Reinventing School Invitation

Reinventing Schools - Invitation
I am participating in a course designed by Brendan O’Keefe entitled Reinventing School. The course consists of 33 lectures and assorted challenges that are housed on the Udemy platform. What’s it all about?
Mission: Fix Boring Schools, Not Kids Who Are Bored.

The Reinventing School Challenge is a project that uses design, collaboration, technology, play and social media to engage and empower young people to effect positive change in their school community. We invite students, teachers, parents, subject matter experts all to to collaborate. Form or join a team and research, ideate, design, remix and prototype new possibilities and reinvent the school experience.

The first challenge begins Sept 12 and submissions close Nov 7. Winners will be posted here on Nov 28 2011. You can register a team now and we’ll give you your very own page here on this site. Read More…

I want you to join me in creating a team to participate in the discussion on Re-Inventing Schools. My goal is forming a team of students, parents, teachers, administrators, superintendents and other experts and decision makers to tackle this challenge. There are differing positions on how schools should change, but I don’t think it can be reasonably argued that schools will not change. I believe that those invested in the success of the education enterprise should be involved in the process. One way to maximize the effectiveness of involvement is to be well versed not only in the complexity of the issues and processes, but in the actual design of our future schools. Who is a better position to be the designers of reinvented schools– educators or politicians?

What actually caught my attention to this course is the incorporation of Daniel Pink’s philosophy. A major thrust of his philosophy centers on transitioning our economy from the Information Age to what he refers to as the Conceptual Age. Preparation for participation in that economy requires a shift in the way educational institutions operate. Due to Abundance, Automation, and Asia (globalization), in order to maintain our standard of living, we will have to excel in the area of creativity and design. Our institutions of learning must prepare students for this type of work. More…

Take a look around Udemy, Reinventing School site, and the Course – (You will need to register, but can be done without obligation). The Reinventing School course contains a fabulous Design Thinking Tool Kit and incorporates a number of Design Exercises to assist participants incorporate design thinking. Not only is this very cutting edge stuff, it will likely be outstanding professional development and a ton of fun!

I hope you will consider joining me. Let me know. If it’s not for you, maybe you know someone that might participate, so forward away! Either way, thanks for your time!

Kenneth Jones
Spring Forest Middle School
Houston, Texas
eduheretic@gmail.com, Twitter - @eduheretic