Wednesday’s class was one of those classes that make you glad you’re an educator. Once again, I prove that my greatest strength as a teacher is my ability to outsource and maximize my network. In the early stages of this course there’s no question that students feel overwhelmed. They are introduced to many new concepts and ideas that are pretty foreign to most’s wondered if a few of my students from previous sessions would want to share with my current students what if anything they learned and are using today.  I have spent a fair bit of time with Kyle Lichtenwald so while his responses were excellent, they were not all that surprising since he and I are fairly connected. Darin Janssen and Nicole Little were students in my Winter 2008 class. Both showed quite a bit of growth in the class and were two that continued blogging.  They shared some powerful lessons about many of the themes I’ve tried to focus on throughout the class: Learning is social and connected Learning is personal and self-directed Learning is shared and transparent Learning is rich in content and diversity If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the work I do is that the more you can point to others who are doing the right work, the more powerful and applicable it is. Darren’s student voices is a great example of this.   Alan November has apparently discovered this as well. In other words, “don’t take my word for it, listen to these people”. Listen to these three students share their discovery and application of networked learning. Everyone once in a while you try something and it turns out far better than you imagined. Photo: The Blonde, the Contrabass and the Microphone #5 http://www.flickr.com/photos/brtsergio/1275188911/ Less

Wednesday’s class was one of those classes that make you glad you’re an educator. Once again, I prove that my greatest strength as a teacher is my ability to outsource and maximize my network. In the early stages of this course there’s no question that students feel overwhelmed. They are introduced to many new concepts and ideas that are pretty foreign to most’s wondered if a few of my students from previous sessions would want to share with my current students what if anything they learned and are using today.  I have spent a fair bit of time with Kyle Lichtenwald so while his responses were excellent, they were not all that surprising since he and I are fairly connected. Darin Janssen and Nicole Little were students in my Winter 2008 class. Both showed quite a bit of growth in the class and were two that continued blogging.  They shared some powerful lessons about many of the themes I’ve tried to focus on throughout the class: Learning is social and connected Learning is personal and self-directed Learning is shared and transparent Learning is rich in content and diversity If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the work I do is that the more you can point to others who are doing the right work, the more powerful and applicable it is. Darren’s student voices is a great example of this.   Alan November has apparently discovered this as well. In other words, “don’t take my word for it, listen to these people”. Listen to these three students share their discovery and application of networked learning. Everyone once in a while you try something and it turns out far better than you imagined. Photo: The Blonde, the Contrabass and the Microphone #5 http://www.flickr.com/photos/brtsergio/1275188911/ Less

Speaking to reporters after the first presidential debate, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour says that he found it interesting that Barack Obama, the “candidate for change,” agreed with the president on the financial crisis package, while the Democratic Party didn’t care what he had to say. (0:27) Share This Less

iPod | 5:46 | To Embed or Email: click above Have you heard of the Master Cleanse, sometimes called the Lemon Cleanse? I did a while back for 10 days, and shared a few insights about it in today's episode. For me, it was not about the specifics of the program as much as it was about taking a dramatic step to wrestle free from some hard to change habits I no longer wanted. Hawaiian Word: Hoʻopau: to stop, cease If you purchase a Rama Warrior Meditation Chair, you receive a Free Zendi Portable Meditation Cushion. P S We are using Viddler. It has a lot of cool features - you can leave a comment right in the video - or even leave a video comment! Please check it out! (You will need to create free account at Viddler to leave a video comment.) To find the vidgets page on viddler, look in the footer at the bottom of the page! Our username is "beachwalks" if you want to make a custom player to put on your web site. Thanks for sharing! Join us at The Reef for discussion, Reef Radio, and occasional live streaming. Support us by buying your own copy of our Beach Walks Theme music. Please check out our Blogroll page with many more links to our friends' web sites. Less

It’s always interesting to hear from others how they promote and support learning in their school district. Here’s my story. My district is 3 years old, an amalgamation of 7 small districts into 1. Building culture, unity and morale has been challenging but in many ways is going really well. The big challenge I have is that I’m the only person really focusing on technology, outside of our online classes, supporting 35 schools and 7,000 students. I’m good, but I’m not that good. We previously had some level of instructional support at the school level but staff cuts have pretty much reduced to zero at most schools. So how can I possibly help teachers make the shifts necessary to develop rich, relevant learning for students? Although I’d love more support, I recognize that’s not likely to happen. What I do have is a group of administrators who for the most part want to push the envelope and provide teachers with everything they can to make them better. We have a number of administrators committed to changing schools to providing authentic, relevant and connected classrooms. They challenge their teachers to become better, and are truly instructional leaders as opposed to paper pushers. They allow their teachers to try and explore. I’ve begun many great conversations with them and sense their desire for change. These folks are the real key to the change. So every 6 weeks when they meet, I get some time to plant seeds of change and they’re taking root. The overall plan for our division likely doesn’t look like many strategic plans. We’ve resisted trying to get to specific but rather employ principles of learning that will last.  We are using the new ISTE standards as a guide and specifically this year we’ll pay attention to the second student standard of Communication and Collaboration. Today I brought in 5 teachers who are on the right track, specifically in the area of social learning.  I asked administrators to move from station to station allowing teachers to share, for them to ask questions and try to learn more about what they do in their classrooms. I then invited any administrators to share with their schools and contact me about developing some ongoing support both face to face and online. I immediately had some great conversations afterwards from a number of principals as they either enter into social learning or enhance what they have. I have no illusions in knowing there will be some who just don’t buy in, but I’m not worried about those as much as I am glad to have the vast majority looking forward and supporting teachers. So our model has been to share, invite, support and learn together.  We don’t typically run workshops for blogging, or any other of the latest software. We count on teachers to make the changes and they are. If there is an interest in learning a new tool, we’ll try and find someone or I’ll do the work but we want to focus on big ideas of teaching and learning, “what are the shifts we need to make?” We are building capacity by holding up our champions and doing what we can to allow them to flourish and encourage others. Slow at times but it’s the model we’re sticking with. prairiesouth, administrators Less

iPod | 3:15 | To Embed or Email: click above One of the big myths floating around is that a person's position or title is comparable to their competence. Not always true! Like me, I am sure you can think of examples. Many choices in life really do boil down to personal preferences. "Who you know" really does matter, and that is not always a bad thing. This turned out to be relevant in a discussion I was having with several other women speakers. We are all going to be presenting at BlogWorldExpo next week, where there keynote speakers are all white male. It's an old issue, but one that is not all that easy to address. It is a combination of micro and macro energies in play. We have ideals we want to play out in the macro yet change happens in the micro of person to person relationships. The majority of the time decision-makers go with the known quantity. This is seen by some as pandering by others as smart business to fill seats. Attendees too say they want something new, but are attracted to the known and familiar too. BlogHer is a women's blogging conference, and founder Elisa Camahort prides herself in pro-attractively seeking out new voices for each event. And BlogHer is growing and growing - priving that this too is a viable business model. Are you more attracted to familiar big names or the chance to help discover new talent? Hawaiian Word: ʻike: experience, to see, know, feel P S We are using Viddler. It has a lot of cool features - you can leave a comment right in the video - or even leave a video comment! Please check it out! (You will need to create free account at Viddler to leave a video comment.) To find the vidgets page on viddler, look in the footer at the bottom of the page! Our username is "beachwalks" if you want to make a custom player to put on your web site. Thanks for sharing! Join us at The Reef for discussion, Reef Radio, and occasional live streaming. Support us by buying your own copy of our Beach Walks Theme music. Please check out our Blogroll page with many more links to our friends' web sites. Less

iPod | 4:17 | To Embed or Email: click above One of the profound yet not often acknowledged (by me) benefits of living in community with other people is that some choose to be the ones who go forward into the unknown, and those adventures ultimately inform and inspire the rest of us. I often think of myself as one of those explorers. Sometimes though, I feel pressure to have to always be on the front line. Today's episode honors those others who have shown me the way, especially my parents, Blanche and Bill. Hawaiian Word: Loli: change, transformation P S We are using Viddler. It has a lot of cool features - you can leave a comment right in the video - or even leave a video comment! Please check it out! (You will need to create free account at Viddler to leave a video comment.) To find the vidgets page on viddler, look in the footer at the bottom of the page! Our username is "beachwalks" if you want to make a custom player to put on your web site. Thanks for sharing! Join us at The Reef for discussion, Reef Radio, and occasional live streaming. Support us by buying your own copy of our Beach Walks Theme music. Please check out our Blogroll page with many more links to our friends' web sites. Less

Today's podcast once again features Dr. Timothy Leary. The label on the cassette tape on which this talk was recorded gives the title of this lecture as "American Culture (1945-1985)", but in the talk Dr. Leary provides us with another title, "Some thoughts about change". No matter what you call this talk, the range of topics it covers means it is bound to touch on at least one of your interests. Program notes may be found at: www.PsychedelicSalon.org Less

Today's podcast once again features Dr. Timothy Leary. The label on the cassette tape on which this talk was recorded gives the title of this lecture as "American Culture (1945-1985)", but in the talk Dr. Leary provides us with another title, "Some thoughts about change". No matter what you call this talk, the range of topics it covers means it is bound to touch on at least one of your interests. Program notes may be found at: www.PsychedelicSalon.org Less

Up first we look at X-Men #26. Pete thinks this issue was fantastic. Next up it's Final Crisis #3. Alex reminds us about his million dollar bet with Pete. Find out who has to pay up! Then it's Secret Invasion: Thor #1. The guys like the perspective that the Secret Invasion satellite titles provide, and definitely think you should check it out. We also have a Speed Round and a Viewer Mail session. Less

iPod | 4:07 | To Embed or Email: click on "Menu." We had a last minute change of plans recently. At first I found it very disorienting. Then Shane helped me by asking, "What's the opportunity here?" And that single question opened up a whole new way of looking at things. We don't always know best ahead of time; sometimes "even better" shows up unannounced. Hawaiian Word: Manawa kūpono: opportunity P S We are trying a new video platform: Viddler. It has a lot of cool features - you can leave a comment right in the video - or even leave a video comment! Please check it out! (You will need to create free account at Viddler to leave a video comment.) To find the vidgets page on viddler, look in the footer at the bottom of the page! Our username is "beachwalks" if you want to make a custom player to put on your web site. Thanks for sharing! Join us at The Reef for discussion, Reef Radio, and occasional live streaming. Support us by buying your own copy of our Beach Walks Theme music. Please check out our Blogroll page with many more links to our friends' web sites. Less

Welcome to RISE, an audio podcast series by LeapZone Strategies. In this momentum-generating series, Isabelle Mercier Turcotte will lead you through what it takes to move forward towards reaching your goals. Through expert advice, tips, tools, insights and experiences, our focus is to help you continually make small shifts to build momentum and increase your brand equity. The easy-to-use media of audio podcasts offers a simple way to learn, be inspired and empowered, and continuously connect with ideas and proven strategies that will help you raise the bar. CHANGE: THE ONLY THING YOU CAN COUNT ON 100%. Learn 8 simple steps to THRIVE in a forever changing world. Thanks for Tuning In LeapZone would like to hear what you think we should Podcast on, so don’t be shy, share your thoughts and ideas to help us make this series most valuable for you and your team. Less

Welcome to RISE, an audio podcast series by LeapZone Strategies. In this momentum-generating series, Isabelle Mercier Turcotte will lead you through what it takes to move forward towards reaching your goals. Through expert advice, tips, tools, insights and experiences, our focus is to help you continually make small shifts to build momentum and increase your brand equity. The easy-to-use media of audio podcasts offers a simple way to learn, be inspired and empowered, and continuously connect with ideas and proven strategies that will help you raise the bar. CHANGE: THE ONLY THING YOU CAN COUNT ON 100%. Learn 8 simple steps to THRIVE in a forever changing world. Thanks for Tuning In LeapZone would like to hear what you think we should Podcast on, so don’t be shy, share your thoughts and ideas to help us make this series most valuable for you and your team. Less

Sharon Ayn joined us on the show today. She is the author of five books, including the newly released Create Your Own Reality: The Ancient Wisdom. Sharon has made many appearances on radio and television, including the nationally syndicated radio show, Minding Your Business, and an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. . . What inspired you to write your latest book? . . I work with entrepreneurs and people who have been downsized, and I’ve found one thing that’s consistent. People know they could do better, work less, and make more money, but without someone stimulating their imagination, it’s very difficult to go through a change. So the book is designed to help people realize that, no matter what’s going on in their life, if they take one step or enroll one person at a time, they can change anything that isn’t the way they wanted it. . When we talked before our interview, you said that this book goes beyond where The Secret took us. . .  Exactly. I love the fact that The Secret brought consciousness to so many people about staying positive, but the one thing people missed is being in action. You have to be in action. It's not enough just to think about it. You have to take a proactive role in your life. . What do you think keeps people from taking action … what is it that holds people back? . . Some people truly believe that they’re not entitled. Some people think it’s too much work to get what they want. Other people are too overwhelmed by what’s first, so they just stay at what they’re doing even if it’s not what they want. . For someone who feels that, what would be the one thing you would tell them to work on right now? . .  Make a list of all the things you want to change, but put it in the positive. I work with clients who want a better job. I get them to describe what it’s like to work at the company, what their tasks are, what the people are like that they work with. And then backtrack – how do we get to that point? So for anything that you want to change, what is the first step you can take to be in control? Because I think a lot of this is people feeling that they are out of control of their own lives. . That is awesome … there’s a lot of practical advice that people can use right away in this book. . .  It’s simple knowledge that most people don’t apply to their own life, even though they might be aware of it. . .  Oprah calls it the “aha” moment. What do you call it? . . It’s the dawning of the day when, like in City Slickers, you get your “do over”. So don’t think, my life is just surrounded by quagmire, all my friends are always complaining and leaning on me, my relationship isn’t working … we’re fighting all the time, I hate my job, and all these things. Instead, think about every day being brand new. Every day, we get to reinvest ourselves. . Sharon’s book comes with bonuses You get an incredible $4,661 in bonuses when you buy Sharon’s wonderful book, including great material from: Annie Jennings, who helps people who want to be authors or speakers, and get interviewed on the radio. Dave Sheffield, who works with corporations, helping people take the first step to change what’s happening in their career. Jim Bouchard, a good friend of ours, who helps people tap into their personal power. Jim’s material alone makes it a great deal to us! Find Sharyn's book at createyours2.com Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes.  Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Related posts How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be Back To The Future: Visualizing The Life You Want (Part 1) Back To The Future: Visualizing The Life You Want (Part 2)  ShareThis Less

I’m not much of an environmentalist although I recycle a bit and am trying to be more aware but this video raises many interesting questions and ideas. Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo. Carrotmob takes Tuangou (group buying for discounts) to a more altruistic level. Very Shirykesque wouldn’t you say? I recall Shirky stating (sorry I can’t find the page number) that although group organization is now ridiculously easy, that most organizations were reactive rather than proactive. This is the type of thing that illustrates the ability to be proactive. The democratization of economics is one idea that I hadn’t really considered. The monopolization of companies in reality or practice doesn’t need to exist. I’m looking forward to seeing passionate, connected teachers leading students in group formation that changes our world. Less

I’m not much of an environmentalist although I recycle a bit and am trying to be more aware but this video raises many interesting questions and ideas. Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo. Carrotmob takes Tuangou (group buying for discounts) to a more altruistic level. Very Shirykesque wouldn’t you say? I recall Shirky stating (sorry I can’t find the page number) that although group organization is now ridiculously easy, that most organizations were reactive rather than proactive. This is the type of thing that illustrates the ability to be proactive. The democratization of economics is one idea that I hadn’t really considered. The monopolization of companies in reality or practice doesn’t need to exist. I’m looking forward to seeing passionate, connected teachers leading students in group formation that changes our world. Less

There’s a rising call for developed countries to track happiness, rather than just income and wealth. Economists say that the goal of a “rational actor” is to maximize his or her “utility” – their fancy term for happiness – over the course of his or her life. Perhaps governments are trying to catch up with the economists! . . Leicester University in England has tracked happiness for the past 30 years. Consistently, Denmark – not Disneyland – has topped their list as the happiest place on earth. We wondered why … why are the people in Denmark so darn happy? Is it the weather? Average temperatures in Copenhagen are about 68 degrees in the summer and around zero in the winter. We don’t know about you, but that’s not our idea of great weather! Is it the taxes? Like her sister Scandinavian countries, Denmark has some of the highest taxes in the world. Now, granted those taxes are matched with some of the highest benefits for any citizenry. Is it their lifestyle or their habits? Danes are some the heaviest drinkers and smokers in the world? Is it their diet? One of the staples of the Danish diet is herring – this is a country that eats a lot of herring! . So it can’t be the diet, because … maybe it’s just my personal taste, but ick! . . . Now there a lot of theories about what makes the Danes so happy. One of my theories is that they drink so much, they don’t remember whether they’re happy or not! . . Seriously, theories are fine, but we thought we should look at what the research shows is driving this happiness. Professor Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark found that Danes have low expectations. Because of this culture of expecting less, the people are happy when good things happen. This made us think of something Tony Robbins said – if you’re not happy, you have a choice. You can either change your conditions or your expectations. But what if you don’t want to change your expectations? Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches the most popular class at Harvard University, found that the single most significant predictor of happiness is close relationships with friends and family. We found it interesting that 92 percent of Danes belong to some sort of social club. Maybe that’s why social media has become so bigg! What do you think? Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed. Sources University of Leicester Produces the first ever World Map of Happiness Why Danes are smug: comparative study of life satisfaction in the European Union Denmark: The Happiest Place on Earth Denmark ‘happiest place on earth’ The REAL Happiest Place on Earth And The Happiest Place On Earth Is… (Image by nookiez) ShareThis Less

Eugene Grant and the Campaign for a Brighter Future Together perform at the Trash Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on June 26th. www.eugenegrant.us/site/music/forward_brighter_days Less

Eugene Grant and the Campaign for a Brighter Future Together perform at the Trash Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on July 5th, 2008. www.eugenegrant.us/site/music/freedom_is_a_tonic Less

Eugene Grant and the Campaign for a Brighter Future Together perform at the Trash Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on July 5th, 2008. www.eugenegrant.us/site/music/brighter_future_together Less