It’s time again for the K12 Online Conference.

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:

Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence and the Future of Education

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.

No it isn’t about the Technology. It also isn’t about ‘getting knowledge‘. New school meets old school and neither school is where we are at right now.

I wish people would stop trying to compare old ways with new ways and started asking, “What can we do with this amazing new tool?” or “How can I use this to engage learners?” or better yet, “How can this empower students to pursue their own learning?”

And we had better start doing this soon!

Why?

PODs. We are about 5 years away from most of our students bringing PODs to school, Personally Owned Devices. I’m talking about pervasive access to laptops and iPhone-like devices in our schools. Every kid coming to school with more capability in their pockets and hands than most teachers have on their desk right now.

So now a big question comes to mind. At the pace we are going now… Will we be ready to utilize these amazing tools that will be brought into our classrooms?

I say no!

So, new questions arise: What do we need to do to be ready? What needs to change? How do we maximize what we can do now?  Who makes this happen?

No it’s not about the technology… you don’t need technology to promote inquiry and a love of learning in students. It is not about preparing our students for the future… it is about preparing our teachers for the future. It is about asking ourselves the right questions and promoting a spirit of inquiry with our teachers. And finally, it is about leadership.

But traditional leadership alone won’t work. It is YOUR leadership that we need. Do not go quietly into your classroom. Do not go quietly into your schools. Do not wait for PODs to arrive. You are the one that can make a difference… ask yourself, “How can I prepare my colleagues for the future of education?”

I’ve asked a lot of questions, and I’ll provide an answer to one of them now:

Who makes this happen? YOU DO!

I just watched David Warlick‘s K12 Online Conference Keynote: Inventing the New Boundaries.

Then I got an e-mail from Kris about an article coming out in the New York Times later today, titled: In Some Schools, iPods Are Required Listening.

They both reminded me of this post,

Which takes us back to the New York Times Article:

We have the capability to access like never before! Recently I have thought a lot about how things have changed, about how we digitally engage and interact in our world. There are so many opportunities available to us.

• Our lives are open, public and on display.

For under $100 you can have iLife ’08 and produce, publish, print and share what ever you want with the world. Fifteen years ago $10,000 couldn’t have given you the same opportunities… and there are free versions of similar (and some better) tools popping up all the time.

• Online networks help to define us.

My Blog, My Flickr, My Space, My Facebook, My Friends, My Profile, My Second Life, My del.icio.us, MyBlogLog, My Ning Network, My Twitter, My-Whole-Life-Connected-and-On-Display-For-Anyone-And-Everyone-To-See…

• Growing access to customizable tools and networks.

Maps of the future are being used as a catalyst for conversation. As Mark Van’t Hooft of Ubiquitous Thoughts notes, the map “…lists half a dozen external forces that will affect education in the next decade in the areas of family and community, markets, institutions, educators and learning, and tools and practices. With regards to digital tools, it is noteworthy that the focus seems to be on mobile and connected devices, in an environment that favors personalization/customization AND networking/connectedness at the same time.”

• Personalized learning that responds to a learner’s needs.

Machines are finding creative answers to problems… This site, Think Artificial, also introduced me to Virtual Tutors: Launched in March, uMind “…employs AI to create a virtual tutor that recognizes and adapts to the student’s limitations and emotional distress. The instructor knows when a student is stumped and activates extra teaching modules on the specific subject.”

• Life extended beyond the physical world.

Moving beyond just Web2.0 sharing. The first time I saw Gary Hayes‘ “THE CHANGING INTRAWEB – FROM 1.0 to 3.0” was the first time I considered the possibility of Web3.0. Today there seems to be a very real weaving of real-life and virtual realities for more than just entertainment. We will find ourselves engaging in, and fully integrating with, a digital universe — a metaverse — “This ubiquitous cloud of information is like electricity to children of the 20th century: essentially universal, expected and conspicuous only in its absence.”

Obstacles

Here is what I said in a comment on Carolyn’s post:

Why should you participate in this online conference?

• It’s Free!
• You can participate when it is convenient for you.
• You can participate as much or as little as you like.
• You will ‘meet’ some very interesting people.
• It will challenge you to do “new things in new ways“.
• It will help you to improve your practice.

Why am I signed up? I have a bit of a history with this conference.

My journey into the world of Web2.0 – the interactive/participatory web, where we create and share content rather than just seek information – started with a webcast of Alan November that challenged me to start my first blogging project with students.

Next, my commitment to consistently keeping a personal blog got started a little later. An early inspiration was the K12 Online Conference 2006 keynote webcast by David Warlick. I wrote a post in response, which I did after the conference was over… welcome to the anytime, anywhere experience of an online conference. However, it is even more engaging to participate during the conference when you can interact and learn with other participants… Join the Learning Conversations!

Just click on the image below to find out more.

Amy Capelle has started a very interesting discussion in Ning’s Classroom2.0

She asks, “Are they really digital natives?”

The discussion there is great! Here is my response:

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“I come from the Batman era,
adding items to my utility belt while students today are the Borg from Star Trek,
assimilating technology into their lives.”

That’s a quote I use to differentiate digital immigrants from digital natives.

BUT I have realized that it is much more about comfort level & exposure than it is about age. While I am helping some frustrated students open a sign-up verification e-mail, other students have logged into the new site, added a photo, and changed the appearance of their personal page.

There are three digital divides here preventing me from effectively using technology in the classroom. (Two from my post, and the 3rd added from this Classroom2.0 discussion.) These divides are the gaps between:

1. What I know and what I need to know.

2. What the school has in the way of technology and what it needs to have.

3. What skills/abilities students enter my class with.

#1 I can change.
#2 will never change fast enough.
#3 is the shift in this conversation.

I have both immigrants and natives in my class, so the distinction is moot.

In another post I said,

“And then there is my class Science Alive! wiki… “I think that I am guilty of seeing the value of using technology in guiding learning, but not effectively guiding learning in my technology use.”

I have done a pretty good job of getting my students going… but now as momentum builds I have come to the realization that I don’t have a marking rubric to guide me, or my students, as we move towards a final product.

My class is assembling a lego model without the instructions, or even the image of the final product on the front of the box. This isn’t a problem for the creative/motivated students; they will assembly a better model in ways that I could never have ‘instructed’ them… but some students need structure, they have been fed it for years and expect it (even from yours truly – this isn’t finger pointing, it is observation).

I let technology supersede pedagogy.“

Digital immigrants or digital natives is nothing more than a discussion of digital competence… it is a spectrum, not a dichotomy!

Where does this leave us?
We want all of our students to be digitally competent.
We want all of our students to be articulate thinkers.
We need to make this happen in pedagogically sound ways.
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Let us go to the very beginning of the whole debate and none other Mark Prensky himself. In his article, Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom, Prensky says:

“…technology adoption… It’s typically a four-step process:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways.”

I think we get excited when we see ‘new things in new ways’, but often we end up (re)creating old things in new ways. The real conversation needs to be around the constraints of curriculum and standardized testing.

“This is why the foundation of education systems today should not be the rails, but it should be the side trips. It should not be the central standard curriculum, but it should be those directions that students, that learners, both teachers and students, can navigate to on their own.” (David Warlick)

New things in new ways… creating articulate thinkers… and building digital competence as a by-product.

I’ve been having this conversation in a few different places, and now I need to put my thoughts together. Here is a summary of some discussions and e-mail messages, a Wesley Fryer’s post “Advice for designing the school of the future” and my comment there, and my forum post in the School 2.0 social network on Ning.

It all started here:
My daughter’s school is going through seismic upgrading. 2 years of noise and upheaval… 1/2 the school sealed off, with the kids in portables, then a year later the other half goes to the portables and the kids in the potables move to the newly revamped wing. They are practically taking the roof off, half a building at a time.
After a PAC meeting I asked the principal what technological improvements were going to be made to the school…
NONE!
Not going wireless (apparently too expensive!?!?)
Not even extra electrical outlets in the rooms!
Certainly not a consideration to redesign a library built to store walls of encyclopedias. (I’ll discuss this point later)

The problem is the financial handcuffs placed on the principal to meaningfully do anything to improve the school at this time. Why? Because money set aside for seismic upgrades is from very different coffers than those of renovations/improvements. What does this mean? It means that we won’t spend $10,000 now to wire the school with extra plugs and create a wireless network… but we will necessarily have to do so, for $25,000 in two years, (when the walls and roof have been seismically upgraded).’ [These costs are an approximate assumption of mine, and not based on any specific research done on my part.]

This well said response was given to me by Brian, our district’s Manager of Information Services. He responded to my e-mail and also wrote a response to my comment on Wesley Fryer’s post:

“I agree wholeheartedly with Wesley’s school 2.0 description and David’s concerns. The culture in bricks and mortor schools and districts takes a long time to shift… The challenge not specifically highlighted in David’s comments though is the how government and / or local district funding rules work. For a seismic project, we are very limited in what else we can “add on” to the overall scope of work. And, there are no other pots off money to draw from to “do the right thing” with the renovation. It’s unfortunate but our reality…That said, our vision for schools would encompass the school 2.0 idea. With time, the vision can be realized.”

Brian has been working on a district learning portal, and so he knows the value of having connected classrooms. But the ‘right thing’ can not be done at this time.

I had an interesting conversation with a former student’s parent a few days ago. She works in construction for a number of different school boards, and has done so for over 15 years. Although she isn’t working specifically on my daughter’s school, she told me how easy it would be to first, make the school wireless (a job that literally would take minutes during the construction), and then also to run the wire to add electrical outlets to the classrooms, while the seismic upgrading is taking place. She agreed with me that financially, this task would be significantly cheaper during construction. And in her words, the reason this won’t happen is because in the case of every district she has worked for:

“They Do. They Think. They Re-Do!”

At first, I took her words in jest, but as the conversation continued, and she went back to that phrase (without exaggeration) over a dozen times. I then realized that she truly was talking from experience. I could see her frustration, she shared my exasperation, but could offer no solutions. Just as has been mentioned above, she reiterated that there is simply no additional money to do these kind of improvements. She stressed that this was especially the case with seismic upgrades because these upgrades have, in the past, been grossly over budget due to ‘add-ons’ that clever principals and district superintendents have added to the upgrades in the past. This has resulted in very strict limits placed on what can be done while this construction is happening.

‘We can’t afford it now, so we will pay significantly more to do the same thing later!’ I find this so asinine.

Another aspect to this has been the design of the school library. My daughter’s school has a computer lab next door to the library, but there is no door between the two rooms. I wonder how hard it would be to place a sliding door, or remove the wall altogether?
In his post “Advice for designing the school of the future” Wesley Fryer suggests:

“I think the school of the future should be centered around the library, and include not only great places to read but also inviting places to collaborate and work together, sort of like a Starbucks atmosphere. I think the library should have a design and performance studio, which would permit students to craft high quality media products for the global stage: the web. I think an educational learning portal should serve as a primary learning centerpiece. One of the big things we need to do as school 2.0 educators is redefine our identities as teachers: It’s ridiculous for us to attempt to be experts on all the content subjects we teach. We really need to embrace the model of facilitating project-based learning, so the physical structures of school should support that pedagogical framework.”

Here is part of my comment/response to his post:

I agree with you, “One of the big things we need to do as school 2.0 educators is redefine our identities as teachers” however, as you say, “the physical structures of school should support that pedagogical framework.”

As someone who is struggling with the availability of technological resources, I can say that the framework really should come first!

A question to you Wesley, what can we do as teachers, as members of society who have seen the outside of Plato’s education cave.. who know that there is more to life than shadows on our school hall walls… what can we do to tear down those walls and build schools that are designed for school2.0 rather than school1890?

I think that the reality is that many brand new schools being built today are not fully embracing the possibilities of the future. Partly because we don’t really know what that future looks like, and partly because of financial constraints.

I posed the following question in the Ning School 2.0 forum:

In my daughter’s school, I will fight for wireless, and I will suggest more power outlets in the classes, (so that eventually if they get, perhaps, a row of computers on a wall, or even a mobile computer lab, at least students can power their computers… but what else would you ask for?

And after a few days I’ve only had one response, (which I will get to in a moment). What I find interesting is that nlowell has an interesting forum post asking, “What is the purpose of the classroom?” Go no further than the very first response to see Heather Burlesson’s poignant statement:

“I don’t think we can continue the industrial model. Today’s students do NOT want to be robots, and they have the tools at hand to reject all our attempts to force them into such a mold.

How can we actively engage them while satisfying the system? I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m fairly certain any change will have to start within the classroom itself. Transforming the “brick and mortar” into a place the kids *want* to go to – My*pace for the flesh and blood part of the day – that’s the challenge we are facing at the moment.”

In essence, we may not like the current ‘industrial model’, but we really don’t know where education is going. This makes concrete suggestions difficult… there really is no blue print (no road map as they say) to the classroom of (as little as) 25 years from now.

In the one response to my question above, Librarian Nancy White points me to a David Warlick post.

Here is her entire comment:

I really loved David Warlick’s response to this kind of question on his blog – his proposal? The one non-budget-blowing thing he would do first is put all school furniture on wheels! Think about this –one of the key elements of project based learning and indeed, practicing 21st century skills is student collaboration. Let’s move those desks around – set up collaborative work space, and a place for presentations.

I agree that the school library is the learning and information center of the school – especially in the age of technology. If creating collaborative work spaces in classrooms seems difficult to navigate, then start with the library! This is where you’ll find staff who truely understand the concept of School 2.0 – and how to collaborate with teachers to create incredible learning experiences for students using 21st century tools and resources.

I think that Warlick’s idea of the classes no longer needing to be ‘anchored’ is indeed a good starting point. It invites the opportunity for change, and it prepares us to be prepared to try things in new ways, while also encouraging opportunities for collaboration.

So now that battle must rage on. I will be meeting with my daughter’s school principal next week, and it is my goal to create a ‘wish list’. It may be a moot point, but to me we cannot complain about the situation and then ‘sit idly by’ and allow nothing to happen.

I welcome other suggestions, other wishes, that you would want to see during a ‘renovation’ such as this…

My most recent post, “I’m a mop not a sponge” , highlighted a metaphorical epiphany that one of my students had about his learning style. This post will look at metaphors I have found on my journeys through the blogosphere since then.

I’ll start with Lynn losing her glasses. Her Optical Powercut gave her a new perspective on things:

So, what have I learnt? That it’s good to look at things differently sometimes and everyone is much thinner than I thought!!

I think sometimes even ‘rose coloured glasses’ can impair our view of contrasting colours… and ideas!

Moving outward from personal ‘insight’, Carolyn examines classrooms with glass walls , she wonders about the safety of ‘open’ classrooms, but candidly admits,

One of the debates I’ve been having recently has to do with the publicness of learning through 2.0 tools like blogs. Don’t get me wrong. As someone who’s been blogging for almost nine years, and has a dozen different status messages broadcasting my moods & motions 24/7, I’ve set the bar low when it comes to my own privacy.

So we make ourselves ‘open books’ but justifiably worry about how ‘open’ our classrooms have become.

From our classrooms, Pete tells us about our children, The Wolves of Learning,

Our natural curiosity is like a wild animal; it hunts where it needs to in order to satisfy its deep hunger. As children, we awaken each day with an insatiable appetite to learn. It is in our early years that we are “wolves of learning”. There is a deep, DNA-based, natural connection between learning and survival; call it the burning relevance of the empty stomach.

Pete states that institutionalized learning has tamed, “The wildness of our natural curiosity…” and concludes very powerfully,

Let us find ways to give our children back their birthright, their natural curiosity and facility to learn. There have to be ways that we can organize our learning institutions to accommodate individual curiosity and the standardized curriculum. I believe that thoughtful educators can create environments that are less restrictive and provide much more natural habitat for learning. Let us find ways to foster the wildness and thrill of learning again. Let us answer the “Call of the Wild”.

This reminds me so much of the many links I provide in my metaphorically titled Square Peg, Round Hole post, which -each in their own way- comment rather eloquently on the misgivings of our schools… (Note Warlick’s Alien World and the very appropriate Animal School for other meaningful metaphors on this topic.)

And finally on a larger scale Miss Profe notes, in What Really Makes the World Flat, where the most meaningful ‘bridges’ can be made,

Global bridges are important and necessary. But, what about the bridges that can be built between, say, a suburban school and an urban school within the same community? What about making connections between people who can have a real impact on each other and who may be dealing with similar issues? We can visit and meet face-to-face, and see how mutual suggestions are benefiting each other. One does not need a blog or a wiki to do that.

This reminds me of one of my favorite metaphors I use with students, John Heider’s interpretation of Lao Tzu’s Ripple Effect found in The Tao of Leadership. Our ripples of influence may be far-reaching, but often our greatest influence can be closest to us, where our ripple can be felt most. Miss Profe concludes,

Developing a deeper understanding of one’s community and the people who live there can provide a transformative learning opportunity for students, and in the process, lead to a flatter world in the most profound sense. As we like to say, learning is messy, and there is nothing messier than connecting with The Other within one’s own backyard.

Although I agree with Miss Profe, and value her focus on impacting our own personal communities, I also think that our digital world has made it much easier to have an incredible impact on a global scale.

The world isn’t so much ‘flat’ as it is woven.

…and as I have said before, metaphors teach.

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Images: Glow by Steve Crane, bifocal by miss oddgers (Karen Rodgers), Celstial Artillery by jpstanley (Jeremy Stanley), Thanks All, you are my favorites by f2g2 (Florian), Divided we fall by mafleen (Kate Robison), Creative Commons by ocean.flynn (maureen Flynn-Burhoe), and CBC ‘Spring Carnival’ detail by Velma’s World (Velma Belchik).

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Wesley Fryer is scaring people with Karl Fisch’s presentation “Did You Know” remixed by Scott Mcleod

Will Richardson is ‘Stuck’.

“There’s nothing new here, really. I know. What’s new for me at least is that if feels like my lens for all of this is changing. And that’s why I’m stuck as to what to write about here. My learning and classroom learning look very different. I will never enter another physical classroom as a “student” again, and that’s by choice. That physical space just doesn’t cut it. And schools are all about physical space. And control. And content.”

Kelly Christopherson feels stuck too.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach sees schools with more walls than windows. (Read this!)

Tangled in the web I find Stephanie Sandifer, who thinks Action Plans are Overdue. She points me back to Sheryl and Will (whom I had already read), as well as Miguel Guhlin, who in turn writes about Sheryl’s post.

Miguel’s post (overall) is more upbeat… yet this paragraph sticks with me,

Miguel’s optimism comes later when he says, “…let their voices, that of the learners, ring throughout our schools, voices that speak of relevance, authenticity, and human connections…in ways that cannot be denied.”

This sounds like my friend Dave Sands who says ‘it is students who will change education’. But it isn’t coming fast enough, there are too many ‘walls’ denying our students, too many flame snuffers.

This isn’t new. I’ve been here before.
From my first post:

To my first collection of other posts, where I found so many people writing and talking about how schools don’t fit kids: Square Peg, Round Hole… Time and again I am finding myself in these lulls of impatience, frustration and dissatisfaction.

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What spurred this comparison on? My thinking can jump around quite a bit, it went something like this:
We are reaching a group consciousness around ‘where we are’ compared to ‘where we should be’ with the use of technology and schools… ‘reaching a group consciousness’ reminds me of the 100th Monkey Effect… actually, this is like a web version of the Age of Aquarius… which reminds me… what were the ’9 Ideas’ or ‘Agreements’ I read about in The Celestine Prophecy about 10-12 years ago?… No wait, they weren’t Ideas or Agreements, they were… (Google search the book)… ‘Insights’! …(reading) …Wow, I can really see some parallels here!

So, here is my comparison. I will box in the text about the Celestine Prophecy Insights from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy, Monday Dec. 12, 2007 – I’m just realizing that a date is essential when quoting a changeable text). I will then put my slant on how ‘”WE” are progressing through the insights in relation to the ‘WEb’

The Web2.0 Prophecy

A New Web Awakening

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Time’s Person/People of the Year.

Professor Michael Wesch shows US that WE are the power of the web.

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The Struggle for Power: Elitist -vs- Ubiquitous

On the one hand we have Four Eyed Monsters’ video

“Humanity Lobotomy”: Net Neutrality Open Source Documentary

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Web Mavens rather than Mystics

We have the pioneers: Vicki A. Davis has soared, so has Darren Kuropatwa.

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We are Connected

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THIS IS WHERE WE ARE STUCK!

On the bright side:

We have the Creative Commons;

We used to only dream of flying,

and;

We see the potential for providing wisdom to others.

But we seem to have impediments to our dreams; challenges and limitations that stall our dreams.

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THIS IS WHERE WE NEED TO BE NOW!

We need our ‘guiding coincidences’ to be ones that are nurturing and powerful.

We need to collaborate, empower one another, and see potential rather than roadblocks. This is important for our children/our students, but it is equally important for us. Our ‘synchronistic message’ can’t be “impatience, frustration and dissatisfaction” as I mentioned earlier.

We need financial support, visionary leaders, moral compasses, inspiring role models, enriching professional development, and meaningful collaboration. We also need minimally restricted content and unlimited access… these are all building blocks that ‘increase the frequency of guiding coincidences’… these are the things that inspire us, fuel us, connect us, and allow us to see the potential in ourselves and each other. We truly can ‘Be the change we want to see in the world.’

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Web3.0 or Web3D

Gary Hayes has some ideas about where are we going next.

My question to you is this: When we are stuck, when things aren’t coming together, when our universe is not unfolding as it should, how do we make things FLOW?

I ask this since we are heading map-less into new, and uncharted territory.

Originally posted: February 21st, 2007 [Update: Fieldfindr on Ning-October 3rd, 2007]

Here is an idea that has been brewing in my mind for a while:

The site could be sort of a combination of Warlick’s HitchHikr and MySpace or Facebook. (In a way it is more of a matchmaker site.)
You can sign up and log in as a teacher, or as a willing contributer (Volunteer) in you field of interest.

Basically Volunteers create a profile listing talents and skills. Then they set up a time-line of when they would be interested in helping with, or presenting to, a class. Then teachers can contact volunteers who have profiles of interest.

There could be an opportunity for volunteers to contact teachers too, but I think this should be done through a contact page like this, rather than by direct e-mail.

Here is a mock-up wiki that I built to give you an idea of what I mean. (Yes, I know the profile pictures are a bit big, but they were easy to format that way.)

Below the mock-up profiles, I created a space where interested contributors to a classroom could actually post their information. Teachers can find prospective volunteers by searching a particular field/subject.

However, I believe that there is a need for a fully committed portal site that is dedicated to:
CONNECTING TEACHERS TO GLOBAL CITIZENS THAT ARE WILLING TO SHARE THEIR TALENTS WITH A CLASS.

At a dedicated portal:
Tag searches could easily be set-up. (See my ‘Super Tags’ post [coming soon])
Teachers could find other teachers to help them.
Positive relationships between business and education can be formed.
Success stories could inspire teachers hesitant to explore web2.0
Retired teachers or field experts can be tapped into.
There is so much opportunity for collaboration! (I came up with this list in about 3-4 minutes… and I’m sure you could add to it:-)

Once the site is set up, the opportunities and possibilities are endless!
Again, just off the top of my head, here are some kinds of volunteers we can easily tap into…Especially if we had a portal to help us do so.

• A musician or poet who is willing to judge a performance or contest.
• A Researcher willing to share new ideas in their field.
• A Math tutor who offers after school assistance on a forum. (Time differences could actually be an advantage here.)
• A dance instructor could teach ballroom dancing at a local high school.
• A retired teacher giving a video tour of a Boreal Forest or a desert he lives close to.
• An art gallery tour from half-way around the world…

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A similar idea originally came to me a few years ago after seeing this award winning Timebank Commercial.

It came to me again a few months ago when I read this David Warlick Post where David is talking about Will Richardson‘s session at MASSCUE:

I finally had to get this idea out after reading these Wesley Fryer and Vicki A Davis posts over the weekend.

Feedback?

Learning Conversation_ Part I

It was refreshing to hear Maureen Dockendorf, our staff development co-ordinator, (Director of Instruction), speak at our Building Leadership Capacity (BLC*) series introduction.

She encouraged us to become ‘intellectual companions’ that enter into ‘learning conversations’. The part I liked most about her talk was the direction of the conversation. She spoke of:
Not the Knowing, but the Process of Inquiry.
Not covering the curriculum, but ‘uncovering’ the curriculum.
A focus in innovation and creativity… how do we model this… every day?

Maureen also spoke of the 5 needs that we (students/teachers/learners) have:
The need to feel confident,
The need to feel like we belong,
The need to be potent- feel you have made a difference,
The need to feel useful, and
The need to have a sense of optimism.

(She identified her source for this, but I didn’t write it down.) ["The reference to the needs of the 21st learner were from the former president of ASCD , Martha Bruckner." -Thanks for passing on this information in your comment Maureen.]

I think that when using technology in the classroom, it would be prudent to keep these needs in mind!

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Learning Conversations Part II

I started by saying Maureen’s presentation was refreshing. I think I felt that way because when I look back at my blog, I can see parallels to what she spoke about. I think that it is significant that the Director of Instruction in our district is prioritizing these ideas when talking to teachers interested in leadership… especially as more and more pressure is being placed on districts to perform well on standardized tests. So here is my take on what Maureen said relative to what I have written about, (here in this blog so far). Also note my Meta-Analysis of these two parts below.

Not the Knowing, but the Process of Inquiry:

Articulate your Thinking
The BIG IDEA:
One overall school goal of”Articulate Thinking”.
Building the skills necessary to develop articulate students who can express their thoughts in meaningful, articulate ways.

The Philosophical Bent:
I don’t really care if my daughters, upon graduation, can identify the subordinate clause in a sentence or if they can tell me how to find the volume of a cone… I do care that they can express themselves in thoughtful, meaningful ways and demonstrate social responsibility in their decision making.

Sharing and Engaging: Web 2-point-0h-Yeah!
Vanja both wanted, and demanded a learning conversation. For me it was wonderful to see a student expecting more from her peers, or should I say, from her community of learners.
Reflections:
From Cynthia, “I learned more by sharing than by searching.”
From Mona, “You actually get to learn with each other and help others learn.”
From Lily, “It was fun doing this project and I enjoyed this kind of learning experience when you get to find your own knowledge rather than laying it all out for you. I feel that I have achieved something really good each time I’ve found some interesting facts on the blog and the dialogues, which made me put more time into these things. I realized that this could be another way of learning new things and also communicating with each other rather than finding information by yourself.

“How do you know when your students are learning?… When they are asking the right questions.

“the use of blogs to learn not just to teach”
I need to ask myself:
‘Am I adding technology to my teaching or providing students with new learning and new ways to learn?’
‘Am I creating an environment where students will express, synthesize, and reflect on their (and each other’s) learning, or am I creating a new way to report out?’ (A glorified poster board).
‘Am I encouraging students to be lifelong learners?’

A side note: The curriculum does not come up in my line of questioning… it seems almost insignificant in this meta conversation. Does it matter what the content is, or isn’t the process far more important?

I think that if we want students to be lifelong learners, and we want them to take ownership of their own learning to any extent, then subject discipline must be, at the very least, ‘loosened’ up. [Which leads us to...]

Not covering the curriculum, but ‘uncovering’ the curriculum:

David Warlick’s K12 Online Conference Keynote (Derailing Education)
“This is why the foundation of education systems today should not be the rails, but it should be the side trips. It should not be the central standard curriculum, but it should be those directions that students, that learners, both teachers and students, can navigate to on their own.” (David Warlick)

…the teacher as the compass. We point in a direction, (not necessarily the direction that the student is going), and we are a reference point or guide to the learning. As students sail (rather than ride the rails) they must choose their destination, (what they want to learn), and tack and adjust their path as they go… using the teacher as a compass that keeps them on their ‘learning’ course.

The way of the teacher is a practice in trust- (Stone Soup)
“In keeping with “the Stone Soup” metaphor, the teacher brings the cauldron, builds the fire, puts the “magic” stone into the boiling water and trusts that eventually the audience will engage enough to bring their own hidden ingredients to the process.” (Mia Lobel, Michael Neubauer, Randy Swedburg)

Christopher D. Sessums :: Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform
(Linked above to his post, not my short exerpt)
“The crucial elements that will sustain school improvement is not high-stakes testing, standards, or reactionary accountability programs – “it is simple human trust… that rests on four supports: respect, competency, integrity, and personal regard for others” (George 2006). “
In terms of education, the alternate paradigm acknowledges the following broad perspective:

• Curriculum is best derived from the needs and interests of the learners.
• Developmental appropriateness should supersede national assessment.

“The developmental needs for learners are widespread and cannot be easily or meaningfully reduced to a pencil-based exam.”

Articulate your Thinking (again, but this time from Gary Kern)
I would differentiate all learning, but I would try to cluster learning objectives so that teachers can continue to play a crucial role in learning and still be the main facilitator for learning. The computer, in its ideal form, is the tool that allows us to individualize student work. It will allow us to communicate in real time, learn in real time, and assess in real time. It will be the lever to better learning. Teachers, however, will need to be better than ever before. They will be the fuel for the flame.

…Teams of teachers would still work together to deliver the curriculum, but the interaction and model would be much different than today. Some genius will lay out the curriculum into standards and objectives that are clear and easy to follow. Teachers will bring the objectives to life, and technology will allow students to demonstrate their learning in ways unimaginable only a few short years ago. Problem based learning and rich task learning will be for the masses.

A focus in innovation and creativity… how do we model this… every day?

Square Peg, Round Hole
Sir Ken Robinson, Ted Talks: Do schools today kill creativity? (Worth watching again!)

Many of the Square/Round Peg Students (that don’t fit into our other-shaped schools) are the future thinkers/dreamers/innovators that are going to meaningfully change our world. We need to recognize their future value… We have an obligation to nurture them, and to develop their enthusiasm for learning. It isn’t just about not stifling creativity or not making schools so alien… it is about creating an environment where every child can thrive… Not making the misfits fit, but rather helping them create a space that fits them.

Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology

• Think in terms of designing learning environments rather than selecting instructional strategies. Metaphors are important. Does the designer “select” a strategy or “design” a learning experience? Grabinger, Dunlap, and Heath (1993) provide design guidelines for what they call realistic environments for active learning (REAL); these guidelines reflect a constructivist orientation:
  • Extend students’ responsibility for their own learning.
  • Make learning meaningful.
  • Promote active knowledge construction.
• Think of instruction as providing tools that teachers and students can use for learning; make these tools user-friendly. This frame of mind is virtually the opposite of “teacher-proofing” instructional materials to assure uniform adherence to designers’ use expectations. Instead, teachers and students are encouraged to make creative and intelligent use of instructional tools and resources. (Bonnie Skaalid)

Synthesize and Add Meaning [To some extent, this fits in the above two categories as well.]

But there is a dichotomy here: Our ‘educational language’ around standardization and accountability juxtaposed with differentiation and flexibility… we seem to have two mutually exclusive camps, yet there seems to be a move to embrace both. To embrace both is to accomplish neither.

We need to be adept at creating flexible, differentiated learning environments.

We need to be computer literate, and also be able to teach a new kind of literacy. (Warlick)

We need to challenge students by asking questions, guiding their learning, and helping them to develop their own personal learning environments.

We need to teach students to synthesize information and add new meaning.

We must change what we do. (And we need visionary leaders to lead the way!)
“We need visionary educational leadership that understands and effectively communicates the importance of emphasizing student CREATIVITY and the creation of original (and remixed) knowledge products.” (Wesley Fryer)

A Story About A Tree
…This started out as a story about a tree, and it will end with the planting of some seeds…

How will we use the community building aspects of the internet to foster learning in schools?

How do we make schools into ‘modern day’ learning communities?

How do we get students to engage rather than escape?

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Meta-Analysis: Hyperlinks fuel the fire

At first, this post was going to be a short reporting-out of my BLC meeting, or more specifically Maureen’s talk. Then I reflected on her words and created Part II, which was going to become this post… but the process of creating Part II ‘planted the seed’ for this post to evolve as it has.

In creating Part II, I tried to put enough information into each section that it really wasn’t necessary to follow a link unless the reader had a personal interest in the specific topic. The ‘effort’ to create this section, in itself, was a meaningful learning experience. Searching for relevant connections and following the hyper-linked-thoughts transformed the post from a simple learning conversation to multiple learning conversations… it allowed me to synthesize ideas and add meaning to the words that I originally heard at the meeting. It took hours to do this, but it was worth it – I became a participant in the learning process – I created internal learning conversations and expressed them externally here.

How does the presence of hyperlinks change the experience of this post for the reader? I can answer that for myself having been consumed by my own reading of edublogs over the past few months. The challenge I now face is being selective on which hyperlinks, which side trips, I choose to go down… this is proving to be a skill that I am learning/honing… but the decision-making process has more to do with personal interests than a logical/deductive process. In keeping with the theme of this post, the act of effectively following hyperlinks is in and of itself a process of inquiry, it requires taking tangents from the curriculum and seeking to ‘uncover’ what is interesting, and it requires the participant to creatively select (personal) relevance. Teaching this skill will be a challenge… one that cannot be measured by standardized tests, but will be a necessary skill for the 21st Century.

Feb. 5th… I have to add hyperlinks to this section! Jesse Lubinsky from Irvington School District in NY sent a video link to Jennifer Cronk. Her post was picked up by Will Richardson who is in my Netvibes feedreader. The video is from, “Digital Ethnography @ Kansas State University“. It is a fantastic video that exemplifies how web2.0 is changing how we connect, what we do… and who we are. I have tried to ‘say’ things on this video… it doesn’t just speak what I have tried to say, (a number of times on this blog), it breathes it!

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*What is the BLC series?
The Building Leadership Capacity series is open to teachers interested in both formal and informal leadership. The four sessions will focus on inquiring and exploring the building of personal leadership capacity through a variety of experiences. The series puts a high priority on opportunities for participants to talk about leadership, bringing the unique perspective of a diverse group of educational professionals together in one room (using the School District Learning Team model**).

**What is a Learning Team
Learning teams are small groups of educators that meet to engage in a professional growth experience focused on improving instructional practice and student learning. Learning teams are facilitated by a variety of educators who have expertise in the topical/curricular area, and in facilitation. Two to three hour meetings occur six times in the year and take the following format: individual write, sharing, discussion, work-time, reporting back and a commitment for the next meeting.
Learning teams offer an opportunity for teachers to meet in a meaningful learning environment. My last post on Articulate Your Thinking came out of a conversation in a learning team. They are an innovative approach to Professional Development in that they provide teachers with an opportunity to engage in ‘learning conversations’ that we want to have, but never seem to be able to find the time to have!