Do you want to take the leap into a personal learning network, but not sure which one is right for you? Why don’t you think about joining an online book group. There are two that I would like to highlight for you.

The first can be found at Teacher Places Book Clubs. In the past, this group has discussed Gardner’s FIve MInds for the Future, Medina’s Brain Rules, and Christenson’s Disruptive Class, all books which have had a huge impact on my thinking and understanding. They just have released there fall lineup, which looks extremely impressive as well:

First up is Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism.  Publishers Weekly says of the book:

Weighing in on a discourse that includes both visions of “clashing civilizations” and often equally misguided cultural relativism, Ghana-born Princeton philosopher Appiah reclaims a tradition of creative exchange and imaginative engagement across lines of difference.

Next is Beverly Tatum’s Can We Talk About Race?  The Boston Globe writes about this book:

A provocative and important book . . . What Tatum seeks to do above all is trigger sometimes challenging discussions about race, and infuse those discussions with a reality-based focus on how race affects us all. Her latest book does that beautifully, asking tough questions, and patiently, inclusively seeking answers.

Finally, for December, we are going to tackle Farhad Manjoo’s True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.  The review from Publisher’s Weekly says:

Manjoo rounds out his analysis by examining the workings of “partisan news realities,” and he points out that the first casualty in these truth wars is a basic human and civic need: trust. Though several of the author’s ideas are repetitiously threaded through his narrative, Manjoo has produced an engaging, illustrative look at the dangers of living in an oversaturated media world.

All three books look to address key issues that we, as a community of colleagues and educators, need to engage if we are to help our students, our schools, and our communities to navigate a world where divisiveness and sophistry appear to reign.

Additionally, a group of teachers at Stevenson High School have begun a year-long book study on Don Tapscott’s Wikinomics. This book talks about how collaboration in the business place is beginning to change the way business is done. The focus of this group is to talk about how the ideas apply to education.

We have been invited to participate if you would like the schedule for the reading is not cumbersome. It is:

Timeline:
9/24 Read Intro through pg. 64 (Ch. 1 & 2)
11/5 Read pgs. 65 – 124 (Ch. 3 & 4)
1/21 Read pgs. 124-182 (Ch. 5 & 6)
2/4 Read pgs. 183-238 (Ch. 7 &
3/18 Read pgs. 239-287 (Ch. 9 & 10)
4/30 Read pgs. 288-315 (Ch. 11)

To participate in the conversation, visit the following blog – http://wikinomics-book-study.blogspot.com/

From the Google Teacher Newsletter:

All around Google (and all around the world), there is buzz which is quickly turning into a roar about this November’s election. Google has teamed up with the National Student/Parent Mock Election to get students of all ages as excited as we are about the November U.S. elections by bringing into the classroom some of the same tools and technologies that have changed politics in this country so dramatically. To get a sense of just how dramatically the Internet has changed politics, consider this: YouTube didn’t exist during the last Presidential election, and yet today it’s a central part of the political dialogue. To check out some of our tools and technologies, please visit:  http://www.google.com/educators/elections_tools.html

Elections Tools for Teachers makes it easy to bring some of the best Internet tools into the classroom to get your students engaged. You’ll find descriptions and suggested learning activities for tools like YouTube, Google Maps, Elections Video Search and Power Readers. Check it out and send us your feedback:  https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pTM7o25sgF7ywCqyk_gZzXA

This idea comes from Kim Cofino, who is the Elementary 21st Century Literacy Specialist at the International School in Bangkok, Thailand. On Monday, Kim posted an idea on her blog, always learning, on Monday, October 1st entitled Collaborative Ideas Number 3: Creating a Flat Classroom Project. In this post, Kim shares:

Our goal is to enable students to develop their very own personal learning network so that they are able to construct knowledge with peers from all over the world – just like we do every single day!

Here are some of our ideas:

• Because our students are just about to learn about graphing, our first idea was to create an online survey for each school to complete. We would then determine which kind of graph is best for the data, graph the results and then analyze and interpret the data.
• Next, using our surveying and graphing skills, we would send out a pre-assessment survey about a topic that our class is studying (we’re thinking of using the “sound” unit). Based on the results of the survey, our students would develop an online tutorial (either a video, a VoiceThread, a screen capture using Jing, a Smart Board notebook exported as a video, or any other tool that would work) to teach the other students about sound. The other classes could do the same for us so that we all learn something new and we all have an authentic audience for our work.
• In order to keep developing reading skills, we could create leveled groups of readers – just like we do in class – with our collaborative partners. Each group could have their own virtual group on the Ning. This way, even if we don’t have an ability match directly in the classroom, we can find appropriate partners within our network of classes.
• Our students are going to be studying Australia soon and, thanks to the amazingly well-connected Alexander Hayes, we have a great contact with a rural aboriginal school in Western Australia. How amazing would it be for our students studying Australia to actually communicate and collaborate with native Australians!

These are just the few ideas we brainstormed during our first meeting today. What else could we be doing in our collaborative virtual classroom?

Are you interested in joining this project?

This seems like a great project that will forward our desire to promote the Global Awareness of our students. Let’s see if we could get someone to join.