire them, either the heroes who may be famous and/or helpers in their own lives that they may know personally.  This site provides a treasure-trove of real potential heroes and helpers that they may very well be able to relate to and who may expose them to ideas and possibilities they never knew existed.

You Don't Have to Be A Rhodes Scholar to Become a Road Schooler

Perhaps one of the most innovative ways to educate is by becoming a road schooler.  Yep, that's right, you can hit the road to get an education like many families are doing these days who believe the best way to learn about the world is to be in the world.  Wondering if it's legal?  It is in the U.S.  You can check out how many families are taking learning on the road at The Families On The Road blog.

Is this the future of learning?

Sophia Overview from Sophia on Vimeo.

Sophia enables innovation by connecting learners, teachers, experts and parents. They provide an academic community where everyone has access to learning that surrounds and supports the traditional classroom. They encourage variety and creativity in teaching so that everyone can learn in a way that makes sense to them.

Sophia is a social teaching and learning platform that taps the teacher in all of us and enhances the learning process by providing access to a wealth of knowledge, help, instruction, standards-aligned content, and expertise available to learners everywhere.

Sophia wants to harness technology for the betterment of the educational system as a whole. They believe we can all help others learn. Sophia’s mission is to be a catalyst in this educational movement.

What's Popular This Week on The Innovative Educator

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog this week. Below you’ll see my top weekly posts along with the number of pageviews in the past 7 days.

This week the #1 spot goes to Why Twitter is a big deal which provides a roundup of how innovative educators are using Twitter. Next up is Using Classroom publishing to teach outside the box featuring some great ideas for using this tool. Rounding out the top three was 10 Ideas for Connecting 21st Century Dads. There’s lots of great ideas for Dads and Moms too.  Check em out.  Making it to the top five was 5th Grader's Smart Advice About Standardized Testing featuring a child’s insightful editorial essay.

There’s several other interesting posts as well. I hope there's something that looks of interest to you.  If it does, check it out. If you’re so inspired leave a comment.
I want more »

A Math Hater's Five Fav Math Resources

I took math in school, but never learned math and I still have nightmares about Algebra. Despite my distaste for the subject, there are some resources that I like.  Here they are. 

My top five fav math resources
1) Chat with others about math on Twitter with the tag #mathchat http://t.co/wUiAJcY - I have had some lively debates doing this.
2) Lots of free and pretty good quality games with MangaHigh.com http://t.co/zfR6igO
3) This self-proclaimed "mathmusician" has a passion for math and helps others learn with passionate and witty delivery http://t.co/qVADJMc
4) Would kids rather learn math from a boring adult like Sal Kahn or other kids? If your answer is the latter, check out these "Mathcast" videos made by kids for kids at http://t.co/TSZe33x
5) I think this is my favorite math resource. Mathalicious teaches math using real world examples. Cool beans. That is what I needed if I were to learn math in school. Read all about it at http://t.co/GhhGD1s

Those are my fav five. If you want more ideas visit http://t.co/GUoDQ9K.

Study Groups without Walls

At Peer 2 Peer University a study group gathers people who work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback.

The P2PU is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU  creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables high-quality, low-cost education opportunities. P2PU - learning for everyone, by everyone about almost anything.

Check out a course here

DIY U: Build a Personal Learning Plan

Check out the video about P2PU here.

Peer 2 Peer University 2010 from P2P University on Vimeo.

Midlife Crisis Begins in Kindergarten…

with labels such as ADD, ADHD, slow, dyslexic, learning disabled, just average, and even gifted!

Guest post by Mariaemma

Did you know that midlife crisis begins in kindergarten? Yes, it's true! It is in kindergarten (and sometimes in preschool!) that our society begins the process of teaching children (see how this happened to The Innovative Educator and Aaron Iba here) that they are not smart enough, not quick enough, not working to potential, not high enough on the bell curve, not as good as the next guy...just plain not measuring up!

Midlife Crisis is the term we use to indicate a trauma experienced in the middle years —usually having to do with the question, “What am I doing with my life?” There are stories of extreme reactions that all of us have heard: like the guy who is a doctor, quits one day, and goes to live in the woods; as well as less dramatic cases like the financial consultant who enters the ministry.I want more »

Why Twitter is a big deal

It seems every week I'm asked or told by illTwitterates that they don't get what the big deal is with this whole social media thing.  They don't get the idea of powerful conversations and connections.  They don't get that many of those I've connected with through social media become friends IRL too.  They don't understand that if f-2-f can occur with those with whom I've connected, it does.  They seem perplexed as to how I can develop enough trust with folks through social media that I actually have had many of these people in my home for a visit or overnight stay if they happen to be in my city.

This week there were three interesting articles The Innovative Educator Daily Newspaper that did a great job of summarizing my thoughts on the topic. 
I want more »