Learning Ecosystems

From DSC:
The other day, I was lamenting that the love of learning gets lost waaayyy too quickly in our youth. With drop out rates in the 25-30% range nationwide, we must turn this around.

A piece of that turn-around picture involves the opportunity for students to collaboratively create things (in a cross-disciplinary sort of way). This is why I am a big fan of multimedia-based projects:

• One student can write the script.
• Another can do the filming.
• Another can take pictures for still shots.
• Another can do the film and/or image editing.
• Others the acting or singing or playing music.
• Others can create the artwork or use their knowledge to create props
• Etc.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The film below discusses the dark side of our culture as it involves schools and education. But the topic is not just related to schools, but to our society in general. That is, we’ve been sold a bill of goods. We believe that you must earn a lot of money to be successful and happy…and that whomever dies w/ the most toys wins.

This competitive streak is a worldly way of looking at things…but is a powerful current to fight. In fact, coming from a competitive background and being a Christian (in faith) myself, I’ve often asked myself whether I believe competition is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t think I’ve arrived at the final answer to that question, as sometimes I think it can be good (as it can be helpful in developing characteristics of discipline, perseverance, character, integrity, etc.) and sometimes it can be bad. Check out the video/trainer here to see what I mean.