New word for your vocabulary? It was new to mine – and I homeschool.

Used to describe an approach to teaching and learning practices that emphasizes a do-it-yourself attitude, "edupunk" was coined by Jim Groom in a blog post in May 2008.  Generally speaking, edupunk emphasizes thinking and learning for yourself and opposes the commercialization of learning.  And there seem to be two camps: those that want to retool our current systems and those that would rather blow-up our current systems and start fresh.

Called "the death of education and the dawn of learning," the video below from the Consortium for School Networking describes how teachers from around the world can share their own best practices for creating twenty first century learners.

Others propose a radically different idea for structuring K-12 and college education. Examples include eduFire, Grockit, Academic Earth, and Western Governors University.  Bob Mendenhall, president of WGU argues that "technology has changed the productivity equation of every industry except education." "We're simply trying to demonstrate that you can do it in education – if you change the way you do education as opposed to just adding technology on top." (italics mine)

Are you ready for this?

Are you ready to ask "Who Needs Harvard" (as the recent Fast Company article did)?

Are we bold enough to pursue this type of education for ourselves, and for our kids?