Wayne Jennings offers up a short-n-sweet overview of the IALA (International Association of Learning Alternatives) Blog recently.

Not only a great overview of the organization and his role as the blog administrator and a board member, but a nice overview of what makes the IALA stand out in the world of learning and education:

The mission of IALA is to lead, promote and support learning alternatives in education.

Our goal for parents and learners is to have choices to meet their needs, interests, learning styles and intelligences. We believe that a one-size education program does not fit everyone and that learning is best served by having choices.

Note: The DesignShare team greatly appreciates the opportunity to both know and learn from Wayne.

You may be interested in re-visiting a wonderful piece on community learning spaces that Wayne wrote (and we published). You can either go to our original article link or the actual PDF of the article itself.

He also offereda dynamite DS blog post back in February that takes a look at the iconic ‘value’ of classrooms when people think of schools. Here’s an excerpt:

The first thing people think about schools is classrooms.

I suppose there should be a few classrooms or seminar rooms for group learning and discussion. However, classrooms convey an image of rows of desks with the teacher at the front of the room and group-paced instruction. While familiar, I hope that image fades from practice. It violates modern principles of learning and sabotages individual talents. I like to think of learning adventure areas or theaters of learning, places where students as individuals or small groups are deeply engaged in a wide variety of learning activities.

Why can’t elementary and secondary schools have a greenhouse, animal area and a garden?

If you have time, consider giving Wayne and the IALA team a visit one day soon! And as he offers, share your comments at their blog as well! Oh, and keep in mind you can easily subscribe to the daily/weekly blog entries so that they’ll come automatically to your email doorstep each morning.