I don’t know a single person who’s recently bought a desktop computer.

Not one.

Combine that anecdote with the stats showing that for the first time more smartphones were sold than PCs and another that shows over the Christmas season of 2011, the number of people who owned either a tablet or an ereader doubled from 10% to approximately 19% and you can see that the computing world is in complete flux these days.

We want to take our technology with us.

Is it the data that we want to have with us, our files and pictures, or the ability to connect with others? Both?

A couple of years ago, this video was making the rounds at conferences and it seems like we are fully arriving at this point:

Our data, our connections, our services, our media, our learning. We want to take it with us. We want access no matter where we are. We what to switch from work to play and back again quickly and easily. A desktop computer used to sit in the corner of a room in our homes. It had its own desk. It was a place. Like the internet, it was a destination all its own. It was someplace you went to. “Going online” used to be a saying. I’m not sure it even applies anymore. We’re surrounded by devices that slip between internet access and media consumption seamlessly.

How do these societal trends change learning? How do they change how we need to structure classrooms? Are complete labs filled with computers an outdated model? Do we need infrastructure that is more seamless? Are classes that are focused purely on computers and technology an outdated model? Do we need more integrated systems?

Are schools still pursuing the desktop model of learning? Learning as a place, a thing that is separate and sits off in the corner all on its own when really we should be looking at something much more integrated and faster moving?

New technologies make new things possible. They allow us to move in new directions and consider new possibilities. We need to keep moving.

If you liked this post, take a look at these too!

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It’s no secret that I’m a fan of online communities. I think that using them as spaces to connect and learn with others is a positive and powerful development for education. We’ve had good success with the Idea Hive community. It has engaged our students and given them a chance to learn valuable skills. It continues to evolve as we learn more about what kind of a space meets the needs of our students.

But that’s not what I’m really here to tell you about….

I’m here to tell you about this amazing list of resources that has been published by the Fever Bee blog. If you are interested in online communities, I hope you are a regular reader of that space. This blog post simply lists dozens (hundreds?) of great blog posts, resources and research papers about online communities. Compiled on paper, it would make an invaluable book.

This is the age of twitter and of placing links there, but I thought this one was blog worthy. Thanks to the Richard Millington at Fever Bee for all of the great work.

And while we’re here looking at online community resources, don’t forget this small guide (pdf) that I wrote earlier this year about organizing online communities for learning.

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• Achievements in the Hive
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I know that in many places in North America (including here in Snow Lake) students are writing either mid term or final exams around this time of the school year.

A question:

has anyone seen or heard of students setting up study groups online? A google + hangout seems like the perfect place for a small group to get together. What about using a wiki or a google doc to make note,s or using a chatroom or facebook chat session or something else to get ready for exams?

I know that this stuff is getting fairly common once you head into postsecondary institutions, but I’m wondering how low that trend goes? Anyone have high school kids or even middle school kids that are working in this way?

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I’ve received a few grumpy emails from people over the last several weeks.

Tied to a few of the posts I’ve written lately, several people have accused me of being anti-innovation, anti-change and of being anti-corporate.

I can understand how people might feel that way. A few of my posts have had the distinct leaning of my having COMS (Cranky Old Man Syndrome). But actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I think the edtech industry is maturing. And I believe that is bringing us a new set of challenges. Corporations smell the enormous amounts of money that is being spent by schools and districts. They have responded by offering a new set of products for us to purchase. This is their job.

But just as the title of this session at educon that I would have loved to attend says – you can’t buy change.

Change is not a product that you can simply throw money at.

Change is not a new set of classroom ipads, or ipods, or Smart boards, or cameras.

Change is built on practice and research. Change is built on what actually takes place in classrooms. Change is a process that grows, is cyclical and needs to be supported (or squashed).

Change certainly requires us to look at the tools we use in our classrooms, but it can’t stop there. That is too simplistic. Change requires us to deeply examine our pedagogy. It requires us to reexamine our curricula and find ways to construct meaningful experiences and inquiries with our students. To change we must examine what counts as knowledge in our classrooms and think about how our assessments reach into those depths to look for evidence of achievement.

I am more than happy to promote all of the great companies and people and products that bring us into places where change is supported. Corporations that make innovative, accessible and interesting products. Corporations that provide spaces for teachers to examine what they do and how they do those things. People who support those changes. What does make me unhappy though is when any individual or corporation becomes too dominant in the debate. When people more closely associated with a product or a service than a classroom or a school begins to talk about how learning or change happens, it makes me grumpy and worried about where we are headed. I am not prepared to hand over what happens in my classroom to anyone who is not prepared to spend a lot of hours in my space learning about my kids, our goals, and our context. Teaching is a complex business so I’m always worried (and often admittedly cynical) about products that tell me they are going to make things “simple,” or “easy.” While we all appreciate things that make our classroom lives a little easier to handle, simple often comes at a price and I’m often not prepared to pay it.

So lets not let the shiny gadgets distract us from what we are really doing here – helping kids to live in a global changing world. And no, you can’t buy that.

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I’ve been holding on to this post for a week or so, rolling it around in my head trying to connect a few dots before clicking the publish button.

It’s got to do with Apple, and SOPA and Raspberry Pi and education and learning and on and on and on…..

It started with the education event that Apple hosted on January 19th. At this event Apple unveiled iBooks2 and iBooks Author. After several weeks of hype and people breathlessly awaiting the great advancement that Apple would give us in education – we got interactive textbooks. Interesting as a business model, interactive texts and textbooks are definitely something that students are interested in, and something that is probably inevitable given how students are becoming used to working with text.

But these are certainly not a ground breaker. And in fact, the details of the end user agreement have created huge amounts of controversy as it becomes clear that using iBooks Author ties you into the loop of using an Apple product to produce the text that can only be sold (or given away) through the iBookstore and then can only be read on iBooks 2 enabled devices such as iPads. Some folks are wondering if this tight loop will survive an antitrust case. Others are wondering how many schools are going to be able to afford to buy into this model. For make no mistake, buying into this model is something that is going to cost. Apple has grown into a massive company. 13 billion dollars in income in the final quarter of 2011. One of the largest and most successful corporations in history. (Its hard to remember that only a decade ago (or so) they were the underdog and were in fact in very real danger of becoming bankrupt.)

And this is where the danger is.

We need to remember that Apple is a corporation. They are going to do what is right for them and their shareholders first. They are more concerned with profits and shareholder value than they are with learning and doing what is good for students. This struck home to me after David Warlick left this comment on this post I had written previously about redefining edtech:

“What concerns me, Clarence, is that technology seems to be advancing to the point that it can behave just like a textbook. I think that we’re approaching a tipping point where edtech truly fuses with the operation and image of education.

But! ..will that tipping point come at the arrival of a technology that fits education as we know it?

..or will the tipping point come as we clearly articulate and adopt a new image of teaching and learning that reflects a new environment — resulting in part from technological advances.

Do we digitize education or do we transform it…”

As time goes by, many corporations are giving us tools that allow us to do what we’ve always done in education rather than producing tools that will help and encourage teachers to transform what happens in classrooms. There is a far larger market for digital textbooks than there is for a tool that will allow us to connect with folks who think in new and different ways than we do.

Which brings me to the final step. This article in the Globe and Mail was published on January 18th, the day that the SOPA protests had darkened a lot of the web. It brings to light an interesting division in society and technology. That of producerism and consumerism:

“Consumerism is the well-known, American-invented philosophy of defining oneself by brands of consumption. I wear Nike, therefore I am an athlete. I drive a Suburban, therefore I am outdoorsy. I drink Starbucks, therefore I am cultured.

Producerism is the less-well-known French alternative philosophy of defining oneself by their output of production. I paint, therefore I am an artist. I draft legal arguments, therefore I am a lawyer. I throw cobblestones, therefore I am a protester.”

How do these philosophies fit into what we believe about education? How do they effect what we do in our classrooms?

Do we believe that we are preparing students for the future simply because our district has spent thousands (possibly even tens or hundreds of thousands) on iPads or Smart boards, or Macbook Pros or whatever shiny gadget has gathered societies attention for the moment?

It makes me wonder, is our current form of education being legitimized, digitized and standardized by corporations, teachers and districts heavily invested in preserving the status quo? Education simply cannot be focused on the consumption of products and information at the expense of creativity, connection and community.

In the last few years as the edtech industry has matured we have seen a blossoming of companies willing to provide services for schools. But we’ve also seen the opportunity to use tools that are cheaper and allow us to focus on creation and community instead of on consumption.

Where do we want the emphasis placed in our classrooms and for our learners?

If you liked this post, take a look at these too!

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Writing my grade 11 English exam in preparation for mid term exams next week. Earlier in the year I had the students in this class read a piece called Classroom without Walls (pdf) written by Marshall McLuhan.

I was going though the piece this AM and ran upon this quote that I thought struck right to the heart of a lot of things we think about in the ed tech world:

..”new media are not just mechanical gimmicks for for creating worlds of illusion, but new languages with new and unique powers of expression.”

Multiple literacies. Image and video editing. Animations. Coding. Game design.

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I think I bought my first computer in 1998. It was a big beige desktop box from Dell. I had a machine for probably two years before that; but I had received it as a gift from an uncle who was buying a new one. This was the first machine I had ever bought on my own.

I really can’t remember much about it besides the fact that I had paid $2 499 for it.

Now I look at things like the OLPC tablet that is going to cost about $100 (or the Datawind UbiSlate which is going to cost approximately $35 if you are an Indian student) and the machine soon to be available from Raspberry Pi for approximately $25 and it gives me pause to wonder what the future of edtech might look like.

For the same price as my original desktop I could get a dozen Raspberry Pi setups (and yes… I understand that I still need monitors, mice, etc) and twenty OLPC tablets that would go far in teaching the kids in my class both information access and digital literacy skills as well as giving them access to a programming / coding / creative environment.

All for the price of my one old desktop.

I hope we take advantage of these opportunities; but I worry that we won’t. I worry instead that we will chase after the newest, best designed, slickest machines that come with a full textbook and set of teacher photocopiable worksheets. We will buy what is best marketed at us to help raise test scores. We’ll buy what we’re told is easy to use. If we buy into that type of edtech we become consumers and fail to see the power we can help our students to have as creators. If we go that route there is danger that we are locking our students into a place where form is more important than function. Into a place where they are simply consumers of information and not active participants and creators of text, of global understanding and connections.

These low priced machines must make technology a tougher business to be in, but they also give us a chance to redefine the goals we have for our schools and for our students. Is it more important that they are able to pull a shiny new machine out of their bags that has been sold to them via a multi million dollar marketing scheme, or that they gain the skills they need to play a role on a changing globe.

If you liked this post, take a look at these too!

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Media companies need to relearn the business they are in at this point in history.

Granted, that when customers can copy, redistribute and remix the products they purchase quickly and easily, it makes  these kinds of businesses much more challenging to be in. It also fills the field with opportunity for those willing to accept change.

I ran into an interesting concept the other day. Empire State is a new novel that looks to be interesting in itself. Described on Boing Boing as “a noir, Philip K Dick-ish science fiction superhero story about a pocket universe that’s created when two battling New York superheroes open a vent through spacetime.” If that doesn’t sound geeky enough for you I’m not sure what will.

But, just as interesting as the novel is the concept of the WorldBuilder that goes along with it. Instead of paying lawyers to fight off incursions of copyright busting and other evil intentions that people might have, the publishers of this novel have instead embraced them and actively called for a community to take the book further. They are asking people to create their own original stories, comics, audio files, videos, etc. Anything goes as long as it is original and creative.

Embracing the creative community instead of fighting it off. It has all sorts of implications.

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The last year or so has seen a lot of pundits talking about the death of long form blogging. The continuing rise of Facebook, Google +, Twitter, insert other social network here, are supposed to be hastening along the death of the blog and longer articles.

But I’m not seeing it.

I’ve spent some time looking back on the stats of this blog for this year and this is what I’ve found:

- February of 2011 saw this blog receive 18 900 visits (or 89 700 hits depending on how you like your traffic stats.)
- December of 2011 saw 26 000 visits (111 700 hits).
- Although January is only a few days old, in the first 5 days there were over 1 100 visits here each day (26 500 hits).

Visitor traffic is up almost 50% over the year. The death of long form blogging? I’m not sure if less people are writing, but apparently more people are reading.

More than anything I’m thankful for the people who continue to put up with me online. I’ve been writing for over six years and have found this to be the best thing I could ever do as a teacher. I have no idea where these stats stack up with other edu bloggers as traffic is something that most people play pretty close to their chest. (and to be honest, beyond knowing if this is a trend others are seeing, I’m not that interested) I am pleased though to see that open reflection and sharing of the craft of teaching is not a trend that is going away.

Thanks for stopping by.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/churl/1122196748/sizes/m/in/photostream/

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My understanding of what’s important in education is changing.

Its becoming more active and more focused on making, creating and connecting.

I’m not sure if this is mental blowback from my thoughts about tablets of all type and my concerns with them being machines that are focused too much on information consumption or not; but whatever the cause, I’ve spent a good portion of my holidays wondering about makers and connectors.

What would classrooms be like if these were the focus of what we do?

MAKERS

Makers are people and spaces where the focus is on creating something. These artifacts may take many different forms. Spaces that focus on making would encourage kids to take and edit photos and videos. They might have kids who are working on writing as a serious craft. They might have students who are focused on coding and digitally creating. Makers might work in spaces where students are innovating and creating paintings or music or a new way to help people in the developing world store their food. They might be filled with people creating robots or building cabinets. What is created doesn’t matter in the least. What matters is that these spaces focus on passionate people involved with creative actions. They create. They participate. They share what they do. They look for feedback and improve what they are doing.

CONNECTORS

Connectors are people who focus on building relationships, understanding and communities. In spaces that focus on connections, people learn about their world. They participate in communities of understanding and see the world from a global perspective. These spaces focus on growing relationships around the world based on passions, geography or any number of other factors. In spaces where connection is a major focus, students learn to take part in communities of practice and learn to help others become effective group members. Connectors find and generate information. They can evaluate what their information needs are and create what is missing. They have a unique perspective on the world’s events.

Unfortunately, I think that makers and connectors are a small majority of teachers, students and learning spaces for an entire host of political, professional and personal reasons. While I believe that these skills are becoming increasingly relevant in our global society, education has instead become a game of listen and regurgitate where passing tests and moving along in the assembly line has become the focus. Besides textbook and test publishers; who does this type of education benefit? It is increasingly important that companies and individuals who are walking down these innovative paths and making these things possible are recognized and valued. Many of them are people who are creating innovative things and spaces simply because they are passionate about them. Others are groups of people creating open source software products for the benefit of people around the world. Still others are actual profit creating companies who understand the need for education to be something different.

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