This I Believe...

Beth Knittle tagged me for the This I believe meme started by Barry Bachenheimer. I blogged a while back about my Common Principles for 21st Century Schools. I think I lot of what I came up with encompasses what I believe, but here is my latest articulation of those ideas. Thanks Beth for tagging me!

• I believe that risk taking is essential to learning.
• I believe in a growth mindset - failure is not a reflection on the learner, rather a reflection on the strategy.
• I believe in the power of collective intelligence, together we can accomplish so much more than we can alone. We are what we share.
  
• I believe that learning to effectively and efficiently discover, evaluate and synthesize information is more important than the information itself.
• I believe that teachers must be given the opportunity, the time and the resources to experience and assimilate new technologies for themselves before we can ask them to share their understanding with students.
• I believe that we need to constantly and consistently ask ourselves why we teach what we teach.
• I believe in the power of educational technology to improve learning, create communities and inspire new thinking (had to include this one since it is the subtitle of my blog :)

So there you have it. I believe in lots more, but that is all I can pull together tonight. Now I have to tag some more people.

• Lisa Thuman
• Alice Barr
• McTeach
• Dennis Richards

What do you believe?