Why the Blog?

Hello and thank you for reading.  I am humbled to think that anyone would read anything that I write.  It is pretty amazing to even think about the power we all have to share our ideas.

I must be honest and share that originally...finishing the Master's degree to continue with a doctoral program served as a wonderful incentive.  Through the classes I have become more aware of the overwhelming world of social media and some of its good uses.  More and more it is being done with good purposes, intentions, and outcomes.  As a result collaboration and learning is happening all over the place not just the classroom: it's what I have learned is called Connectivism.  Over simplified connectivism learning theory is that learning has many sources and modalites and spaces. Resources are not just the books and not just the classroom teachers.  Examples of connectivism in practice are online classes, The Kahn Academy, The Teaching Channel,  Google Apps for Education, and and so many other wonderful resources.  These resources have opened up the world to so many individuals that previously didn't have the opportunity to engage in this way.  In this exciting and nervous time and I offer some of my own learning.

I humbly share some learnings, resources and experiences to serve as an impetus for conversation to improve education as a whole, but specifically alternative secondary education in particular.  The intention is primarily to better serve the many students we all serve in continuation and alternative high schools across the country.  Many if not the majority are dated and need to overhauled to truly educate the most at-promise youth. (I use the term at-promise instead of the traditional at-risk in order to build from any place they come to use from).

In the world of alternative education you find amazing stories of adversity and more importantly overcoming said adversity to many triumphant success.  But this is not the case for many.  Unfortunately, in the world of education students that need the most help are given the least amount: 180 minutes of instruction per CA state law.  With that said our model of serving students must improve to better prepare students for the challenges ahead of them.

In these blogs I only look at a small but significant aspect of alternative education: the improvement of career, college, and life readiness cultures on all campus.

Thanks for reading!

In community spirit,
Miguel