education conference intros

Hello all. As Terry has said, I'm the host of this conference. I'm going to create a few topics to start things off, but feel free to create your own. This conference is not limited to any one aspect of education, so whatever comes to mind is appropriate as long as it has to do with education in some form or another. That's not limited to formal education, either - if you want to talk about your learning experiences outside of formal educational settings, feel free; in fact, I'm going to start a topi for just that purpose. I'd be interested in hearing your opinions about educational practices and theories. My hope is that this conference can allow us to share ideas and experiences related to education. Perhaps we can even come up with some ways to help improve education in our communities. A little about myself. I live in the Kansas City area and work for a consulting company. I also work with an organization known as Virtual Online University (http://www.athena.edu/) that provides online education. VOU also provides consulting for organizations that want to use digital information technology (computers and networks) to provide innovative education.

I've been involved in educational technology and education research for about 12 years. I'm developing a theory of emotions and learning.

Is there a url where your theory is posted and/or are you willing to do so here? You may even start your own topic on it if you'd like...

See my article, "Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler" at http://www.musenet.org/WCE See especially my Articles on EdNet and the 5th installment, "Project-Based Learning and Communitas," which you can jump to directly with this URL: http://www.musenet.org/bkort/ednet/ednet.5.txt There is also a mathematical angle to this theory which doesn't travel well in ASCII. When I do the stand-up version of it, I rely on some bricolage involving a little puppet named Montana Mouse. It works pretty good as a stand-up, but loses its punch in flat ASCII. But see Moulton's Computer Dialogues at http://www.musenet.org/bkort/dialogues/Intro.html which date back to 1985.

Hello, Barry! Activity in this conference is usually minimal, maybe now that you're here that'll change.

I'm active on some mailing lists with eductors who focus on new technology. I had invited some of them to the Motet site at U-Mass. Perhaps I can lure them here, now that the U-Mass site is dark for the summer.

Hi, I'm an education PhD researcher from England. I'm researching language issues in primary schools in Mali, West Africa. Not much technology going on there in the primary schools I'm involved with. They're just desperate for brown paper for wall posters! Anyway, greetings to one and all, Maggie

Welcome to the Spring, Maggie!!!

Hiya, Maggie!

Hi, Maggie. I'm not a researcher or consultant or highly published intellectual. I am a real-life high school English teacher in Hawaii, more into the nuts and bolts than the theoretical. In fact, in my classes, we do have an occasional nut who bolts, and that's just the teacher!

Welcome Maggie, let us know the things you'd like to talk about and we can direct you to the right places or create them for you!

Thanks everyone for a warm welcome. As to what I'd like to talk about. Well, my real concern is how kids grow and learn when the facilities are so difficult. The kids we observed in classes in Mali are SO keen, and the teachers struggle against almost impossible odds, but their morale was great. We saw classes of 80 children with a rookie teacher. They'd only been in school 4 months and were already doing tens and units addition, reading cursive writing on posters with stories of up to 13 sentences. Using the mother tongue (as opposed o French) does seem to make a difference, but i think there's other things involved too. I coldn't help comparing what I saw to inner city schools in Britain (where I live). Maggie

attitude is HUGE... the attitude of the child towards education the attitude of the family the attitude of the community... (and WELCOME Maggie!)

Hello, everyone! I'm a graduate teaching assistant at the second largest university in Missouri. I'm an English major, and I'm teaching two sections of freshman composition this semester. This is my first time teaching ANYTHING, EVER, so obviously I was very nervous at the beginning but I'm getting better. My biggest problem is attitude--I've always been a dedicated student who did my homework without too much complaining, went to class every day, and participated in discussions. Now, I have students who could care less if they make a D, and I just don't understand that! Anyone have any ideas?

Please see my paper, Bring a Candle, Not a Sparkler.

Barry--I saw your article about computers in education, and somehow I think that computers will end up being a curse and not a blessing. All of the graduate assistants just had a lecture on Tuesday about the use of computers as learning tools for teaching English. I was rather unimpressed, since all of the assignments (part of Webquest) seemed as if they would be just as effectively delivered on paper, and the only purpose of doing them over the Internet was to make them look jazzy. Don't you think, th t in some situations, it would be detrimental to students to not have the benefit of actual human interaction? There have been many teachers of mine who I have learned so much simply by being in their presences, not only through the transmission of exactly what I'm supposed to be learning, but I also learned from their personalities and charisma. That's how I learned to be a teacher. But in a virtual classroom, students and teachers can't even look at one another. I just can't imagine having a class w th a teacher who wouldn't know me if he saw me on the street. It's impossible to really know someone by staring at text on a screen. What is your opinion on this?

The benefit of the telephone is that you can talk to someone who is not in the same room, not in the same town, not in the same country. I enjoy learning with people from many cultures, from far away places with strange sounding names.

Hi everyone ..have finally moved in here properly ...and I'll try and get things going. Come and join me and introduce yourselves and the education topics you're interested in. This conference can include almost anything to do with 'education' and at some point or other we have all been educated or hae little people who are undergoing education so everyone should be able to find something that interests them. Maggie