The challenge is a lot larger than most people realize. Most, I suspect, don’t even think about this issue much.
Are the educational leaders in your community actively learning about, using and promoting web 2.0 tools and pedagogy as natural complements to skillful teaching and learning?
I was recently perusing my state superintendents’ web site (Massachsetts Association of School Superintendents) and noticed a PDF in the technology section. Our technology committee issued a PDF in the Documents and Reports section titled M.A.S.S. Best Practices in Technology that is worth reading if you want to gain an insight into the mindset of an influential group of educational leaders on pedagogy and technology. (Note: I had to right click on the report link and save the document on my computer to view it so I have inserted it at the end of this post. ) The twenty page “report” has nothing about web 2.0 tools or pedagogy. What you do find in the report, which is actually a listing, are plenty of references to schools using student management systems, biometrics, school security, one-to-one computing, wireless technologies, testing and student assessment, etc., a total of 21 headings.
I hope this is not the case for educational leaders throughout the world, but I suspect it is for many if not most. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Australia and some individual schools come to mind as exceptions I have encountered in my online network and self-directed learning on the web. I respect my Massachusetts colleagues, but their education in this area has a long way to go. To their credit, this fall, 2008, their technology conference is advertised as an attempt to reach out to the latest knowledge on technology best practices. They approved me as a presenter to speak about web 2.0 tools and pedagogy so I am optimistic.
The real story is not about adding technology; it’s about a vision of technology as a way of life infused throughout the application of the knowledge base of skillful teaching and learning in all our schools and classrooms. Until educators and influential people such as parents, school boards, teacher union leaders, and politicians understand what this vision of teaching and learning looks and feels like by experiencing it themselves, our progress will be limited to a few courageous souls fighting the status quo to no significant avail.
I hope organizations like CoSN and The MacArthur Foundation can help to significantly and rapidly advance the understanding and aceptance of web 2.0 tools and pedagogy by educational leaders and influential people who make the key decisions in this area. Here is a CoSN video Changing to Learn, Learning to Change.
The web is now about learning, dialogue and community. Speak to us. Let us know what the status is in your school or district.
This post was prompted by a press release on August 28, 2008 issued by the MacArthur Foundation:
The CEO of the Consortium for School Networking and a Professor Emeritus at Western Michigan University discuss a new initiative designed to assess how school leaders are affecting the use of Web 2.0 applications in schools. To read the full release, click here.
To all the educators across the world: What does this September mean to you?
In September 1970 I began my career as an educator in Massachusetts as a high school English teacher in a parochial (Catholic) school for girls in South Boston, Cardinal Cushing High School. Subsequently, I started school in September over the years in a variety of other places.
North Andover, MA as a High School English Teacher
Wayland, MA as a High School English Teacher
Hopkinton, MA as a Junior-Senior High School English Department Head
Harvard University Graduate School of Education as a Teacher on Sabbatical and graduate student
Andover-Lawrence, MA as Director of the Collaborative School Project
Nashua, NH as Educational Supervisor
Reading, MA as Assistant Superintendent
Reading, MA as Associate Superintendent
Falmouth, MA as Superintendent
Today, September 1, 2008, thirty-eight years after my first September as an educator, I will am not be starting school. For a variety of reasons I have decided to leave full-time employment as a public school educator in Massachusetts. The loss I feel is palpable. I will miss my colleagues. Good friends in Falmouth need to focus on the new school year, not me. I will miss the students and their families. They will be busy this week adjusting to the new school year after a beautiful Cape Cod summer. I will miss the people of the community. They have generous hearts and I will never forget their spirit of community.
What the future holds remains to be seen. My professional life feels like a puzzle right now. All the pieces are scattered about. Over the next 12 months I will continue to learn and teach as I always have, but now I have to discover new spaces where that can take place. So far five themes seem to be emerging: Technology Enhanced Learning; Family; Poetry; Skillful Teaching and Learning; Influence and Advocacy. We’ll see.
Tomorrow I will publish my first post of the new school year. True, I am not going to be associated with a school district this year, but since my heart and mind will always be devoted to working with educators to understand what we do well and how we can do better, I will continue to organize my life around the school year.
In the coming months I am going to work on finding ways to have conversations and establish connections with educators who have interests similar to mine. To that end, I plan to write more, using this blog to publish, and I hope to expand the number of people who subscribe to and comment on my posts. I want to nurture a community of like-minded educators using all the tools Web 2.0 provides. This is going to be an adventure that I will share with you at innovation3 and other spaces I will introduce you to over the year. I hope you will visit often and participate in what I hope will become a community of learners.
So until tomorrow…. Learn. Communicate. Collaborate. Create. Share.
Essential Question: How would classrooms be different if students were asked by teachers to create and publish on the web videos similar to those done by Common Craft? If you know of a classroom any place in the world (regardless of the language) were this is happening, please share your story in the comments below this post.
Lee LeFever & Sachi LeFever have produced another Google How-To video. Today, August 26, 2008, they released Google Reader in Plain English (1:05 minutes).
I think this video is a nice complement to another production Lee & Sachi did for Google:Google Docs in Plain English (2:50 minutes).
After watching these two In Plain English videos (only 4:00 minutes of your time!), a student should be able to experiment with these free, useful, online tools. (I suspect a teacher could tap student curiosity and inventiveness by inviting students to produce similar explanatory videos.)
But that’s not all…
Lee and Sachi have created many other videos. Here’s one that many teachers and others interested in the presidential election process should watch and share with students, colleagues and friends: Electing a US President in Plain English (3:43 minutes). If you are trying to challenge and engage students in the elections, this video will help kick start the conversation in your classroom.
I’ve been thinking about when it will happen. When will the tide turn? The time when shall we, should we, must we change will no longer be the questions. It is coming, folks. Here are some images I’ve collected on the tipping point. I invite your comments. If you want to see a larger version of this VoiceThread, you can click here.
…. Once upon a time there was a learner, a squire named Dennis who lived and learned in the kingdom of Twitter & Plurk. This learner thought he was very attentive. Many years of schooling had prepared him for facing the challenges of life. He was about to learn an important lesson…
Much of his learning occurred online with people he rarely got to see in person. When an invitation went out from Lord November to the citizens in the kingdom of Twitter & Plurk for the conference of BLC08 he got excited. Now he would be able to see and talk to his friends in person.
The day came for the conference and he had an opportunity to talk to some of his friends. He was happy, but really looking forward to the cruise in Ye Olde Boston Harbour that Lord November had planned for a thousand people. Now he could spend time with his friends and tell them about his hopes and dreams for the children and adult learners of the kingdom.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the cruise. In the Kingdom of Apple a plot of distraction was brewing. King Jobs know he could grab the attention of our squire learner by making a new talk tool that he had dubbed the iPhone 3G. Squire Dennis got the talk tool during the conference. He was excited to use it. He arrived early in Ye Olde Boston, 6 o’clock by most estimates. Be at the boat dock by 7 o’clock was his misguided conception.
Thinking he had time to spare he fired up his new talk tool. What magic! He was able to travel to the village of blog with this iPhone 3G. Sir Wesley Fryer from Moving at the Speed of Creativity had written a wonderful tale, a Quick-Start Guide to Audacity. That was a treat for Squire Dennis, our learner, to read. He wants to learn more about Audacity, he thought pensively and bookmarked the tale.
Sir Norman at Relexions had ironically written a tale of Teaching Attention to the young and old. Squire Dennis would have benefited from this teaching on this fateful night. In the tale it was written…
The ability to pay careful attention isn’t important just for students and air traffic controllers. Researchers are finding that attention is crucial to a host of other, sometimes surprising, life skills: the ability to sort through conflicting evidence, to connect more deeply with other people, and even to develop a conscience. Boston.com
So be it… Our learning Squire Dennis knew this was true. He distraction into these tales could be a problem if not managed well. At that point he cooled down his talk tool and tucked it into its leather case on his trusty belt. It was time to depart for the dock to board his boat for the cruise with his friends. Be there by 7 he mumbled to himself.
He had trouble finding the dock. Other citizens gave him incorrect directions that took him along a wayward path and he lost fifteen mintues, but he was not deterred. He persevered and found himself near the place he need to be and saw a lovely lass in a blue shirt with Ye Olde Boston Cruises emblazoned on its frontispiece.
When he asked this lass where the Provincetown II could be boarded, her face grimaced. Squire Dennis instinctively knew this was not a good sign. She paused turned to Ye Olde Boston Harbour and with a stalwart lunge of her body and thrust of her shoulder, arm, hand and pointer finger, an imposing figure that reminded him of Sir John Davitt’s illustrative pose from the morning lecture on diversity amongst the population of the kingdom’s learners, she directed our squires obviously untaught attention to the boat chugging away from the dock bound for the inner depths of the sea with a boatload of his friends. Alas, Squire Dennis will have to wait until next year to attend a f2f meeting with his friends on the cruise.
Later, as Squire Dennis bemoaned his tragic fate, he pulled out the sheet of paper in his pocket. Across the top above the directions was words he miss read. Boat will depart at 6:30 from the dock. Let this tale be a lesson to all of those in the kingdom of Twitter & Plurk with similar multitasking distractions as our still learning Squire Dennis…
Experimenting with this new tool that I discovered through Konrad Glogowski’s blog. Not quite there yet, but willing to take the risk of publicly failing. Try number 4 is the gem - got it! Cool…
This is my first post on my new Edublog site. (I transferred my blogspot posts and comments to this site.) I thought it would be a fitting platform for announcing important news to all those who signed up as collaborators on the Learning Beyond Boundaries (LBB) Wiki. I hope to make a public announcement of this news at the Building Learning Communities Conference (BLC08) next week.
Part I - Come Collaborate with LBB Collaborators and ASCD Annual Conference Staff
The time has come to start developing the LBB collaboration with ASCD. I hope you will become an active participant in our effort.
Little did we know when we started the Learning Beyond Boundaries wiki that the vision several of us had at the time might have a chance of fruition. What would happen if we approached those responsible for ASCD’s Annual Convention and asked them to partner with interested educators in a discussion on how best to infuse learning about the read/write web 2.0 culture into the annual conference? The hope was that the ASCD staff would allow us a channel to bring the read/write web 2.0 culture to a broader audience of teachers and administrators. We wanted to break out of the echo chamber and come up with a strategy to help, not a few but, thousands of educators learn how the Internet can now be used as a tool to engage students and educators in powerful, substantive, self-directed learning.
The deadline we set for ourselves was May 5, 2008, the due date for ASCD’s 2009 Annual Conference presentation proposals. One hundred people signed up on the LBB Wiki endorsing the proposal we crafted to submit to ASCD’s Planning Committee. Here is the opening of that proposal, framed as an open letter to ASCD.
May 4, 2008
8:30 P.M. EDT
I am Dennis Richards, Massachusetts ASCD Affiliate President and ASCD Leadership Council member.
I represent a group of educators who have the expertise available through our extensive online Web 2.0 network of educator presenters to assist ASCD to fill a technology-rich strand at the 2009 Annual Conference.
Today we not only consume information from the Internet, we are contributors of information. All Internet participants have the potential to become teachers and producers of content as learning becomes personal, authentic, and highly individualized. Social software includes wikis, blogs, podcasts, instant messaging, and any system that allows communication that also emphasizes the richness of personal interaction instead of the technologies that make the interactions possible. The generations we teach now and will teach in the future innately use technology to communicate. The need for learning experiences to adapt to meet a new generation of learners is upon us.
Here is the full proposal; here is the current list of LBB collaborators. I have opened the wiki for now so other educators can join us. I expect to close it again on July 20, 2008. If you know people who may want to join us, please tell them to sign up on the collaborators’ page by that date.
Kathleen Burke, Director, ASCD Annual Conference, was very interested and accepted our offer as soon as I spoke to her the first week in May. At the time she said she hoped we would be willing to work on a three-year plan to educate ASCD’s membership to the read/write web 2.0 culture through the Annual Conference. I was extremely pleased, but I thought the 2009 conference would be year one. I expected Kathleen to get back to me soon so we could start planning. Then little communication until Thursday, July 11, 2008. Kathleen and her staff had been busy working on the details of the 2009 conference. In the meantime, some of us received notices that our workshop proposals were accepted. But what about our collaboration proposal that seemed stuck in limbo.
Well, yesterday Kathleen and I spoke, and now it is time to begin our work. More details are coming in the next few weeks, and Kathleen and I are open to any suggestions for content and process to further our goal of integrating technology seamlessly into learning for all students and educators.
Here is what Kathleen and I discussed over the cell phone yesterday as I traveled to Cape Cod in my car from Boston, Massachusetts. The wonders of technology… (No, I did not take notes while driving. Kathleen was kind enough to email me what we discussed.)
Pre Annual Conference - Fall of 2008
ASCD would like to conduct one or more interactive online session(s) (using Elluminate or some other similar online conferencing tool) with you and your team members to discuss and develop the components of a three-year technology plan for the ASCD Annual Conference in order to promote the integration of technology into the curriculum/school day and to support educators’ use of technology in learning.
At Annual Conference – March 2009
ASCD invites LBB collaborators to audit the technology sessions at the 2009 ASCD Annual Conference and provide feedback on the sessions as well as suggestions for future topics to be presented at Annual Conference over the next three years.
ASCD invites LBB collaborators to participate in a technology interest work session at the Annual Conference (I’ll ask Kathleen to arrange for you to attend this session virtually, if you can not be at the conference.) to provide input on how ASCD can promote/support the integration of technology into the curriculum/school day and to support educators’ use of technology in learning.
ASCD invites LBB collaborators to review the draft of a 3 year plan for technology for the ASCD Annual Conference.
This does not preclude LBB collaborators from working together this summer and throughout the year to prepare for more direct work with Kathleen and her staff. Let’s collaborate, contribute, and create through our LBB association in a way that will impress ASCD with our insight and experience, invent a whole new way of delivering our message to a broad audience of educators, and significantly transform the vision students and teachers have of learning spaces.
Leave your thoughts by commenting on this post.
Part II - October 1, 2008 Deadline for Educational Leadership - Literacy 2.0
On a related note, ASCD’s premier publication, Educational Leadership (EL), will publish a March 2009 Annual Conference edition in March on Literacy 2.0. Here is what they have online for the issue.
March 2009
Literacy 2.0
Students are more plugged into technology than they have ever been before–through smartphones, iPods, laptops, social networks, and electronic games. This issue will explore the role of literacy in our ever-evolving digital environment. How can we help students learn and transfer traditional literacy skills? What new literacy skills are called for—and how can students guide teachers in acquiring these key skills? How can we teach students to judge the reliability, accuracy, and quality of information? Articles will explore how wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, and portals of streaming media have affected how students read, write, speak, think, and work.
Deadline: October 1, 2008
I will be speaking with the editor about how we can help ASCD prepare for this issue, but here are some of my thoughts. You can collaborate by
getting the word out to people you know who should write an artcle for this issue,
suggesting questions that the articles should try to answer so that the March 2009 EL is a best practices examination of the field, and
suggesting article topics and/or people whom we should encourage to write for the EL issue.
On Sunday I was lying on sunny, warm, refreshing Grape Bay Beach, Bermuda listening to my MP3 player. My wife, daughter, her husband and their eighteen month old son Michael were with me. Some of you may remember the song I was listening to that, when I first heard it in 1971 caused a “gust of hope” to rise up in me. I still get that feeling today. It seems that hope springs eternal.
I Googled the song and discovered that it had been sung in 2006 at a concert to honor the “Banker to the Poor,” Muhammad Yunus, who received 1/2 of the Nobel Peace Prize. The other half was shared with Grameen Bank. From the Nobel Prize site…
Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.
From Dr. Yunus’ personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh in the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through microlending. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.
To learn more about Dr. Yunus, Grameen Bank, and other Nobel related resources, check out the Nobel video site.
The song I was listening to on the beach was Peace Train by Cat Stevens, who later changed his name to Yusuf Islam. Stevens said
Peace Train’ is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions. There is a powerful need for people to feel that gust of hope rise up again. As a member of humanity and as a Muslim, this is my contribution….
Peace Train
Now I’ve been happy lately Thinking about the good things to come And I believe it could be Something good has begun I’ve been smiling lately Dreaming about the world as one And I believe it could be Something good’s bound to come
For out on the edge of darkness There runs the peace train Peace train take this country Come take me home again
Peace train sounding louder Ride on the peace train Hoo-ah-eeh-ah-hoo-ah Come on the peace train Peace train’s a holy roller Everyone jump upon the peace train Hoo-ah-eeh-ah-hoo-ah This is the peace train
Get your bags together Come bring your good friends too Because it’s getting nearer Soon it will be with you Come and join the living It’s not so far from you And it’s getting nearer Soon it will all be true
Peace train sounding louder Ride on the peace train Hoo-ah-eeh-ah-hoo-ah Come on the peace train
I’ve been crying lately Thinking about the world as it is Why must we go on hating? Why can’t we live in bliss?
For out on the edge of darkness There rides the peace train Peace train take this country Come take me home again
Peace train sounding louder Ride on the peace train Hoo-ah-eeh-ah-hoo-ah Come on the peace train
Alan Levine, Cog Dog Blog, posted a lovely argument for sharing on the internet, Lovely Photo Devivatives.
…what is more interesting, uplifting, is the magic that happens when you give something away, when you don’t attach statements of what you cannot do with media you’ve created, but attach statements of what you can do.
He goes on to tell the story of friends, Jim and Susan, who used Alan’s photos to develop artistic interests. He shared; they produced works of art derived from the photos. The pastels Susan created are beautiful and presented in the post for us to enjoy along with the original photos. It seems to me that no one lost out in that transaction. The bargaining involved is elemental, something fundamentally human. It represents the best of what we can offer to the planet, and our future as a planet can be secured if we can figure out how to mine this simple treasure.
Sharing is a CORE VALUE for Web 2.0. It caught my attention as I began my visits eleven months to the learning spaces, ubiquitous on the Internet. Web 2.0 with sharing is selfless; Web 2.0 without it is selfish, and, for me something less free and organic. I hope we can protect and preserve this quality forever. If you agree, then it’s logical to ask what challenges that value and how do we counter it?
I think the biggest challenge to the three Web 2.0 C’s (collaboration, cooperation, and creation) is contained in one’s answer to the question I came across in the blogosphere:
How can I make a living in a Web 2.0 world? How do you answer the question and does your answer challenge or protect and preserve sharing?
I take a lot of pictures, but I have not yet developed the habit of uploading them to Flickr. Cog Dog’s post has caused me to think I want to begin learning how to do that. That’s sharing too. Thanks Cog Dog.
I was recently perusing my state superintendents’ web site (Massachsetts Association of School Superintendents) and noticed a PDF in the technology section. Our technology committee issued a PDF in the Documents and Reports section titled M.A.S.S. Best Practices in Technology that is worth reading if you want to gain an insight into the mindset of an influential group of educational leaders on pedagogy and technology. (Note: I had to right click on the report link and save the document on my computer to view it so I have inserted it at the end of this post. ) The twenty page “report” has nothing about web 2.0 tools or pedagogy. What you do find in the report, which is actually a listing, are plenty of references to schools using student management systems, biometrics, school security, one-to-one computing, wireless technologies, testing and student assessment, etc., a total of 21 headings.
I hope this is not the case for educational leaders throughout the world, but I suspect it is for many if not most. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Australia and some individual schools come to mind as exceptions I have encountered in my online network and self-directed learning on the web. I respect my Massachusetts colleagues, but their education in this area has a long way to go. To their credit, this fall, 2008, their technology conference is advertised as an attempt to reach out to the latest knowledge on technology best practices. They approved me as a presenter to speak about web 2.0 tools and pedagogy so I am optimistic.
I hope organizations like CoSN and The MacArthur Foundation can help to significantly and rapidly advance the understanding and aceptance of web 2.0 tools and pedagogy by educational leaders and influential people who make the key decisions in this area. Here is a CoSN video Changing to Learn, Learning to Change.
