Articles of Interest 1/18/2017

EdLeadership

Here is an article with some amazing quotes to start your day.  I have included some that resonate with me:

• “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”
• “Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
  

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30 Profound Quotes From Eckhart Tolle That Will Change the Way You Spend Your Life - The Power of Ideas

Eckhart Tolle is a famous spiritual teacher promoting mindfulness and living in the now. His teachings often contradict what we are taught in the west. So many of us believe that we must work towards a future goal and happiness will only come if we reach it.

A Different View of How Schools Could Operate

Summit Schools are interesting.  The base-camp model is one that focuses on mastery and begins to develop into competency based education.  Truly if we could remove grade levels and move into that direction in public education, it might be for the better.  You can really see the effects that personalized learning can bring - as well as understand that you are meeting students where they are at, not by the average. Only time will tell how this model prepares students for a job market that is unpredictable. 
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Tech's Favorite School Faces Its Biggest Test: the Real World

On lengths of yarn stretched between chairs, sixth-grade math students were placing small yellow squares of paper, making number lines-including everything from fractions to negative decimals-in a classroom at Walsh Middle School. Working in teams one recent morning, they paper-clipped the squares along the yarn like little pieces of mathematical laundry.

EdTech Resources

If you know me, you do know that I do love to tinker around with gadgets.  This next article encourages us to tinker with some inexpensive open sourced materials to build things.  Cool things.  I am going to encourage some of our educators to do this. 
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Top 10 Raspberry Pi Projects for Beginners

Maybe you picked up a Raspberry Pi for the holidays, or you've been sitting on one of the super versatile, palm-sized computers for a while now. If you've been wondering how to get started with yours, or what you could build that's worthwhile, here are ten great ideas.