Butler Tests the Null.....

Here's to the underdog. Here's to the one who's been scapegoated, now reasserting, reaffirming aspirations and executions. Rededicating to fundamentals, to simplifying the steps for review. rededicating to the repetition, to the at-first babysteps that restart the journey, recharge the process.

Butler University tests the null in this weekend's final four: there is no statistically significant amount of belief that this team will perform at this level for this long and to this end.

That's the NCAA intercollegiate athletic model. Think of how many "Butlers" get up every morning, think of the students, traditional and nontraditional, retraining now for the recovery. For the time when they enter the game, execute the fundamentals that, strung together with persistent focus, brings them to the championship, the graduation, and beyond into lifelong learning.

Friday and spring is a-cumin in....sing Govchal Day April 15

Beautiful day a-dawning: overcast with rain, but still the tender buds are want out from under and everywhere the approach is apparent.

Final Four delights abound, upsets compound and the Ol Thought Coach (OTC) gets dang near sentimental about it all.

Keep your eyes peeled for GovChal Day 2010 on April 15 at Nashville State Community College in the real world and globally in the great world beyond, including virtual.

Breathe deep. Loosen your muscles. Try a little mountain pose and savor the already-is-ness all around us.

OTC says shake 'em up, shake loose....

Ol Thought Coach

Nation-building for a Flat World....

I saw a great post from Seth Godin's blog the other day. He was quoting Clay Shirkey. Post went like this:

Clay Shirky has noticed the trend of talented people putting five or six hours an evening to work instead of to waste. Add that up across a million or ten million people and the output is astonishing. He calls it cognitive surplus and it's one of the underappreciated world-changing stories of our time.
--From SETH’S BLOG

Ol Thought Coach (OTC) is the kind of guy who can get way behind this kind of thing. Abundance is law: shortages are created by humans.

Check out our www.sandboxnetwork.org for an experiment in social enterprise that could help close this gap.

Onward.....

Ol' Thought Coach up on TN's Capital Hill...

You know, with Fess Parker dying this week, and sitting here in the TN House higher education committee room, the Ol' Thought Coach wishes he had his coonskin cap to put on and be proud about.

But he don't, so he will just say it's an honor to be here on behalf of DMSC Governors Challenge 2010 and the TN Campus Compact, which sponsored this event. I'll be checking in as the day goes on. We are awaiting the committee and TNCC Exec. Director Mani Hull is briefing us.

Our model of Engaged Technology blends academic service learning and civic engagement with educational technology. This model creates a guided system for formative and summative assessment, so crucial in the research and development of people, programs and platforms for collaborative learning in a serious gaming atmosphere.

I'll be posting from time to time as we participate in our state and national communities' governance: education is the business model.

bb

Launching 21 touches program of marketing dmsc govchal

dmsc vp steve holt and ol thought coach (dmsc president bob bradley) are camped out finalizing our marketing push for govchal 4.0. we are charged with creating a social enterprise business model out of the engagement network, a model that will take the burden off state government and help fund the TN Campus Compact and the DMSC as we push for a 50 state governors challenge and an ncaa of engaged scholarship.

it's final four fever now and one can sense the amazing potential of overlaying the athletics model of collaborative competition over the education model. using service learning and civic engagement resources, each 2 yr and 4 yr institution that chooses to participate recruits its local k-12 into our model, forming p-20 pathways to knowledge making and a 21st century workforce that thrives in the global marketplace.

so here's to the hunker-down and we'll be in touch with all ya'll....the ol thought coach (otc) is proud to serve as dmsc president for these next two years.

we are working with Nashville State Community College for phase i: 3.15-4.15. Phase ii will take us to the deadline of 5.31!

yayusssss.....

kickin it...

hey the ol thought coach back on the keyboard tapbox. i used to have a blue corona circa 1925 i used to compose my poems on. now i'm bloggin all fancy like. bein a word guy, i dig the way the vocabulary of new technology poaches and hybridizes its way right down the timeline. a whole new word bag opens up: meme; kernel, breadcrumb, outlier, degrees of truth, null hypothesis.

the last two really push my buttons: null hypothesis and degrees of truth. we test the null in research. proving degrees of truth. it's a great model. dmsc govchal is also going to embed a triangulation for qualitative research module in this year's challenge.

Through it, we set up our assessment model that generates data for end-user reports. this bottom up research model empowers all stakeholders in the guided system.

also sets up an honor code method. as a u.va grad (MFA 85), the ol thought coach likes the sound of that. only the individual can know whether or not she/he 'knows' something. Accountability and transparency applied in this guided system creates the wealth of real value, validated by standard research principles.

here comes march madness: a beautiful time of the year when academic 'brands' market their 'products' for competitive tournament events. Revenue flows from rabidly loyal customer base into NCAA and then higher ed coffers.

Our model of social enterprise markets scholarship, not athletics.

do the numbers. the mind reals. the heart soars. Ours is a vision of breathtaking scope.

breathe deep.

release.

here we go....
'