Don’t say I didn’t warn you:

I obviously need to work on the timing.

That said, it’s an honest representation of how fast the kid can move!

UPDATE

Much better over at GIFNinja.com. They have a slider that allows you to control the delay between frames.

I had watched a livestream of an interview that the York Daily Record/Sunday News Editorial Board did with some leaders in the YorkCounts organization. YorkCounts recently proposed a plan that would replace the public school system in York City with charter schools.

I give them credit for thinking outside the box (somewhat), but I honestly feel like it’s pointless to have any discussion about charters, leadership, community involvement, or appropriate funding without acknowledging that education is going through a fundamental transformation. Education, like many other fields, is struggling to cope with technological disruption. Journalists, for instance, have needed to re-think the way they collect, organize, and distribute information; newspapers, magazines, radio, and television are just a few of many different platforms today. Libraries are struggling to deal with the growth of eBooks and search engines. Schools are in the same boat, but for some reason they are much more resistant to change than either of the aforementioned fields.

Higher education has been the first to start embracing new ideas. I think this is because they have much more freedom to experiment. K-12 education is still wrapped tightly in regulations and expectations based on the industrial model of education. Many colleges have entered the digital age; they are offering courses – entire degrees, even – online. They are starting to embrace MOOCs and gamification. Higher education is moving toward a true Edupunk model where learners are free to learn what they want, when they want. The college degree will be one of several accepted credentials, just like the newspaper is now one of several accepted mediums for journalists to use.

So when does this all spill over into the K-12 realm? I believe it will be sooner than most people think, and because of this we absolutely must consider disruption when making long-term plans for our students and schools. This YorkCounts group can throw out ideas like replacing public schools with charter schools, but that thought alone is like trying to replace one kind of newspaper with another – in the end, the truly successful organizations will be those that embrace a wide variety of solutions and allow the end user (the learner, in education) to drive the decision-making process.

Imagine what education would look like if elementary, middle, and high school students weren’t saddled with standardized testing or No Child Left Behind? What if they could study what they want, when they want, and work on building a unique learning portfolio that they can take with them from grade to grade, all the way through college, and all the way through life? What if the badges they earn in high school replaced college-prep and Advanced Placement courses? What if kids could earn credits in elementary school that would mean something in higher education? The whole dynamic would change! It wouldn’t matter if they were in a public school, charter school, private school, or home school. Students would pick the learning experiences that engaged them on an individual level, thereby maximizing their education and lifting their communities out of poverty.

So that’s the thought I had on my way home today. The real problem it seems (and I don’t mean any offense by this) is that education is still dominated by the older generations. They don’t understand Twitter, or online learning, or why anybody would want badges. They like the system that is in place because they built it. We very well may have to wait until more of the young digital natives are in leadership positions in education before K-12 truly embraces this disruption. But can we wait that long? Can our education system survive a civil war between the public and private sectors? I hope that people – Edupunks, specifically – can spread the message that we, the new learners, are ready to take control over our own educations. We’re tired of the bickering and lack of creativity. Listen to us. YorkCounts may have noble goals and intentions, but the conversation they are trying to start isn’t addressing the most important problem associated with our educational system, both locally and globally.

Anyway, I like seeing the “bigger picture” when it comes to these sorts of things. So I hopped over to Wordle and pasted in the title of every session – all 270 of them – to see what words stood out.

And here’s what I got:

The biggest words are no surprise: learning, technology, classroom, etc. But then whoa, hey, look at BYOD! I don’t see 1:1 anywhere on there. I did a quick check of the input and even the word “One” that appears in the Wordle isn’t a reference in any way to 1:1. Everyone loves BYOD, but the question that must be asked is how many truly understand what it means? Maybe we can get some discussion of that here at Edupunked.

I also find it interesting that iPad and iPads are very common at PETE&C. Not really a surprise, but I’ve gotta wonder how many of these people are going to go back to their schools and buy a whole bunch of iPads for students under the auspices of BYOD. Again, I think there are some misconceptions about what BYOD really is.

We can see that Online is big. I’m thinking that it’s going to get bigger. K-12 institutions are still way behind higher education when it comes to using online tools, and that’s mainly because K-12 institutions have a lot of legal obstacles preventing them from offering a free and open internet to children. The idealist in me is disappointed that progress in K-12 online learning is so slow, but the pragmatist in me understands why. Still, progress has to be made somehow.

A couple words to the left of Technology we can see Gamification. SWEET! Especially at the elementary level, gamification has the potential to turn many of the mundane assignments that our children struggle with into exciting and social adventures. In higher levels, gamification can be combined with badges and other alternative credentials to provide students with digital learning profiles that will someday be attractive to employers, prospective clients etc. There’s going to be growth in that area as well.

Google, which is toward the bottom of the Wordle, appears to be just a bit larger than Microsoft, which is located toward the right side. Part of this may be the presence of Chromebooks, which also appear in the image (although much, much smaller than iPads).

What else do you see in the Wordle that surprises you? Stands out to you? Requires further research? Discuss!

There were some links to other Edupunks and online learning intiatives:

And there were some thought-provoking questions about how Edupunked could be of the most benefit to it’s community members:

And then there just some really nice comments. Multipotentialites probably are the biggest Edupunks I know! We are constantly learning new things.

I’ll update this post with anything else that comes up. If you want to get involved in the party, just use the hashtag #puttytribe!

This past January the authors at Education Is My Life set out to discuss education from a “backwards design” perspective. When you start with the end goal in mind, the learning is more focused and streamlined. This month’s free eBook compiles all of our “design” articles into one easy-to-read book.

Learn about being “Life-Fit” from Jimmy Casas; how coaching and spirit play such a big role in any school from Steve Mogg; common-core implementation and culture change from Anthony Gabriele; how one project can change a class via Bill Selak; designing your own 20% time from AJ Juliani; becoming a learning designer from Robyn Hrivnatz; how to make the most of your professional development from Desmond Hasty; a student’s perspective on enjoying school from Evan Horn; a new spin on technology professional development from Dianne Krause; how to design rigorous assessments via Kristen Swanson; making sure we are growing ”think-for-themselfers” by Danielle Krueger; and how deliberate practice makes us all better educators from Kevin Dougherty.

Just about every chapter in the book has an Edupunk spin to it, whether it’s “think-for-themselfers” or personal learning networks or daily “genius time”. This is great information for self-learners…imagine how much more meaningful and efficient your learning could be – at school or in your pajamas – if you started that learning with the end in mind?

Get your free download here.

I’d known that it was coming, but it still took me somewhat by surprise. The troubles that our daughter has been and is still having – a lack of organization, distraction, frustration, all the while scoring near the gifted range on IQ tests and above-average on standardized tests – led us to consult the school psychologist. And so there we sat this morning, with the letters ADHD ringing in our ears.

For months – years, maybe – we’ve been told by coaches, teachers, friends, and even a psychologist that Afton does not have ADHD. Over and over again we’ve been told that she’s gifted, and that a lot of her frustration could be resolved by making her learning environment more stimulating. We’ve had her in public school, private school, Montessori, and we’ve even looked at schools like the technology-free Waldorf school. Some have worked better than others, but we just haven’t found the right fit yet. So here we are, with Afton in third grade, trying to make public school fit because it’s the least costly option and there’s interest on the part of her principal and other staff to find a solution.

Our meeting today was not a bad one. As much as I didn’t like hearing about how much her symptoms sound like ADHD, I was sort of okay with it. I learned a lot about what professionals think ADHD is. If I hadn’t watched Ken Robinson’s video on Changing Education Paradigms, I might have actually agreed with what the school psychologist was saying. But I know – I just KNOW – that the ADHD label isn’t accurate. ADHD is, in my estimation, a label used far too often to describe a very common set of symptoms that many children exhibit. Our children live in an age where they are bombarded constantly by stimuli. They are a generation that “feels” more than their predecessors. And so when we put them in an environment where they must do the mundane, where they are not being stimulated, where they are not “feeling”, what else would we expect than to have to anaesthetize them to keep them on task?

I’m not sure where we’re going to go from here. There is ADHD screening that the psychologist can do, which entails an observation at school and plenty of information gathering here at home. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she does exhibit many symptoms of ADHD at school. We have made it clear that we are not willing to medicate Afton in order to keep her on task. The real question is whether or not there is anything that can be done to increase the amount of stimulation she receives at school, perhaps through technology, or whether it’s simply a matter of changing her learning environment again. We’re open to options.

I’ll leave you with the aforementioned Ken Robinson lecture, which I have posted elsewhere on this site but it is truly applicable in this post on a very personal level for me.

Yesterday I decided that I was tired of paying GoDaddy between $5-$8 each month for hosting. All I need is a portfolio to showcase my design work. So, in a matter of about two hours, I threw together the new SusquehannaWeb.com. Okay, so it’s not really free. But I pay less than $10 each year for the domain name, and without paid hosting my annual website cost dropped to almost nothing. It’s a truly fine site for my needs. The WordPress.com framework gets better every day…and for those who need that little extra “something”, and want to keep their web budget under $100 per year, WordPress.org is just as great.

Have you Edupunked your way to a free/low-cost web site? Share!

I was browsing my page at Degreed today and tried adding a badge to my transcript. I had earned the Hackasaurus Badge a while ago and figured I’d add it to my growing un-degree. Doing this led me to some other information about badges that I thought I’d share with you.

First of all, here’s a really good diagram of how badges should work. It was produced by Mozilla’s Open Badges team.

As you can see, the intent is that when you pass a course/class/training/whatever, you are provided with a badge. You add that badge to your “backpack”, which is then broadcast to the important people in your life via your WordPress blog, Tumblog, Facebook, Twitter, or other digital resume. There’s a big push to make badges an acceptable digital credential for learners.

This led me to my next question: who else is offering badges? Where can I get some more?

I found a website called BadgeStack that seems to be out at the forefront of the badge movement. They describe BadgeStack as “an innovative system with a game-like approach that assesses skills, recognizes learner achievement, sparks community, and excites learners of all ages.” BadgeStack is used by some fairly high-profile organizations, which is exciting! And, of course, their badges integrate with the Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) and other common web standards. Again, this should all be seamless.

Have you earned any badges? Know where other Edupunks can get some? Share!