First let me say that the comments on the previous post have been pretty amazing and thought provoking. I want to comment on the comments at some point, but first I just wanted to throw out this excerpt from Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins. This is, like, Part 3 in my blog book report.

There is a chapter where he talks about the efforts of some Survivor (the TV show) fans to “spoil” the season’s outcome by collectively gathering intelligence and comparing notes on the evidence all in an attempt to determine the winner well before the season finale. It’s a pretty interesting description of a long, complex process that relies of the work of the group but still bumps up against the “who can you trust” issues that we all face these days.

To give context to the discussion about how trust and authority are changing these days, Jenkins cites Pierre Levy’s notion of collective intelligence as compared to Peter Walsh’s “expert paradigm.” My point here is to talk about how this relates to the whole teacher as learner discussion in that we are now living in a world where collective intelligence is becoming more powerful and relevant to being a learner, but we’re educating our kids in classrooms still under this idea of experts at the front of the room. Here goes.

Walsh argues that our traditional assumptions about expertise are breaking down or at least being transformed by the more open-ended processes of communication in cyberspace. The expert paradigm requires a bounded body of knowledge, which an individual can master. The types of questions that thrive in a collective intelligence, however, are open ended and profoundly interdisciplinary; they slip and slide across borders and draw of the combined knowledge of more diverse community.

This is why tests are becoming less relevant, no question. Read the article in the Times today about schools who no longer require the SAT. They save the best quote for last:

“Human intelligence and ambition is more complex, more multifaceted, than any standardized testing system can capture,” Mr. Hiss said.

We cannot know everything. Today, knowledge has no bounds. Truth is in flux, and this requires a network, a community to make sense of it.

Second, Walsh argues that the expert paradigm creates an “exterior” and “interior”; there are some people who know things and others who don’t. A collective intelligence, on the other hand, assumes that each person has something to contribute, even if they will only be called upon on an ad hoc basis.

Why shouldn’t we contribute what we know to others? Why is “knowing” set up to be a competition? When we can connect around ideas that are in flux, everyone can contribute. It’s a much more democratic way of thinking about things.

Third, the expert paradigm, Walsh argues, uses rules about how you access and process information, rules that are established through traditional disciplines. By contrast, the strength and weakness of a collective intelligence is that it is disorderly, undisciplined, and unruly. Just as knowledge gets called upon on an ad hoc basis, there are no fixed procedures for what you do with knowledge. Each participant applies their [sic] own rules, works the data through their [sic] own processes, some of which will be more convincing than others, but none of which are wrong at face value. Debates about rules are a part of the process.

We really struggle with this as educators, don’t we, this giving up of the rules about knowledge? This is where the whole idea of Wikipedia just breaks down for a lot of us. Along these lines, I’m finding that the most powerful part of Wikipedia for educators to see is not the history of changes, though that can be pretty powerful, but instead the discussions, the negotiations that occur by the writers in the back channel. The example of the Delta Connections flight that crashed this week is a great example. It’s the messiness of the process made transparent. They, and we, make up the rules, make the decisions as part of the process.

Fourth, Walsh’s experts are credentialized; they have gone through some kind of ritual that designates them as having mastered a particular domain, often having to do with formal education. While participants in collective intelligence often feel the need to demonstrate or document how they know what they know, this is not based on a hierarchical system and knowledge that comes from real-life experience rather than formal education may be, if anything, more highly valued.

I don’t need a degree to be valued for my ideas in an environment where I can share freely and where people can engage with my ideas. Doesn’t our work become more important than what we “know?” And I know that degrees measure work as well as a knowledge, but still. This is what I know. You can believe me or not…your choice. But you can believe me based on my track record and my participation as a learner in the community, not simply based on the letters after my name or the diplomas on my wall.

Much, much more to think about, as usual…

technorati tags:education, learning, Henry_Jenkins, Pierre_Levy, classroom, teaching

The whole integrating technology discussion that many have been chronicling of late has been sticking in my craw for a couple of reasons. First, a couple of weeks ago I had a bad teacher day while I was doing some training, the kind that really gets me pessimistic about how difficult a road this is going to be.

With this particular group, it was made clear that the only reason they were in attendance was that they were getting paid for the day, that any teacher who came in during the summer and wasn’t getting paid was ruining it for everyone else, that the technology wouldn’t work in their classrooms anyway, that they didn’t have time to practice what they were learning, that, well, fill in the blank. It was one of those days, and they don’t occur very often, but it was one of those days when I walked out of the room thinking “Thank god my kids don’t go to this school.”

Depressing, to say the least.

The second reason is that it’s becoming exceedingly clear that we have an outdated perception of what teachers need to be. Like David, more and more I think there is a “T” word that we should stop using, only mine isn’t technology. It’s teaching. And let me say up front that this is one of those “I’m blogging this so people will help me figure out what it is I think” posts as my thoughts are still somewhat murky. But here goes.

When we say “teacher,” what we are really saying is “the person in the classroom to whom students look for knowledge” or something like that. In the traditional classroom that almost all of us grew up in, the teacher was the focal point, the decision maker, the director, the assessor. Teachers, well, teach, or try to. We hire teachers based on how well they know their subject matter and how well we think they can deliver it to students. Teaching, the way most of us see it, is all about imparting knowledge in a planned, controlled way.

In a world where knowledge is scarce (and I know I’m using that phrase an awful lot these days), I can see why we needed teachers to be, well, teachers. But here’s what I’m wondering: in a world where knowledge is abundant, is that still the case? In a world where, if we have access, we can find what we need to know, doesn’t a teacher’s role fundamentally change? Isn’t it more important that the adults we put into the rooms with our kids be learners first? Real, continual learners? Real models for the practice of learning? People who make learning transparent and really become a part of the community?

I hesitate to make blanket statements about teachers because a) they are seldom appropriate (the statements, that is) and b) they get me in trouble. But when I ask myself what percentage of the thousands of teachers I’ve worked with over the past two years are practicing learners, I have a hard time convincing myself that it’s more than half. Maybe even one-third.

I’m not saying this is necessarily their fault. We teach teachers to teach, we don’t teach teachers to learn. Even in professional development, we teach them stuff they need to be better teachers, but do we give them the skills they need to be better learners? Do we evaluate them on what they’ve been reading? On what they’ve been writing? On their reflectiveness?

There is a section in Henry Jenkins’ book that somewhat goes to this titled “Collective Intelligence and the Expert Paradigm.” I’m going to blog about it in this context when I next get a chance (which might not be for a few days.)

But for now, I’ll keep trying to think it through. What if we hired learners first?

technorati tags:teaching, education, school20, learning

There have been a spate of posts of late that talk about the role of technology in general and Web 2.0 technologies specifically in the classroom and also about the larger question of the acceptance of technology in general as a teaching and learning tool. Not surprising, is it, that these threads would pop up as school begins, at least here in the Western World.

Jeff Utecht started by writing about “Transition Techies” and lamenting the fact that technology is still seen as an option to most educators, not a requirement.

For most schools technology integration is optional. So I am supporting an optional program. I know it’s been said before but: As long as teachers have the option to integrate technology, some will opt not to. Since computers first started showing up in schools it was optional. Some teachers used the computer labs others didn’t.

I find myself wondering if these are, indeed, transition technologies in the sense that at the end of the day, blogs and wikis and the like come closer to pen and paper technologies than most of what has come before and that because of that, they may finally be the tools that bring us to the point where we stop talking about technology and start talking about practice. Obviously, it will take ubiquitous access for that to truly occur. But in my own case, this is not something that I can separate from the way I live and work. And I think that’s what we have to see happening in schools. The list of reasons why it hasn’t already is long and well documented, and Jeff’s post offers much to think about.
Later, Miguel Ghulin takes it a step further by writing that technology in schools isn’t just optional, it’s irrelevant.

Optional technology use? We are supporting a dream, a vision that was popularized by vendors, pundits, and high priced keynote speakers. We’re still in search of the high tech, high touch. The reality? The reality is that schools don’t see technology as optional. Rather, it is irrelevant…whether the laminating machine works is a more relevant concern. Maybe that’s splitting hairs, but I see irrelevant as much worse than optional. Optional implies that technology might be used if the teacher chooses, that it has some worth. Irrelevant says that there is no worth, whether you choose to use it or not.

I agree that there is a de facto irrelevance (whether we say we see the need for technology or not) if the people in leadership positions aren’t walking the walk and using technology as a part of their practice. I think of Tim Lauer and Tim Tyson who lead by example, and how rare that is when it comes to technology in schools. But is that only going to be solved when new, younger, technology facile leaders emerge?

Finally, Chris Sessums weighs in with some thoughts on the state of Read/Write Web tools in our classrooms:

Integrating the Internet and social software into the classroom is a complex and multifaceted process. As we stand today, there is very little research regarding which technology is most appropriate and effective for particular tasks. In my mind, this is a good thing. This is where creativity steps in - and this is what education is all about (i.e., trying out ideas, experimenting with software, making mistakes, reinventing, etc.). More importantly, effective and appropriate use involves the competent and committed involvement of people. To this end, Internet search engines and social software such as weblogs, wikis, and social bookmarking sites provide a rich and resourceful environment for educators and learners of all ages.

If, of course, they are willing to take the time to make them their own.

technorati tags:teaching, education, technology, classroom

I’m happy to report that my old school won a New Jersey Best Practices award for an ESL Literature Circle Weblog that we started last year with the ESL classes and the library. From the press release:

The ESL Literature Circle includes the selection and discussion of reading material in a Literature Circle format and is designed to increase students’ English language skills through reading, listening and writing activities. Students also write and post summaries of their reading on a Weblog, which includes online discussions.

It’s great to see the imagination of the teachers and the technology get some recognition.

technorati tags:blogging, education, books, literacy

Tim Lauer posts today about Moving to Drupal to create a more complex and flexible blogging/learning management environment for teachers at his school. I have to admit that Drupal

is not something I know very much about other than it seems to be very customizable depending on your work flow requirements. (There are times I wish my brain had a better understanding of code and programming, and there are times I’m glad I don’t.) Tim writes:

I am really excited about using Drupal as a basis for web based student and teacher interaction. Drupal has a host of features that will allow us to have students and teachers use Drupal to manage the workflow of assignments and student response to assignments. For example each of our 4th and 5th grade teachers will have a blog which she will use to post assignments and announcements to students. Each 4th and 5th grade student will have a Drupal based blog that will live behind our firewall.

The student blogs in Drupal will be designed so that the left sidebar will host an aggregator that will pull in the last two assignments from each of the teachers and post them on the sidebar. (see graphic) When this feature is enabled in Drupal each of the aggregated posts also has a little button next to it which show up when a student is logged in. When the student clicks the button, the teacher assignment blog post is captured and quoted in a new student blog post. The student can then continue to write his or her post in response to the assignment.

Sounds like a pretty nice work environment for the students.

technorati tags:drupal, Tim_Lauer, blogging, education

The 38th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll on what we think of our public schools has been released and there are a few finding that are pretty interesting, I think. Let me just say that I wonder just how much weight to give the responses since the vast majority of the respondents are graduates of the system and, therefore, I would think more apt to rate it better than it might be. The fact that only 32% of those surveyed had kids in school, and only 27% were college graduates at first seems surprising to me, but I’m sure they are just more reality checks than any type of outlier.

Anyway, here are some of the conclusions worth thinking about (with some short comments):

So, the question is, do we just keep on keeping on? Is the context that our community trying to put out there anywhere on these respondent’s radar? Do we see things differently because of that context, and, if so, do we see them rightly? Do they get the concept of this slide in Karl Fisch’s wonderful opening day Powerpoint:

Name this Country:

Richest in the World

Largest Military

Center of world business and finance

Strongest education system

World center of innovation and invention

Currency the world standard of value

Highest standard of living

Answer: England in 1900.

Just some things to think about…

technorati tags:education, Gallup, teaching

I hope you can come and visit me someday!

Joyce Valenza has put together an impressive chart titled How my life has changed / How will my life change in terms of the impact that these technologies have had and are having on librarians and educators in general. For me, the ones that really stand out are the differences in how we communicate and the options for student learning in the past 20-30 years (since Joyce and I were doing our schooling.) (Via Stephen and George and others.)

technorati tags:education, learning, the_shifts, Joyce_Valenza

So this looks pretty interesting…

Jenn has 60 students spread across 3 classes at Saint Rose college in Albany, New York. Jenn is going to have all of the students blog for class, it is a writing class, and I will leave the explanation at that. Jenn can say more about this and her goals for the class. What I am going to do is help Jen figure out how to get all the students set up, with minimal technical difficulties, and to help Jen figure out how to track all of the students postings.

There are a lot of details here which I will get into in future posts. But as an overview, I will be posting here on Academhack about the technical side. I am going to try outline step by step how this gets done. I will also hopefully create screencasts so that others can reproduce the efforts, borrow or change as they see fit. My goal is to create the tutorials on the level of web browser interface. This means if you are familiar with a web browser, can use Firefox, IE, Safari . . .than you should be able to follow the steps. Like I said, low entry barrier, open source.

The first post is already up.

Jenn’s class blog is called Expos-i-story, which I love, btw, and she’s already doing some interesting reflecting on her process and thinking. . It’s on a university level, but I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be instructive to K-12 teachers as well. Low entry and open source are filled with Web goodness…

technorati tags:education, blogging, college, expository_writing, teaching

So my Odeo test during my presentation in Coshocton, Ohio didn’t work as expected yesterday and I’m not sure why. I think I’m going to start doing those “look how easy this is” type examples in some other space from here on out. Time to start a beta Blogger blog…

It was interesting yesterday speaking to about 200 teachers about all these shifts and changes, having an hour just to show them my practice and talk about RSS and del.icio.us and the other tools that have become such a part of my life. And as always, I could see a lot of faces in that thinking hard scrunch. (I could also see a few that would have much rather been getting ready for opening day which is today…) I think one of the most interesting things that I’m finding in this new role is the consistent sense of restrained enthusiasm on the part of teachers. On the one hand, I think many who see these tools being used immediately get imaginative, creative ideas for their classrooms or their own practice. But there is always, always, always this underlying sense that what comes first is the “what about the test?” question. And it’s totally appropriate in an environment where what’s always in front is AYP and making the various standards that are being imposed. That, and the reality that as much as we are immersed in it, the technology still doesn’t work as easily as paper and pen in most parts of this country.

One other interesting note from yesterday…When I got to the school and ran through my presentation, I found much of what I wanted to show was being filtered. The administrative password got me through to everything but Wikipedia, which was coming up with an “adult and/or pornographic content” label. One of the technology specialists in the district jumped through all sorts of hoops to find out that the filtering service had flipped a wrong switch, and by the time I got to it in my live presentation, it was coming through. But the point was clear, once again. Educators are not in control of these decisions, and, as was expressed to me by another teacher, one of the most frustrating things is not being able to allow sites through the filter “on demand,” instead having to go through all sorts of levels to get things unblocked. I think at Coshocton, at least, they are going to start having some serious conversations about how to make this an education issue and not a technology one. They are talking about having some expansive dialogue which would include the entire school community to find a better way to do this. It will be interesting to see how that goes.

technorati tags:education, Coshocton, Wikipedia, filtering, censorship

powered by ODEO

We’re talking about the Read/Write Web.

Pat Aroune who is a high school teacher in upstate New York and a new edblogger (after 16 years in the business) sent along a link to some student Weblogs from his summer class on economics and a couple of them, Greg’s Public Views and Economics According to Andi struck me because of some of the work there and their reflections about blogging. Pat’s idea was to have them use their blogs to study economics in the context of whatever their passions were, and the results are pretty telling. Greg commented

I’ve learned in a way that tailors to my interests, what with using the internet to its fullest extent and writing about things that I am interested in. I would write about things like snowboarding, soccer, filmaking, eating, sleeping… whatever I wished, as long as I related it to economics. After doing this for a while, I started to realize that I was learning much faster than I would have normally by reading a boring (sorry, they almost always are) textbook. Not only could I write about things that I like and post them, but others could view those posts, as could I theirs, and consequently learn from their experiences and interests as well.

I think about this all the time in terms of my own children, who are learning to do all sorts of things in the context of what they are passionate about be it Power Rangers or horseback riding. And I’m really trying to nurture their entry into a world where they can learn together with other kids who are equally passionate about those topics (well, maybe not Power Rangers…)

Andi states it a bit differently but clearly makes the point:

To be quiet honest, I’ve become so accustomed to the “old skool” way of learning through the textbook and lectures, taking tests, and writing essays, that it’s just how I learn the easiest. It’s all I’ve known. How is this blogging thing gonna really help me? How am I even gonna know what to do? What does my teacher expect from me and how will I be able to meet those expectations? That was the main question right there. I’ve found that I learn in a way that requires a lot of structure. Someone tells me what to do and how they want it done, and like the mindless little nerd-monkey that I am, I do it. But by using this blog, I’ve been exposed to a new way of thinking and learning which has really been of benefit to myself. I’ve learned to think outside of the box and learn how I want to learn. You need to read her entire post about the experience…some very thoughtful and challenging reflections.

So here is a “new” bloggy teacher kicking the tires by allowing students to use blogs to write about things they are interested in and still draw it back in to the subject at hand. It’s not perfect…as the kids say, more commenting could have helped. But I really admire the initiative to change and experiment and reflect. And to make me think…

technorati tags:education, blogging, learning

Thanks to John Bidder for this link to an article in The Age out of Australia, where he recently presented at a conference discussing Web 2.0 tools and their potentials in education. (There’s a concept.) The quote comes from Susan Mann, CEO of the Curriculum Corporation:

“The old concept of curriculum is dead but you can’t tell anyone,” she says. “There are innovative schools and clusters of schools but others are stuck in a time warp.”

And that’s in Australia…people here are even less happy to hear that the concept of curriculum is dead. What will we do with all those tests?

technorati tags:education, curriculum, schools

A few more thought-provoking lines from Henry Jenkins’ new book “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.“ It’s been giving me quite a bit to chew on in the 30 or so pages I’ve read. I think he has an amazingly perceptive read on how access to people and ideas change the equation in the classroom. Just for some context, these are all from a chapter titled “Why Heather Can Write” which was expanded from an article published a couple of years ago in the MIT Technology Review. It’s primary focus is on kids turning to fan fiction, in this case, Harry Potter fan fiction. But the larger conclusions are pretty powerful, I think.

First, there is a discussion surrounding Paul Gee’s so-called “affinity spaces” which says that “people learn more, participate more actively, engage more deeply with popular culture than they do with contents of their textbooks” (177).

Affinity spaces offer powerful opportunities for learning, Gee argues, because the are sustained by common endeavors that bridge across differences in age, class, race, gender, and educational level, because people can participate in various ways according to their skills and interests, because they depend on peer-to-peer teaching with the participant constantly motivated to acquire new knowledge or refine his or her existing skills, and because they allow each participant to feel like an expert while tapping the expertise of others.

That resonates so powerfully with the way I reflect on my own practice as a blogger and with this community: constantly motivated to learn because of the connections that I have to the community of learners in this space. And it’s powerful because of the way learning is nurtured. As Jenkins says

In the classroom, scaffolding is provided by the teacher. in a participatory culture, the entire community takes on some responsibility for helping newbies find their way.

I love the language that Jenkins uses as well when talking about the potential effects of the fan fiction world on learning.

What difference will it make, over time, if a growing percentage of young writers begin publishing and getting feedback on their work while they are still in high school? Will they develop their craft more quickly? Will they discover their voices at an earlier age? And what happens when these young writers compare notes, becoming critics, editors, and mentors…As we expand access to mass distribution via the Web, our understanding of what it means to be an author–and what kinds of authority should be ascribed to authors–necessarily shifts.

Our students have a plethora of opportunities to publish right now, and more are opening up each day. (In fact, Barbara Barreda is writing about just such an opportunity in her blog.) When are we at least going to start thinking about the possibility of publishing work instead of just handing it in? I think that’s one of the most powerful shifts this is bringing about in our classrooms. If we don’t start considering the potential of publication soon, we’re going to find ourselves more and more irrelevant. As Jenkins puts it, we now live in a world “where knowledge is shared and where critical activity is ongoing and lifelong.”

Not surprisingly, someone who has just published her first online novel and gotten dozens of letters of comment finds it disappointing to return to the classroom where her work is going to be read only by the teacher and feedback may be very limited.

Finally, Jenkins writes eloquently about the new power our students have in this culture.

They are active participants in these new media landscapes, finding their own voice through their participation in fan communities, asserting their own rights even in the face of powerful entities, and sometimes sneaking behind their parents’ back to do what feels right to them. At the same time, through their participation, these kids are mapping out new strategies for negotiating around and through globalization, intellectual property struggles, and media conglomeration. They are using the Internet to connect with children worldwide and, through that process, finding common interests and forging political alliances…In talking media pedagogies, then, we should no longer imagine this as a process where adults teach and children learn. Rather, we should see it as increasingly a space where children teach one another and where, if they would open their eyes, adults could learn a great deal. (Emphasis mine.)

I just find that to be such a powerful articulation of what’s happening to learning in this new world. And I just don’t think many if any of our schools are really looking through this new lens very clearly yet. How are we supporting these types of connections in our curricula? How are we helping our students to become globally conversant? To what extent are we really handing over the power of these tools and teaching them how to use them well?

Much to think about…

technorati tags:Henry_Jenkins, literacy, fan-fiction, Paul_Gee, education, classroom, learning