I had some fun this morning creating a Google Search Story.

The tag line (description) for this video is, “If you are just looking for activity worksheets, then you are missing the point!” I took advantage of my own high search-ability to do a little self-promotion in the search results, but the link that shows up is actually to my old blog site. Still, the whole thing took less than 20 minutes and the creation steps are really easy. I can see this activity being a lot of fun to do with students as an introduction to a topic in just about any subject. If you have students create some search stories, share them with me.

Enjoy the first day of school 2010!

Here is my YouTube channel if you are interested.

Three weeks ago I did a couple presentations to parents about Parenting In the Digital Age:

This FREE workshop is for parents, both the tech savvy and the less technically inclined, who would like to develop family expectations around the use of technology to play, learn and connect.

For this presentation I created a wiki: http://raisingdigitalkids.wikispaces.com/ and tonight I’ve finally uploaded the presentation to Slideshare.

A key part of the presentation is the handout called ‘Engaging with kids‘.  It is made up of a series of questions based on the presentation, but not necessarily in the presentation. The point is asking questions and finding the right balance or ‘fit’ for each family rather than offering any kind of prescribed answers.

I spent most of the day writing presentation notes and editing my slide transitions out for the Slideshare version. My goal was to create an online presentation that others could use.

Special thanks to:

• Dave Sands, much of my presentation came from ideas shared in his presentations. I had the honour of co-presenting with him, on an earlier version of these presentations.

• Amalia Giebitz, who organized these presentations, doing all the work to get ICD support and even recruiting friends to come to the events.

Feedback, as always, is appreciated!

Background

In the past two weeks I’ve moved from a school with just 3 projectors in a 4 floor, (no wireless), school to a school with:

• Projectors in every classroom (that we will be using next school year).
• Netbooks for every teacher.
• Wireless in key rooms and common areas.

AND…

• Beginning next September our Grades 7-9′s will be bringing their own laptops to school!

The pitch

Sometime soon I’ll share the 50+ page/slideshow presentation that I presented to my boss to pitch the idea of moving in this direction. (I need to change some copyrighted images & track down some more image credits first.) I’m sure some of it will be useful to others for the same reasons.  My boss asked me great questions, provided me with the budget, and helped me get things moving with some tech support- (even more than I asked for!) I’m thankful for the faith he has put in me and I’m confident that my staff will convince him a year from now that this was an excellent move towards a new kind of teaching and learning.

From idea to implementation

I created this question and answer page for my parents:

Grade 7 to Grade 9 Bring Your Own Laptop Program Outline for 2010-2011

…and I’ll highlight a section of it, and a section of my newsletter introducing the program, here. I have to thank Matt Montagne for sharing resources with me & saving me a lot of time and effort building things from scratch.

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From my newsletter:

Why laptops? (or netbooks)
I have been very involved for the past 4 years in researching and writing about the effective use of technology in schools. I firmly believe that a current education is one that prepares children to engage in intelligent, safe technology use, where students are prosumers of information, (those that don’t just consume, but also produce information and content). Information is becoming more and more abundant and ubiquitous. Resources available online can both greatly enhance what students learn in class, and also extend the classroom beyond the walls of the class and school, allowing for a rich and global learning experience. The goal of this initiative is to provide our Seniors with a true 21st Century, international learning experience.

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From the link I shared above:

Will the use of computers affect my child’s learning?
Yes… in a good way!
Some of you may ask, “What about learning the basics, like Reading, Writing, Math and Science, and in an International School, English Language Learning?”
A 21st Century learning model starts and ends with these subjects! The use of technology in the classroom is to provide current, interactive and collaborative tools to help students communicate better and demonstrate their creativity while improving speaking, reading and writing, as well as learning in Math, Science and other key subject areas. Our technology goal is to enhance and enrich the great learning experiences students already get at our school, not to replace those experiences. We already have students from many parts of the world at our school, but now we can truly bring an interactive, global learning experience into our classrooms as well.

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Background (Part 2)

I’ve read about laptop programs failing, and it seems to me that most if not all of them were the result of overspending on ‘hardware’ and not spending enough on what Ian Jukes calls ‘headware’. The fact is that when you commit to purchasing laptops for every student, you need to spend a lot of time and effort being product managers rather than educators. But “Bring Your Own” programs were not viable before the OLPC $100 Laptop Initiative helped to drive laptop and netbook prices down. Now the focus needs to be on orienting teachers and students into a new way of thinking about using these tools in class. Still, there is a lot of logistics and planning needed to make a BYO Laptop program successful.

The pitch (Part 2)

Thinking about this, I stumbled onto a post by Will Richardson about a plp team.  On a video clip in the post Ellie Preston said her team had made a final project video about their school becoming a BYOLaptop school next year. But, there was no link to the video so I requested one and Will put me in touch with Cary Harrod. Shortly after that Cary and I connected on, and started chatting on, Twitter and she said:

From idea to implementation (Part 2)

So, here is a new group I started for anyone interested in sharing their BYO Laptop (and also 1-1 Laptop) experiences and resources.

I see three possible goals for such a group:  (Please suggest others)

1. Create a resource useful to anyone interested in starting or developing a BYO Laptop program.

2. Develop a resource of 1-1 teaching and learning strategies.

3. Provide support for all those little challenges that come up in a BYO Laptop or 1-1 school.

So if you are interested, please join this group, share, and learn along with us!

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Related posts:

Just last year I was presenting on bringing POD’s (Personally Owned Devices) to school, but I was thinking this would be iPod’s, iTouches and cell phones.

And now for the same reasons that I’m not a fan of the iPad in schools, I think laptops and netbooks are a much better approach!

It can also be oversimplified and boring and taught very poorly.

A boy rides his bicycle for 30 minutes and he travels 7.5 kilometers. How far can he travel in 3 hours?

If you do the (simple) math, with the three basic pieces of information given- an oversimplified strategy many math books employ, you’ll see that the boy traveled 45 kilometers in 3 hours.

Really? A kid rides a bike for 3 straight hours… at the same speed? Where there no hills? Didn’t he obey street signs? Did he stop for a Slurpee?

More importantly, if I don’t factor these anomalies in, is the math interesting? Is it teaching anything? Or rather, is it teaching anything meaningful?

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“Except in mathematics, the shortest distance between point A and point B is seldom a straight line.” -Anonymous

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I remember giving a bonus question in my Grade 8 class once where I told students the speed of a train that went from Vancouver, BC, Canada to Los Angeles, California, USA. I told them the distance and the time it took. Then I gave them the distance from Vancouver to Honolulu, Hawaii and asked, “If the same train traveled from Vancouver to Honolulu at the same speed as the trip to Los Angeles, how long did it take to get there?”

I have always been known for my ‘Killer’ bonus questions. This was not one of them. I had a general rule for bonus questions that if students worked to a final solution… even if it was wrong, but they showed their work, then they would get some credit for trying. Well, did I ever upset some of my students when I refused to give them any credit for the (completely irrelevant) Math that they did on the question above!  The most humourous argument to gain credit was, “There could be a tunnel!” The best argument was, “I got the answer right and had time so I just did the Math anyway, do I get extra bonus marks?”

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“The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry, and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.” ~Aristotle

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Watch Dan Meyer‘s TEDxNYED talk Math Curriculum Makeover. Check out one of his lessons. Dan teaches Math, but more importantly, Dan teaches students to think, and to see the beauty of Math.

Math doesn’t always have an easy answer, and it shouldn’t always be about the answer. We should relish in the mysteries of Math’s beauty.

Here is a wonderful video “Nature by Numbers” on Phi, the golden ratio. A pattern found in nature and admired and appreciated for its’ beauty for centuries now!

Here is the math behind the video. Math is beautiful if we let it be so.

Have you made the Shift? Are you an agent of change?

Where do you fit?

This is Part III of a 3 part series. When I started this series I had an outline that I only vaguely ended up following, but I knew from the start that what I wanted to say was too much for a single post.

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Part I Shifting Education

Are you unshifted, shifting, or shifted?
“To the shifted: You have an obligation to serve others.”

Part II Shifting Learning

“The shift is happening now and if we aren’t shifting the learning experience for students then what kind of education are we giving them?”

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Part III Shifting Attitudes

So where do you fit? Do you offer support to others that have not shifted? Are you helpful to the shifting? Are you effective? I’m not sure that I always am? I’ve been told that my Brave New World Wide Web video, “Preaches to the converted”. I’ve been a tech evangelist that has overwhelmed the unshifted and the shifting too! It’s part of my own learning journey, but a great learning journey with mentors, inspirational – leaders, and teachers in the trenches, doing more than I ever did in the classroom. I’ve also provided support and inspiration to others, helping to guide them and provide resources, giving my time and energy (in very personally rewarding ways).

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I CAN’T!

I first explored the notion that, “I CAN’T” in my presentation ‘The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and The Ant’. In this presentation, I had slides (#46-49) that moved from “I Can’t” to “I Can” to “I Must” to “I Will” and that is what inspired the wording for my Shifting Attitudes venn diagram (above).

One of the biggest reasons people feel they CAN’T is FEAR, which is another topic I spend time on in the presentation.

I talk about the hinderance ‘fear’ causes frequently in my blog, such as in my blog post about my POD’s presentation, (on bringing Personally Owned Devices such as iPods & cell phones to schools). In my POD’s presentation I also discuss how our Attitude can be a ‘Big Wall’ that prevents meaningful change.

These are important ideas because I think our ATTITUDE can be both the biggest impetus for meaningful change and also the biggest barrier.

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I CAN!

As leaders we need to have the right attitude and see opportunities where others see obstacles:

“I’ve seen a real shift in my own thinking recently. Forget whining about access, disregard the slow speed of change, get over the obstacles! Go after meaningful results. Engage and empower students. Be a leader and a role model.”

I think that the two areas that we can be the greatest influence to others are:

1. Influencing educators that are stuck believing that they can’t shift, (can not use technology innovatively in the classroom, can not differentiate learning in the classroom, can not let go of who controls the learning in a classroom, etc.)

2. Influencing educators who are shifting their practice, but need support in doing so.

The needs are different, but some of the scaffolding and support we offer one of these groups can also be helpful to the other. (Note: These are not mutually exclusive groups! For example, we can be stuck simultaneously at both of these points around different strategies or tools.)

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I WILL!

So when we offer our colleagues, our teachers, our fellow educators support, what does that mean?

The key elements of SUPPORT are: Time, Resources, and Knowledge, (as well as Inspiration and Motivation).

• Time: Professional Development, Collaboration and ‘Play’ time. (‘The Time’)

• Resources: Equipment, access, (digital/networked/collaborative) repositories. (‘The Tools’)

• Knowledge: Best (actually good) Practice, know-how, and research. (‘The How’)

• Inspiration: Examples, possibilities, and role modeling. (‘The Wow’)

• Motivation: Acknowledge the positive, and High Expectations- for teachers as well as students. (‘The Now’)

That’s just a work-in-progress list, (with a hint of a future post). At a different logical level, there is more required such as a common vision, collaboration and leadership on different levels, learning communities, responsibility and even accountability, (see my pyramid based on Andy Hargreaves 4th Way). But for the purposes of this post, I have been focussing on what we as individuals can do to help shift attitudes, and offering support in these areas is an excellent start!

In creating the Shifting Attitudes venn diagram, I realize that ‘I WILL’ only suggests future action and not de facto ACTION, but to put this final destination into the present tense, (such as ‘I AM’ rather than ‘I WILL’), would be to suggest an end-point or achievement plateau. However, I think that as leaders and as change agents, we are constantly adjusting what we will do as we (also) learn and grow.

The reality is that what I am able to learn and do now is staggering compared to 5 years ago and the educational landscape (or mediascape) is moving at an incredible speed. In the last 5 years many 1-1 programs have buckled under economic strains, but the idea of students bringing their own Personally Owned Devices was not feasible. When I did my POD’s presentation last year, I didn’t imagine that schools would be talking about netbooks and laptops as POD’s, I was thinking cell phones and iPod Touches… The landscape keeps changing. Tools are cheaper, easier to use, and my network is continually keeping me up to date on some amazing possibilities.

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An ‘Open’ Attitude

Attitude can also be a reference to orientation relative to the direction of travel. I said in reference to the idea of education becoming more ‘Transparent’ in the future that,

“Teaching ‘openly’ empowers educational leaders to be educational co-learners. It isn’t about sharing lessons, its about sharing the process and the progress we are making in providing meaningful learning opportunities. Transparency is changing teaching practice into a perpetual learning practice.”

Our orientation towards open, collaborative and networked learning is critical to shifting education, and shifting learning. It isn’t the network or the tool that matters, but rather that we create meaningful connections as part of our learning practice. As George Siemens says in his TEDxNYED Talk, “The network, it’s incidental in my eyes, it’s the connection that’s critical”.

To summarize the importance of openness and networked learning compared to formerly closed learning models, it’s the difference between Wikipedia [stats] and a 5-year old Encyclopedia set sitting on a bookshelf.

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… And so ends the Shifting Series

To summarize my thoughts behind this series:

a) Our educational land/mediascape has shifted;
b) We have an obligation to shift with it, and to help those that have not shifted, or that are shifting;
c) The landscape is still shifting and we have to identify the trends that are heading our way;
d) We have an obligation to our students to look ahead and continue our own learning to support them;
e) Our attitude towards the shift will determine our influence.
f) We need to be leaders that support change, as well as inspire and motivate others to change.
g) ‘We’ have the power of networked collaboration on our side to speed up the shift.

I believe that although the shift has been slow thus far, the networked learning model that we are building is the foundation for exponential rather than incremental growth… Knowing that, I can’t help but have anything less than a positive attitude!

Choose your position: Are you a gatekeeper, policemen, guard… or teacher? All these jobs are necessary, but which one belongs in schools?

Choose your battle:

Filters that also filter learning -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Banning POD’s -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Teaching without technology -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Make no mistake, having and following through with high expectations is a battle. It takes time and effort to mutually establish expectations, it takes time and effort to develop a trusting relationship, and it takes both consistency and a willingness to follow through on consequences. This is a classroom management issue… and it provides new challenges. It is a battle worth tackling! Why? Because you are a teacher, not a security officer.

Students today carry their unfiltered internet connections in their pockets. They have access every minute that they are not in the classroom.

“… But it is a distraction.”
“… But it makes them lazy.”
“… But they don’t use it for learning.”

As I said in a comment yesterday morning:

I have a hard time seeing technology today as ‘creating more lazy students’ because I don’t see many students today that are more lazy than I was. I was a disengaged, often bored, student. Does technology create a distraction… YES, a huge distraction that can be hard to compete with.
So what do we do? We don’t let kids misuse pens (writing notes to each other) and paper (making paper airplanes) in class http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/miss-management/ … We place high expectations on their proper use! Keeping technology out of class won’t work nearly as well as placing high expectations of their use in class. Listen to Sonya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kowGRhWAJeM

We can’t ‘compete’ but it is even harder to ignore. It’s a classroom management issue and it’s hard to deal with because it is new. We’ll lose the battle if we spend our time trying to compete with the entertaining world technology has to offer, but we will engage students if we learn to meaningfully integrate technology use when appropriate and then put it away, like we do for pens and paper, when it doesn’t add value… using our skills as a teacher to make sure that when students use any ‘tool’ in our class, that they are being used effectively and affectively.

So which battle will it be? Do we make classrooms a war zone? A battle zone to keep technology out? Or do we make it a learning zone? A place where we close the gap between digital distractions and digital classroom tools?

Here is a little tribute I shared with my staff at our staff meeting today. I took 3 or 4 of the photos last week, and then yesterday I visited classes and took the rest. It seems that whenever I talk to my staff the conversation is always about the things we need to do better or still need to get done… It’s the nature of teaching that we can always improve our practice.

So, I decided to say ‘Thank You!’ to my teachers for doing all the wonderful things they do. I work in a great place with a great staff, and sometimes we need to stop and appreciate the little things we are doing to make our school great!

Remember to show your appreciation for all the wonderful teachers in your life!

- – - – - – - – - -

Here is the link for this video on YouTube, and for those behind a filter, like my staff, here it is in a drop.io folder.

Music: ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

When I wrote Shifting Education, I had already outlined this post in my head. It was going to be a diatribe on how learning needs to shift away from the front of the room, the teacher, and into the hands and the minds of the learner. But I’ve written time & again & again about that. Worthy of mentioning as well is Subbaraman Iyer’s post that looks at the Educational Approach vs the Learning Approach.

My shifting learning post has shifted away from this theme.

George Siemens wrote: “Could you post a video/drawing/audio recording/dance routine/cave drawing/clay pot that represents your vision of the future of education?”

… and it occurred to me that what I should be looking at when talking about ‘Shifting Learning’ is the direction we are shifting to in the future, more-so than now. I tried to do as George asked and represent this in something other than words. I spent a couple hours playing with a slide show of images and now I’m just going to salvage the title page to share with you as a frame for what I’ll write about. This isn’t a crystal ball look into the future, instead it is my perception of some key trends that will have a powerful impact on how learning will be shared in the future.

Trends that will influence the Future of Education

Let’s take a ‘T.R.I.P. into the Future’ looking at some changes that are shifting learning in a way not possible just a few years ago. Here are 4 trends that education is moving towards: Greater Transparency, greater Responsibility, greater Individualization and greater Permanence.

Assumption: Ubiquitous Connectivity. It’s coming. I can’t wait!

Transparency

When I created my Science Alive wiki and decided to share what I was doing on an open wiki, I was keenly aware that I was opening my classroom to the world. That changed my practice. If I were to do it again it would be 100 times better because I openly looked at the feedback and shared my lessons learned on my blog.

Teaching ‘openly’ empowers educational leaders to be educational co-learners. It isn’t about sharing lessons, its about sharing the process and the progress we are making in providing meaningful learning opportunities. Transparency is changing teaching practice into a perpetual learning practice.

Transparency also increases a learner’s ability to seek what they are looking for and to find learning opportunities they really want. We will see more individualized learning opportunities for students as they ‘shop around’ and follow personal interests, (more on individualization later).

There will also be more transparency of both quality and expectations. Weak teachers won’t be able to hide. In my opinion this transparency of practice only need be feared if your practice gives reason to fear. Best practice is still just practice and this is not about being perfect, but openly demonstrating that you are striving to improve.

Responsibility

I’ve looked at Facebook (twice) and awareness of cyberbullying too. I’ve told people to stop blaming mismanagement on the tool. I’ve event told people to get off their butts. But responsibility isn’t just about caution and warnings… it’s also about extending yourself and thoughtfully taking chances.

Hargreaves speaks of Responsibility before Accountability. This is a good shift. A move that takes us away from standardization and moves us to greater individualization of a student’s learning experience. We will also see more expectations on students to be active participants in their learning rather than passive targets of learning.

Individualization

From the ‘Access’ section in my post: Opportunities, Access & Obstacles:

• Our lives are open, public and on display.

…you can… produce, publish, print and share what ever you want with the world.

• 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.

…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.

[For example]…The instructor knows when a student is stumped and activates extra teaching modules on the specific subject.”

• Life extended beyond the physical world.

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.”

We are going to be looking at a lot more individualization of school work and expectations, assignments, and even programs in the future. And what I’ve mentioned so far hasn’t even considered how augmented identities could help us personalize learning.

Permanence

This is a catch-all for the other 3 trends. With respect to Transparency we will be seeing not just the progress of an assignment or a class or a school year, but the progress of one’s life of learning. This blog encapsulates 4 years of my thinking about education, technology and learning. Add to this my comments, my flickr account, my tweets, my linkedIn profile, my many other profiles, and you get My-Whole-Life-Connected-and-On-Display-For-Anyone-And-Everyone-To-See…

For me that’s 4 years worth of information, for a kid today that could be close to 20 years worth of information when they are entering the work force. This puts a huge Responsibility on students at a young age to think about their digital footprint… something we need to actively teach about, and offer guidance, advice and consequences for mismanaging… That’s our responsibility as educators, parents and community members.

An interesting thing that I think we’ll start to see is Individualized Learning Spaces being created to store a student’s learning journeys outside of individual classes, schools and districts. A school should not own a child’s learning ‘products’, (things they create and produce for school). Companies like Youtube and Wikispaces and Edublogs shouldn’t own them either. I don’t know how far away we are from this, but I do think we’ll see individualized repositories for people’s learning that scrapes all the public learning profiles and stores them in one place (a personal digital dossier). This would be further individualized by the learner, then end user, in how they prioritize and present the information provided.

Final Thoughts

As these trends amplify over the next few years, we can embrace them or fear them, but they aren’t going away. They all move us towards a more participatory future where what we do is documented and ultimately stored in a very public way. Learning is shifting away from the confines of the classroom and into the realm of the public domain. The shift is happening now and if we aren’t shifting the learning experience for students then what kind of education are we giving them?

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This is Part II of a 3 part series.

Part I: Shifting Education

Part III: Shifting Attitudes

One of my favourite sayings these days is:

‘Teachers should be the lead learners in the classroom.’

I think that if a teacher goes into a class believing first and foremost that they are ‘model learners’ and that they will learn with their students, then that teacher will create a meaningful and engaging learning environment for their students.

I’ve always been a fan of Kevin Honeycutt, I think he is creative and his podcasts are great. Well now he shares this video that tells the tale about why we need teachers to learn. Enjoy!

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Related posts: Shifting Education and Hargreaves and the 4th Way [Part 2].

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: