(cc) Roger Jones

For too long learners have been let down by the way they’ve  been taught math.

In fact, a lack of math proficiency remains one of the biggest single problems shared by learners across the globe, regardless of country.

Sarah Bartram is an online teaching pioneer who is making a difference for hundreds of learners who are fed up and reaching out for help with math - online.

An out-of-the-box thinker, it’s not too surprising that Sarah has chosen to teach online. But it is interesting that her passion and commitment to teaching developed OUTSIDE the expected teachers’college.

Yes, you read that right.

While Sarah is college trained, she is not a “certified” teacher. Instead, she is a woman with a sheer love of mathematics, a person who enjoys helping people understand and solve math problems they find too challenging to solve on their own.

And she’s made it her business to help them!

Learners LOVE working with Sarah because she makes their needs her #1 priority.

It’s easy to see just HOW MUCH they love working with her, skimming through the hundreds of stellar reviews they have left for her on LivePerson.com.

Basing her work on the belief that everyone can learn math, Sarah uses her online teaching business and her face-to-face tutoring practice to make a very decent living doing exactly what she loves most - teaching mathematics.

(cc) Ben Cummings

How simple can you get?

1. Learners ask for and receive the math help they need.
2. Sarah makes a decent living doing what she loves.
3. Things start turning around for learners - Online.

I invite you to listen to Sarah talk about how she’s doing her part to make a dent in a global problem - that really doesn’t have to be a global problem.

…then I suggest you consider how you might start sharing your teaching passions DIRECTLY with global learners - online.

You don’t have to quit teaching to collect on your education!

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FIND, USE, SHARE, and EXPAND

It’s been awhile since Steve Johnson described the FUSE process but I’m noticing that some people haven’t heard the term… or thought as carefully about it as might be useful.

It seems to me that understanding FUSE is crucial to understanding the revolution that’s going on in online learning, especially for teachers who are turning into educational entrepreneurs:

“In the Web 2.0 model, we have thousands of services scrutinizing each new piece of information online, grabbing interesting bits, remixing them in new ways, and passing them along to other services.

Each new addition to the mix can be exploited in countless new ways, both by human bloggers and by the software programs that track changes in the overall state of the Web.

Information in this new model is analyzed, repackaged, digested, and passed on down to the next link in the chain. It flows.”

It’s true that human beings are innovating and creating new things faster and faster. Maybe faster than ever before in the history of the world.

It’s also true that there’s really nothing new under the Sun. All hum,an beings are ever doing is repackaging and repurposing things in new ways for new applications in new times and new places. And that’s all we’ve ever done.

Yes, we’re developing unique “intellectual properties.” And we’ve always been making our intellectual properties on the shoulders of others. N’est-ce-pas?

The read-write-web, or Web 2.0, is simply accelerating this process in ways that are truly mind-boggling!

What seems to me to be crucial for teachers - of all kinds - who are wanting to make the transition from wage slaves to education entrepreneurs online is that we master the art of FUSE:

FIND, USE, SHARE, and EXPAND

… while remaining mindful that our FUSING has REAL VALUE to others and we need to be rewarded for adding value as we feed the flow of information from one place to another, one person to another.

What do you think about this?

I’d really like to hear your perspective on FUSE.

How are you using FUSE to shape your online teaching and learning?

What kinds of rewards are you seeking for the value you’re adding to the lives of online learners?

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As the US economy gets tighter and tighter, everywhere I turn, another friend is telling me they want to see some REAL CHANGE - meaning they want their life to feel better, easier, more rewarding and more meaningful.

But the trouble is, they’re experiencing some or all of these symptoms:

1. They have lots to be grateful for, yet can’t stop thinking about what’s not right in their lives…
2. They sabotage themselves by dwelling on stuff that happens and let it pull them down, down, down..
3. They know they are depressed, but can’t seem to find a lifeline to pull themselves back up…
4. They’ve heard about the Law of Attraction, but feel that maybe it works for some, but not for them…

Maybe there are days when you feel this way. I know I have them…

Do you wish there was a way to STOP all this negativity in its tracks and flip the switch on your bad attitude right in this very moment?

Well, hold onto your hats, because I’ve found a simple little thing that will do just that. No kidding!

It’s called AttitudeZapz! by Debbie Thomas and it is a collection of short, catchy little jingles made with affirmation statements as the lyrics. They get quickly stuck in your head, so you can be reciting your affirmations all day long.

Ever read through a list of affirmations that you passionately wrote at one time, but your subconscious “Belief Detective” has kept calling you, “Liar, liar, pants on fire?” so you finally gave up in disgust and stopped reciting them?

Well you can go here and find the antidote for that one!

Here’s the exciting part: when was the last time your subconscious “Belief Detective” argued with you about song lyrics?

These AttitudeZapz! are so short and catchy, they are a breeze to memorize, so the lyrics slip right past that monster and start seeping in into your subconscious in no time.

I’ve found - no kidding - that I’m singing them in my head when I wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. And then, once I’m up in the morning, and someone does something that might really have set me off, I notice the antidote lyric pops up right when I need it. I go sailing through, with my mind clear and bright and the situation turns around on a dime.

If you’ve ever struggled to find a way to change your attitude in the MOMENT, you’ve got to try this.

Go here to check it out for yourself.

You can download a totally no cost sample just to see how it works. And then, Debbie’s got the launch price so low, anyone can afford to get a NEW ATTITUDE**

As the saying goes: When you BELIEVE it, you will SEE it.

Once you’ve tried a few, please let me know what you think!

NEWSFLASH! SPECIAL BONUS!!

As soon as I made this post, Debbie’s website had some technical problems and folks couldn’t get in.

I’m really sorry about that…and so is she. Debbie has offered to make up for the trouble by giving a FREE copy of her new book, The Path to Success, to anyone who decides to get themselves a copy of AttitudeZapz because you’ve read about it here at MAWS TOOLBOX.

I’d call that a very generous gesture!

Debbie’s coauthors on this book include Wayne Dyer, Jack Canfield, and Mark Victor Hansen.

So, if you want a TWO FOR ONE, when you get your copy of AttitudeZapz, just send Debbie an email at debbie@attitudezapz.com, tell her Meri sent you, and be sure to include your mailing address. She’ll send you a copy of The Path to Success for FREE, including free shipping. Be sure to include in your message, “Meri sent me.”

“When I believe it, I will see this… or something better…come to me.”

It’s true, y’all! I urge you to check ‘em out…

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Michael Hodosh, aka Dr. Michael, is a 49-year-old clinical psychologist who is shifting his focus from face-to-face counseling to counseling online.

He’s making a lot more money online in a lot less time. And he feels he is able to help people more than he can many times in face-to-face conventional systems.

You can do the same! 

Dr. Michael does his work through Kasamba, newly acquired by Live Person.

There are dozens of online marketplaces like the one Mike is using. More are springing up every week. And people who can see new possibilities are starting to transition their counseling and life coaching practices from conventional face-to-face settings to working online through these marketplaces.

In fact, Dr. Michael is one of over 30,000 professionals registered at Kasamba (now Live Person) to help people find solutions to their most pressing problems.

With a doctorate in psychology and training as a coach through CTI, Mike currently earns from $5-6K a month in as little as 80 hours a month providing direct service to people who contact him at Kasamba, or through one of the other online profiles he maintains.

Over the course of his career, Mike has developed expertise in post-traumatic stress, shame, guilt, self-esteem, relationships, depression, anxiety, various forms of addiction, schizophrenia, and other kinds of psychotic disorders.

One of his greatest strengths is knowing how to make people feel comfortable talking about things they might never have talked about before.

Listen to Dr. Michael talk about how he’s leveraging his strengths and the resources available at Kasamba (now Live Person) to make more money in less time while helping people across the globe. You can do the same!

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How Do We Promote Higher Level Thinking Today?

It’s one thing for educators to teach to tests that offer learners certification that proves they’ve mastered key facts and concepts that panels of experts deem necessary for an ‘educated’ person to know.

It’s another thing altogether to help learners exploit their native curiosity and continuously improve their higher order thinking so they are able to solve the endless stream of complex problems that everyday life delivers. It’s true, as Tony Karreer says, life is mostly an open book test.

For many years, Bloom’s Taxonomy has offered teachers and learners some useful distinctions that help break down complex tasks into structured learning experiences that allow people to build on their success.

The early taxonomy began with knowledge, understanding, and application as lower level skills and cast higher level skills as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

However, getting learners engaged - and keeping them engaged - in the increasingly busy and ‘noisy’ information environment of the 21st century seems to be presenting new challenges.

In 2001, Anderson and Krathwohl adapted Bloom’s model to fit the needs of today by employing more outcome-oriented language, workable objectives, and changing nouns to active verbs.

Most notably, knowledge was converted to remember. In addition, the highest level of development is now called create, rather than evaluate.

Recently, Barbara Clark (2007) provided an adaptation of Bloom’s work to facilitate active learning.

This circle is called the Cognitive Taxonomy Circle:

I find Clark’s tool useful when I need to respond to learners’ needs directly, actively, and specifically. I use it to help me meet learners of all ages - and all abilities - where they are in their personal inquiry, not where I am, or where I think they ought to be.

When I’m able to do this, engagement seems to take care of itself.

What tools do YOU use to help you meet learners where they are?

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Some people are crazy enough to think they can change things. And then do something about it.

If you don’t try WiZiQ now, you’ll hate yourself later.

Harmon Singh, the 30-year old CEO of WiZiQ, believes the most important thing he can do to support education reform across the globe is to give teachers and learners a feature-rich virtual classroom space where they can meet whenever and wherever they need to. Inside or outside of conventional schools.

Harman also believes that the technology needs to work simply and seamlessly, requiring no downloads on either side of the teaching-learning equation.

And he also believes the cost of using the technology should be affordable to any teacher willing to translate his/her expertise into a virtual arena and share it with a learner.

So, Harman’s development team has made WiZiQ – a free, public system that teachers and learners can access whenever they need to, using any broadband internet connection in the world.

Harman Singh has a big dream, a powerful development team, and strong financial backing.

Hear him talk about what WiZiQ is and why you need to take a look at it today.

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What can YOU imagine teaching in a FREE virtual classroom of your own?

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Listening to Mark Cruthers talk about his experience teaching AP History online to a group of homeschoolers, what comes up for you?

If you haven’t yet heard this interview, see previous post to listen: “How to Make an Extra $25,000 A Year Teaching A Few Homeschoolers Online.”

The WizIQ free virtual classroom, Elluminate, Kasamba, Moodle, and the new tutoring environment at LearnHub are opening doors to brand new possibilities for teachers - of all kinds - and learners - of all ages.

We truly CAN teach and learn whatever we want, anywhere and anytime we’re ready.

Some of us want to enjoy this freedom now. But there’s way too much information to decide where to start.

We want reliable tools and strategies that will work for each of us. And we’re different.

I’m recommending that clients use these 9 questions to chart their own best course:

1. What do you want to learn live - and online - with others?

2. What could you teach in a free virtual classroom?

3. What would be the most fun to teach and learn with a group of people with whom you’re not co-located?

4. What might you need to translate about the way you work face-to-face so that you can create a trusting, vital, collaborative learning relationship with others in a virtual classroom or office?

5. What will you need from live teachers and co-learners for you to achieve your best performance?

6. What kind of help do you want navigating collaboratively with others? What would you prefer to explore alone?

7. What other questions come up for you when you think about teaching and learning whatever you want online?

8. Where and how will you evaluate the answers you find?

9. When would now be a good time to start experimenting with some new possibilities?

As you consider these questions, please choose one or more of them and share your thoughts and feelings below using text.

Alternately, you can share your thoughts using your microphone, telephone, or webcam on THIS VOICETHREAD.

Soon, I will convene a live session, using WizIQ, where we can explore our thoughts and share our experiences in this brave new world of live, online teaching and learning.

Watch this space for an announcement of the date and time.

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Starting today, our radio show, “Teaching For A Living, Not Just A Paycheck” will now be hosted both here and on my profile page inside the WeAreTeachers Network.

Show #2 features an interview with Mark Cruthers, an AP History teacher living in Pinion Hills, California, where he teaches both face-to-face and online.

Monday to Friday, from 7:30am to 3:30pm, Mark teaches traditional high school students face-to-face. Then, after 4pm, Mark teaches teaches homeschool students - online.

Last year, he and his wife, Deborah, made an extra $25,000 teaching 13 homeschoolers AP History, AP English and AP Psychology using a free, virtual classroom tool called WizIQ. And every one of them passed their AP History exams with flying colors, too!

I’d call what Mark’s doing teaching for a living, not just a paycheck.

Listen to him talk about how he’s doing this here:

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Well, for starters, it’s the end of business as usual for everyone. Across the globe! It’s the end of “authority” as we have known it and the start of a global rush into participation like we’ve never known before.

Despite George Bush’s best efforts to the contrary, it’s simply the end of command-and-control.

And it’s already happened. Only it’s not just the BRITISH who are coming… it’s the WHOLE GLOBE!

Web 2.0 is nothing less than a world-wide shift of power from the hands of a few to the hands of EVERYONE. And it’s already underway.

Web 2.0 is an all-encompassing revolution that is changing the very ground that business, government, teachers and learners walk on everyday.

So, if you’re someone who’s been too busy just coping with the avalanche of day-to-day and you want to better understand Web 2.0. I recommend you take 50 minutes to watch this video. It’s a conversation between a group of people at the 2007 World Economic Forum talking about the crucial issue: “What do we know about Web 2.0?” It’s a year old, but it’s still packed with great insights!

You’ll recognize the names of the participants:

Caterina Fake, Founder, Flickr, USA • William H. Gates III, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, USA • Chad Hurley, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, YouTube, USA • Mark G. Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nike, USA • Viviane Reding, Commissioner, Information Society and Media, European Commission, Brussels Challenger • Dennis Kneale, Managing Editor, Forbes Magazine, USA Moderated by • Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business Network, USA .

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