So long September, you were a blast. To bring the month of mist and mellow fruitfulness to a close, here's this week's 'best of the web' round-up of articles, posts and content that's given us food for thought.
What is learner-centred learning?
Ain case you missed it, 26 September was World Heutagogy Day! Heutagogy or self-determined learning is a core belief of everyone here at pi-top HQ, so if you'd like to find out more about it, this blog, https://myheutagogy.wordpress.com/ by Fred Garnett contains everything you need to know.
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The (poorer) kids are alright
A new survey by Ipsos for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers campaign, reveals high levels of optimism about the future. The report found that people aged 12 to 24 in middle- and low-income countries had the brightest vision for the future. Mexico's youth topped the poll with a 92% positive feeling, despite living in a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world. Young people in both Mexico and Brazil also believed Improving Education should be the top priority for Global leaders. According to Fast Company, 'the obvious reason is that poverty and inequity in many of these places has been reduced dramatically in recent years'.
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Keeping parents in the loop
As more schools deploy education technology in the classroom, making sure mom and dad know what's going on. This article, 'Connecting parents with edtech' from District Administrator magazine, contains some simple tips for all schools to ensure parents understand what their children are doing and how they can get involved.
How to create a school with less testing
Two days a week staff should leave school at 4.15pm with nothing in their hands
Inspirational stuff from headteacher Flora Barton at Crowmarsh Gifford CE Primary School, Oxfordshire in the Education On Fire podcast. At her school, well-being is put first, and she talks about how creating an assessment system for learning and stopping marking and testing has led to success. Well worth a listen on your way into the classroom.
Between Worlds
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E2JoEzVBRY]
Finally, we enjoyed this Google-backed story of how a self-taught coder became an advocate for her community. At 11, Robin Máxkii had moved from Stockbridge-Munsee reservation to Houston. She was thrilled that the city library could help her get online, but even when the centre was mostly empty, each computer imposed a 30min time limit for browsing. She eventually clicked to the computer’s settings and simply turned off the time limit.
It wasn’t a hack in the sense of being able to brute force something, but I realised that I could tell the computer what to do. There were so many obstacles, and then once you’re on it there are endless possibilities.
Want more? Here's week 38 and week 37 'still fresh' best of the web...
