innovation3

What do I know about games in education? What do I think I know? What do I want or need to know?

There is much to enjoy and learn from in this K12 Online Conference presentation by Sylvia Martinez, titled Games in Education. Sylvia knows this territory well and her presentation is the perfect overview for anyone interested in understanding appropriate and inappropriate use of games in education. Beyond the presentation, there is the companion wiki that is well organized, comprehensive and chock full of useful resources to educate us about games in education. Sylvia, thank you for a marvelous contribution to our knowledge base!

Here are some images I Skitched from the presentation to entice you to kick your understanding of games up a notch.

What came first, games or schooling?

What are the objections to using games in education? Sylvia argues the objections are similar to those raised about project-based learning.

Here is a summary of what you will learn about in this presentation you can then use to guide your exploration of the resources on the companion wiki.

Enjoy!

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…

John Maklary from Katy, Texas, United States is a Technology Coordinator and Middle School Computer teacher at a PK-8 parochial school in Houston, Texas. His ed tech interests as of late include Digital Storytelling, Geo-Literacy projects, and incorporating more read-write web tools in his classroom.

He attended a workshop session on Interactive American History Websites and did a live blog post on what he was learning. Cover-It-Live was the tool he used.

Cover It Live Blog Post from Workshop on Interactive American History Websites from Learning 2.0 Resources.

Transcript

The Apple Tour of 21st Century Learning I attended this week offered a lot to think about. I created a mind42.com (a really useful free online tool) MindMap Apple: A Tour of 21st Century Learning to represent some of the ideas that were presented in the Opening Presentation and three hands-on-the-computer-they-give-you sessions. The differences between this event and EduCon 2.0 in Philadelphia in January 2008 were striking:

1. These were very “teacher-at-the-center-of-the-learning” controlled experiences of technology and core subject content.
2. The questions on control of technology and by implication of student learning were noticeable from the participants in the one session where we had time to talk.
3. These were rehersed presentations and carefully orchestrated to deliver content through a simulated hands on use of the loaned computer.
4. No Ustream.tv broadcasts; no wiki to go to for follow up resources to support ongoing learning.
5. No conversations except over lunch (no Philly steak and cheese).
6. No free applications/technology tools.
7. No students.
8. None of the energy, excitement, sharing, or audience-presenter interaction.
9. Ideas on technology were “corporatized,” a real word in case you are wondering.
10. The “core values” for 21st Century Student Learning presented at the beginning of the day (Creation – Distribution – Access – Collaboration) were invisible beyond the scripts we followed in the classrooms.

Despite these failings, I praise the Apple team for their efforts. Their hearts are definitely in the right place and they worked hard to deliver a good day. I just think we all have a lot to learn, myself included, before we know how to consistently push learning off the charts for students and educators. All children need to be healthy, safe, supported, engaged and challenged every day. We’re not there yet.

Guy Kawasaki in the video on the Art of the Start speaks about passion and a desire to save the world as key ingredients for a start-up company’s success. Guy claims these ingredients were keys to Apple’s success. I wonder if Apple remembers that history? It sure didn’t seem as if they did in the learning environments we experienced last week. They said the right things. Now they need to learn how to walk the talk. Keep the focus on Claiming What We Imagine for our students!

Some Questions

1. Do we know how to build passion and a desire to save the world into the way we educate children?
2. Would it help students learn?
3. Can Apple help us answer the questions?
4. What would an AppleCon 2.0 look like or are corporations and the conversations we had at EduCon 2.0 antithetical?
5. What would the world be like if Apple and Microsoft found the passion to learn from the lessons of EduCon 2.0? Could they help to “save the world?”

“The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning examines the effect of digital media tools on how people learn, network, communicate, and play, and how growing up with these tools may affect peoples sense of self, how they express themselves, and their ability to learn, exercise judgment, and think systematically.

Thanks to the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation, open access electronic versions of all the books in this series are available. Follow the links … below to read these editions.”

What? So What? What’s Next?

The Digital Media and Learning series is a major six-volume publication by the MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with MIT Press on the effects of digital media on young people and learning that will be used as a framework, beginning in 2008, for the new International Journal of Learning and Media. The IJLM will continue the investigation of the relate topics introduced by the framework. The prominence that this publication and associated journal lends to this emerging field of study seems important, certainly, but what really makes the effort significant in my eyes in addition to the content is “…the participatory and open online review process [used in the initiative that] is helping to establish new collaborative approaches to scholarship.” “Open discussions were held in virtual worlds and on a wiki hosted by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.

Excerpts from December 12, 2007 Press Release

The MIT Press today announced the publication of a new series on digital media and learning supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The new six-volume series

examines the effect of digital media on how young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

The series’ release marks the launch of the new International Journal of Learning and Media, through which

core issues facing young people in the digital age will be explored.

In a departure from traditional publishing, articles were subject to a robust review process that took place in a series of online conversations among the authors, editors, and the public. These open discussions were held in virtual worlds and on a wiki hosted by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.

A Framework for the Emerging Field of Digital Media and Learning

“The series and the new journal are critical tools in providing a framework for the emerging field of digital media and learning,” said Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation. “Of equal importance is the way in which the articles were written and developed. In a field made up of diverse researchers and practitioners,

the participatory and open online review process is helping to establish new collaborative approaches to scholarship.”

Vol. 1 ~ Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth

Lance Bennett points out that the future of democracy is in the hands of the young people of the digital age in Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth.

Michael Xenox and Kristen Foot tackle the generational gap in online politics. As they point out, it’s “not your father’s internet anymore.”

Vol. 2 ~ Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility

The contributors to Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility look particularly at youth audiences and experiences, considering the implications of wide access and the questionable credibility of information for youth and learning.

Vol. 3 ~ The Ecology of Games

In The Ecology of Games, noted game designer Katie Salen of the Parsons New School of Design has gathered essays not only from those who study games and learning but from those who create such worlds

… the volume contains an article on participatory culture by Cory Ondrejka who as CTO of Linden Labs helped create Second Life and a case study on collective intelligence gaming by Jane McGonigal, premier puppet master of the new genre Alternate Reality Games.

Vol 4 ~ Youth, Identity, and Digital Media

Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by David Buckingham explores how young people use digital media to share ideas and creativity and to participate in networks that are small and large, local and global, intimate and anonymous.

Vol 5 ~ Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected

The range of topics touched on in Tara McPherson’s volume Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected is perhaps the widest of all in the collection. Lest we forget lessons learned from other eras she includes essays by Justine Cassell and Meg Cramer of Northwestern on moral panic in the early days of the telegraph and telephone and Christian Sandvig of Illinois and Oxford evokes the collective imagination applied in the early days of wireless technology and analogizes it to that of the era of short wave radio.

Vol 6 ~ Learning Race and Ethnicity

Anna Everett of the UC Santa Barbara draws on the work a diverse group of scholars including Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre from her own campus, Raiford Guins of the University of the West of England, Anotonio Lopez of World Bridger Media, Jessie Daniels of Hunter College and Doug Thomas of USC and others who in Learning Race and Ethnicity draw out lessons from Chicana/o activism, Hip Hop, and digital media in native America as well as hate speech and racism in online games.

International Journal of Learning and Media

Beginning in 2008, the new International Journal of Learning and Media will continue the investigation of the effects of digital media on young people and learning. Supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the new journal will be published quarterly by The MIT Press in partnership with the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education. Funds also have been provided to support an on-line community for discussing the articles in the journal and the issues that are central to the emerging field.

MIT Press Digital Media and Learning

Beginning on December 12, 2007, all the books in The MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning will be available in bookstores as well as electronically at MIT Press Digital Media and Learning.

About the MacArthur Foundation

About MacArthur Foundation Digital Learning Initiative

About The MIT Press

About the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education

PART 1
December 5, 2007

Well, maybe not an invitation to the actual dinner, you know how digital is its own reality, an digital invitation. I am going out to dinner Friday night at 6:00 p.m. with David Weinberger and some other folks from the scientific community in Woods Hole, Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA. After dinner Mr. Weinberger is giving a lecture, 7:30 p.m. in case you are in the area, to the general public, “Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder” on Friday, December 7.

I am inviting you to ask questions, provide Weinberger quotes or anecdotes, links, videos, or anything else in any format that comes into your “digitally disordered” mind to prepare me for my meeting with him. I will use whatever you give me to prepare a montage to represent you at the dinner and lecture. Not sure if this has been done before, but what the heck, that’s what innovation is all about! Reminder, I’d like to keep the focus on K12 leadership and learning, but am willing to consider including other issues if they seem relevant.

email: drichards(at) gmail (dot) com
twitter: dennisar
skype id: drichards1

P.S. I will ask him if I can UStream the lecture if that seems possible, but I need someone to coach me prior to Friday’s lecture.

PART 2
December 6, 2007

To learn more about David Weinberger, I googled his name with the word video: “david weinberger video,” and found this Google video of a presentation he did.

Google Tech Talks May 10, 2007

ABSTRACT

David Weinberger’s new book covers the breakdown of the established order of ordering. He explains how methods of categorization designed for physical objects fail when we can instead put things in multiple categories at once, and search them in many ways. This is no dry book on taxonomy, but has the insight and wit you’d expect from the author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and a former writer for Woody Allen.

This is a pivotal point in my life – ya know, the “two roads diverged in a wood” kinda thing…. Sixteen years ago I went from a Mac to a PC and never looked back. That is until I started learning about Web 2.0 and meeting people associated with this more multimedia oriented learning community.

My reflections on the pedagogy being used to engage students using digital tools has helped me appreciate implications of a new profile of student learners has for instruction. Aussie Judy O’Connell in her blog, Hey Jude: Fortunate Discoveries about Web 2.0 ….. does a fine job describing the learning characteristics of our students in an October 12, 2007 post she appropriately titled Digital kids – learning their own way.

multiprocessing;
multimedia literacy;
discovery-based learning;
bias towards action;
staying connected;
zero tolerance for delays;
consumer/creator blurring;
social networking.

Now you say what do these characteristics of our students-as-learners have to do with choosing a Mac or a PC? Let me continue that story.

Since switching to a PC, I have been tweaked by Mac users along the way; they are a loyal bunch! My daughter and son-in-law have always been Mac people because of their work in graphics and web design. My son and I have an interest in photography, and his use of a Mac for his pictures was always in contrast to my use of a PC for mine. When I asked Chris Betcher for his opinion of Macs, he did not want to influence my thinking unfairly, but he did admit that when working in a multimedia environment, he liked the Mac. John Pederson (alias ijohnpederson) is currently my scout leading the way into Apple’s new operating system, Leopard. John, thank you for your helpful twits and posts on the subject. What do you think I learn from an educator who goes by iJohn?

The choice I need to made has gradually become clear to me. Given my commitment to K-12 leadership and learning, I can’t accept the pedagogical orientation that refuses to adjust to the learning characteristics of the students we teach. When I add to that the realization that our culture, our economy, indeed, all facets of our way of life are headed in directions that parallel and most likely fostered the digitally oriented students who want to learn in their own way, the dilemma is clear. On one horn of the bull is a traditional orientation to student-as-learner which for me is associated with the more pragmatic oriented PC; on the other horn is the Mac. Granted, the PC world has arguably tried to keep pace with the shift that is occurring, but the Mac seems for me to have been associated with that shift for some time. Now, that perception may be nothing more that successful marketing associated with how the Mac has been branded, but I have arrived at my decision for another reason.

Learning for me is good. It stimulates my mind and keeps me feeling young and connected to the organic flow of life. I have found the most stimulating environment for my learning has been to embrace risk, to intentionally sever the orientation that provides me my current sense of security. For me, as I pursue a journey into “fortunate discoveries about Web 2.0,” personally moving to a Mac just seems right. The disorientation and ambiguity I will feel as I make the transition will, at times, be frustrating in its own right, and I will reach out for “just in time” help that may or may not be available just in time, but isn’t that how many of our students feel or experience the learning in our classrooms – some more often than others? Is there a better way for us to empathize with our students? Is there a better way for me to honestly position myself to need authentic student help? If you are bright, well-informed and successful educator, but can not embrace the disorientation and ambiguity associated with deep and rich new learning, how can you see yourself as a leading learner, someone who models for students what it takes to experience learning in significant ways? The dilemma is resolved….

Here I come Apple, don’t let me down!

Stephanie Pace Marshall, at the end of her book The Power to Transform, pleads with us not to wait for others. She says “Courage is the capacity to claim what we imagine. If you are carrying this new story in your heart, now is the time to step forward. There is a place in the world for your unique voice, and it carries a message that must be heard. Start anywhere, but begin the conversation, and tell the new story that brings learning and schooling to life.” p. 210

Over the last three weeks the K12Online Educators Community has shown me what courage in the service of children looks like in practice. I have learned so much about you and from you that I am encouraged thinking that you may be my best hope for hearing what I have to say.

Are you ready to take the next step to transform learning opportunities for every child on this planet?

K12Online Community

I will always remember the Will Power to Youth students from Los Angeles, California and the words of Ben Donenberg, who said, at the ASCD International Conference last March 2007 in Anaheim, California, “What [children] need is to feel that we adults in power value them highly enough that we are willing to invest our wisdom in their potential.”

I will always remember Stephanie Pace Marshall for her generosity of spirit and the poetic vision of the new story of learning she narrates in her book, The Power to Transform.

I propose we commit to work toward a statement of Vision for our work. I offer some words to begin the conversation.

K12Online Educators Community Vision

Educators from across the planet come together during K12Online as the planet’s whole-child learning community, a learning community of educational professionals. Each day we strive to kept our promise to ourselves to be significant in the learning lives of each child on this planet. We strive to fulfill this promise by infusing a generative, integral, balanced, inspirational new story of learning into every school and classroom and beyond, every place where children learn. This new learning landscape for educating children is our planet’s best hope for guaranteeing a future where every child goes to bed each night with recollections of feeling healthy, safe, and supported during intellectually challenging and personally engaging days of learning.

The Power to Transform

In her book, The Power to Transform, Stephanie Pace Marshall asks the … leaders of this planet “… to declare a new path, awaken to the songline that imperceptibly weaves through humanity and the natural world, and use its clarity and deep resonance to tell a new story and [create a] transformative landscape of generative learning and schooling.” p. 210

In some way what I am going to ask you will initially be perceived as a Declaration of Independence from our past, but like all learning of significance, it actually is an affirmation of the positive intent of our past motivations; educators always mean to do well by students; however, the profession now knows that to be faithful to our trust with humanity, we must commit to the transformational behavior necessary for shaping the a new generative, integral, balanced, inspirational learning landscape for educating whole children. If we do not commit, the downward spiral for too many children and schools will accelerate. If we do commit, some day each child will go to bed each night with recollections of a healthy, safe, challenging, engaging and supportive day. Like the Declaration of Independence that gave birth to America, there is no other way. This is the courageous choice that has been our songline for years; now it is ready to be born. ¹

Children-as-Learners

Knowing that our planet, at this point in its evolution, requires bold and visionary leadership and significant systemic change if as a civilization we are to secure life, liberty – and happiness for current and future generations,

I propose …

We commit to set in motion the mechanisms for writing and for eventually adopting a Children-as-Learners’ Declaration of Independence from the past story of learning and schooling in favor of a new generative, integral, balanced, inspirational story of learning and schooling; and

We commit to set in motion the mechanisms for writing a Children-as-Learners’ Constitution and a Children-as-Learners’ Bill of Rights for a new generative, integral, balanced, inspirational story of learning and schooling; and

We commit to present for adoption draft Children-as-Learners’ Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights at an Online Convention on a date certain on or before October 2010; and

We commit that once these statements are adopted, to set in motion the mechanisms for obtaining as signatories to the Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights, on or before October 2020, the myriad individuals, groups and associations; teachers and administrators; schools and school districts; and local, regional, national, and international government entities; and finally, that

All signatories commit to ensure that all professional statements of educational vision, mission, priorities, beliefs and goals, strategies, actions and measurement are aligned with the Children-as-Learners’ Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

^{1 Stephanie Pace Marshall, The Power to Transform}

With some help from AllanahK and Chris Betcher I was able to understand how VoiceThread works. But to really make it stick, I decided I needed to create my own.

Along the way I watched a VoiceThread on New Zealand money that Miss K’s class produced and titled Money, Money, Money. In their own words, “Today we recorded our comments for our Voicethread about New Zealand’s money. We used a resource from the Reserve Bank to find out more about our coins and notes.” The students’ work inspired me to use this tool in a very familiar way to say thank you to them.

Because I occasionally visit classes to read stories, I decide to use VoiceThread to read a story to Miss K’s class in New Zealand.

Hope you enjoy it kids! Mr. Richards

PS When you start the story thread, you can use the magnifying glass to zoom in and out with a click and to move around the screen by moving the cursor left and right. You can also record an audio comment or a text comment by clicking on the appropriate button and clicking save when you are finished. Click the arrows to move to the next screen shot. The cluster of four small photos can be clicked to bring up a screen of all the pages. Click a page to go to it.

K 12 Online Conference David Warlick Keynote Chat Transcript

Page 1

David Warlick:

Challenge is, how do I model for my children — for my students. If we’re preparing our children to be free-agent workers (and that’s just a speculation), then perhaps we should help them to become free-agent learners.

DR: Powerful Learning Experiences?

I think this is the crux of the problem we face in schools today. Most educators were not taught to be free-agent learners so they don’t know what we mean. Learning as we experience it in these interactive environments is exhilarating because it’s inquiry driven, personally meaningful, open-ended, and intellectually stimulating. How many classrooms, schools and professional development experiences can be described with those words? We “hold administrators accountable;” “negotiate contractual articles” to define teacher common learning time; and lecture students, quiz them, test them and move to the next unit regardless of what they didn’t learn so they are “well prepared” for high stakes test that decide if they will graduate or not. In the curriculum-frameworks-driven environment of schools today is they any room for “powerful learning experiences?”

Page 2

David Warlick:

He is my son, who learned to re-mix video by knowing how to find people who could help him learn what he needed to know to do what he wanted to do. This, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful messages of the video.

DR: Students and Web 2.0 Tools

Yes, David, but the message is hidden… Kids and even younger teachers are using many similar tools for personal reasons. If we can give permission and support to teachers and administrators to use these tools, they can begin to shift student use from the personal use of web 2.0 tools to its powerful use for learning. Imagine what educators and kids would experience if 30% of the time they were using these tools for learning? And as the percentage goes up for administrators, teachers and kids, we can use this new interactive environment to structure new boundaries around 21st Century Skills. That is when you will have the traction we need for students and educators to feel fulfilled in our schools.

Participant: (KS) I am in Higher Ed and the boundaries are prison fences it seems to me and most higher ed faculty are not ready to integrate tech into their content, talk about boundaries!!!

David Warlick:

This is so incredibly disheartening. What is it about a profession that is entirely about help people to grow, so reluctant to grow itself?

DR: Educator Supply Chain

Unfortunately, it is more challenging than just higher education. I am a member of a working group of professional educators, business representatives, and legislators in Massachusetts. We are working on legislation that world ensure systemic change reaches every classroom in the state.

The bad news is that we have a lot of work to do; the good news is that we have generated significant support around a common focus that seeks to improve the heart of education: teaching and learning.

The central issue is this: there is a common core of knowledge about teaching and learning, including interactive technology, for good professional practice that gets results for students. Large segments of this common core of knowledge are missing in action from each of the ten subsystems that form the supply chain for our teacher workforce. No one is accountable for seeing it even shows up in these sub-systems, much less in an integrated way. This is eminently fixable; but only if we redefine the problem and radically refocus our resources. (The same can be said for the knowledge and skills of school leadership.)

The ten sub-systems of the educator workforce supply chain are:

1. University Preparation Programs

2. State Licensing Requirements

3. School District Hiring Processes

4. School District Induction Programs

5. School District Supervision and Evaluation Systems

6. School District Professional Development Systems

7. State Recertification Requirements

8. School District Salary, Promotion and Advancement Policies

9. Individual School Working Conditions

10. Individual School Organization Culture

Participant: (Th) Bangkok is asking How do you infuse the concept of “learning how to learn” into a k12 curriculum

David Warlick:

Step 1: Model it. Rather than using textbook and other “packaged” content, use sources from the Internet that you (teacher) have found, evaluated, mixed and re-mixed, and then explain to your students, while you are teaching them, how you found it, how you decided to use it, how you combined it with other content, etc.

Step 2: Expect it of your students. Assign aspects of the unit to be learned independently by your students. Have them work in teams or whatever. Then, as they share what they have learned, ask them, “How did you find that?” “Why did you decide to use this source?” “How did you make it look like this?”

DR: “Chief” Learner

Interesting how this advice applies to administrators and teachers also.

I am a superintendent responsible for a school district with 4000 students. In my opening address to the staff, I modeled what I had learned at the November Learning Building Learning Communities Conference 2007 from Darren Kuropatwa. Over the next few weeks I will meet with the faculty at each of the seven schools in the district. I will be showing them what I have learned since then as I interacted with many educators on Twitter and through K12Online 2007. These people are friendly and willing to help those of us who are new to these Web 2.0 tools.

If you are the “chief” learner, I think you need to make your learning transparent and available to your colleagues. It wasn’t easy for me to make that leap, but this is what I believe so I have decided to walk the talk!

In the end it has been lots of fun…. and rewarding too.