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The Knowledge Marketplace.

Cindee Karns's Page

Cindee Karns

Cindee Karns's Profile

Cindee Karns (cindee664): Female

Hometown:: North Pole, Alaska

About Me:: This will be my 20th year teaching---most of those years in 8th grade. I also teach M.Ed. students on line for The Institute of Educational Studies.

Education: M.Ed. in Experiential Learning

Graduation:: January 5, 2000

Age: 40-59

Member of any associations?: Trained HOST for Conversation Cafe---a world-wide community to increase dialog among diverse peoples about topics that matter.

Technology experience: Somewhat advanced

Cindee Karns's Groups

Learning Styles: (33 members)
Created by Dick Huiras

What if we just create a new "public" education?: (22 members)
Created by Meri Walker

Cindee Karns's Friends

Cindee Karns's Blog

Prickly Porquipines

I went to the cabin in order to rest. HA! I stayed there 5 nights/days and never got a full night sleep. Porcupines were trying to eat the cabin floor from under the cabin! They like the glue in the plywood, I guess.

The first night the gnawing started a 4:30am. I was sure it was the porcupine, but I knew
it might have babies. So I got up, put on layers and massive amounts of mosquito
spray and got my drill and unscrewed all of the boards around the underside of the
cabin to…

Continue Reading…

Posted by Cindee Karns on August 10th, 2007 at 7:16pm — No Comments (Add)

Comment Wall (13 comments)

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At 8:59pm on August 23rd, 2007, Dick Huiras said…: Cindee,

I will be presenting to the Houston Area Association for the Education of Young Children. There will be educators for all the 12 grades attending. Really looking forward to the first presentation since we completed the first level of research.

Dick

At 10:51pm on August 14th, 2007, Dick Huiras said…: Cindee,

I would like to talk to you about the learning styles as I am going to be talking to a Montessori school for additional research. Add me to you list and we can talk

At 10:14pm on August 13th, 2007, Dick Huiras said…: Hi Cindee,

Welcome to the Learning Styles group. I would like to talk to you about your school and a research project that we are kicking off within the next 30 days.

Thanks

At 6:28pm on August 13th, 2007, Kenneth Jones said…: Small world! I had no idea that you were Sandra's sister. Sandra is my mentor and haas been a HUGE help to me. I just didn't make the connection!

At 8:16pm on August 10th, 2007, Holly said…: Yes, I do know Sandra. We work together. She is definitely a mentor to me. I look forward to further communications! :-)

At 10:05am on July 26th, 2007, John Costilla said…: Cindee thanks for the recommendation on the book from Steven Johnson? What is the name of it? I will look through Amazon. Thanks for your interest and feedback. I do hope you stay on board as it will take form once we get it up and running fully in the fall. It will change dramatically to support the notion of teachers expanding their reach. Look forward to chatting with you more. John

At 1:34pm on July 24th, 2007, sandy fivecoat said…: Yes -- You definitely 'get it!' Keep in mind that for any teacher who wants to create content and share freely, that's FINE. But we don't want teachers to have to sign a vow of poverty in order to practice their art, so we want to make a marketplace for commerce available -- much like Universities function, where teachers/professors are encouraged to write, publish, and sell and even consult for fees. RE: the current "System?" Yes -- this may well be 'disruptive technology' and may somewhat upset the applecart. But we think the 'system' has not served teachers as a whole particularly well -- and it may be time for some change. We also are reaching out to teachers outside the system -- people like Meri come to mind, as well as yoga teachers, piano teachers,e tc -- teachers who already run a small business, but may want to utilize our tools to help in that endeavor. WeAreTeachers may not 'work' for every teacher. That's ok. But we want to provide a place for teachers to be paid for what they know and what they do. We value them, and think the marketplace will as well, if given a chance to work. Stay in touch and in tune. We value YOU and your input as well.

At 3:15pm on July 23rd, 2007, sandy fivecoat said…: Cindee --Great to have your comments. And I do,indeed, understand your concern, since we have not yet launched our final product, and it is not abundantly clear what we are up to until we do!

Here is the overall concept: We believe teachers, as a group, are grossly undervalued relative to their contributions. We also believe that the 'system' as it currently exists is not likely to make sufficient correction in that arena on its own. We also believe that teachers of all types (not just those in public school settings) have a great deal to offer one another and learners, but there is not a 'marketplace' per se to provide financial incentives.

So -- we conceive WeAreTeachers as a Knowledge Marketplace, which will enable teachers to achieve both professional and financial goals.

First, teachers can join as 'tier I' teachers for FREE, and simply engage and interact much as we are doing in the IMAGINE community.

Teachers who want to publish and sell learning content will be able to do so as "Tier II" teachers. Late in the fall, we will have tools to make it easy for teachers to take what they do, publish it in e-books and other tools, price this content (much like you would on e-bay), and post it in a marketplace for others to purchase.

Other teachers may want to sell services (tutoring or private lessons), and we will also have tools to accommodate that. Our tools will allow students to find great teachers, schedule time w/ them, and learn from them. Teachers will have access to business-management tools to support their 'micro-business' of teaching, if they choose to do so. Classes can be managed whether they are offered in a home, studio, classroom, or on-line. And student data can be managed by the teacher using our on-line tools.

Finally, we know commercial companies and publishers have a place in a marketplace. Many of them have outstanding products that teachers love to use, and might incorporate into their teaching businesses. For example, i might want to tutor mathematics, and use a great piece of math software from a publisher, which the student might purchase through my WaT profile page. Like the Amazon 'affiliate' program, our program will allow teachers to recommend commercially available materials, and be compensated a fee for that recommendation.

Keep in mind that commercial businesses will be part of the WaT network, but not as 'advertisers,' rather as supporters of teachers in our network. Some publishers need teachers to write or review content, to serve on focus groups, or participate in research work. We want to be a place where those positive dependencies -- with teachers at the center -- can be nurtured and developed.

We promise to have a rigorous review of merchants in our community -- and expect the community itself will guide that rigor. Key is to create win/win situations in the teaching and learning space, and to understand that teachers, like other professionals, deserve to have sufficient income to support their families and life style.

To answer your question about WaT funding -- we are, indeed, a commercially funded company, and hope to establish a successful business. But we are committed to doing that by putting teachers at the center of every thing we do, and by only having a business proposition for our company to the extent we also support one for our teacher-members.

Feel free to get back to me anytime if you have additional questions or comments!

Sandy

At 1:14pm on July 23rd, 2007, John Costilla said…: Hi Cindee, thank you for your comment and I understand your concern as this is something that is very different. Our goal is truly to help teachers become entrepreneurs by leveraging their expertise for their benefit... I have asked Sandy Fivecoat, CEO who has commented on your profile to respond to you as she has had this concern brought up before. She can provide you with a clear picture of the direction and it is not to have big companies profit but rather the end teacher member. By the way, if you go to the videos section, Sandy posted a new video with the conceptual overview that will give you more insight as to how it works.... Look at the video, it explains the approach very well. Also, look for Sandy's email reply. Thank you and we welcome these type of comments as they help others clarify the purpose of WAT. Chat soon.

At 2:54pm on July 16th, 2007, Meri Walker said…: Hi Cindee, and welcome!
I left a response for you in the conversation at the group on reinventing public education before I saw your message to me. Yes, I know Conversation Cafes and am trained to facilitate them, too, along with quite a number of other methods of elicting and supporting the development of "shared meaning." Revolutionary technologies in a world that's still trying to pretend that we can (and should) master an "independent" point of view that we then persuade others to adopt. So glad to have you here at WAT... Looking forward to learning lots with and from you...

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