Pay Attention (Or Be Ignored...)

You may have heard of Web 2.0 (or here), and you may have even heard of School 2.0 (or here and here), but here's a thought-provoking 8-minute video of Student 2.0:

Creator Darren Draper is Technology Curriculum Specialist in the Jordan School District in Utah and in addition to this video being posted on TeacherTube (as embedded above), it is on YouTube, and on the Jordan School District's T4 (Transforming Teaching Through Technology) site with extensive supplemental material including source materials.

This is a compelling challenge to educators and educational institutions today. How are we relating educationally to today's and tomorrow's students? Most of us are digital immigrants compared to our students, and even the youngest educators among us have been schooled themselves with mostly traditional, non-digital methods. The inertial tendancy to maintain traditional approaches can be overwhelming even if we consciously and intentional want to change and fully understand the need to change. But every attempt we make to engage our digital students with and through the media they use so pervasively is a step in the right direction.

Thanks to Karl Fisch's Fischbowl as well as a post on the ADE listserv for directing me (and now you) to what Karl calls a "conversation starter" -- be sure to keep this conversation going...

How (Should) Students Learn Basic Applications

Yesterday David Warlick sparked an interesting and worthwhile discussion in his 2 Cents Worth blog in his What About Computer Applications post. I recommend reading through the comments for a varied and thoughtful range of responses to David's initial question:

Are computer applications something that should be taught in a class, or something that should be learned by the students, independent of a class curriculum?

David also conducted an informal poll on his blog, but I think the discussion in the comments is far more interesting, and David posted a follow-up today concluding that some combination is probably the consensus, but he then poses the following question:

My nagging question continues to be, are all classroom teachers ready or inclined to teach word processing and spreadsheets at the same time they are responsible for teaching reading, math, social studies, or science? Is it fair to them to ask it?

That is definitely a practical consideration that must be factored in. We are currently reviewing our district's Business and Information Technology curriculum and these discussions are extremely relevant. I am encouraging our entire committee to read the discussion in David's posts.

Half-Glassed Thinking

It's interesting how the more some things change there are still some things that stubbornly remain the same. I was in a day-long professional development session recently and observed an unbelievable amount of what I call "half-glassed" thinking.

"If only ..."
"We can't be expected to accomplish anything when ..."
"The problem is that ..."
"They shouldn't ..."
"They should ..." ("They" are almost never identified but are nearly always at fault!)
"If have no control over ..., we can't ..."

This was a tough group because all but a few were glass-half-empty folks. The one or two "half-full" participants tried gamely a few times to look for positives and possibilities, but they were drowned out by a litany of obstacles. Interestingly, the group represented a range from young teachers to those with lots of experience.

Now I'm no Pollyanna, but I have a hard time imagining what it must be like to focus on obstacles and use them as excuses rather than approaching them as challenges to overcome or work around.

But what do we do about those negative influences? Give up on them? Ignore them? I don't think so. I do think we need to keep the conversation with them going whenever possible and keep it as positive as possible. An even better approach is to find opportunities to share successes of colleagues that do overcome the obstacles and to share the results in terms of student engagement and achievement. Best yet is to share local examples in our own schools and district. We have begun collecting video and audio clips of such successes in our district that might be useful for this purpose. Capturing and cataloging success, then sharing it as often as possible might just be a powerful antidote for half-glassed thinking.

Richardson on GLEF Advisory Board, and an Announcement of My Own...

Will Richardson just announced on his blog that he has been appointed to the George Lucas Educational Foundation National Advisory Board. Kudos to Will for another opportunity to share his vision and voice, and kudos to GLEF for a wise and inspired selection. Will's advocacy for meaningful and transformative use of technology for teaching and learning has gained great traction through his blogging, his book, and his appearances. And the GLEF has been an important resource for educational technology for many years. It's Edutopia website should be on all technology-using educators' short-list of web links to visit often. It is on mine.

And for my own announcement, I was just selected as an Apple Distinguished Educator -- an exciting opportunity and a humbling honor to join this special community of educators. Look for blog posts in July when I attend the ADE orientation institute in Monterey, California. I can't wait!

Student Bloggers: Great Examples

Want to see some great examples of student blogging? Visit the Possibilities Abound blog by Lani for her 3/6 post: There's something happening here!

Not only are there great examples of high school students blogging about their learning in pre-calculus class (great reflective posts), but there's a mini-story in the post about a 5th grader elsewhere posting a comment and the subsequent connection between the high school students and their new friend, Eddie. Very inspiring!

And in many of the posts (please follow the links -- there are many great gems to uncover), the students write about how much their teacher's use of an interactive white board has changed their class and how they are now using the white board as well as the teacher.

A tip of the hat to Jim Gates' TipLine blog and Anne Davis' EduBlog Insights for pointing me to Lani's post. Jim's post actually references Lani's post via Anne's Tell the Stories post.

And that's why it's call The Web. BTW, you'll see Jim's and Anne's posts in my Shared items listed to the right. Lots of other goodies there that I haven't blogged about -- yet...

From Mirrors to Amplifiers: More on School 2.0

David Warlick has an insightful post on his 2 Cents Worth blog -- More on School 2.0 -- with the following comparisons between School 1.o...

Teachers deliver content and skills, students are mirrors, reflecting content and skills back to the teacher (or government). If the reflection is in the image of the teacher and the state’s standards, then success has been achieved — regardless of any continuing affects on the students abilities to prosper in a rapidly changing time.

...and School 2.0...

Teacher’s become learners and learners become teachers, and each side is empower with conversation, control over their information landscape, and connections with each other — with almost no constraints of hierarchy.

And in David's inimitable way, he has characterized this shift with this pithy statement:

Students stop being mirrors, and instead become amplifiers. Their job is not merely to reflect what they encounter, but to add value to it.

David also has two great diagrams of School 1.o and School 2.o to illustrate.

Here is the School 2.o diagram:

This is a great way of capturing the transformative shift we are all aiming for. As I read the post, I couldn't help envisioning the mirrors (students) in School 1.0 morphing into prisms in School 2.0 both amplifying and refracting ideas and information in all directions -- like a superconducting super collider for education!

The one exception I'll take to David's post is in his opening paragraph statement:

But most everyone now knows what a blog is, wikis hold no mystery, we’ve gotten over wikipedia, and podcasting is no longer the “next big thing.”

I can understand David's perspective. He's been banging the drum for quite a while now, and he's probably seeing a change in his audiences from "wow, gee whiz" responses to a lot of nodding of heads -- many bent over their laptops busily blogging their reflections or capturing notes on a wiki for colleagues or a future podcast. But, David's audience is often made up of the vanguard -- those ready and willing to embrace the technology and the educational reform. We, in turn, go back to our schools and work with many teachers that are just getting past the notion that the technology is inevitable and are struggling with the day-to-day pressures of conflicting local initiatives without little time to breathe, let alone reflect. I'd have to say the vast majority still are not clear on the differences between a blog, wiki, or podcast or, more importantly, why it makes a difference for education. I think there's lots more work for us to do in that arena.

Just this past Monday, we had Will Richardson do a day-long workshop in our district for about 40 teachers and administrators. Will did an amazing job (as always) of delivering a compelling case for the impact of Web 2.0 tools on education. But I spent over an hour afterward continuing the conversation with several attendees helping them digest and sort out Will's presentation. For many, this was the first time they had spent any substantial time considering these tools and their potential. To be sure, there were a few in attendance who already have blogs and have done some podcasting and worked on wikis -- even a number who have used these in class with their students. But the majority were still in the "wow, gee whiz" phase. So there is much yet to done at the school and classroom level.

But, David, please move ahead. The implications of School 2.0 as an extension of the Web 2.0 metaphor is an important one as we all figure out how education must adapt to the ever changing tools of collaboration and connective technology.

The Accuracy of Wikipedia

Will Richardson posts in weblogg-ed:

Research on Wikipedia/Trusting the Source of the Source

(Via Smart Mobs) So here is a research study (and I mean research, full of all sorts of funny looking formulas and symbols and stuff) about Wikipedia that comes to the conclusion that the more edits there are to a particular article the more accurate it is.

This makes sense to me even though it contradicts the fears of many educators. And it is interesting in relation to something I've recently learned about the Wikipedia founders starting a new venture:

As posted in Accelating Minds:

Wikipedia 2.0

The folks at Wikipedia are launching a new site, Citizendium. It strives to become a more authoritative version of its predecessor, and a boon for us in education. It looks to me like, after registering and signing in, students can still research and then contribute to the pages.

I just wonder if this is really needed. I'm not sure it will be able to get the same kind of traction that Wikipedia already has.

Found by SETI

We hear so much about the potential dangers of social networking and being so interconnected. Here's a great little anecdote as antidote to the negativity...

From the Gadget Lab blog:

SETI Project Finds Something: Stolen Laptop

The thieves didn't bother to wipe the machine, so it kept running the SETI program, which periodically registers an IP address with the project's main server.

And I guess you could also call this a victory for reverse engineering -- or, in this case, reverse computing!

Un-amusing Muse

Muse:

n.

1. Greek Mythology Any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, each of whom presided over a different art or science.

2. muse

a. A guiding spirit.

b. A source of inspiration.

-- from YourDictionary.com

The Muse toys with me. Teases, approaches, then withdraws, flirting dangerously with my deadlines. It's not procrastination -- honest! -- I'm wrestling with my Muse.

Is it just me? I start working on projects well in advance, but I'm not satisfied without that creative element, that something special that will hook and hold. Whether I'm working on a presentation, materials for professional development, a report or an application, it almost always seems to be as the deadline fast approaces when the Muse finally gives me that spark of creativity I've been looking for. Am I unusual, or is this fairly typical?

Kids Making a Difference: Alex's Lemon Drop Blog

Check out Alex's LemonDrop Blog! This is all about kids making a difference. Talk about authentic learning, this is it! Be sure to visit the blog and share your support and encouragement.

This blog accompanies the Alex's Virtual Lemonade Stand Project -- an Internet2 video conference project for grades K-12. This project is inspired by Alex Scott's heroic desire to do for others even as she battled cancer herself. At the time of her death at age 8 she had raised over $900,000 for pediatric cancer research. Since then the Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation has raised more than $10 million for childhood cancer research. Alex attended Penn Wynne Elementary School in the Lower Merion School District (LMSD), and students and teachers at Penn Wynne initiated the virtual lemonade stand video conference last year and are hosting again this year for an even bigger project!

The theme of this videoconference project is "Kids helping kids make a difference" in conjunction with Global Youth Services Day. Each participating school will host a lemonade stand to raise funds for cancer research as well as participating in a variety of other educational activities. The schools will collaborate with each through the Alex's LemonDrop blog and hold a kick-off spirit rally video conference and a closing project collage video conference event.

Just announced today, newly-elected Congressman Joe Sestak (PA, 7th Congressional District) will speak with participating students in the closing videoconference from the Internet2 Corporate Offices in Washington, D.C.

Tech to D.I. For: Technology and Differentiated Instruction

I just posted a podcast to the LMSD Podologue of my presentation last week at the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Exposition and Conference (PETE&C) in Hershey, PA. My topic was technology and differentiated instruction -- web resources for D.I., technology-enhanced strategies for D.I., and powerful ways technology and D.I. might be combined.

As a part of the presentation, I introduced a public wiki -- Tech 4 D.I. -- that I set up to promote the use of technology to differentiate instruction. The wiki includes all the links from my presentations (and then some), and all are invited to add links and add to the annotations for the links. In addition, I set up pages to share ideas, tips, and strategies for using technology to differentiate content, process, product, and the classroom environment. Please visit the wiki and contribute or join in a discussion on any of the pages.

Lager for the Blogger

I was having dinner tonight with a couple of colleagues having just arrived at Hershey, PA, for the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Exposition and Conference (PETE&C) and across the bar from us was Will Richardson! We had been in one of Will's workshops at the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit (MCIU -- Norristown, PA) last November, and we have him scheduled for a workshop in our district (Lower Merion School District) the end of this month.

We couldn't resist. The bar had Sam Adams' Winter Lager on tap, so we sent a lager to the blogger. Will joined us for dinner, and we had a great conversation. Be sure to read Will's blog if you haven't already -- weblogg-ed.

Understanding by Design Podcasts

I have posted four podcast episodes to the LMSD Podologue from presentations given at the third in-service day for Lower Merion School District new teacher assistance program (NTAP). These are very basic introductions to the Understanding by Design framework with a focus on Stages 1 and 2 only. The first episode is an introductory overview of UbD and how it relates to Differentiated Instruction. This second deals with big ideas, standards and benchmarks, knowledge and skills and how that all can be expressed as enduring understandings in the UbD framework. The third episode introduces Essential Questions to focus teacher design and inspire and direct student learning. The fourth episode deals with the importance of developing summative performance-based assessments aligned to the standards and benchmarks, enduring understandings, and essential questions in Stage 2 of the UbD framework.

Web 2.0 Video from Kansas State University

Fascinating YouTube video commentary on Web2.0 --

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

The production is compelling. See what you think about the message. This has received a lot of comments on YouTube. Sample some of these -- they run the gamut of favorable to critical.

From Podcasting to Pilot to Student iPods - Podcast

I finally finished preparing and uploading to the LMSD Podologue a three-episode series of a presentation given in Apple Seminars on October 25, 2006, at the Chester County Intermediate Unit and, again, on December 7, 2006, at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit. The presentation was titled: iPod, uPod, wePod, theyPod: from podcasting to pilot to student iPods and the presenters included Virginia DiMedio, Director of Information Technology for Lower Merion School District (Ardmore, PA), and Mary Kirchner, World Languages Chair at Lower Merion High School, along with me.

The presentation was in three parts which made it easy to split the podcast into three episodes. The first part of the presentation describes the initial use of podcasting in LMSD as a tool for professional development (me), the second part tells how LMSD got started with student podcasting through a pilot project in the 2005-06 school year (Ginny and me), and the second part tells how LMSD got started with student podcasting through a pilot project in the 2005-06 school year (Mary).

Range of Interests and Concerns

I expect this blog to travel a somewhat winding road through a range of interests and concerns I have in the areas of professional development and the use of technology in K-12 education. Although I have been and educator more than 30 years -- most of them as a special education classroom teacher, I have worked full time since the early 90's to promote effective educational use of technology in K-12 public schools with a focus on professional development to directly impact teaching and learning in the classroom. I believe that technology can be a transformative tool in education for both teachers and students, but I also believe that ample and appropriate professional development must be provided along with sufficient time for teachers to reflect and plan their use of technology -- preferably in collaboration with colleagues, or the full potential impact on student learning will not be realized. I worry about the commitment and will to provide the resources necessary for this endeavor. And I worry that failure to transform our public education system for the better will result in a long term loss of competitive edge in the world. The world may be flat, but without a commitment to our children we could be in for a very bumpy road.