“What kind of environment creates good ideas? The simplest way to answer it is this: innovative environments are better at helping their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible, because they expose a wise and diverse sample of spare parts – mechanical or conceptual – and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts. Environments that block or limit those new combinations – by punishing experimentation, by obscuring certain branches of possibility, by making the current state so satisfying that no one bothers to explore the edges – will, on average, generate and circulate fewer innovations than environments that encourage exploration.”

So what specifically is it about schools that limit their ability innovate? Please share with the rest of the class…..

I recently attended a live demo  of MBS Direct’s Direct Digital solution, in which I and several colleagues (teachers and techies) got to Q&A a top developer on the current product and where it is headed. The verdict in a nutshell? Overall all pretty impressed, but watch out for those DRM agreements!
(View a recorded demo here: Blue “WEBINARS” button, then choose the third pre-recorded option – “Direct Digital: Your Content, Your Reader, Any Device”)

I dutifully report here what we discovered.

Pros:

• Runs in browser (last two versions of major players), so no program to install
• Can download to computer (still runs in browser), and will sync notes and annotations with online version when connected again
• iPhone/iPad app available (Android app in next month or two, which will also allow Kindle Fire play)
• Can add notes and annotations (highlights) inline (and search them)
• Can scan text and easily see where notes were added
• You can create “bookshelves” (also known as folders) for your digital content (presumably by subject and the like)
• Image text is searchable
• Reported cost of books is 40% less than print version
• Resources are available inline to support the content of the books (videos, etc.), and teachers can add their own resources to a book before it is “published”. Possibility might exist for teachers to keep adding resources even after publication.
• LTI Single Signon Integration into learning management systems (like Moodle). Can link to books and it will carry individual credentials so that the book the student lands on is theirs, with their notes, etc.

Cons:

• DRM! Varies by publisher, but in many cases you do not own the book!  (Though you can keep your notes….)
• Social not ready yet (though promised soon)
• Lack of clarity on how corrections are made (if a book needs correction, is it automatic?)

Would love to see:

• Way for students to share notes, discussion, etc.
• Way for teachers to control sharing permissions by student and text
• Way for teachers to see notes of all students to gauge understanding
• Integration of quizzes for understanding, etc.

Anyone using this product that would like to share their experience?

In Michael Hiltzik’s recent piece in the L.A. Times, Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms?, an important question is raised (the Times answers this question for us in the HTML page title of the Web version of the article: “Hyping classroom technology helps tech firms, not students”). I totally agree and disagree at the same time. Let me ‘splain.

I agree in that much of what tech firms are trying to sell to our schools is not going to help much (as it is designed to fit into the defunct mode of education we retain where school is walled off from the real world, in which the few “good” schools strive for relevant when we should be striving for real). Yes, much of what they are pushing is out of self-interest, and our major investment at this time should be to create well-designed learning with highly skilled and capable teachers (I prefer “learning coach”, but that is another post…).

However!

…..Learning with technology is now as crucial as learning with books was when they first came on the scene: what we can do with technology is much more powerful that what we can do without it.

No, tech does not equate to better learning of traditional content, and pedagogy and skilled teachers are much more important. However, tech does equate to getting experience using tech to do things better and faster, and allows for the learning and practice of skills you cannot get without using tech (think mega collaboration across time and space; gathering, processing, and communicating information in ways that you cannot do without tech–all skills that are very important in today’s world. But…and it’s a big but….you do not get those skills just having the tech in hand (or do you?…See work by Sugat Mitra). Optimal learning and skill development require (and maybe even more so) highly skilled and creative teachers and pedagogy–to the point that teachers are not teachers any more but simply more skilled learners guiding the younger ones through the learning process. Will eTexts (insert keyword for SEO: iPads) help with those skills, and how we learn the content? If the eTexts integrate tools that facilitate social learning, sharing, content creation (by students), reflection, etc. Not there yet, IMHO…..

Stepping off soapbox now….

1. Textbooks transliterated for reading in eReaders. Basically, the benefit here is that students can stop carrying around those insanely heavy backpacks. Downsides include lack of ability to notate or highlight, or clumsy ways of doing these things.
2. eTexts have rich media, ability to notate, some social/sharing component, and include a mechanism for backing up texts and associated meta-data.
3. All of the above, but platform independent.

From the demo in link above, it looks like rich media and notating are fairly well developed, but I’m waiting to see what social components there are, if any, and how easily they back up meta-data. I’m also a bit turned off by Apple’s continued monopolism (see a discussion here about the controls on content development for the iBook).

MBS Direct has supposedly finally ironed out their web-based reader, and I will report back here after I have been able to test that (in the next couple of weeks).  My problem with web-based readers is that, although they are platform independent, they require an internet connection when you want to access content (barring an “offline” mode which they may have or might develop).

Please comment below with thoughts on where eTexts are heading, what you are using, what you would like to see…

Until recently, it seems we had a pretty clear dualistic environment: we had public schools and we had private schools. Not too many years ago now, private schools (with the help of their marketing friends) realized (perhaps rightly so) the negative connotations in the “private” moniker, and opted for the much more approachable term “independent”, which is descriptive of a much more positive aspect of private schools: their independence from much of the state control and regulation their public counterparts are subject to. (Incidentally, the public have not bought into this naming convention, and still search almost exclusively for “private schools” on the Internet).

But now with Charter schools we have a sort of hybrid that threatens to muddy the waters even further. Charter schools also champion their independence (albeit not quite as loosely granted as that of private schools), and yet they are also public (meaning they charge no tuition).

So are charter schools “independent” schools? If they are following the advice of their marketing friends, they will certainly play up that angle. Ironically, if they want to enjoy the benefits of their association with independence in the Internet search world, they would need to get found for searches of “private school”, a term not even private schools want to put on their Web pages.

Good luck everybody!

“The ability of institutions to adapt slowly while preserving continuity of mission and process is exactly what lets them last longer than a single leader or lifespan. When change in the outside world outstrips an institution’s adaptive capabilities, though, the ability to defend the internal organization from outside pressures can become a liability. Stability can tun into rigidity and even institutional blindness.”

Now, Shirky is talking about the news industry here, but the idea applies to all industries. So for schools too, institutional history and momentum are important. But change is inevitable and necessary, and it is how the organization changes that determines how well momentum and continuity of mission are carried through. A key notion here in how change is met – and it is a notion that needs to be made clear – is that  being adaptive is different than being reactive. In other words, all change is not healthy. An organization is adaptive that changes its long term goals based on a changing world, and acts accordingly to meet those goals. A reactive organization changes according to immediate environmental pressures and, if it survives, becomes a product of those pressures instead of a product of its own intention and mission.

These questions come to me:

1. What are the changes that schools are currently undertaking (private and public), and are they being reactive or adaptive?
2. Shirky speaks of institutions as needing continuity of mission and process. How much of what we do is up for discussion while still retaining continuity of mission, and is continuity of process a requirement for stability, or is process potentially one of the things that might need to change in adaptation?
3. Is it perhaps the preserving of schools as institutions in their current form that keeps us from making the changes needed to actually fulfill our mission in education?

Your thoughts appreciated.

Also look for more on these questions in future posts…

Here’s my stab at it:

I was recently inspired by a WIRED article on the Art of the Elevator Pitch. Couldn’t education benefit from a good pitch?

I’d love to hear how others might phrase a concise statement about the critical skills necessary for teachers.  Please leave comments with your version, or skills that should be added to the list.

Can anyone help spread this around to see if we can get Angela Maiers to post her version?

How does technology relate to education, and what role does a technology department play in a school? Read on for some musings…

As most of us know, literacy is not just about reading any more. The printed book was a giant leap forward in our ability to distribute information, but we are now in the fairly early stages of another information revolution – one that requires the definition of literacy to be expanded. In today’s world, we are dealing with orders of magnitude more information, coming from orders of magnitude more sources, with orders of magnitude (you get the idea) more avenues to distribute and publish – so the problem isn’t simply how to read the information any more; In this new world of information surpluss, it is about directing the flow of information inward and outward, evaluating it and processing it, collaborating with others to do more with it than we can alone – ulitmately making it serve our goals, interests, and needs.

These are skills every school should take very seriously, and to help further these ends, the job of a technology department should be to:

1) manage an evolving infrastructure that can support the practice and use of these skills

2) support the faculty as they endeavor to weave the development of these skills into their curricula

3) help identify how the ever-evolving techno-sphere can further learning in all areas

Thoughts, comments?

Alan November
Empathy: The 21st-Century Skill
www.NovemberLearning.com blog /  podcasts

Globalize the curriculum

Develop contacts with teachers and children around the world

Overseas students work harder than their teachers. How do we do that
here?

CEO of largest bank in world: most important skill for global business
= empathy

Michael Wesch (videos on YouTube
Anthropologist) – independently also says empathy

West point mission study commissioned by Petreus: old mission = win
the war
New mission = win the peace

Difference is not adding technology to old curriculum.
Do we need to change our mission?
Test scores as mission is way to fail.
Impose NCLB on other countries if we want to win

How you set up your search determines what viewpoint you get – what do
they think in turkey? Use root zone database for country codes

Assignment: what are British kids essays like on the American
revolution?
Site:sch.uk “American revolution”
Compare and contrast brit and American point of view. Find email
address of teacher who is responsible for content.
Will students be more prepared for the skype debate with the Brit students
or for test on subject: was revolution inevitable?

All content involving other countries or cultures should involve
finding their viewpoint

Starting in kindergarten!

Public schools were put in place for democracy

Tools needed to become president are blocked in most schools (social
media)

Digital Learning Farm: Students as Contributors

We have undervalued the contribution that can be made by kids in our
schools

Strategy for improving learning is to focus on the conversations
between kids

Purpose, not just relevance for school “work”

Students could design tutorials for the entire curriculum

Not grading produces better work if there is purpose in the assignment

First day of school
Give kids top ten most difficult concepts and ask them to help teach it

See hitech high
Best test scores in CA

Shift control of learning to students
And responsibility

Rich media stories of what they learned that week
Do not grade these ! Reduces quality (dan pink )

Rotating scribes (or scribe teams) as benefit to learning, sharing,
social integration , and formative feedback to teacher
-by end of year kids have written the textbook, adding much of their
own content

Team of kids:  find all the applications of a cell phone for learning

Have kids contribute to building custom search engines (and teachers)

“Can I answer my own question too?”

Official researcher (rotating) finding best resources during each
lecture to place into custom search engine

Global communicator too – find global contacts related for each lesson
for authentic interaction and other viewpoints

Use kiva.com – kids raise money and decide who to give it to

Have kids create or edit wikipedia entries

Here are the nuggets from Chris’s lunch address, though, which I thought were very valuable and worth repeating:

Angelo Patri
Innovative educator early 1900s. Look into what he was up to

Education not training

Citizens not workers

Responsibility instead of accountability

Innovation not change

Technology like oxygen
Ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible

Neil Postman – check him out

Read Dewey again. Just do it

What’s good not what’s new

Empower teachers and students

Students should sit on every panel making divisions about the school

Not how will we fix schools but what do we want them to be

Focus on the middle third

Not me making you better but you and me making us better