I have finally come to grips with why I have been frustrated with the course of politics and public discourse of late. It manifests itself in the term “Unifier”.
As a physicist, growing up in the science of the 50’s and 60’s, we struggled with the efforts of the “unifiers” and the “diversifiers”. All through our history, great physicists were the unifiers, those looking to our history of the universe and trying to put every thing into a neat little package called mathematics. Eienstein and Newton was our greatest unifiers in physics, giving us such neat little laws that govern our universe. I always tended to be a little different, I kinda thought about the future, and how we seem to go through what we called symmetry breaking that brings about changes in our universe.
As I listen to the public discourse, I have been assuming that it was something quite different than my thoughts on the universe. But, it is not. We are again going thru just another symmetry breaking episode in our culture, and we are all watching our great “unifiers” in government and academia as they attempt to tie all this we are going through into a neat little economic package with solid rules dominated by statistics. They are just making the same mistakes we physicists have been making since Plato, and we think our unifiers are so on track.
We need diversifiers, not unifiers. Our diversity is our strength.
It has finally happened, many of my friends in the education and training community have convinced me to apply for non-profit status so they can make serious benefit to the institute.
So, now if you like you can make a donation, become a sponsor or work with us to make many of our programs available at great prices for people who really need some help preparing for a job or learning how to make it in this economy.
Any one can become an online teacher or trainer. It is now easier than ever, and really a no brainer for getting your classes online without the high cost of an IT department or paying the high cost of licenses using those other online schools.
We have build an online university campus, call us now to arrange your own online school as part of our campus. We have online buildings available now complete and ready to turn the lights on for your classes.
You can support our programs and save the planet by purchasing our Carbon Credits.
Well, after over 30 years of managing partnerships between natural resources agencies and schools, there is finally going to be a sustainable program. All these years I have spent all my extra time and money trying to drive the programs from the education side. Now, it has taken a small dedicated staff at a small private land management agency to finally find the funding to make it happen.
BLM and the Forest Service for years have been putting money into schools to try creating true partnerships, with limited success if any. Now, a partnership between BLM and the Douglas Soil and Water Conservation District in Roseburg, Oregon has begun working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop learning programs for youth and adults in land management practices.
They will start out small, developing quality programs in Noxious Weed Management and Riparian Recovery practices. These programs will develop small private companies in rural communities in Oregon to improve the job opportunities there. My hope that we are successful in creating two contracting companies that can compete for many of the land management contracts surrounding small communities, contracts that have traditionally gone to large city programs with major capital backing.
I just can not fathom the huge growth in social networking. I have been bombarded by twitter, facebook, linkdin, and the list goes on. I even forgot that blogs still existed. I am still calling these things discussion boards. Everyday, I get reminders. I appologize to all those who have left comments over the past year, it seems that I forgot my password and just didn’t take the time to really figure it out. I am back now, and will try to be more responsive.
In addition to responding to endless social networking I have been able to get some work done. Even in retirement, stuff and people keep me from what I enjoy. Still, I am now running an online multi-versity called the Northwest Education and Training Network at www.nweti.com. It is a global cooperative institute where anyone can put a class online and do so at minimal cost.
Today, a program for classical training in piano for youth was able to broadcast the home concert for one of their star pupils…my granddaughter Olivia Rose Crocker.
Many fans and family members were unable to attend in person, so Smotis put the recital in the yourclassroom.com virtual classroom. It was such a pleasure making it possible for everyone to enjoy the concert despite their busy schedules. This is just one more reason why we do these thing.
Well, this is the first anniversary of this blog. It has been a rousing success, a total of 3 comments by others than myself. I really feel like I have made a difference.
While this blog lumbered along unnoticed by anyone, I have been at work. My retirement has been proceding quite well, it is nearing the moment of truth on just how much taxes I will have to pay on it. I still appreciate the fraction of a penny all you young workers put into my day to day expenses.
Business has been slow, a lot of free work being done for needy people and organizations. I never was any good at making money, it seems everything that comes in goes out to someone or some organizations with initials, like IRS, MAX,OED, and so on the list goes. I feel a little strange not being in the classroom. I haven’t stepped foot in a classroom since school got out last spring. I don’t think anyone has noticed.
The bright spot in all this is the yourclassroom.com project. After 10 years, it is finally being noticed as a tool that businesses can use to interact with schools. I don’t think schools like tools, but business guys seem to really shop for tools.
Every one should watch out for our upcomming Polar Bear Research classroom. It should be really exciting. Students have been studying these furry little creatures up in Alaska, and they look forward to sharing all they learned. Though I am a plant guy, I look forward to working with the Point Defiance Zoo to put it all together. I just can’t seem to get away from these animal projects.
Well, back to work. I just wanted to wish me an happy first anniversary….
Today I stopped by to visit a friend who works very hard and helping land owners manage their watershed. We talked about our many years working with land managers and school teachers. He rehashed the old saying, “…if I can at least reach one kid in a class, then…” I am afraid I had to stomp on that one, even though I have said it hundreds of times myself over the past 30 years doing programs bring community resources into the classroom. Today, I just don’t feel like rationalizing this stuff anymore. I hear too often really sincere reasons why our education system is having problems, and at the same time hear sincere reasons why we are not able to generate consistently reliable time sequenced data collection on our water quality.
All these years, it has proven a failure to bring the publicly funded research community in line with the publicly funded education system. Why can we not have a water quality test station sanctioned by DEQ established within 10 miles of every high school in Oregon, then have that high school take a course from our local water quality experts, then adopt the test station.
This would ensure long term collection of data, since the class is passed on each year to a new bunch of volunteer testers. I designed and rolled out the yourclassroom.com website just for that purpose. What did educators and public agencies do with it? They ignored it and continued to operate as two completely independent efforts.
It is time that community based organizations, businesses and schools join together in a fully functional and integrated environment where curricula and public lands projects can be managed to meet the goals of both organizations.
Shucks, then policy makers and researchers can have reliable and consistent data to use in their management decisions.
Somebody needs to explain this to me, why do we not get all these folks together into a learning management system like yourclassroom.com totake advantage of the value of all the groups towards common goals.
Businesses have been struggling with the high volume of requests for career related learning services from schools over the past 10 years. The number of requests continue to rise every year, as more requirements are added to the classroom curricula. How is a small business going to keep up.
Since I have been struggling with providing activities for classrooms for over 30 years, I can understand the impacts of time away from work, the desire not to let down the kids, and the goodwill that comes from being a partner with the local school districts. That is why I have worked to develop an online school enrichment network. This network is a place where businesses can create an interactive resource for classrooms that schools can access. Schools can request a particular resource, and then the network can create the resource and make it available in a timely and targeted fashion.
This environment can be found at http://www.yourclassroom.com. Businesses can register and create resources. Schools can go there and seek out resources.
This saves the business time by being able to provide resources to many classrooms at the same time. A business in Oregon can provide valuable enhancement activities to a classroom in Michigan.
Community based organizations with an educational mission can use the system to deliver their services to their targeted populations. They can use it to conduct volunteer training.
Even my mother can put up a class on knitting techniques from the old country to help her pay her utility bills.
Yourclassroom.com is an environment in which organization training programs can enhance capacity by putting their own internal materials in an online interactive site for the benefits of their customers, employees and management.Managers are able to enhance the preparation and follow up through a long term online environment.All of the expected tools to learn and communicate with are available.
Many businesses have become aware of the unique capabilities of web conferencing. Web conferencing extends reach, increases productivity, and accesses subject matter experts not otherwise available.But just distributing the session is not enough. In Yourclassroom.com, conference managers can conduct all the tasks involved in preparation and follow up as well as day of event web conference.
How about board meetings, department meetings, or safety meetings?These can all be managed within the same environment.
The management at Smotis, Inc. of Portland Oregon, has over 30 years experience developing business and education partnerships.It is now possible, with Yourclassroom.com, for businesses to conduct training classes, hold a conference, hold internal business meetings, and conduct customer education classes and lectures.
Well, we are finally ready to turn over the online learning environment to businesses and organizations. They can now put their own classes, training sessions, new product training, safety training, and a whole lot more. This site is designed to let you design your classes and invite students under your terms. Your content, your rules, yourclassroom.
Everyone on earth is welcome to put their class online. No special software or license fees. Just use your internet browser to set up your class and then register your students. There is the ability to use a live virtual classroom as well as provide study materials, videos, tests, and everything your high school teacher was able to do for her students.
