Being the edu-nerd that I am, I often look at parallels between my experiences inside and outside the world of schools and education, (see Bubble Wrap for another example). Now, two-and-a-half weeks into my Thailand & Vietnam holiday, such parallels are jumping out at me, and I think of them as ‘traps’. It seems that everywhere we go on this holiday there are tours being offered and trinkets to buy. The packages and prices are all designed to steer you to the ‘deluxe’ version, “…for just a little bit more, you can also get…”.
Then on the way to your destination the washroom or lunch break also happens to be a great place to buy more trinkets and souvenirs and artwork and…. (insert ‘local’ artisan specialty here). This is also known as a ‘Tourist Trap’- you are committed to the tour, now let’s see how much money we can extract from you while you are here.
One parallel that I see in education is the ‘Textbook Trap’: “Buy our textbook and get the free online supplement! Oh, and by the way, each teacher will want our Teacher’s Guide, and don’t forget the Blackline Masters and the Student Workbook will save your students hours of copy-time so they can focus on the learning. Also, notice how we have designed the books to build upon themselves, you’ll also want to purchase for the next grade too. Of course if you bought more then we can increase your savings to 40%!”
… And there is the trap, you aren’t buying a textbook, you are buying a program. You are ‘investing’ a significant portion of your budget in a fixed ‘paper’ product designed with both features and flaws that become, over time, what teachers ‘deliver’ to students: A fixed/set curriculum, (that is based on, but is not necessarily the mandated curriculum).
That brings us to the next trap, the ‘Curriculum Trap’. I hear curriculum as an anti-technology ‘excuse’ all the time. I won’t even get into the Standardized Testing Trap: “It’s easy to integrate technology into the lower grades, but I have so much content to deliver that I can’t ‘waste time’ with a project like this.”
Instead, I’ll look into another aspect of the ‘Curriculum Trap’… The whole idea of curriculum being ‘fixed’: “After chapter 1 we will do chapter 2, then we get a little crazy and do chapters 4 & 5 before going back to do chapter 3.”
I’ve never seen a curriculum with a requirement of ‘Chapter 3′, and I’ve never seen a textbook that could teach a curriculum better than a creative, imaginative teacher. My kids may not remember what they did on the beach in Ko Phi Phi over a one week span, but they will remember sleeping in a floating hut just a one minute kyak ride away from viewing wild monkeys in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand. They will remember repelling from a 50meter tree after zip-lining from platforms equally as high. And they will remember riding on the neck of an elephant. These events were not part of our planned vacation, they were the side-trips, the unscheduled add-ons that became the memorable moments.
Comparatively, the ‘meaningful’ learning experiences of my education were the side-trips and ‘teachable moments’ that just came up… Discussions about world events and personal interest stories that were meaningful though not mandated or designated as essential.
The opening scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan can exemplify the horrors of war more than any textbook, just as Cry Freedom can teach students the racism of apartheid in South Africa. It’s one thing to talk about Leonardo Da Vinci and still another to watch one of his inventions at work on YouTube, or digitally turn the pages and read one of his notebooks, an opportunity only recently provided to the masses. We have to make time to be side-tracked by things that interest us and make learning memorable.
And one final parallel is the ‘Pro-D Trap’. Professional Development in education has become a fixed-time-and-date ‘event’. There is almost nothing professional about it… Punch-in, do your time, punch-out. The greatest reward a presenter can offer to participants is, “if all goes well then we’ll be out of here an hour early”. Yet, we have entered an era where anytime, anywhere learning is possible. I wrote my last post on a 3.5 hour van ride from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. I’m writing this on the return trip a day later. I’m ‘unplugged’, but I’m thinking, reflecting & learning. I’ll be adding these posts to my blog over the next couple days and hopefully others will comment and contribute to my… perhaps ‘our’… learning.
And yet we somehow try to compartmentalize our ‘professional’ learning into ½ & 1 day sessions and we even divide those up into 45 minute, 1hour and 1.5hour sessions. Often these sessions are not even contextually meaningful: “We’re going to talk about blogging for the next hour, and you’ll know how to sign up for one when we’re done… But we don’t really have any time today to look at, comment, or discuss effective examples of blogs.” Hmmmm.
In the last two Pro-D sessions that I ran, I provided ‘play time’ in the agenda. I also provided choice: “Here are a few different resources that you might find useful. Go to one of them now, ’start’ you learning here, use me as a resource too.”
We need teachers to participate and interact with tools that engage learners and learning. We need them to take their own learning outside of their Pro-D sessions. We need them to try, to participate and to have a safe environment to make mistakes and learn from, and through, the frustrations of their mistakes. We need them to take this ‘real learning’ back to their schools with them and be the lead learners in their schools and in their classrooms.
It’s easy to fall into these traps, it’s harder to recognize them for what they are and step out of them.
For me it is a little bit difficult to think about the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics right now… I’m in a car outside of Hanoi, Vietnam heading to Ha Long Bay for an overnight boat cruise. The car ride is about 3.5 hours long and so I thought I’d use this time to plug a great project happening on the other side of the globe.
If, (unlike me), you are at a school that is in session during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, be sure to share this link with your students. Chris Kennedy, Assistant Superintendent of West Vancouver School District, has helped to organize 12 student bloggers to report on events at the Olympics.
These student reporters will be given access to many of the Olympic events & venues and they will be blogging, photographing, vlogging, tweeting, and updating their Facebook group page with all kinds of reports about the Olympics. I think it is fantastic to have students sharing their perspective on the Olympics and that we are starting to give students a legitimate voice in documenting world events. What will make projects like this really meaningful is interaction between these students and students around the world, so I’d like to encourage educators to get students and classrooms tofollow these reporters and engage with them online.
Today, before leaving on this trip, I was connected to the hotel lobby wireless, checking email, and saw that Danny from Jan Smith’s grade 6/7 class left a comment on my blog, (Jan told me on Twitter that he did this on his own). I had a few minutes so I commented back on his blog. I mention this here because I think that as we encourage students to blog and connect online it is important for us to not just encourage but also to support these endeavors! One of the key things that makes blogging an effective learning tool is that it gives students a legitimate audience. Danny ends his comment with, “…so thank you for being a blogging teacher from the other side of the world!”
The next time I get online, after posting this, I’ll be visiting Jim Wenzloff’s wife, Chris’, new class blog, THE CLEM, and commenting on some student posts… And I’ll be mentioning that I’m writing from Hanoi Vietnam & living in Dalian China. I would like to encourage anyone reading this to take the time to comment on some student blogs from across the hall, across the city, across the country, or across the world. If you don’t know of any then visit Chris’ or Jan’s students… Or check out Sue Waters who is an excellent advocate for student bloggers that deserve a global audience.
Augmented Reality (AR) has been around for a while. Fans of Monday Night Football have always had the television advantage of ’seeing’ the first down line conveniently added for their viewing pleasure. A more advanced version of augmented reality can be seen here, where you can see information about all the nearest subway locations in New York superimposed onto your iPhone’s camera view.
And now from Ewan McIntosh I’m introduced to this application of Augmented Reality, possible due to face recognition software.
Ewan says, “…In a schools context this could be seen as lethal.” And then he asks:
“But there are some amazing potential side effects – what would yours be?”
I can think of a few that are really exciting in a school context:
• What if teachers could see a student’s attendance record, allergies, current marks and timetables.
• In class you could see links to a student’s current projects AND see your most recent comments/feedback to that student.
• A live RSS feed of all the things a specific student is working on in class.
• Students can see who still needs a group partner or search tags to see who is working on similar projects to them.
• Counselors and Administrators can see what a student needs to hand in, marks in their courses and office referrals.
• A quick scan of the room with your phone and attendance is taken. The office and parents can be instantly notified if a student misses a class.
Even without the face recognition aspect AR could provide classroom data like:
• What class is in session, what subject matter, what’s on the homework board, who the teacher is, and links for the lesson.
Concerns: Who decides what should be shared, and with whom? Do we want Big Brother kind of surveillance on students, or for that matter on teachers? That said, most of the information that I’ve mentioned is already tracked for students… on paper and in digital data banks. We aren’t talking about collecting new information, just providing timely information to people who could use that information to benefit a learner’s experience in school.
Seeing someone’s social networks is fun, and may be useful in social and work environments, but seeing someone’s Learning Resources and connecting to their Learning Environments… instantaneously… that’s something that can be very exciting for education!
Yesterday morning I did a keynote presentation for our High School Pro-D day that I called: ’It’s not about the Technology -(and it’s not a secret)‘. I’ll share this online after I get back from holidays.
The night before the presentation I sat and looked at what I had prepared and hated it. I wrote on Twitter: “I’m just over 10hrs away from presenting & want to totally revamp my presentation. Not a great feeling.” ~ It really wasn’t.
I appreciated the support and advice given to me, especially from Lisa Thumann, Jen Wagner and Shelly Terrell who all offered to take a look at what I’d done. The problem was that I didn’t like my presentation enough to send it to them… then I fell asleep. I woke up at 3am and realized that I was stuck with what I had, I just didn’t have enough time to change my presentation with just over 3hrs before I had to catch a cab to the train (Qing Gui) station.
I had to deal with the slides I already had. My presentation was broken into different sections that each had the item that is (not a secret) in brackets. I took all those titles, wrote them on post-it notes and juggled them around.
I broke up my presentation and, like Lego, reassembled the pieces into something different. I moved from a scattered bunch of ideas into a story. Suddenly I had a presentation I was happy with.
I slept on the train and when I woke up I ended up in a wonderful conversation with a man who spoke to me in Chinese and continually asked questions that I didn’t understand, and then talked about me to those around us. My broken and very limited Chinese did not serve me well.
Setting up for my 8am presentation we couldn’t get my laptop sound to go through the auditorium speakers without horrible feedback. Small speakers were brought in, (I almost brought my own, but I was at this auditorium just 2 weeks ago and knew that it was well equipped). With the small speakers and addition of my mic, all was good… or so I thought!
I tried to go to the primarypad.com/ pad (an etherpad clone) that I had set up with all my links, and as a backchannel for the session, but I couldn’t get wireless. It seems the new campus wireless doesn’t reach the auditorium other than a few rows in the back.
I started my presentation and within 30 seconds the power went out. I picked up my laptop and said to the 100+ audience members, “Ok, everybody gather around here.”
I started a conversation about ‘What tech tool can’t you live without, that didn’t exist 5 years ago… and by the time people had discussed this with their neighbours and we started sharing as a group the power turned on… “POP” … that would be the sound of the ceiling mounted LCD light bulb burning out.
That’s when I asked a new question: “How many of you have had the experience before of having a lesson planning epiphany… suddenly you are up late at night planning… you head into the school before class starts in the morning and when you get to the photocopier… it’s BROKEN!“ ~Most teachers raised their hands.
“So, keep your hands up if you said something like, ‘That’s it, I’m never using the photocopier again?’“ ~All hands went down.
Sometimes ‘technology’, be it a photocopier, a presentation, or even a pen doesn’t work.
Eventually we got going. I didn’t get to more than 1/2 of my slides, but found a great place to stop so that it felt like my presentation had an ending. Judging from the standing-room only in my break-out session afterwards, what I did was well received.
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There were a lot of reasons to roll my eyes and complain. There were a lot reasons to let frustration prevail… and there was an opportunity for me to model for everyone that it really isn’t about the technology.
What the day was about was professionals getting together and learning, and when it comes to learning, the hardest thing to ‘fix’ is broken attitudes!
Kudus to the staff, they were patient with me, asked a lot of great questions, and eager to learn new things. Reflecting now, the only thing that feels broken is the title of this post.
It was only two nights after Christmas and both kids were tucked away in bed. Then the older of the two came from her bedroom and, doing all that she could to contain her tears, she sat on her mother’s lap.
“Mummy, I think I’m old enough to know and I want you to tell me the truth… is there really such a thing as Santa?”
The Discovery by Norman Rockwell
We already knew it was to be her last Christmas fully believing in the magic of Santa. Most of her friends were already non-believers and she would often ask us “Do you believe in Santa?”
“Well what do you think dear?”… “Yes, that sounds about right,” we would say… agreeing with her rather than outright admitting our view… Our way of making a BIG LIE into a small (innocent) lie… a way for us to keep the magic alive and the spirit in our hearts as much as in our children’s.
“I need to know, please just tell me the truth.”
It was not a conversation we had prepared for. Our little girl is growing up and just like when she finally said, “Daddy, you aren’t really taking your thumb off, are you?” after the 150th time that I showed her that silly little trick, it was time to be honest and strip a little more magic and wonder out of young child’s mind.
We told her the spirit of Christmas is true and real and that it exists in our love for each other, and in our joy in spending time together at Christmas time. We said that being able to give to others and the warm feelings we have when we do nice things for others, that is the spirit of Christmas but physically, no, there isn’t a Santa per say. We spoke openly and also cautiously, restoring what might have been feelings of betrayal, with some candy-coated honesty… attempting to keep the spirit of Santa alive, while killing the mystery of reindeer flying around the globe in a single night and fitting a portly, pear-shaped and jolly man through chimneys, keyholes and the smallest of cracks.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell my sister.”
An unsolicited comment that reminds us that yes, our daughter is truly growing up, and accepting the responsibility that comes with age… with being the oldest.
“I think I’ll feel better about this as time goes by.”
Yes you will.
I stayed with her until she fell asleep. Answering questions, and sharing some of my memories. I reminded her of how we answered her questions with questions, and that seemed to comfort her. She understood the intent behind our deflection of her questions… but now was a time for Truth. Her questions kept coming, her faith in us to tell her the truth, fully restored.
“So what about Rudolph?” – Created for a department store commercial.
“So what about the cookies we leave out?” – Why do you think your dad always insisted on your mom’s homemade chocolate chip?
“So what about the Tooth Fairy?” – Oh, did the conversation have to go there? Must she ask this as well tonight? So much innocence and magic lost in a single conversation!
Soon sleep prevailed for the young girl and it was time for two parents to gave each other a supportive hug.
And so where do we go now? How do we keep the magic alive?
It is time now to help our child grow up… but not with stories of sadness and heartache, there is plenty of time for her to discover those things… what we need to do now is to show her the beauty, the mystery and the magic that life has to offer:
* The beauty of a sunset over the ocean.
* The mystery of Fibonacci found in a shell, a leaf, or a sunflower.
* The magic of a single cell splitting again and again and becoming…us!
And let us not forget the spirit of giving… the joy that comes from believing… and the strength of love that bonds a family together.
Was it a night of lost innocence? Perhaps, but whose innocence? A young child’s on her way to adulthood, or two parents who want to hold on to the magic as much as they want their children to?
‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!’
On Thursday our school held our Holiday Concert. Below I’ve highlighted 2 of the performance videos.
We called it our Holiday Concert, but in hindsight it was just a Christmas Concert. It wasn’t intentional, it was unintentional bias, but all of the songs performed were either Christmas songs, or songs that we tend to associate with Christmas. Next year I hope we can make it more of a world holiday affair, but for now enjoy my two favourite performances. Considering that all of the classes started practicing for this concert just 2 weeks earlier, it isn’t a surprise that the ones that I like are from teachers with music degrees. The first video is of two classes, Ms Shae & Yee’s class and my wife’s class, and includes my daughter Cassie. The second video is of Mr. Underhay’s class. Enjoy!
Christmas Comes from the Heart is wonderful! It sounds like a choir that practiced for months.
And this class combined their talents to perform a not-so-silent ska version of Silent Night.
Enjoy the performances, and for those of you that celebrate Christmas, a very happy day to you. For those of you that celebrate other festivals and ceremonies this time of year, I’d love for you to link to some performances to help inspire our holiday concert next year.
This year I have been honoured with nominations in two categories for the 6th Annual Edublog Awards. I won’t ‘win’, nor do I deserve to, but that really doesn’t matter. I put a lot of time and effort, (and love) into this personal learning space of mine, and to be placed in categories with bloggers and friends that I both admire and respect is wonderful.
Two things come from these awards that I really value: First of all, (hopefully) a bigger audience. My thinking is often challenged by my readers and commenters, and so more readers means a greater personal value to me as a lifelong learner, and an educator who wants to make a difference. Secondly, these awards introduce me to amazing people doing interesting, thoughtful and compelling writing and sharing. I’ll be spending the next few months expanding my network thanks to these awards.
I would like to thank Bryan Jackson for his nomination for Best Individual Blog. Bryan is a fairly new blogger who deserves a bigger audience and could easily have fit into both the best teacher blog and best new blogger categories. Add him as one of your regular reads, you will enjoy his thoughtful, reflective posts.
I would also like to thank Jan Smith for her nomination for Best Teacher Blog. Being an Administrator, it is such an honour to have a teacher like Jan, (doing amazing work with her student bloggers and someone who belongs firmly in this category herself), include me in this category. In my heart I am and always will be a teacher first and I think there can be no better honour than to be nominated in this category.
So, if you are new to my blog, explore some posts and see if you are interested. There are a few popular posts, and some of my favourites highlighted in the right-hand sidebar… and be sure to Subsrcibeif you like what you see!
Also, here are 4 of my favourite categories to check out in the awards. As I said, it will be months before I get to all the reading and learning that these awards serve up to me.
Make a commitment to click on at least one new blog from each category and if you see something you like, don’t just subscribe, take the time to comment and participate in the learning of others. Thanks again to so many of you for taking the time to read and comment on my blog, and for being my teacher and a co-learner.
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
To the unshifted: Shift or retire… regardless of your age and number of years experience. We have the means to teach differently, now! It doesn’t start tomorrow, it starts today. Pick one thing you don’t like about your practice and change it. Find one thing that engages your students, and has them take over the learning that happens in the room, and do it. Empower, inspire, engage and be the lead learner in your classroom or your school.
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
To the shifting:Do not go quietly into your classroom. It is an extremely exciting time to be in education. Do not be overwhelmed. A great waterfall begins with a single drop. Information flows too quickly to absorb all that we want to. Things will not flow for you if you try to do too much. If you try a new tool, ask yourself why am I using this? Do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon. What is the learning intention? Stay true to what you want to accomplish and take advantage of tools to help you and your students find your way. Find small successes on your path, let good work and engaged students be your reward.
What we think, we become.
To the shifted: You have an obligation to serve others. The students in your room are a priority, but so too are your colleagues. You are a leader by the default of knowing the way. Nurture your colleagues like you nurture your students in your class. Be the lead learner. Learn with them. Share your enthusiasm and accept your position of leadership with grace and humility.
The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.
It was David Warlick’s Keynote that introduced me to this wonderful, free online conference, and although I had a blog for 6 months before that, I wrote a key post that influenced my future as a blogger.
And now a much admired friend Kim Cofino has created this wonderful 2009 Pre-Conference Keynote:
As someone living in Asia now, Kim’s metaphors in Part 1 really hit a chord with me. I especially like from about the 5:30 mark until the 14:30 mark: ‘Lessons from Culture Shock’. At the 7:45 mark of this presentation Kim states,“We have to find ways of more nimbly, realistically and effectively adapting to the new status quo.” What excites me is that the ’status quo’ is based on connecting the students in our world in more meaningful ways… We now have the ability to foster cross-cultural connections with kids who aren’t just ‘growing up digital’ but also ‘growing up global’.
As one of Kim’s connections in Asia, I had the chance to play a small part in this presentation. I sent her the video below that she edited and added to the presentation above. The idea for this actually came from a Twitter discussion with John Davitt as he was preparing for a presentation. I sent him these-two-tweets and very shortly after Kim asked for a video clip… it was already written, I just had to film it.
Here is my ‘Connected World’ Video that I made for Kim:
It is a fabulous time to be an educator! Watch Kim’s presentation. Watch it again and think about the potential for what we can do in our classrooms today. Connectivity is key. Adaptability is key. We live in a connected world and our students are going to have to learn about each other, connect with each other and adapt to different working and living environments. Let’s adapt our schools to meet the needs of student today, instead of trying to make students fit into an old model of what schools used to look like.
I would like to thank the following people for contributing so much to my learning. I’m only nominating in categories where the impact has been powerful and potent. I’m also going to cheat and add a few ‘honourable mentions’: These may not mean much to the Edublog Awards, but they mean a lot to me, (if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll already know that I follow my own rules that work for me in my own learning space).
I actually almost never go to Stephen Downes’ blog, as I read his daily email updates. Since his is the only daily read that I do, and since it leads me all over the web and exposes me to so many other ideas and points of view, I can’t say anyone has had more of an influence on my learning this year.
So much of what I end up sharing myself has been introduced to me via Alec Couros. He is integral to my PLN (Personal Learning Network – and – Professional Learning Network).
Honourable mention to: @SueWaters since Sue will always step up and extend a hand to anyone in her network, and @ShellTerrell – Shelly is the Queen of ReTweets, she finds gem after gem and shares them.
Bryan Jackson is a wonderfully reflective teacher and he has a fantastic job working with some of the most gifted kids in his district. This gives him a great playground for bouncing around innovative ideas and his reflective nature produces wonderful insight.
I love this caption from the blog, compliments of teacher Jan Smith: “Please notice our successes, not our mistakes. Our blog is a invitation to see what we are up to. Some of our work will be polished, and some will be in draft form. Please honour our attempts.” Jan makes student blogging a learning experience that it should be, and not just an exercise in doing old things in new ways. Don’t just visit her blog, go to her student blogs and check out what they are doing!
Honourable mention to: Clarence Fisher’s Idea Hive. I’m sure there are other classes doing work as meaningful as Jan and Clarence but in my eyes they are in a league of their own. Like Jan’s students, Clarence’s students deserve a visit and a comment.
Liz B. Davis‘ brilliant post that helps others to lead the way with teachers new to tech. A MUST READ POST!
Honourable mention to: Would You Please Block? My favourite line from this wonderful Bud Hunt post: “Students off task is not a technology problem – it’s a behavior problem.” Be sure to skim the many comments too.
Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion: Blogworthy Tweets
I love the opening sentence by Claudia Ceraso: “These tweets of mine need not be noteworthy, except that I want to make a note of them. To make sure they do not vanish in cyberspace. They deserve a spot in this personal learning scenario.” What strikes me with this post is the realization that some of these less-than-140-character thoughts are deserving of more thoughts and discussion. These are not truly a series of tweets but I have a bias in that it was posts like this by Claudia that got me onto twitter.
Honourable mention to: #EdChat I haven’t been on twitter too much to join in recently, but I peek in occasionally and it is always a rich conversation. This isn’t a blog, but worthy of mentioning.
Kim Cofino continues to be my teacher and I’m a big fan of teachers who help other educators. Kim is tireless in her attempts to promote globally connected teachers and students.
Lesley @Bookminder Edwards is going to retire soon, yet she is leading the way for the next generation of teachers. I want to be as inspiring as her when I reach that part of my career. She may be stepping away from schools, but I hope she doesn’t retire from sharing her wisdom online!
If you are a blogger, you’ve probably used some advice found here, or shared here first then modeled by others. Sue Waters consistently brings sound blogging advice and direction to readers.
Best elearning / corporate education blog: elearnspace
Sorry, no corporate blog here, George Siemens brings you up to speed on the latest ideas in e-learning. If you don’t know what connectivism is, it’s time to sign up for his weekly email.
It’s Sue Waters again. This time offering an easy launching point for people who want to expand their Personal Learning Network.
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So there are my nominations. Besides Stephen Downes, who only follows one person, I’m connected to every one of these educators on Twitter and I’d be remiss in not mentioning that. In reality, I have seldom opened my RSS reader this year and so the list above was greatly influenced as a result of my connections to some amazing people on Twitter.
I enjoy the Edublog Awards because they always expose me to blogs and connections that I would not have had otherwise. I don’t believe there is a need for competition amongst edubloggers, but I do believe that highlighting the people you admire is worthy. Thanks again to these wonderful people for their inspiration and for being my teacher… I look forward to learning and sharing more with you.
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Two Wolves Which wolf will you feed? A Remembrance Day Post
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My blog is my PhD I have given myself a Blogtorate of Philosophy.
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Bubble Wrap What we are doing is creating a facade of security, nothing more than an illusion of bubble wrap. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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