The Swedish post is a reflection on what happened when I asked (on behalf of a gig customer) my twitter followers to recommend a book about social media. (I don’t read many books anymore, and definitely none about social media). Got quite a few responses, which I share and forward to the one how asked.

Sorry, post in Swedish only. A report from a mini-exhibition in Nacka municipality, where around 30 freshly e-minted teachers share their lessons and experiences.

Briefly the longer Swedish post is an attempt to explain a performance we (myself, Katarina Graffman, and Kaj Runelund) call ELEVshopping (studentshopping). The explanation is a recap of what I told Anne-Marie Körling (teacher, inspirer, school ground breaker) earlier today.

[As soon as I have fixed English captions for the ELEVshopping’s video trailer I will embed it here]

In short elevshopping is an attempt to inspire schools to use the concepts, tools, and insights from the fields of youth oriented (commercial) branding and shopping. I give the example of introducing a techear to a class of students as “an expert on Grammar” will most likely generate distress and attitudes of boredom. Whereas saying “selling Converse” would probably generate a lot of attention and expectancies. With elevshopping we would like to reverse this state of matters.

After all, we are competing with shopping malls and other parts of the exciting life outside the walls of schools.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts?

Sorry, post in Swedish only. (About the sad fact that Lärarnas Tidning, a magazine from Sweden’s largest teacher union, is not available on the web. Particularly terrible when today’s special issue about social media cannot be read by the prominent teachers being featured in the magazine).

The Swedish publisher Bookhouse is today releasing “32 skäl att bryta mönster” (32 reasons for pattern breaking),  a free pdf e-book, inspired by Seth Godins “What matters know“. Here is my contribution, quickly translated by Google (with minor corrections, as soon time permits I will do a better job).

DE-SCHOOLING

Let us create history’s best start in life for really young people! This ambition spans more than that School must be replaced by new institutions, based on today’s opportunities, which act for future needs. Do not believe that School is all about education. It has also become a repository, surrogate parent, sorting mechanism, social welfare and above all a labor market fix. A political weapon in a stadium where the game appears to be played in the 1920s.

Legislation, Media logic, Employment system, and Education structures are deteriorating. Slowly grows the realization that institutional solutions have been patched beyond reasonable limits. I have chosen to invest in the future, that is, those we used to call children. The starting position offers outdated ideas such as: one should not start work until one turns 25, you must go to school to learn something, children should mingle daily with peers born the same year, and core subjects lasts forever. But also opportunities arising from the fact that more than half of everyone over the age of four [in Sweden] share insights with people all over the world via the Internet.

The reasonable conclusion is that we must do something radically new. We start with questions about what School deliver and society’s future needs. Then we may concider innovative solutions and how they will be realized. This task should by no way stand in the way of all the amazing developments already going on in today’s schools.

[The Swedish post also makes a note on that I am sort of leaving “social media” behind. There is nothing new going on there, as it is maturing and spreading. Instead I am focusing my efforts on the implications and opportunities from “new” technology on a larger scale. In short: Bye social media. Hello new mankind.]