Archive for February, 2009
Meet Up with TeachStreet in San Francisco!
Posted on 28. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
Our good friends at TeachStreet (kind of like eduFire, except they coordinate ‘in person teaching’) are heading down to San Francisco to meet up with their users in the San Francisco Bay Area. They have issued a warm welcome to any eduFire users in the area as well, and I highly recommend you go if you’re nearby! There will be coffee, good company, and networking opportunities for all kinds of teachers. They will be in SF from 3/11 to 3/14, and you can RSVP for one of the coffee meetups by clicking on over here. [...]
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Can Anyone Teach?
Posted on 26. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
In short, I think the answer is yes, but I really look forward to seeing what you have to say as well, in the comments! This can be a touchy subject – I’ve seen lots of debate go back and forth on this. I’ve seen “old school” (haha! pun!) teachers argue that in order to become a teacher, you must go to teacher’s school, and you must get a masters in teaching. If you don’t, then you don’t have the know-how or experience to become a teacher. On the other hand, I’ve seen others argue that anyone can teach. It’s not something you necessarily have to go to school for, and everyone has something that they can share with the world. Everyone has something that they are an “expert” in. I think they’re both wrong. [...]
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Please Help eduFire by Filling Out a Survey
Posted on 20. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
Hey everyone! eduFire has recently put together a survey so we can learn more about the members of our amazing community. It’s only 7 questions long, and we’ll be picking one lucky teacher and student to win $100 in prizes (eduFire t-shirt + 4 free classes or lessons worth up to $20). We’d really appreciate it if you took a couple of minutes to fill it out, and help us out!
We’ve split the survey into two pieces, one for teachers, and one for students. If you’re both, then please just choose the one you associate yourself with most!
Thank you so much, we really appreciate you taking the time to help us out, and hopefully we can use this information to make eduFire better for you!
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7:36 Worth of Video I Couldn’t Stop Watching
Posted on 17. Feb, 2009 by jon.
OK, do me a favor. Close your eyes and envision what school is typically like. Teacher at the front of the class droning on like the guy from Ferris Bueller. Students alternating attention between teacher, dooding, cell phones and each other. Got that image in your head? Great, now watch this video:
Blown away? I was. Look, I was introduced to “Power Teaching” 10 minutes ago so I can’t tell you whether it’s the best thing ever or not but what’s amazing to me is how different it is from how class is normally taught. Concepts like “Micro-lecture”, “Hands and eyes” and the theme of students teaching each other…pure genius.
I might be overreaching a bit here but I think it’s innovative stuff like Power Teaching that will pull our education system out of the long, abysmal slide it’s been on. And when we do that it’ll in turn help pull our economy out of the slide it has been on. But we have to think different. We have to, as Umair Haque likes to say, create real value.
That isn’t easy. In fact it’s actually one of the toughest things in the world. Because it require us to think. And to question how we’re currently do things. And to do things better. Much better.
Kudos to Power Teachers for doing something, anything, to break the crazy monotony that is traditional education. If you know of others doing similarly innovative stuff, put ‘em in the comments!
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Take an eduFire Classe for Charity
Posted on 17. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
Jon and Marco are doing something really cool right now – they’re teaching two absolutely amazing classes, and donating 100% of the proceeds to charity. I’m really looking forward to both of these classes, not just because it’s making a difference, but because the content is fascinating as well. Let’s see what they’re teaching!
How to Easily and Effectively Answer 99% of Your Questions
In an average day we each ask ourselves hundreds or even thousands of questions…How do I market my business? How do I cure myself of this illness? How do I fix my computer?
Increasingly success is determined by our ability to quickly and effectively find answers to many of our questions. In this one-hour presentation I’ll walk through how I use tools like message boards, Facebook, Twitter and Google to get fast and effective answers to many of the questions I face. It’s a big part of the “secret sauce”! :)
This class has a $5 fee associated with it. However, I will be donating 100% of my proceeds to a non-profit I strongly believe in called KIPP. KIPP stands for Knowledge is Power Program and so by signing up for this class you’ll be empowering yourself with knowledge and helping to empower students in low-income areas.
February 17, 5:00pm PST – Join this class now!
That one’s happening in the next 24 hours, so get on that one soon while you still can. If you haven’t taken a class from Jon before, you always come away feeling like you’re ready to take on the world. That’s inspiration + presentation + a bit of Jon Bischke for ya. Let’s look at the other class, by Marco.
Special Memory Class
Please note that I am having eduFire donate 100% of my fee for this class to an amazing charity: http://www.roomtoread.org/
The eduFire team appreciates that money is tight with all of us at the moment in this current economic climate. Therefore, they have kindly donated a couple of eduFire t-shirts and also free coupon codes (value up to $25) for me to give away during this class!
The class will be focused on helping you remember something you never thought possible, so much information, and yet you’ll be able to remember it! Amaze your friends, amaze yourself, chance to win stuff and most of all you’ll be giving to a wonderful cause! Fabulous.
Please do get your friends and family to join, even those who may not have registered on eduFire before, NOW is the time to come! Let’s try and fill the class up with 99 students!
March 8, 3:00pm PST – Join this class now!
Marco is another fabulous teacher – I took a memory class from him a few weeks ago, and came away being able to memorize a list of fifteen different things in a matter of minutes. I could read it backwards, out of order, in order, whatever. To this day, I can still recite the items on the list. I can’t imagine what a class like this one would do to someone. 100 things, perhaps? 1000? I suppose you’ll have to see for yourself!
If you have a passion for learning, and want to help a couple of good causes, sign up for these classes today, and come away a bit smarter! Look forward to seeing you there!
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Sexy New Blog Design
Posted on 15. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
This weekend, I didn’t go curling, I didn’t go clubbing, nor did I hunt the great white shark. I sat in my chair and made the eduFire blog look pretty. During that time, I watched all three Star Wars movies (the most recent three don’t count as movies), some Doctor Who, and listened to part of a Seth Godin audiobook. This, here (unless you’re viewing this via RSS), is the finished product, so hopefully you enjoy it!
But that’s the boring part! I learned so much about this blog, and about eduFire, while redesigning it, and have made it easy for you to do the same! Here’s what’s new:
Better Categories
Before, the categories were just kind of all over the place. Now, they’re very nicely organized, so it should be easier to find what you’re looking for! One of the really cool categories, which somehow I had no idea existed, is the “building eduFire” category. The reason I didn’t notice it before, was because it used to be called “building eduRev.” Why is this? Well, you could head over there and find out. To check out other categories, just mouse over them, and a drop-down should appear! You can even subscribe to certain categories, so you only get news in your feed about certain things!
Searching
Wow, I can’t believe we were missing this before! Now you can go and search for past (not future, sorry) articles. Just pop in a keyword and see what happens! It’s in the right sidebar, up at the top.
New Plugins
One of the great things about Wordpress, is the plethora of plugins that are available. Besides a bunch of back end plugins that make your experience so much more enjoyable (without you even knowing!), we’ve added a few that you might notice while stumbling about the blog. My favorite one is a “Related Posts” plugin, that tries to come up with related posts, and tells you them at the bottom of an article you’re reading. Usually it’s spot on, but sometimes it is wayyyy off.
More Features
You’ll notice that the sidebar is full of all sorts of things, including an Archive Page, a little blurb telling you who comments the most (minus blog admins), links to our shenanigans on social sites like Twitter, Popular posts, Tags, and more! Overall, this blog is easier to navigate, and it’s easier to find stuff. No more getting lost, hopefully.
That’s about it – it’s still a work in progress, but if you have anything else you’d like to see, I’d love to hear it! What sorts of plugins / features do you use on your blogs, to make them better? What have you seen around the blogosphere that no blog can live without?
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Effective Learning – Tips for Effective Learning
Posted on 13. Feb, 2009 by jon.
Effective Learning – Tips for Effective Learning.
Great tips for learning from About.com. A few samples:
-Memory Improvement Basics (Maybe they were talking about Marco’s class!)
-Learn in Multiple Ways
-Teach What You’ve Learned to Another Person
It’s true that the most important thing to learn is to “learn how to learn” and hopefully this article is useful in that regard!
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A Couple of RockStars Teach us how to ROCK
Posted on 08. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
Earlier today was our second virtual eduConference (read about our first one, here), on the subject of “Turning Teachers into Rockstars.” We had two great presenters this time around, one by Kirsten Winkler titled “It’s a Long Way to the Top if you Wanna Rock’n Roll” (going over how to become a Rockstar Teacher), and one by Joseph Sunga of TeachStreet, titled “Empowering Teachers.” Very good presentations all around, and it was great to see people in the comments talking about how inspired they were after it was all over! You can’t ask for more than that from a presentation.
Joseph Sunga showing us how teachers can empower themselves
Kirsten Winkler telling us how to be the next U2
Thank you everyone who attended and participated in the discussion. We really look forward to the next eduConference, probably a month or two away, on a completely different subject. Feel free to send in your ideas for the next one in the comments below! See you next time, and thank you again!
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What *will* change everything.
Posted on 04. Feb, 2009 by jon.
Every year an organization called The World Question Center posts a question to society’s leading thinkers. It’s known as the “Edge Question” and it’s one of my favorite things to read. This year’s question in particular is awesome:
What will change everything?
The sub-question was “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” and the answers are fascinating to read. One in particular that struck me was the answer of Chris Anderson, Curator of the famous TED Conference. His answer? A Web-Powered Revolution in Teaching. And if you’re a long-time reader of this blog you’ll notice that it sounds very familiar.
Consider this passage:
Five years ago, an amazing teacher or professor with the ability to truly catalyze the lives of his or her students could realistically hope to impact maybe 100 people each year. Today that same teacher can have their words spread on video to millions of eager students.
Compare with this blog post on eduFire from back in April of 2007:
Entrepreneurial Education refers to opportunities for scale similar to other industries. Top performers in other industries reach thousands or millions of people with their “content.” Top performers in education often reach only hundreds or dozens of people each year. In a world of Entrepreneurial Education that is ludicrous.
Here’s another passage from Chris’s answer:
For one thing, the realization that today’s best teachers can become global celebrities is going to boost the caliber of those who teach. For the first time in many years it’s possible to imagine ambitious, brilliant 18-year-olds putting ‘teacher’ at the top of their career choice list.
We’ve been talking about the concept of rock star teachers for some time now in blog posts like this one, this one and this one. In fact we’re even hosting an eduFire virtual conference this weekend titled Turning Teaching into Rockstars. Assuming you won’t actually be at TED you should attend! :)
Finally, one more piece of evidence that our frequencies are aligned:
But a young girl born in Africa today will probably have access in 10 years’ time to a cell phone with a high-resolution screen, a web connection, and more power than the computer you own today. We can imagine her obtaining face-to-face insight and encouragement from her choice of the world’s great teachers. She will get a chance to be what she can be. And she might just end up being the person who saves the planet for our grandchildren.
If you’ve read our very first blog post this might ring a bell:
Just a decade ago it was hard to imagine a child in Africa growing up listening to the best lecturers from Harvard and MIT. Today, with things like the sub-$100 laptop and mesh networking we’re almost there. The power of that idea is immense.
The next Einstein might be growing up in Madagascar right now.
The next Oprah might be a kindergarten girl in Sierra Leone.
I hope Chris is right. And I think he is. There are times when what we’re doing at eduFire feels like Woodstock. It’s like everyone is looking around at each other and realizing that this could change everything. And of course not just what we’re doing. What other kick-ass startups like Grockit and LiveMocha and TeachStreet and WizIQ and countless others are doing.
I’m reading Banker to the Poor right now and to be completely honest, it’s setting my hair on fire. What Yunus did was go into an area of the world where there was poverty and oppression and little hope and through his innovation helped to empower thousands and lift them out of poverty. Education offers the same opportunities. It already has lifted millions out of poverty in places like Singapore and India. And we’re just getting started.
It’s why we do what we do. Because we wholeheartedly agree with Chris. If we’re right, this will change everything.
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Bringing J-Bloggers Together
Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by Koichi.
On Saturday (that’s Sunday, Japan time though), eduFire hosted a J-blogger meetup for Japan-related bloggers located all over the world. Of course, eduFire is not a website that puts together virtual conferences. There was an educational aspect to this meetup as well (I swear!), and everyone (from J-bloggers, to non-bloggers, to wannabe bloggers) could attend and learn.
Although the conference was organized beforehand, had a presentation (on great Wordpress plugins for your blog), and had an agenda, the best part were all the spontaneous discussions. Someone would ask a question about blogging, J-blogging, Japan, etc., and there were always a few people that had a good answer. Everyone came away knowing more than they did three hours earlier (that’s right, it went on for three hours!), and I know several participants were inspired to start their own blogs up as well.
Here is a list of the Bloggers that joined us. I highly recommend you check out their blogs / websites!
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- Koichi (Tofugu)
- Deas (Rocking in Hakata)
- Carlie (GoddessCarlie)
- Louis (Xorsyst)
- Brett (Rainbowhill’s Language Lab)
- Nick (JapanSoc)
- Chris (NihongoNotes)
- Michael (MichaelDowney)
- Shane (Nihon Sun)
- Jason (Jason’s Advs in Rural Japan)
- Tae Kim (Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese)
- Dave (The Ramen Blues)
- Jonas (Yonasu.com)
- Kirk (Jamaipanese)
Thank you everyone for attending, it was great to have you!
