I’m at a Canadian School in China. At a staff meeting I shared a thoughtful blog post by a student reporter for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. It’s a great post by a student that went and visited ‘Tent City’, built to house the city’s homeless during the Olympics: Olympic Games Side Effects on Vancouver. My Grade 9 teacher asked for the Students Live website and a link to this post. (I mentioned the Students Live bloggers here.)
The Students Live website provides a number of different ways to connect and interact with the Olympic reporter student bloggers. However, we live in China which filters a lot of social software websites and so these were the options that my Grade 9 teacher was confronted with:
Facebook: BLOCKED
Twitter: BLOCKED
YouTube: BLOCKED
Blogspot Blogs: BLOCKED
Flickr: (recently) BLOCKED (again)
I had to use my VPN to bypass the Chinese filter in order to cut and paste the blog post, mentioned above, into an email so that my teacher could read it in his class. A potential global ‘conversation’ reduced to a reading, confined to a classroom. Frustrating!
Now here is the thing… I chose to move to a country where a lot of sites get blocked. I can’t imagine what it’s like for teachers in the ‘free world’ that have their own school districts do this to them!
If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance:
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.
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.
I’ve finally edited it for the web… a tedious task as I tend to use a lot of slide transitions that do not convert well to individual slides. I shared a few presentation notes on this Slideshare, but not too much. This is a great feature I’ll probably use more in the future.
Here again is the Ustream: This version was done for student teachers at Simon Fraser University. As a video, it has a slow start with student teachers discussing a statement, and sharing ideas until about the 13 minute mark. Also, the slides in this video won’t match perfectly to the Slideshare above as I had to explain some of the slides for the stand-alone slide show, but it would be easy to connect the two presentations.
I’ll be using some of this presentation as the intro to one of my BLC09 presentations:
The P.O.D.s are coming!
What are PODS? They are Personally Owned Devices, and they are already infiltrating our schools. For now they get tucked away in lockers and backpacks, but as the saying goes, “If there is an elephant in the room, introduce it!” Students are bringing small machines with huge potential into our schools. It is time to introduce these tools into our classrooms and also to make sure that we have the knowledge and the infrastructure to use them to their fullest potential.
I’ve always been surrounded by women. I grew up with three sisters, and I have two daughters and a wonderful wife.
Yet when I think of the people that I look up to as heroes and leaders, I inevitably think of men… I was tempted to list some here, but that’s not what this post is about.
The simple fact is that women should rule the world.
I’m not talking about Madonna or Britney Spears, I’m not even talking about Hillary Clinton… I’m talking about down-to-earth, community focused, compassionate women… I’m talking about the force of Yin in a world of Yang… I’m talking about women who lead by example and women who are nurturing and caring.
I met Betty when she invited me to present to a couple of her TLITE groups. Here is the subject of her post:
There has been considerable research done proving that loans, support and education for women in developing countries has a significantly better impact than when similar services are provided to men. Women are doing amazing things to change our world… and yet I seldom see women being highlighted as true leaders and role models.
So here are a few real educational leaders worth watching, and more specifically reading: (Alphabetically)
Kim Cofino: Her blog says ‘always learning’ but she is ‘always teaching’, and she really gets collaboration!
Liz B. Davis: From her Two for Tuesdays, to her book and presentations, she is always helping others learn.
The wonderful thing about my digital network is that I could easily add another 10 inspirational women to this list… but for now I’d rather leave the list as something manageable to look at and explore. Please take the time to ‘visit’ these wonderful leaders and learn from them. And feel free to share a link to one of your inspirational leaders with me.
Also, ask yourself Who Have You Helped Today, and if you can’t come up with a name, then take Claire’s advice on Betty’s blog post and maybe donate some money for loans through Kiva… when you do so, think about loaning it to a girl!
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:
Here is what it looks like from my perspective: (I pulled out my tablet which is on my lap to do this post)
Special thanks to my new friend Lorraine, who put the camera on her computer, and took care of the camera operation… tough job as Alan moves around a lot!
Hope you enjoy the Ustream!
As a fun aside: photo of the desk in my hotel room after Dave and I arrived and started recharging things:
This is the last post that I have to move and so I thought I would put my reflection first.
I actually posted this after I went back to the beginning of my blog and started the reposting process. There is only one other time that I interjected a new post during this reflect and repost process, and I did that because the issue was time sensitive. That said, many reflections have been posts within posts with new ideas developed and shared.
So here now is my final post reflection in this format… I have now officially moved my blog completely over to this new feed.
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Audience does matter… and so does authority. Even in some of these reflections I have seen a shift in my tone on this blog. To be honest, it has been a healthy shift. I still rant, as the first link above demonstrates, but I think I have found a much more positive spin on things thanks to my change in position as well as the choice to put this blog at an address with my name on it.
Every e-mail I send out has the Zoroastrian quote, “Think Good Thoughts, Say Good Words, Do Good Deeds”, and in fact, so do most of my online profiles. Yet, my frustration with the slow process of tearing down archaic institutional walls that hinder the use of transformational technologies in schools has left me frustrated, if not outright bitter, at times. But who are my audience? What does a somewhat negative tone tell them about blogging or working with technology?
As I say below:
We need to be empowered learners if we want to lead other learners.
Anger and frustration may spur the desire to learn, but these ‘hot’ emotions do not encourage a positive learning environment, they do not enhance a learning experience, they do not empower us to be leaders.
You’ll still see me rant, and I’ll still show my frustration at times, but I hope to keep the tone positive and I hope to keep my very own personal learning environment, my learning hub, a place where my thoughts, words and deeds are inherently good.
Thanks to inspiration by Alec, I ended up staying up well past my bedtime (again) and writing a Forum Post in an online Dialogue for our Building Leadership Capacity group. This is a group of teachers interested in Leadership within the District, they meet for 3 session and the discussion forum is designed to keep the conversation going between sessions, (it is just getting started). It is interesting being one of the facilitators after being a teacher-participant for a few years. Regular readers will see that my comments are tempered with a slightly different tone as I figure out my voice as an Administrator. We tell students, “Audience Matters!” But now I am experiencing that first-hand. Here is my discussion forum post:
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Here is an interesting video.Schools as institutions are so slow to change. I think if we really want to be leaders we must prepare our students with the tools of today and tomorrow, not yesterday!
From Alec Couros’ Letting Go “…we’ve reached the point in our (disparate) cultural adaptation to computing and communication technology that the younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. They are ready to dump our schools.”
Harsh words, but as our own district ramps up its’ online learning and districts like West Vancouver do the same, we must ask ourselves how best to meet the needs of our students in schools? On the topic of technology use, I created this slideshow to show to SFU Student Teachers at a pro-d session earlier this year: Brave New World-Wide-Web. Towards the end, it highlights some of the tools that students used to empower their own learning.
And that brings us back to the idea of leadership. We need to be empowered learners if we want to lead other learners. We need to create an environment that fosters doing new things in new ways, like many cutting edge organizations do. However, this isn’t a complaint about what we need and don’t have. I read a lot of blogs by teachers across the globe. Here in Canada, and in the US, there are countless districts where not every classroom has a computer, or where draconian online censorship by the district limits what a teacher can do. Compared to most school districts, we are actually leaders on the technology integration curve, especially with respect to our ideology of openness and what we have with the My43 portal.
So as leaders, how do we harness this advantage? If we want to build capacityand empower the leaders in our district, what is it that needs to happen to foster a culture that thrives on challenge
and change? What do we need to do to nurture our own learning? How can WE become educational leaders that prepare our students for an age of prolific technological advancement?
Last Friday I was leaving the school and I popped into my VP’s office. Among other things, Anthony and I often talk about technology in the classroom. One thing led to another and I showed him the YouTube video that was the subject of my last post: iPhone tutorial from a two-year-old. It was shortly after this, while I was saying something, that Anthony interrupted me:
“You can’t go back now, can you?” “What?” “You could never be able to go back to teaching without technology, could you? “No.”
Driving home after our conversation it occurred to me what a transformation my teaching has gone through in the past couple years. Could I go back to a classroom and teach void of blogs, wikis, & online networks? Well, of course I could, but I just wouldn’t want to!
Not only do I never want to go back, but I have become an evangelist.
However I’ve noticed a bit of a backlash among teachers. Comments like “We can do that without technology” miss the point about what students have the potential to do. “Every time I get them in the computer room all they do is Facebook” recognizes that technology is a tool, not an answer, but comments such as these are used as excuses rather than challenges.
In the past few weeks I’ve heard more than one teacher say, “What is Facebook”, and “What is a wiki?”. This I can handle. But then I hear about how technology is evil; about what a distraction it is. Well here is a little news flash… IT ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE!
There are times I just want to put my head down, improve what I am doing as a teacher, and forget that there is ‘work to be done’. I can’t. Not only can’t I return to life in Plato’s cave, but I am also compelled to ’share the true light’. I now realize that at times I am destined to be seen as ‘blinded’, such will be the lot in life for many of us.
Can you go back now?
Originally posted: December 17th, 2007
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
I’ll let the comments on the original post speak for me.
No David, we can’t go back. We have come too far along the road and know too much about what is out there to go back. We are willing to take the good with the bad and suffer some of the things that come along with knowing – like sleepless nights, frustration of things not working, having to re-explain to students, losing things in cyberspace, etc. We are willing to go through these because we have experienced the joy and fun and exhilaration and…. when something happens. It’s so constructivist that we cannot understand how others don’t see how great it could be. But, just like Darwin argued for changes in education over a 100 years ago with little change, we need to change much more than just the tools we use. We need to change the way people view learning. Keep up it up! We’ll get there!
your post is very inspiring, and for me in many dimensions. In the first glance it seems to be the expression of skeptical view of all ongoing development. The sort of skepticism we may all know. (Won’t Work, etc.) But this vibes in me in sustainability. It seems to me now that this should be a good point growing and going in concrete. Yes – i also would answer, that i couldn’t go back teaching my university students being creatively – expressive… poetaster’s group host. Getting organized – … And its is the effect of the new technology as an crystallisation point of all those affords and their solutions. But – and this has been deeply grown for me now: There is a lot of work to transport our learning experiences – observations – effects – because they are complex to observe and more than than complex to transport – especially to those who want to access it theoretically.
Maybe – and this would be my answer: “I cannot go back – because I’ve seen the glance in the eyes of the students. I cannot go back, because they have implemented my top level aim: They changed the verbing from :”I am podcaster at University-Koblence” to “I have to do something for my podcast”) This are the points you cannot explain to somebody who hasn’t got infected .
Best greetings from the icy-cold Germany – and forgive the typos – my English @ school has been a long time ago
Constructivist indeed! That’s the challenge for those looking from the outside trying to understand.
Andreas,
Thank you for looking beyond your first glance, and seeing beyond an expression of the skeptical view. My intent was NOT to say, “Oh no, I can’t go back!”, but rather to identify that what lies ahead is much too exciting to go back again… and I can tell that you saw that!
The transformation that you see in your students is an excellent example of why so many of us are, as you say, ‘infected’ – (a brilliant choice of words that only arises from a second language speaker:-)
Your students are fortunate to have you guide them. I am sorry that I do not speak German and the English translation of your Podcasting for Learning does not do justice to your writing, as your comment demonstrates.
Thank you both for your comments!
Dave.
David Truss on Thursday, 20 December 2007, 18:40 CET
David,
I love this post! I can’t go back and I don’t think kids can go back either–and we all need to remember that.
It is discouraging sometimes to feel like the one shouting in the wilderness. I’m eager for the day when many of the research studies going on will show the value of what we know/feel to be true!
Thanks for the post!
Carolyn Foote on Tuesday, 08 January 2008, 20:58 CET
To put it simply… there is something here for everyone!
Description
This presentation takes participants along my journey into integrating 2.0 applications and “21st Century Learning” into my pedagogy. The presentation will show how teacher driven assignments and projects teach students some of the skills they need to use these new technologies to enhance their learning. Scribe Posts, Growing Postsand E-Portfolios will provide participants with three different activities to do with their students. The final part of my presentation takes participants into “unprojects”. Participants will learn how to create “unprojects”. For the veteran teacher who is using 2.0 in their classroom this is for you. See how students are more creative and show more enthusiasm towards assignments when they are in charge of their learning.
This is where the future of education should be heading… Kudos to Chris Harbeck!
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Unfortunately I will not be participating in the CUEBC Conference with Will Richardson. He comes all the way to my neighbourhood and I have to miss him! Fortunately I am missing this so that I can help out at a Student Leadership Retreat with my school. I have run these camps for many years (and have resources to share). This year I am helping out rather than leading. I look forward to this, and I hope to learn a lot with the advantage of a different (less stressful) perspective. Joni, is a great leader who truly lives by the mantra I borrowed from Dave Sands, “I teach leadership not followship”. I wish I could do both events, but at least I am doing something that I will enjoy and learn from. You can do the same by heading to one of Chris’ links above.
Originally posted: October 18th, 2006
Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:
It’s all about empowering students to be responsible for their own learning… whether teaching them content in a class, having them explore an area of interest, or having them run a school-wide activity as part of a leadership program.
Chris’s comment on this post said,
Thanks for visiting the presentation. I hope you can use the tools with your students. You will find that when students have creative control over how they present information they rise to new levels of learning. Have fun.
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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. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Who are the People in Your Neighbourhood? My (digital) neighbourhood spans the globe. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I met Betty when she invited me to 
Liz B. Davis
Heidi Hass Gable
Sue Waters
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Background
Kelly Christopherson on Monday, 17 December 2007, 23:18 CET