Learning Online North Shore Kauai
While visiting my old friend Larry Loganbill in Moloaa on Kauai the
conversation naturally turns to education. Now retired from Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu where he
made educational films and watched their early education programs grow, Larry
keeps up his garrulous advocacy of better curriculum and educational
opportunities for Hawaiians. Hang
out with Larry for a few days and you’ll learn about how education is changing,
especially on the Garden Isle.
Larry tells me that many high schools kids on the North
Shore no longer attend public school and sure enough he introduces me to such a
young stude...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - July 6, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Got Education? My day at Monadnock Waldorf High School Graduation
Even though my kid is a Junior and not graduating until next year, I joined most of the Monadnock Waldorf High School parents and friends in attending this year's graduation ceremony. Now as a college professor I have attended (not always willingly) more graduation ceremonies than I care to reveal. But never have I been so moved and amazed as today, watching the first ever class of graduates from the relatively new (4 year old) MWHS.
Some of the highlights:
1. Each student walked to the stage to the tune of their own chosen music and carrying their own chosen bouquet (one carried a carrot)
2. Together the...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - June 16, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Joseph Cornell and the MOOC (massive open source online course)
I've been "teaching" an introductory course in Psychology this summer on Canvas the online courseware site that hosts a number of MOOCs. While I am literally the face of the course (ie, it's my face on the canvas link) the truth is that the course is constructed by a small band of folks here at the College that includes Michael Goudzwaard (our chief technology guy), Ivy Roberts (our educational technologist), Kat Wood (student assistant) and myself (the prof). And so the course is not so much "taught" but instead "constructed" by a team of very motivated and b...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - June 11, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
When you dig too deep for fossil fuels (with apologies to Bill McKibben and 350.org)
(Source: Asperger's Conversations)
Source: Asperger's Conversations - April 20, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Student Initiative on Asperger's and Neurodiversity at Keene State College
I was just in the audience for this one. A couple of college students who self-identify as being on the Spectrum (Asperger's, Non-Verbal Learning Disability) presented a case for "understanding" last week on campus. Forty or so students, staff, faculty (mostly students) showed up at 7pm to hear what they had to say. Eric Dicesare, an art/graphic design major lead the discussion, largely drawing from his own experience and the response was noteable (to say the least). Students shared their own stories of struggling with disabilities of all sorts and several talked about friends and ...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - April 20, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Doing the Outsource Dance
Yeah you can always find ways to do things cheaper by outsourcing. Automatic machines at the post office or the supermarket, groups that provide services for groups that provide services for other groups. I'm sure there are young MBA's out of business school who got it down on how to cut. But what is lost?
I'm thinking a lot about quality of education mostly but the creep is all around us, isn't it? I'm catharting a bit because I'm just off the phone for the fourth or fifth time with....well I don't know. My kid's iPhone broke and I'm moving thr...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - March 29, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
If I were starting a group for college students with ASD
Of course the devil is in the details when running a group,
including utilizing clinical skills to guage prompts and instructions vs.
kicking back and listening. But
it’s important to always come back to the principles which guide how we believe
we should work with people, with the understanding that how we treat others is
also about how we want to be treated ourselves. So here goes.
Change vs. Accommodation. Let’s put “on the table” our own confusion
about “who changes.” Communicate clearly that there is a cultural arbitrariness
regarding who’s social skills ...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - March 4, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
The Harlem Shake: What's the deal?
At the local Waldorf High School in Keene, NH the kids interrupted a class in projective geometry (did you know that parallel lines DO intersect at some point in space?) to do the Harlem Shake. I didn't know what this was about until my kid (who is in the class) informed me. Just when I'm thinking that young people today are too disconnected and lifeless, they collaborate and create something that's a bit weird, but definitely full of energy and life. (Source: Asperger's Conversations)
Source: Asperger's Conversations - February 21, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Thinking MOOC
My friend and colleague Michael Caulfield has been busy busy creating the perfect online MOOC for Introduction to Psychology which I will be piloting this summer. I've been teaching an online summer course for years at Keene State College but this will be my first foray in to MOOC land where the course will be publicly posted and open to others across the planet to participate. In the past, my online courses have been "enclosed" so that only ten or fifteen of my students could participate. So, as one of my current students would say, "what's the deal?" A few thi...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - February 21, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Hey Hey Woody Guthrie: About his wife Marjorie
Thanks to Dr. Ken Bergman over in the Biology Department for passing on this Pdf (
Download MarjorieGuthrie_844) on about Marjorie Guthrie, wife of Woody Guthrie, mother to Arlo and Nora, and grandmother to one of our former students. Marjorie worked hard on helping others with Huntington's Disease which Woody died from and was quite a remarkable woman in her own right. (Source: Asperger's Conversations)
Source: Asperger's Conversations - January 26, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
Discrete vs. continuous variables: What's this got to do with guns?
I've done two interviews with print media in recent days regarding guns, mental illness, and shooting students, and I've got to say, the discourse is getting weird. For example, I've been asked my thoughts about college professors being required to carry guns in class (my off-the-cuff response was that I'd probably end up shooting my own foot...and who knows what or whom else).
Much of the conversation makes a thinking person...well...think. When people seriously talk in terms of "good guys" (who should have the guns) and "bad guys" (who we must defend ourselves aga...
Source: Asperger's Conversations - January 25, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Larry Welkowitz Source Type: blogs
