Not every conversation was outstanding, not every session was amazing. I can’t quantify the learning but can tell you the cumulative ideas and insights will continue to influence my thinking and shape my work.

On the weekend Will Richardson was asking if it possible to provide the kind of learning our kids need by improving schools or do we require a brand new system. I desparately want to believe we don’t have to blow up what we have but a number of things this week has me wondering.

Monday I was able to hear Tom Carroll speak about creating the schools our children need. A few months ago I read this article written by Carroll which was written 8 years ago and was challenged by many ideas. (If you read it and are choosing between finishing this post or the article, read the article) One of the most powerful analogies Carroll used on Monday was this:

"Asking how technology can improve student learning in our current schools is like asking the Wright brothers how the airplane improves the railway system"

That statement resonates with me as I am often asked to provide evidence or proof that technology is making a difference. I hate the question because the question is flawed in the first place.  The better question (I’ve posted about this before) is:

"Does technology support the practices that improve student learning?”

While that is a better question I’m still grabbling with the notion that the impact of technology is creating such a shift that those "practices" have to be re-examined.  Part of the very nature of school requires learning to be compartmentalized by time and content and subject. If I was asked to do that over this past week, I’d be hard pressed to provide you with that kind of data. I learned lots, some of which I’m discussing here and others which may not bear fruit for a while and other learning that will never be directly tied to this week but has undoubtedly been borne and fostered through these many conversations.

I’m seeing more and more that they way connectedness, sharing and access to media influence us and create opporutnities for great learning, often does not have a place in our schools today. Square peg in a round hole.

And yet through all that stuf that spins my brain in 19 different direcitons I’m inspired and encouraged by the many great people who are muddling their way through changes and making it work because of their passion and genuine concern and love of students. You have to have both. I think most of the teachers I work with care about kids. As Chris Lehmann talks about often, kids desparately need mentors. This is a great start and if that’s all teachers did was to be and find mentors for our students that wouldn’t be all bad. But combine that with a passion to learn and you have the makings of a great learning experience for anyone. It’s passion that drives people to seek better and more engaging ideas and content. It’s passion that inspires someone to learn and try things they never thought they’d do. This is when complexity and change occur.

The landscape of learning is changing. Rethinking what control means, understranding the power of sharing and transparency all work to topple many of the foundations our schools are built upon.  I know this, you know this but after spending 3 days amongst 18,000 in the educational technology field, I still say very few else know this. I made this observation (jump down to #4) last year at NECC and while the number may have increased slightly, those who really have any sense of the changes that are possilbe and perhaps inevitable in education is strikingly small. Yet sometimes the conversations amongst them would indicate they think everyone understands. A good example took place in the last session I attended on a panel discussion on Web 2.0. The panel was made up of all people that I and many in the audience knew very well either because we’ve spent time with them or know them from varoius online circles. The panel and audience were calling them by their first names and having a good discussion One lady stood up and felt frustrated since she didn’t know these people, these terms and most of the content of the conversation. That wasn’t her fault that’s ours. The assumption amongst folks who live and breath social media is that most teachers know about but they just don’t understand social media. We jump in with disucssion about Web 2.0 when they aren’t ready for that discussion since they have absolutely no prior knowledge. I"m not against having these kinds of discussions but it’s a bit like Christopher Columbus and crew arguing over how they would organize and structure the new world when most of the old world didn’t even know it existed and if they did, had no idea why or how they would get over to see it, let alone settle there. It’s not a totally useless discussion but perspective is important.

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I come away from an event like this feeling blessed to know such awesome people and leave with great memories.

Our talk revolved around our efforts to change traditional teacher education to leverage the power of networks and technology in teaching and learning. We hope to spark some new conversations and support the great work already begun by Scott and friends.

Here’s the video to our Keynote and our other session can be found here. Slides from the keynote are here: Cooliris slides

Thanks again to Scott and  Paul Wood in particular for an outstanding weekend.

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My Dad has many legacys. He was great husband (Mom passed away in 1996) and father and did meaningful work. Wrapped around all this was a strong faith that was the foundation for our family. One of my Dad’s greatest qualities is how he makes people feel. My father’s genuine concern for people and encouragement for them is easily observed. He’s curious, optimistic and caring.

I’m not sure who said this but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately as I work with teachers and parent my children and try to be a great husband:

"People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel." 

Our connection to each other is not totally based on the content we share or the work we do but how we share it and the relationships we build. I’m grateful for a father who lives this everyday.

Time to call my Dad.

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Rick, Alec and Rob and I spent an hour last night learning from and with Howard. The ambient sounds you here of dogs barking and a parade are from my end. That’s just a bonus. Enjoy.

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Step Three: Watch and wait:

Step Four: End with laughter, joy and acknowledgement of a well completed task.

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The concept of student involved assessment is hard to deny as a powerful learning practice. Students taking care of their own learning and being able to use meta-cognition to dissect understanding and progress and seek ideas and support to learn more. The work of Rick Stiggins and others provides extensive research into this practice as the most important component leading to student achievement.

Whether or not you’ve done any study of this concept, this video does more than about anything I’ve seen recently to support this notion. (via Will Richardson)

I apologize if youtube is blocked at your school but allow me to offer some insights as to why this is a great example of student involved assessment at its best.

First the young boy demonstrates what he already knows. Using a simple video camera he models and speaks to his current level of understanding. Second he identifies what he doesn’t know, not simply by saying he doesn’t know but by offering some suggestions about what might be wrong but questioning his methodology. And here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of him floundering around with the people in his local vicinity who may not be able to help him he reaches out. Reading the comments below the video you’ll see at this writing 10 comments that are very likely going to allow him to learn more. Lest you think this is some obscure example, the first time I viewed this there were only just over 100 views. That’s pittance in youtube terms. Anyone can get 100 views but that’s all it took for learning to happen.

I do know that a teacher helped him learn this. I don’t if that “teacher” works in a school but he definitely was taught. It’s not simply a matter of posting a video and awaiting responses, this video was tagged and categorized very well. Without this understanding, it’s unlikely that he would get 10 quality answers. It’s not at all surprising to me that people are willing to share their knowledge and help him out. I experience that everyday as part of living in a connected way via social networks.

This represents some of the best ways to help classroom teachers and students understand the power and value of technology. I realize this boy never thought much about what he was doing with technology beyond helping him figure out how to start a fire. As a teacher it would be very easy to assess his understanding but more importantly HE COULD assess his understanding and create his own path to learn more. Now, what if all kids did this?

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I’m always amazed at how excited people become when they find they don’t have to accept the default settings of a product. Default settings in many cases provide a starting point but they often become a hindrance as users become more sophisticated or desire to use take more control. I’m more amazed at how many people never even think they options.

Here are a few examples:

The default browser of every Windows computer is Internet Explorer. It works will for basic web surfing but as many know has some huge disadvantages when compared to a browser like FireFox which offers a far greater degree of customization. When people discover the power of extensions, they never go back to IE. Yet over half of all computer users stick with IE, mostly because either they don’t know another option exists, or they don’t see why they would switch. They are oblivious to any options or ideas that they can have more control over their experience.

Have you ever been in a meeting and someone opens up a laptop, logs on and everywhere in the room has to hear the Windows chime theme while the person scrambles to turn the volume down? How does that sound do anything to add to the experience of computing? They likely have no idea that you can disable that sound. They just live with it. Grant it, it’s a pretty minor issue but it’s also an easy fix.

Here’s a personal pet peeve. My wife on occasion gets to control the remote. When she does, she refuses to change the settings to “Subscribed Channels”. Instead she leaves it on the default setting of “All Channels” and scrolls through a bunch of channels we don’t get. I squirm impatiently in my chair and make a few comments but she refuses to change it. Maybe she just needs more practice. Unfortunately, that won’t happen. I realize in this case she’s doing it just to drive me nuts but I wonder how many others leave that setting as is and move through a number of channels they can’t watch anyway.

Last week I was working with a class of students who are all using SmartPhones and we talked about successes and frustrations in using their phones. It was evident that those most frustrated were the ones who failed to change many of the settings to meet their needs. Those who had understood how to customize the phone were much more satisfied users. They truly owned their phones. I told them to start thinking like hackers. I asked them to think of their devices in terms of what it should be able to do rather than only what it does. The hacking mentality strives to “own the devices” not let the device own them.

I hadn’t heard this story for a while but it made me think of the idea of default settings again,

A young woman was preparing a ham for a family dinner. She proceeded to cut the end off the ham prior to baking. Her husband asked why she did that, she said, “Mother always did and her ham was always very tasty”. The husband, thinking that seemed odd, went into the other room where his mother-in-law sat and asked her why she cut the end off the ham. She said her mother did and it was always very tasty. Trying to solve this mystery, the husband called the grandmother on the phone to find out once and for all why she cut the end off the ham. The grandmother answered, “My roaster was too small to fit the entire ham”.

The story has a number of variations but you get the idea. There’s a lot of things we do and have no idea why and never consider to ask if there’s a better way.

I’m sure you make a number of connections here to our schools and learning institutions. There are hundreds of default settings that we simply accept either because we don’t consider the alternatives or we think it’s too much to change. That may be a valid response in some cases but as I told the students with the SmartPhones, starting to think like a hacker opens up more opportunities for customization. When we continue to blindly accept the default settings without asking, “can we do better?” we fail to recognize our ability to customize.  While I know this mantra may not work and be applicable in every situation it seems to me we CAN do better.

I leave you with this quote.

Now go turn off the Windows startup chime or buy a Mac.

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Before the printed book, people had to flock to a select few scholars who had the knowledge and learning that needed to be shared in the community. This oral tradition meant people had to learn in social ways. The book transformed this and made it possible for people to learn on their own and in private. The scholars and teachers of the day had lost some of their power and significance. People could learn in private. The horror!

I think we’ve seen that the book hasn’t really destroyed community and neither will video games or the web. In fact, as Rory argues, most games cannot be done in private but have to be done together. I’ve observed my son many times yell, scream, laugh and have these seemingly incoherent mumblings on a headset and be in contact with several friends and strangers involved with a scheduled raid on WOW. I don’t totally get it but when I ask if he’s going to get together with his friends, he simply answers, “I already am”. Had he been sitting in a chair reading a book all evening, many would be much more pleased and feel his time is being better spent. I’m not prepared to make a complete judgment.  Yes balance will always be important but there is still a shift here that my 45 year old brain is still working out.

The shift in how we consume content continues to challenge and amaze me. Social reading is something I’m trying to wrap my head around.  Diigo is something I’m recently exploring that facilitates this.  Being able to highlight content, leave sticky notes, see what other parts people have annotated creates a social experience and richness never possible before. Will explains it really well in this post.  As I sit in my easy chair reading online with others many might find that odd. Again, if I had a printed book and was reading alone,  it would likely get more respect.  For many people, sitting in front of a screen is not a social experience.  For my son and I, that’s not the case.

This is certainly not to say that all reading should be social. But as we spend more time working out what learning looks like on the outside, we need to keep this in mind.

So the next time someone blames the web or a video game for destroying community and social interaction, tell them the book started it.
Image: by Yives
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yives/3025506130/

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Ever since the day I wrote my first blog post and received a comment, I knew that learning in public had huge potential.  That was over 4 years ago. Today I’m one of those who has embraced a lifestyle of learning that is founded on transparency and connectedness. I’ve wondered many times how and when learning should be private.  My belief that the pendulum for most of education sits way on the side of private and needs to move way more to public.  It does seem a bit odd to me since we have no qualms about student athletes or musicians or actors to perform in public. No athlete ever joins a team and suggests they just want to practice but don’t want to play in front of a crowd. For many, that’s part of the appeal. I’ve often talked about stages: athletic stages, artistic stages and then wondered about academic stages. We have almost zero expectations for students to publicly share learning. While I understand some people’s hesitancy to participate in online spaces, I believe the benefits are worth exploring even it it means some discomfort.

When can we begin to expect that just like our sports teams, drama clubs and bands, our students academic work will be publicly on display? Is asking pre-service teachers to post content online outside of a walled garden a bad thing? Is age a factor? Does it matter that I’m teaching future teachers? What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best? (I already know the answer to this since it’s happened often during my various sections of teaching this course). I would value and love your input on this issue.

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For the past 3 terms I’ve had my undergrads hook up with classrooms from around the world. Over the course of about 2 months the range of interactions is anything from skype conferences where my students teach lessons to commenting on blogs to working closely with students in collaborative projects. I’m been reluctant to make it much more structured since I want to honor teacher’s time and access. My student’s express a variety of  levels of satisfaction. I usually have the connect with 2 classrooms both to give them some variety but also to insure a greater chance of interactions. Two months is a very short time to build a connection with a class. Amazingly, some of my students made this happen and for many it was the best part of the course.  Others were frustrated by communication break downs and lack of activity. This was usually no one’s fault but the nature of school. Teachers are busy and I don’t want to place any undue expectations on them. I want my students simply to have the chance to interact with other students in whatever way the teacher sees fit. It’s not a perfect program by any means but it continues to provide students with an experience they never get in other classes in their university careers.

From May 6-June 18 I’ll be teacher the spring term of this same course. I had originally resigned the idea of a mentorship not only because of the shorter time frame but also since many US schools in particular would either be done or winding down. However I know there may be many that might be looking to have some outside voices participate.  I thought I’d give it a shot.

We’ve had classrooms ranging from Kindergarten to advanced senior Math. My goal is simply to have my students witness and experience how teachers and students share and open their classrooms to the world.  So I’m calling any teacher or classrooms in any grade and subject area. I might suggest the following scenarios for interaction:

• A Skype call to share stories about where you live and where we live
• Find out what areas of expertise my students might have and have the teach a lesson virtually
• Collaborate on a story
• Have my students comment on student work

As teachers, you’re using many tools to connect, these are just some starting points. My students need to see these in action. I realize that in a month it’s going to be difficult to establish a deep relationship be I’m open to being surprised.

So leave a comment, email me shareski at gmail.com, or resend this to any teacher you wish and let me know if you might be interested.  Our class meets every Monday and Wednesday evening and I’ll likely have you come all join me  in early May (likely the 11th or 13th) via Elluminate one evening to share about classroom.

Please complete this form if you’re interested:

Once again, testing the boundaries of my PLN.

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We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving.  There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students.

Here are the slides and the audio is below:

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So spend part of Tuesday revamping and cleaning up a few previous presentations to fit into the 20 minute time slot I was given. I was called that afternoon to confirm my appearance with the school counselor and a local police officer. About 30 parents showed up which is pretty typical. While I recall being told about the scheme set up to test kids willingness to add friends in Facebook, I didn’t fully understand the concept until the counselor revealed the plan.  She created a fake profile and tried to get as many students to add her as a friend. The point was to show the parents and students how willing the students were to add strangers. She dropped this bomb on the parents and emphasized the dangerous behaviour shown by the students and how vulnerable they were to predators et. al.  Parents were shocked and their faces were filled with dismay, anger and concern. This went on for about an hour. The police officer who introduced himself to me by stating he didn’t know a lot about computers or the internet proceeded to present for almost an hour on how dangerous the internet was, how it was not policed and was a playground for predators.

And then it was my turn.

I immediately announced that I would be providing a very different perspective and that while I acknowledged some of the dangers and concerns I actually disagreed with many of the points made by the first two speakers. I’ll not post the presentation here, it wasn’t that inspiring but it contained similar content to this one done last summer.  I recognized the lateness of the evening but also wanted to provide hope and balance to a very one sided and what I believed to be somewhat misguided discussion. We had a brief Q and A afterward and many parents expressed their gratitude about hearing another side.

It was a weird evening to say the least. While I recognize the concerns of students acting badly online, these students, I presume are using facebook the way most are: posting a few photos, giving status updates and connecting with friends. I’ll restate this piece of research from the PEW Internet and American Life Project

Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil.

This completely contradicted what both the police officer and counselor were saying. I stressed that I wanted my kids stuff to be online and that sometimes that included personal things. My 10 year old writes about personal things. That’s what she knows. I don’t worry about her. My own kids see me modeling appropriate behaviour and we talk about what we do online. As Will writes, I want my kids to be found. I also stressed that my concerns continue to revolve around cyberbullying, understanding the changing nature of privacy as well as the lack of critical thinking and understanding of digital content and authentication of information. I also added this quote from danah boyd:

Why are we so obsessed with the registered sex offender side of the puzzle when the troubled kids are right in front of us? Why are we so obsessed with the Internet side of the puzzle when so many more kids are abused in their own homes? I feel like this whole conversation has turned into a distraction. Money and time is being spent focusing on the things that people fear rather than the very real and known risks that kids face. This breaks my heart.

I feel like I’ve posted about this too many times. 2 years ago, we had few educators using any form of social networks and thus the discussions were few. Today their is more information and we have more educators using Facebook and have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I’m perplexed about how to shift the conversation away from the fear. Fear is usually attached to the unknown. Most of these parents and teachers simply don’t know and it’s always easier to attach a quick label to the unknown. If it’s presented as a threat to children, well, you know the rest of that story.

Today this happened at the school.

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That’s just not my style. I still haven’t fully comprehended what message was being sent other than don’t add strangers to your Facebook account.  It seemed like a lot of effort to spend on a quick emphasis to something that requires much more context and teaching and modeling. Maybe more discussion will follow. I hope so. But I’m not hopeful.

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Because of institutional requirements and societal norms, I’m required to give you a grade. This grade falls between 0-100 and in some way is intended to inform you and others how well you did in this course. The importance that number is given is appalling. While I do my best to provide you with some outcomes, indicators, rubrics and feedback I still feel my assessment of your learning is fairly trivial or at best a thin slice  indicator of what you’ve learned.  I realize many would love to believe that the number or grade you get is pure, accurate and will provide future instructors, institutions or employers an indication of your proficiency, understanding or knowledge. If anyone of these groups were to ask me about you, I could tell them what I’ve seen and observed. That may have value, the grade, not so much.

I also recognized that many of you took charge of your own learning, asking to change assignments, finding alternatives and creating meaning for yourselves. That’s what I wanted. While it wasn’t really an “anything goes” approach we were able to negotiate some ideas about what would be valuable for you to pursue inside the broad goals and guidelines of this class.

At the beginning of the term I told you I had 4 goals for you. I wanted you to see that:

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

I hope I succeeded in that. Don’t rank me from 0-100 but provide me with feedback and ideas to make me a better teacher.

As I’ve told you before, you all are the winners in our current system of education. You’ve come through 12+ years of education understanding what it takes to do well in school and please others. There’s nothing wrong with this in principle, however if that’s all this class is, and the other classes you take, that seems like a waste. That system may have worked for you but it doesn’t work for everyone and certainly continuing to aid students in playing the game of school needs to stop. Personalizing learning and being able to take away clear and not so clear understandings, skills and ideas is what really matters. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to learn specific knowledge and skills but we have to move beyond that. I know that for most of you, you did.

So if you look at that number and it doesn’t make sense to you, I apologize. I try like crazy to make it meaningful but always get frustrated trying to make that happen. In the end, you tell me, what you learned. I would love to be like this guy and give you all A’s. Ranking you makes little sense to me. Helping and guiding you to become better at what you want to do is something I’m deeply committed to. I’m hoping I was able to do that and that we didn’t’ let a little thing like a number get in the way. Your challenge as future educators is to figure out how to minimize the meaning of that number and get your students to learn inspite of that. That won’t be easy. Will we ever have schools that truly model and commit to lifelong learning? I realize I’m dreaming but wouldn’t it be great if we could just learn because we want to?  Idyllic, I know but it’s worth pursuing.

Still learning.

Dean

ecmp355, assessment, grading

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Of course I subscribe to Will’s blog but it wasn’t until someone tweeted it again, did I go back to re read it, or read it properly. As I read it I realized I needed all our administrators to read it too. We have a division weblog of sorts that gets used primarily by me but felt that’s the best place to post the idea.  I’ve been pretty gentle with talking to teachers and administrators about sharing. I’ve hinted at the idea that it might be their professional responsibility, but Will’s post made the argument more compelling.

…there is certainly much I could learn from them if they were sharing. But most of them are not.

In this same vein, I have more and more of an expectation of the teachers and especially the administrators in our schools to lead transparent lives. The fact that they are veritably “un-googleable” in terms of finding anything they have created and shared and perhaps collaborated with others on troubles me on a number of levels. First, I can’t see for myself whether or not they are learners. And, almost more importantly, I get no sense as to whether or not they are leaders of learners. Whether they are in the classroom or in the front office, I want (demand?) the adults in my schools to be effective models for living in a transparent world. I want my kids to see them navigating these spaces effectively, sharing what they know, teaching others outside of their physical space, and contributing to the conversation.

Demand. Strong word which Will puts in parenthesis and adds a question mark behind it. I realize it’s tough to demand people to share but when we toss our phrases like “life long learner”, “professional responsibility”, “modeling” and “learning communities” these quickly become catch phrases that have little or no substance.  Even with our small school division of 40 schools, there are almost 80 school administrators that could be highly connected and learning from each other every day. Instead they gather a few times a year, spend most of the time catching up, complain a little and then address the more important issues, with a select few only to have time run out. That’s fixable. Easily. These are smart, caring, innovative people who should be learning with and from each other every day.  That goes for teachers, students and central office people. It’s been rewarding to work with pre-service teachers and lead them to this idea. Some may say I’ve forced them to share. But others have come to embrace it.

I’m going to start stepping up the language and if not demand, strongly encourage us to be more transparent.

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I sometimes post my slides here and even have gone to the trouble to add the audio, after the fact. I usually invite discussion but more so on the ideas rather than the packaging.

I’ll be the first to admit, the more I learn the more inadequate I feel to speak about visual literacy. I’m not trained in graphic design, but have read about it and practiced it to the point where I hope I have something to offer folks. I definitely push this the importance of visual literacy in our own school division.

Dan asked for people to explicitly solicit critique. I welcome it. When it comes to presentations, I subscribe to much of the ideas of Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and others. I spend hours and hours on each one. I recognize how it can engage audiences and provide some memorable images that can carry with participants beyond the presentation itself.  That said, I don’t think even the most compelling imagery can make up for incoherent ideas and poor delivery. I’m constantly working at all three.

So here’s a ten minute video where I describe why I make the choices I make. It was one take each so excuse the pauses and droning but maybe it will provide some insight. Leave any comments or suggestions. Don’t feel you have to be an expert to comment. Perhaps I haven’t explained something clearly or didn’t address something you felt was important. We can learn from and with each other.

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In the 2000 United States Open at Pebble Beach, Tiger Woods stood on the 18th tee in the second round and had just hit his tee shot into the Pacific Ocean. The TV cameras showed a disgusted Woods slam his club to the ground and reach out his hand to caddie Steve Williams to request another ball. Woods then proceeded to hit a perfect and went on to win the tournament and broke a scoring record in the process. What you didn’t know was because of a number of circumstances, that was the last ball in Woods’ bag. If he had hit that ball into the water, he would have been disqualified. Knowing the inside scoop adds intrigue and context to already exciting event.

With the opening of baseball season just around the corner I was thinking back to one of my favorite shows as a child, Inside Baseball. As much as I loved to watch the games themselves, I was fascinated by the stories and that took me inside the locker room and practice field to learn more about my heroes. Hearing Rod Carew talk about how he stole home four times in one year, having Bruce Sutter show how he threw a split fingered fastball all helped to make the game more interesting and meaningful. The more I knew about the players, the more I appreciated their on field accomplishments.

Today, DVD’s usually offer bonus sections on the “making of” the movie. We have many more opportunities to see process and get insights of artists and storytellers we previously only could imagine. While much of the magic and mystery may be gone, it certainly helps us better understand the finished product.

So what’s this got to do with learning and technology?

I”m currently teaching first year university students and require them to blog. There are many benefits for having them blog but I’ve found it to be one of the greatest ways I’ve been able to get into the thinking and process of my their learning. Asking them to describe their learning and thought process provides me with insight not only to appreciate their efforts but to inform my instruction and decide on what further supports I can provide to take them to the next level. This technology remains a powerful way for learners to reflect and share their thinking on a variety of endeavors. As much as teachers and schools say that process is as important as product, this often is more lip service than practice. Process takes time and talking about learning can be tiresome. The transparency of blogs make this a shared experience that no doubt can provide all students a greater opportunity to learn from each other. The advent of blogs in schools often is deployed as a way to bring technology into schools. That’s the wrong reason. I recently read this quote on Doug Johnson’s blog:

At a conference last week, Mark Weston from Dell computing stated that asking the question, “Does technology improve student learning?” is the wrong question. The question should be, “Does technology support the practices that improve student learning?”

That is a better question. In this case, a student blog can support the practices of feedback loops and student reflection not to mention the ability to connect with those outside the classroom that may be able to provide deeper and more valuable feedback than the teacher or classmates. While the final products our students create are important, getting the inside scoop and allowing places for us to explore ideas often provides a direct view not easily replicated in other ways. Having a place to explain in greater detail how a concept was formed or a product was developed in many cases is the more interesting part.

As professionals, it becomes a space to test out theories, share successes and failures and build relationships. Inside learning.

As we continue to see many join the publishing world, our role is not only to learn how to filter out the noise but to teach our students to be transparent in meaningful ways. Using blogs and other spaces to provide insights of deep, thoughtful reflection moves away from simply playing with the technology but truly uses it to support the practices that improve student learning.

amberblow, dougjohnson

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There are so many powerful ideas packed into this story.

• Geography is largely eliminated from the learning equation. These stories continue to emerge from isolated communities that realize there are opportunities to be found and are willing to find them.  Isolation may be the mother of invention when it comes to connected with others.
• The teacher’s recognition that there may be others in a better position to teach his students is key. The teacher became the network administrator in providing his students with other experts.
• People want to share. The fact that other ukulele players flocked to provide instruction and share their passions continues to be the theme of the social web.
• Music matters. While not a direct message in this story, research is clear about the value of music in learning. Learning an instrument requires complex thinking.
• Modeling how to learn. These students have been given a powerful lesson in teaching themselves. Having access to a variety of people/resources will serve them well in their future.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but if you haven’t already subscribed to Spark, go do it now.

*Disclaimer: I am not paid by Spark, however I’m sure my tax dollars help pay them. So in that regard, I’m part owner.

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Here’s the link to my presentation on Disruptions. I presented this Monday at the IT Summit in Saskatoon and again Friday at the Palm Beach Technology Conference. Totally stolen but also assisted by Alan Levine, I was able to create this using the CoolIris viewer. There is a quick publishing tool you can download if you’re only using images. Adding the video becomes tricky. Videos must be .flv. After building it I found out the drop.io might allow you to do the same thing without all the geekiness. That made me sad after the hours I spent tinkering. I’ll get over it.

In addition to this presentation I did 2 others for the Palm Beach Conference. These are revamped presentations I’ve done before with several updates.

Your Kindergarten Teacher Was Right. Why sharing matters more than ever.

Managing Your Identity

It was an honor to be invited and join a headline list of speakers. Lee Kolbert and team did a great job of running an outstanding one day event.

Keynote/Featured Speakers photo by Lee Kolbert

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People

Without trying to list the names of everyone, it’s apparent for most users of social media that face to face gathering times have changed in the past few years. I used to go to conferences and mingle with local colleagues and a few others I’d met a various functions and committees but there wasn’t much of a community. Now we meet people we’ve never seen and can enter in to meaningful discussion since all the banter and small talk takes place  in other spaces.

This conference brings together not only educators and administrators but also IT. I certainly commend our own IT team for focusing on students but not all do. This is a great way to have them understand that their clients are students and it’s a highly complex task to provide safe, secure environments that also enable them to have the access needed to use the tools that help them learn.

Keynotes

I’ve heard David Warlick live a couple of times but I must say this was worth seeing. David is a gifted storyteller but certainly connects to many outside of educational technology.  Carlene captured the essence of it well. It lead to many meaningful conversations and insights for many including my superintendent who said, “I know you’ve been talking about this for years but it’s finally starting to click”. What’s the phrase about being a prophet in your own town?

Being able to provide a keynote with Clarence, Kathy and Darren was truly a treat. Once I get the audio from Rob, I’ll post it but it was a privilege to facilitate these three tell their stories.

Sessions

So many of the sessions dealt with what’s best for students and how does any of this help our students learn more. The phrase “How does the technology support the practices that lead to student achievement” rang through my mind many times. I heard more praise from various sessions than I have at many conferences.

Critcisms

Nothing is perfect and there were a few things that I’d like to see change. Wireless continues to suck. Why? Last year the wireless at another venue was much better. The hotel did not have wireless so someone had to install a temporary system. It was lousy. This has got to be resolved. I would also like to see more built in opportunity to network. Not a big deal for me personally since I have many connections and can steer informal conversations to meet my needs but for many, they need a time and space to ask questions and contribute ideas.  I mentioned the idea of a “linkable” keynote. A killer opening that had many components that could be explored deeper in follow up sessions or simply building an open space style based on the ideas in the keynote and interests of the participants. Then culminating the conference with a sharing time of what was learned and what plans were made.

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Mixed in with some laughter, and our usual ramblings is some good stuff largely on the part of our guests. If you’re already subscribed in itunes, just search for EdTech Posse and you’ll find us there.

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My life is pretty much an open book. For some that’s just too weird, dangerous or stupid. It works for me.  My network of acquaintances/colleagues/connections and yes, some friends, know a lot of odd things about me.

I received many birthday wishes but David Jakes (I linked to his blog so you’ll all head over and urge him to blog more) started this little beauty:

And the fun began.  I’m not sure I capture them all but I hope so.

For those who  have had the opportunity to observe my online nattering, I can see how some might find it trivial, self-absorbed and even perhaps useless. There’s some truth in that for sure. But I can say that much of this it isn’t far off from the way I approach teaching and learning. Wrapped around the glaze of foolishness lies the belief that you need to invest and embrace a level of vulnerability and be prepared to engage in idle chat in order to build community and in turn truly learn from each other. For me this means sharing silliness, exploring new ways to share and communicate and discovering that being playful and curious about other people actually matters.  I also think this doesn’t necessarily lose you academic credibility, although again, many would write me off because of my overt sharing practices. I hardly care. I’m sure there are other ways to do this but I’m quite happy with how things have worked out for me. Not that I’m seeking power but “the less you share the less power you have.” In a time of economic downturn, I have tons of social capital.

So with that I give you a really neat little gift that from some really cool people. They supplied the gift, I wrapped it up and put it in a box.  That was fun. (FYI, I uploaded this first to youtube but the rendering of the screen captures was pretty unreadable, vimeo does a much better job. There, you learned something)

Birthday Tweets from shareski on Vimeo.

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Today, we had about 10 friends over for a little pre-birthday party. My wife called people about 3-4 days ahead of time, spent a good part of Saturday and most of Sunday baking, cleaning and getting ready for our guests. We ate well and had a lot of fun. We likely have these types of events more than most people I know but even at that, we don’t do it weekly.

In praise of the pop-in

The pop is a lost art for most of us today.  Socializing for most of us is pretty structured and planned. We check our calendars and plan a meeting, gathering or event weeks, even months in advance. When we get together and have a great time, we say, “we should do this more often”.  That rarely happens.  Our culture has changed. Bowling Alone is a book by Robert Putnam.

Putnam draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often.

You can think of many reasons why this is but certainly most of us can nod our head in agreement. The “pop-in” existed because the value of socializing superseded the  busyness and frantic lifestyles that has evolved over the past few years. We’ve devalued socialization and traded it for privacy, achievement and money. We’ve lost a great deal of social capital. This social capital served to strengthen relationships. The line we’ve tried to pawn off to ourselves is that it’s about quality, not quantity. I wouldn’t say that’s a load of crap, but it’s not totally truthful.

It’s not about the media, it’s about the social

I apologize because I can’t remember where I read this (probably on twitter, if you read this and said, please let me know) but this is a big deal. It’s not about the media, but the social. We crave to be social.

Twitter is the ultimate pop-in. You can easily jump in when you have a few minutes. Enter a deep conversation, share a piece of trivia, announce an accomplishment or just say hello.  Don’t over think it. If you do, you’ll drive yourself batty.  Socialization is good, it’s right, it’s human. It’s more about quantity than quality.

I recognize many would cite other behaviours and concerns with time spent online but this is the real reason Facebook, Twitter, et al is gaining so much attention and use. While the pundits might argue that folks should be making more face time, for the most part it’s extremely difficult. This media is the natural evolution of society and helps to solve a huge void in people’s lives.

The real reason of course that we use these mediums, is to be together in person. The value of these tiny bite sized interactions is that it strengthens the bond of our relationships and allows our face time to be much more meaningful.

Can schools learn from the pop-in?

I’m going to suggest that the pop-in for our schools is found in serendipity. Serendipitous learning is desperately needed in our schools. Not that we abandon curriculum or structure, that’s good too. But when classrooms cannot make changes on the fly or take advantage of learning opportunities, we cheat our kids.  With classrooms that use media like ustream, skype or even twitter, they afford their students the chance for informal learning to take place. Their classrooms don’t revolve around these tools but the possibility of learning something unexpected exists. I remember teaching 3rd grade and having the teacher and students next door routinely pop in to share something interesting or something they learned. I kept my door open most of the day. Learning was natural and social.

Learning isn’t always sequential or linear. Sometimes we need an injection of serendipity to spark interest and make connections to other curriculum.  When something out of the ordinary happens, we should have the capacity to respond in some way.  When unexpected company arrived, we didn’t panic, we welcomed them in and enjoyed the conversation. No preparation necessary.

With the advancement of distance education, we may soon see a book called, “Learning Alone”.  I don’t want that. However there is an efficiency involved in online learning that is hard to resist or deny. I’ve never want us to move in that direction which is why I ask teachers, what are you doing in your classrooms that will make your students want to come to school?  Social learning may well prove to be the glue that keeps our schools viable.  The pop-in style of social media might be important to maintain and build relationships.

I don’t know if you can take my analogy too far but  my observation as my wife cleaned the house (I helped too but she did the bulk) was that the conversation or fun wasn’t directly related to the cleanliness of our house or the quality of the food. Don’t get me wrong, we had a wonderful evening and the food certainly added to the fun but it wasn’t required, just something nice to do for friends. But I’d be willing to trade this planned gathering for more informal visits with my friends.

I recognize this may not be the most coherent piece of writing but as these ideas rolled around in my brain, I felt I needed to get it out.

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Video is indeed a 21st century skill. Take the recent contest for the Best Job in the World. Applicants were charged with creating a one minute video as their application. The ones highlighted on Presentation Zen are impressive. But Stephen Downes nails it,

They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today. Some people out there argue that such skills (a) are old hat, and (b) not worth teaching. The world is passing such critics by, and they should not be heeded.

Our schools need to re-evaluate how much time we spend on print alone and start broadening our focus. Joe Brennan, among others, does a great job connecting the dots between writing and video. Unfortunately, most of our educators have difficulty understanding the value and nuances of creating and viewing effective video. Even more unfortunate are those who think of video as faddish or no different than teaching writing. While there are similarities, there are enough differences that it requires teacher training to make it as required as learning how to teach writing.  I’ve been using video in the classroom and making movies for the past 10 years and I know I’m far from being an expert. 95% of our teachers I’m guessing know less than I do.

How long will it be until employers will ask applicants to submit a video? Not just for unique and quirky jobs like an Australian tourism promoter but for teachers, lawyers, managers. Any job that features communication as a primary skill, will ask future employees to present themselves in this way.

Here’s my favourite from the contest. A Canadian of course.

bengrey, stephendownes, garrreynolds, bestjobintheworld, joebrennan

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