Blogs
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Part of the idea for the Kusasa blog was to create a space for recording ideas and insights that are linked to the Kusasa approach. Kusasa is more that just the content we are creating, it represents a kind of head space. Last night while watching Cameroon trounce Ghana in the African Cup of Nations semi-final I started teasing out the following thoughts:
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We often hear educators complain that when their learners use the internet to find information for projects they simply copy and paste from the first reference that comes up on Google.
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I have been slowly working my way through the The Black Swan audio book by Nicholas Taleb and apart from finding the work pretty interesting generally, I was struck by the introduction of the concept of domain specific knowledge.
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A short course in thinking about thinking
Yesterday I came across A Short Course in Thinking About Thinking by Daniel Kahneman. What a fascinating resource! I was searching for “metacognition” but what I found there is relevant to so much of what we’re doing in Kusasa. For instance, in session one Kahneman talks about “inside” and “outside” views of planning or problem solving…
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In YouTube’s OK for scholars, non-profits and the queen (Thought Leader) I give examples of academia, international organisations and monarchs using YouTube to share content and engage their constituents.
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I wrote Fan fiction: Improving youth literacy to introduce fan fiction and a study that showed it as a legitimate way for youth to improve their literacy skills.
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Using MXit to learn
Using MXit to learn is a short piece I wrote for Thought Leader that highlights potential and real uses of MXit in the learning process, based on much-needed research.
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Education in an emerging participatory culture
A paper co-authored by Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, titled Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, considers the proliferation of online content creation and networking activities by teens in the USA.
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Online social networks and teen safety
While on the point of online social networks and teen safety, Pete Reilly, President of the New York Association of Computers and Technology in Education (NYSCATE), has written an article that uses various and contrasting statistics to help teachers (and parents) evaluate the risks. This quote is interesting:
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Online social networks and a teen's suicide
Last year Megan Meier, a 13-year-old from Missouri, committed suicide after an online relationship went sour. Megan thought she was dating a likable 16-year-old boy named Josh who she met on MySpace. After a month, Josh turned on her by sending cruel and abusive emails. It turns out that "Josh" was actually the 47-year-old mother -- Lori Drew -- of one of Megan's ex-friends. Lori was avenging her daughter, who Megan had apparently spurned in the past.