So I ran across this Smart Ease of Use video in the course of one of our threads in a PLP cohort and I have to say, I can’t seem to shake it. I mean, maybe I’m missing something here, but if this is a vision of “transformative” technology, we’re in some serious trouble. Worse, if this marketing piece actually does the job and creates sales of Smart boards, we’re in even bigger trouble.

Is this really a vision of classrooms and learning that we aspire to? Is it all about being “easy”? And what does it say when the manufacturer of one of the most popular pieces of technologies in schools presents this picture for what teachers and students should be doing in schools?

Help me…what am I missing?

It’s been a great 10 days in Australia, one that’s been too packed for much blogging, obviously, and one that was highlighted yesterday by a visit to one of those “I really wish my kids went to school there” type of schools in a Melbourne suburb. It’s hard to capture everything that’s cool about the Wooranna Park Primary School in a blog post, but let me boil it down to this: the kids are driving the learning, from the design of the school and the curriculum to the decision making around school policy and more. It’s one of those inquiry-based learning environments where the moment you step into it you just feel something different. Different spaces. Different colors. Different conversations. Different stuff up on the walls.

I’m hoping to write more about what the principal Ray Trotter is trying to do at Wooranna, but for now, here are some of the highlights:

• When the school got funding to renovate the year 5/6 part of the school, the teachers and students got together and decided that the theme for their studies that year would be “design”. So the students set out to create the timeline, select the furniture, create the space plans, and manage the budgets. It was an involved process, driven by important questions and fueled by the students’ desire (and passion) for creating a learning space they could flourish in. In the process, they interviewed architects, over-ruled the principal in the choice of classroom furniture (after doing detailed research on neck injuries caused by having to sit at round tables,) designed work stations (using Google Sketch-up), and oversaw the entire process. The result? A really stunning mixed open-space, flexible, comfortable learning environment that the students take pride in.
• Everywhere you look in the hallways of Wooranna you see questions. One poster asks “How can we invent colors?” Another says “How have our tomatoes been coping with the 40+ (C) temperatures?” And my favorite, “What is learning?” The walls aren’t filled with products; they are filled with process. And the teachers and leaders model it. Hung prominently on the wall and often discussed with the students is the school’s “Raison D’Etre”. It quotes Plutarch, Vygotsky, Betts and others, and it’s based on questions; “What are the key principles for transformative learning?” “What do I want to change?”
• School government takes the form of the fifth and sixth grade students meeting each Friday in a discussion session that replicates the Australian Parliament. For the first half of the year, half of the kids run the government, and the other half takes over at the midway point. The leaders are elected by the student body, and they go about making real decisions about real projects and policies.
• When they graduate from Wooranna, students perform original music and dance that they have written and choreographed. In fact, they compose a lot of their own music throughout the year. And art. And media.
• Ray Trotter, the principal, talks easily about social constructivism, connectivism, George Seimens, Stephen Heppel and many of the other ideas and people in this space. But at present, due to some restraints with the technology, there is not a great deal of connecting out to the world, though his is looking for schools to video conference with and is beginning to move down that road.

There’s more, as usual. But I’ll leave it with this one thought from Ray, one of many, that jumped out at me during our conversations: learning is not a linear exercise, it’s random, it’s self-directed, it looks like spaghetti. And at Wooranna, it’s very, very obvious.

This month’s Edutopia magazine has a pretty comprehensive series on rethinking assessment written by Grace Rubenstein that picks up on my question here yesterday in some provocative ways. (Full disclosure: I sit on the national advisory board for Edutopia’s parent organization, the George Lucas Education Foundation.) It’s heartening to read passages like this:

“What we want to assess is how well prepared people are to learn new things in a nonsequestered environment where they have access to technology tools and social networks,” says Bransford. Compared to typical standardized tests, for which seeking new information would be considered cheating, he says this model is “way more motivating, much more interesting for students, and much more valid in terms of what people really need to do when they get out of school.”

That phrase “nonsequestered environment” really catches me. We don’t stay in classrooms all of our lives, do we? How do kids do when the curriculum isn’t delivered, the homework isn’t assigned, and the work is for real purposes? What will they do when they are faced with a question they don’t know the answer to? How will they work it? How will they tap into their networks, if they have them? How will they assess the information they get back and assess their own process?

That would be some amazingly important work to watch and evaluate, wouldn’t it?

“So, are you the principal here?”

“Yep.”

“How many kids?”

“About 1,300 K-12.”

“Wow. That’s a mix.”

She smiles.

“So how much technology do you have?”

“Quite a bit actually, but it’s been difficult of late.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“Well, we’ve been a 1-1 school for seven years, but we haven’t been able to buy any laptops for the last three.”

“Wow. That must be a pretty major issue, huh?”

“Well, our budgets have been cut, and the support has been difficult.”

“Anything bright on the horizon?”

“Well, we did just get a $100,000 from our local council for technology.”

“Well, that’s great. That ought to get you a couple of hundred laptops.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’ll buy us about 50.”

“Fifty! Why only 50?”

“The specs.”

“What specs?

“The bidding specs for the city.”

“Bidding specs?”

“The cheapest laptop we can buy is around $2,000.”

“How much?”

“Two-thousand.”

“Two- thousand? Wow.”

Awkward silence.

“You know you can get a laptop for like, $300-$400 these days, right.”

“I know.” She sighs.

“Two-thousand. Wow.”

“Yep.”

Awkward silence. Bell rings.

“Well, good luck with that.”

“Thanks.”

She walks down the hall trailing a group of kids.

Oy.

Technorati Tags: schools, technology, education

From our good friend Mr. Mayo, who with Wendy Drexler has come up with another great project to participate in:

For 48 hours, starting at midnight Eastern standard time on March 6, 2008, many student voices will be collected in the name of those suffering in Darfur. Be sure that your voice is among them.

Men, women, and children in the Darfur region of Sudan are dying. The Sudan militia and Janjaweed are responsible for as many as 500,000 deaths and 2,500,000 displaced refugees. You can learn more about the genocide taking place in Darfur by visiting the Many Voices for Darfur Wiki. Once you have had a chance to learn more about Darfur, please post your comment to one or more of the following prompts below:

1. If you could visit the camps in Chad and sit down one-on-one with a refugee who is your age, how would you explain what you or others are doing in your country to spread awareness and make a difference?
2. Write an open letter to Omar al-Bashir pleading your case for the Darfur region of Sudan.
3. Write an open letter to leaders in your country to make a case for government support of international efforts in Darfur.

Tell your friends!

Only 29 tabs open today. Here’s a few of the things I’m hanging on to:

Twitter Tales: This might be old news since I’m having trouble even finding my aggregator these days much less read anything in it, but somehow I stumbled across Nancy White’s “Twitter Collaboration Stories” Wiki. Really cool. Twitter as “Virtual Water Cooler”. Twitter for “Serendipitous Improvement”. And, my favorite, Twitter for “Global Presence and Participation in Professional Development.” Who woulda thunk just a few short months ago that this kinda whacky, 140-character, micro-bloggy, not-sure-why-the-heck-I-like-it-but-I-do tool could have so many good uses? And, of course, the even warmer fuzzy is that you can add your own story to Nancy’s wiki. Life is good (as long as the Cubs win, of course.)

Electoral Education: So I’m not a Hillary Clinton supporter at the moment, though she’s still in my mix. And I have to say that after listening to her responses to the education question at the Yahoo Democratic Debate Mashup, I’m a little more impressed. She actually says things like “Is education working in the 21st Century?” and “We have to ask ourselves some tough questions about how we better prepare our children who live in a very media rich environment and who are much more tuned into the world than I ever was at their age” and “just because I went to school and folded my hands on my desk with the teacher at the front of the room does that mean we need to keep on doing that year after year after year?” (or something close to that.) And in response to a Jonathan Kozol question, she says “we should not look at our children as if they are walking tests…we’ve gone way overboard…” On balance, considering it’s politics, I was surprised. (Now if only she didn’t laugh at the Bill Maher question the way she did.)

Sage Students: Darren coined the term “scribe” to describe the student whose responsibility it was to summarize and extend the days events from class on the blog. But now KB Foglia has come up with a different, and I think even more interesting moniker for students working her AP Bio blog: “sherpa.” “Each day a student in class will be assigned to be the class sherpa — our guide who will show us the clear path up the mountain of knowledge.” Nice.

Quote O’ the Day: “They expect to be part of the discussion, part of the living thing that text itself is becoming.  This is how we get kids excited about language, about writing, about thinking: by giving them the power to be part of the conversation. When we lock our machines down, filter their internet service and not allow them to be contributors we take away the involvement, the intensity, the power. Remember doing grammar worksheets in school? I don’t. But I do remember art class, the time I got to take part in making a radio play and another teacher that let us act in class. They involved me, they challenged me, they forced me to think, to play with language, to defend my opinions. Language fairly pulses and thrives across cyberspace. Let kids in to the conversation.” Clarence Fisher

25 to go…

Technorati Tags: learning, education, technology

I came across this post from Pat Aroune in Western NY who has been diving head first into Read/Write Web tools with his students:

About one month ago, I asked five students to participate in an online experiment utilizing Skype and an online interactive whiteboard called Vyew. Vyew is a free, always on collaboration and web conferencing site that allows individuals real-time desktop sharing and capturing. I met with this small group of students, and we began what was essentially on online tutoring session for an upcoming essay. We did nothing that had not been done during the course of a classroom session, except we were all in our individual homes, and it was 8:30 p.m.. I began to sense, over the course of that hour long session, a wave of energy and enthusiasm from the participants. One month later, this concept of online collaboration has taken on a life of is own. Just last night,twenty sophomores from my A.P. European History classes, met online and did a Skype – Vyew session in preparation for an essay exam today. The remarkable thing is, I was not even a part of it. Individual initiative got last night’s conference off the ground. More power to the students!

You might want to check out the reflections of some of his students on another post as well.

Almost as cool is that Pat’s superintendent Neil Rochelle is blogging about his efforts to bring the tools into the school as well. And this post reflects the type of approach that I’ve been thinking and writing about more and more lately. It’s his recap of a monthly Parent and Student Cabinet meeting where they are talking about the Read/Write Web and it’s use in his school. The result:

Students that have been involved in blogging and social bookmarking love the use of these tools that are being made available and integrated into their instruction. Their chief “complaint”….they are overwhelmed! Because we have attracted teachers to the use of these tools in “pockets” across the district, the same teachers are teaching the content as well as the “how tos” for using the technology. Students feel that they need to learn the newest technology in another class BEFORE using it in these selected classes. A point well taken and one that I will be giving much thought to. Consensus however is they love the approach. They are motivated by on-line collaboration such as internet conferencing such as Skype and video conferencing. Before this year, MySpace was a close as they came to social networking. Now they see an educational value.

It reminds me that kids are overwhelmed too, that they don’t know all of this, that we still have a great opportunity to lead and model appropriate and effective uses, and to learn from each other and our students. Pat and Neil are taking their school in a much different direction, and it’s pretty exciting to watch.

Just some feel good for the holiday…any other stories to share?

Just a quick link to another example of how teachers can use blogs to enhance the reading of a book in class by extending conversations past the school day, linking to resources and relevant materials, inviting parents to read and study with their children, inviting students from other parts of the country to collaborate and have students learn directly from interacting with the author of the book. What a concept!
Guerrilla Season is the book, Eric Langhorst of the Speaking of History podcast is the teacher, and it appears he’s looking for more participants.

Check it out and join us if you like. In addition to the students here in Liberty, Missouri we have students in California and a teacher in Louisiana taking part right now. It just started so there is plenty of time to join. I want to thank Pat Hughes for taking such an interest in our project. She is commenting directly to reader questions and spending a great deal of with this project. How incredible it is for an author to be communicating with her readers while they read the book!

Makes me nostalgic…

technorati tags:Eric_Langhorst, blogging, learning, education

I haven’t been back to SecondLife in a while, but after seeing the news that Harvard Law is offering a course there this fall, I’m starting the download to my MAC as we, um, speak. Charlie Nesson and his daughter will be teaching CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion in meat space, but you can also take the course, watch video lectures, sign up for virtual office hours and participate in discussions and the like through your avatar. Watch the video to get the idea.

I’m going to see if I can check some of this out and report back, but if anyone else does, please let me know what the experience was like…

technorati tags:secondlife, HarvardLaw, weblogg-ed, education, learning

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

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

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

Here’s the lead from a New York Post article today titled MySpace Invaders for City Students:

City public-school students better beware what they blog when classes resume in September.

A revised draft version of the city Department of Education discipline code calls for harsh punishments – including expulsion – forstudents who post “libelous or defamatory material or literature” on the Internet.

Kindergartners to fifth-graders who disparage their teachers, principals or fellow students on the Web could face a finger-wagging parent conference or be suspended for up to 90 days, according to theproposed discipline code.

For students in sixth grade through high school, derogatory online postings would warrant an automatic suspension and could necessitate expulsion under the new rules.

Nowhere in the article does it mention anything about teaching kids appropriate and acceptable use, which doesn’t mean that they’re not doing that, but it makes you wonder. And this approach is just doomed to failure. It’s a “deal with it” moment where the city is choosing to do just the opposite.

Now I know I don’t have to say this, but I’m going to anyway. Welcome to the new world. Resistance is futile. Education is the only answer.

technorati tags:blogging, NYC, education, fear

Clarence shares some answers to his Podcasting, Blogging Exam Question, and my favorite without question is

“…..now that we have podcasting and blogging anyone can do it. You don’t need to be some rich person in New York, you can produce from your own home. It has also changed how we can learn in today’s society.”

Amen. Amen.

technorati tags:blogging, education

Just thought this post on Engadget was pretty interesting, especially the comments that follow. I know that this is a problem in just about any type of meeting situation where wifi and laptops are present. Which, of course, begs the same question that the podcasting of classes begs: If the content isn’t for the most part interactive and engaging (which, in theory at least, would preclude students from surfing the Web) why are we teaching it? I’m about ready to do an RSS workshop here at MICCA. Should I have them close their laptops when I’m talking???
Disruptive technologies indeed…