Social Education » Wikipedia

Social Networks and the Students: the Clickeratis: Tutorbene

Admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:48:11 +0000

Clickerati: The Generation Born After the Mid-90s Who Cannot Imagine Life without the Internet.

Back when your parents were in school, they actually had to initiate in-person conversations if they wanted a social life. Of course, that was when they weren’t walking two miles to school, in the snow, uphill — both ways.

The computer savvy kids have it so easy these days with their darn social networks!

Today social Networks, Wikis and Blogs are changing the informational, social, political, and educational landscapes. Wikipedia has become the information resource of choice. There are more than 160 million users on MySpace. YouTube is hosting 80 million videos and managing 3 million user accounts. Hundreds of millions of people are gathering daily on the Web to explore, express and exchange media projects and ideas through online social networks. A large portion of them are children and youth. Whether it’s for keeping in touch with friends or rating professors’ classroom performances, there’s little students can’t find out about in their communities by using such networks.

“The internet isn’t as dangerous as people think, and teachers should let students use social networks at school.”

That’s the surprising new recommendation from the National School Boards Association — a not-for-profit organization representing 95,000 school board members. When the children and youths are so involved with their internet obligations why aren’t the parents thinking of involving their kids in various learning activities which can be integrated with the Internet.

Tutorbene.com an online education portal has taken the lead to bring tutoring online. Empowered by high end technological tools like virtual classroom and whiteboard they provide various fun activities to understand the difficult concepts of mathematics or science. One on one live tutoring, flexible scheduling of classes and quality education makes the option worthy. Creative writing and Vedic mathematics are the supplementary courses which provide a wonderful fun filled summer vacation activity. Name the subject and you find it there. Assignments, projects, Home work blues, Tutorbene.com is a one stop solution for this.

So, bring out the creative in you, explore your horizons and make the most out of your beloved internet.

By: Susan Edwards

wwwforum clickeratis com br

Waldorf Education – A 21St Century Masterpiece

Admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:11:38 +0000

The first Waldorf school was initiated in 1919 by the Austrian spiritual scientist, Rudolf Steiner. Today there are over a thousand schools in over sixty countries around the globe. From Wikipedia: “The Waldorf approach emphasizes the role of the imagination in learning, developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component. Studies of the education describe its overarching goal as providing young people the basis on which to develop into free, moral and integrated individuals, and to help every child fulfill his or her unique destiny. ” If a creative soul wanted to originate a system of education that developed the potential of its students in an optimal way, that person would base the model on a deep understanding of the human being. Such an understanding would have to entail the whole human being, especially the deeper, spiritual aspects. That is why our current, mainstream forms of education fail so miserably – we live in a materialistic age, and most of the people in charge of education have little knowledge of the more substantial aspects of humanity. Because the Waldorf system is, in a sense, a deep pool to enter, in terms of coming to understand it, several points need to be considered. Some of the main aspects are presented below. Considerations Regarding Waldorf Education: Waldorf Education strives to focus holistically, that is, to develop all three functions of the human soul – thinking, feeling and willing – on an equal basis. Thus, in addition to academic training, art, music, and drama are presented (the feeling arena), as well as the doing of things – fine motor activity such as handwork, and agility/coordination exercises (the willing arena). By comprehending the long term social/spiritual evolution of humanity, Steiner was able to re-capitulate that development in his educational vision, and to align it in such a way as to match the particular age of a child directly with the curriculum. Steiner fine-tuned this so that the body of story content presented to any given age resonates with the consciousness of the child, as it changes and advances through the grades. Norse myths, for example, meet the specific nature of the child’s consciousness in Grade Four in an abiding way. The stories reside in the main lesson material in a core manner. They are the heart of the lessons, from which the various subjects are integrated and counter-woven. The Waldorf teacher strives to present content from the whole to the parts. As much as possible, reductionist approaches are avoided, and holism prevails. Of utmost importance is avoiding over-taxing the natural unfolding of the child’s etheric constitution. Overly intellectual activity in a child before age 9, and especially before age 7 – such as reading, with it’s excessive mental demand (coding, de-coding, culturally contrived mental gymnastics) – not only can damage the child’s health in subsequent years, due to excessive drain on the constitution-forming etheric forces, but proves to be of no long term value (see next point). The debilitating effects of such practices are experienced in eyesight, constitutional energetics, the immune system, and later on in life, a variety of hardening effects (sclerotic conditions, hardening of arteries, etc. ). To view the whole article visit the Insight21 site.

Waldorf Education – a Social Masterpiece

Admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:37:15 +0000

The first Waldorf school was initiated in 1919 by the Austrian spiritual scientist, Rudolf Steiner. Today there are over a thousand schools in over sixty countries around the globe.

From Wikipedia:

“The Waldorf approach emphasizes the role of the imagination in learning, developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytic component. Studies of the education describe its overarching goal as providing young people the basis on which to develop into free, moral and integrated individuals, and to help every child fulfill his or her unique destiny.”

If a creative soul wanted to originate a system of education that developed the potential of its students in an optimal way, that person would base the model on a deep understanding of the human being. Such an understanding would have to entail the whole human being, especially the deeper, spiritual aspects. That is why our current, mainstream forms of education fail so miserably – we live in a materialistic age, and most of the people in charge of education have little knowledge of the more substantial aspects of humanity.

Because the Waldorf system is, in a sense, a deep pool to enter, in terms of coming to understand it, several points need to be considered. Some of the main aspects are presented below.

Considerations Regarding Waldorf Education:

Waldorf Education strives to focus holistically, that is, to develop all three functions of the human soul – thinking, feeling and willing – on an equal basis. Thus, in addition to academic training, art, music, and drama are presented (the feeling arena), as well as the doing of things – fine motor activity such as handwork, and agility/coordination exercises (the willing arena).

By comprehending the long term social/spiritual evolution of humanity, Steiner was able to re-capitulate that development in his educational vision, and to align it in such a way as to match the particular age of a child directly with the curriculum. Steiner fine-tuned this so that the body of story content presented to any given age resonates with the consciousness of the child, as it changes and advances through the grades. Norse myths, for example, meet the specific nature of the child’s consciousness in Grade Four in an abiding way.

The stories reside in the main lesson material in a core manner. They are the heart of the lessons, from which the various subjects are integrated and counter-woven.

The Waldorf teacher strives to present content from the whole to the parts. As much as possible, reductionist approaches are avoided, and holism prevails.

Of utmost importance is avoiding over-taxing the natural unfolding of the child’s etheric constitution. Overly intellectual activity in a child before age 9, and especially before age 7 – such as reading, with it’s excessive mental demand (coding, de-coding, culturally contrived mental gymnastics) – not only can damage the child’s health in subsequent years, due to excessive drain on the constitution-forming etheric forces, but proves to be of no long term value (see next point). The debilitating effects of such practices are experienced in eyesight, constitutional energetics, the immune system, and later on in life, a variety of hardening effects (sclerotic conditions, hardening of arteries, etc.).

To view the whole article visit the Insight21 site at www.insight21.net

By: J Graf