Publishing with Information Age Education






 * “Nothing gives an author so much pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors.” (Benjamin Franklin; American author, inventor, printer, statesman, and one of the founding fathers; 1706–1790.)


 * “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” (Benjamin Franklin; American author, inventor, printer, statesman, and one of the founding fathers; 1706–1790.)

Introduction
I view every person both as a lifelong learner and as a lifelong teacher. Through our interactions with other people, we learn from each other and help each other to learn.

Many people go much further in their lifelong habits of teaching and learning. They make extensive use of the media, both as a source of information to be learned and as a vehicle for communicating information to others.

Information Age Education as a Publisher
Information Age Education (IAE) is an Oregon non-profit company established in 2007 and dedicated to helping improve education throughout the world. IAE has five vehicles for the publication of information to people interested in improving education.


 * Volunteer Acquisition editor(s). Are you good at encouraging and helping other people to write? Do you have special areas of knowledge and experience that would fit in with what IAE is doing or what you feel IAE should be doing? If you are interested, contact David Moursund via email: moursund@uoregon.edu.


 * IAE-pedia. This "pedia" has more than 300 entries and is currently averaging about 1,200 hits per day. Click here to see a list of documents in the IAE-pedia.


 * IAE Blog. The IAE Blog has more than 375 entries and is currently averaging about 1,000 hits per day. Click here to access the IAE Blog.


 * IAE Newsletter. This free, twice-monthly newsletter has about 800 subscribers and has published more than 185 issues. Click here to access/subscribe to the IAE Newsletter.


 * IAE Books. IAE has published more than 60 books that currently are available for free downloads. Click here for books authored or co-authored by David Moursund. Click here for books authored or co-authored by Bob Albrecht. Click here for books co-edited by Robert Sylwester and David Moursund.

One way to communicate through IAE is via the Comments sections in the IAE publications. See the end of each IAE Blog entry and the end of each newsletter.

IAE is always seeking contributions to the IAE-pedia, IAE Blog, IAE Newsletter, and IAE book collection. All such materials are published under a Creative Commons License and made available free on the Web. Authors receive no payments or royalties, only the satisfaction and pleasure of having made a significant contribution to improving education.

If you are interested in writing for IAE, contact David Moursund via email: moursund@uoregon.edu.

Worldwide IAE
The current IAE website contents are all in English. Occasionally we receive a request from a person who wants to be allowed to translate and republish an IAE document. Not only do we encourage such translating and republishing, we are interested in contacting people who will make a regular habit of such a process.

However, such a "project" would best serve people in a particular area if the translation also included rewriting to better serve the potential readers. Please contact me (David Moursund, moursund@uoregon.edu) if you would like to start such a project for a particular language and region of the world.

Suggestions to Potential Authors
If you want to write for IAE, begin by doing three things:


 * 1) Familiarize yourself with the types of materials that IAE has published.
 * 2) Decide what you would like to write (or have written and want to publish) that will help contribute to the IAE Mission of improving education at all levels and throughout the world.
 * 3) Communicate your ideas, interests, or potential articles to David Moursund: moursund@uoregon.edu.

Please note when writing for IAE or making comments on IAE Newsletter and IAE Blog entries:


 * 1) Be respectful of other authors and their writings.
 * 2) Be respectful of IAE's overall goal to help improve the informal and formal education of students of all ages and from all parts of the world.

All readers and authors should be aware that there are widely differing views as to what constitutes a good education and good ways to help students to achieve a good education. Informal and formal educational systems are very complex, intertwined fields. They are made still more complex by the rapid pace of change of many different technologies. Examples of technologies that are changing our world include:


 * Information and Communication Technology (ICT), including: computers, mobile computing devices, and Smartphones; the Web, Internet, and social networking; and artificial intelligence and robots.
 * Cognitive neuroscience in general, and educational neuroscience in particular.
 * The study of genomes, and applications of the information being learned. Genetic engineering.
 * Nanotechnology.

Some Musings from David Moursund
I have spent my entire professional and retirement careers working as a teacher, teacher of teachers, researcher, writer, and in other education-related activities. I have given considerable thought to ways to improve our educational systems. My orientation is toward ideas that make effective use of educational research, make effective use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) results and tools, and make effective use of our growing knowledge and understanding of brain science.

It is obvious that ICT hardware and software cost money. Indeed, many of the successful ideas for improving education cost money. For example, ongoing and extensive staff development is expensive. Cutting class size is expensive.

Thus, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about what we can do with our current level of educational resources. One idea that appeals to me is changing our overall educational systems to provide students and teachers with more of the power and responsibility.

To continue this example, suppose that starting in the earliest levels of formal education, we included a major goal of helping students understand that what they are learning empowers them, that they need to learn to make responsible use of this steadily increasing power, and that they need to take increasing responsibility for their own learning. These are simple ideas, and we already devote some efforts to achieving this goal. We could be doing much better.

In thinking about empowering teachers, I am reminded of the following tidbit that I see from time to time:


 * “Rule No. 1: Use your own good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules." (Bruce, Jim, and John Nordstrom, co-presidents of Nordstrom department stores, in the employee handbook.)

Contrast this with the myriad of rules, regulations, requirements, and other disempowering aspects of the work environment that many teachers face. Our society is willing to give teachers the very high responsibility of educating our children. However, we intervene (usually with good intentions) in ways that I believe decrease the power and effectiveness of teachers.

IAE is particularly interested in publishing other people's thoughts about the above ideas. Contact David Moursund: moursund@uoregon.edu.

Author
This IAE-pedia entry was written by David Moursund.