Learning2.008 Shanghai

I can't tell you how disappointed I was when my Dr. told me my illness would not allow me to fly to Shanghai and join the conference. I had been planning for months, obtained my Visa, even bought surprises I had planned on sharing with Jeff Utecht and other friends when I arrived. Jenny Luca and I had even made plans to finish our planning for the Australian branch of the International PLP cohort while we were at the conference together.

Then I got the idea of still following through with the conference virtually. My thinking was that having a virtual presenter underscored the very spirit of all we would be discussing at Learning 2.008. Much to my delight Jeff, Jon Zurfluh, and committee said yes. So the conference started for me with the making of this Ted Talks style video. It was a first attempt at such a thing and was unnerving. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Sheryl's Ted Talks Shanghai Style

 

Find more videos like this on Learning 2.008 Shanghai Conference
The sessions I offered were surprisingly well attended. I really didn't expect many folks to come due to the great minds that were presenting next to me in the flesh there at the conference.

All of my sessions can be found on my wiki and on the Learnng 2.0 community.

• The Dimensions of Change within Schools in the 21st Century Here is the Elluminate Archive of the Dimensions session and the corresponding wiki page with all the resources.

• Engaging Staff & Students:Leadership’s Use of Web 2.0 Tools for Global Collaboration Here is the Elluminate archive of the Engaging presentation and the corresponding wiki resources.



My favorite session though was the one I did today. Implementing 21st Century Change. I delivered this session via Skype so there isn't an archive but the outline is here.

During this session we collaborated together to collectively build an implementation plan. It was high energy and participants were very active. All the bulleted action items and other pics and generated data will be shared on this page shortly.

The group was amazing and in one hour they identified barriers to implementation, generated proactive solutions to overcoming the barriers and then crafted measurable action plan statements to implement and sustain the ideas they had generated. Amazing.

Big Thanks! None of this would have been possible without the gifted assistance of Jon Zurfluh. He was my avatar. The in the flesh representation of me who carried out my instructions, pulled up videos and slides, and facilitated the implementation session. He is my rock star. Thanks Jon

Comments

[Angela Stockman]

Been thinking a whole lot about transforming the traditional research process that we put kids through...how it looks the same in grade 4 as it does in grade 12.....you provide great vision around how that could change in ways that could serve not just schools and kids but THE WORLD. Isn't that what all of this learning is supposed to accomplish in the end?

[Charlie A. Roy]

Great work as always!

[mrsdurff]

This is an excellent presentation! I have watched it twice so far and will watch it again and again...

[Ken Allan]

Kia ora Sheryl.

Admittedly, the jobs that haven't been invented yet will actualise at a rate far in excess of how they have in the past.

I disagree, however, that we are "the first generation of teachers that are preparing students for jobs that haven't been invented yet". This has been a feature of what teachers have been doing for decades.

I don't think we are turning our backs (as you see it) on the problem by valuing content either. I agree that what is needed is for teachers to foster life-long learning. This quality in education has (also) been something that has served many people over the past decades, possibly even centuries.

I agree that knowledge is always increasing (and that it seems to increase exponentially) but again, that has always been the case since learning and its content started to accumulate. The exponential accumulation of content does not detract from its origin.

You alluded to getting rid of text books. I agree that for some stages in many disciplines this is feasible and possibly even practical. But in many this state only kicks in with any significance at the higher levels in education and understanding. I agree there will be exceptions - there always are.

My point here is that to eschew text-books (or even books for that matter) along with the rest of 'content' is scaremongering. It subscribes to ignoring what has gone before. It denies the reason why 2 and 2 are 4.

When it comes to teaching critical thinking (and there is a need for this too) there are still axioms that a thinker has to build on. If we are to always question if 2 and 2 make 4, then we will not get far beyond 10.

In summary, I think we have to be realistic when considering what (from the past) we discard, and what content we truly believe is not necessary to continue teaching along the learning path.

The exponential curve that the accumulation of content seems to follow still has a distinctive shape at its beginning. Beyond a certain point along that curve it does not vary much in shape.

Yet we know that progressing along successive points represent the ongoing accumulation in content that you speak of.

Someone who has followed the path from its origin will understand why the curve ( the content) is the shape that it is. Those who have not followed the path from its origin may soon get to a point where they do not know in which direction to move. In that situation there is a danger of retracing steps - a retrograde path for the learner and for society if this becomes a prevalence.

Ka kite
from Middle-earth

[Jamin Lietze]

Hi Sheryl

I met you today after your presentation here at ULearn08, Christchurch, and said that I would leave a comment here on your blog.
I'm sorry but I don't have any ideas at the moment to share with you that might help you with your community work however I wanted to encourage you.
I was impressed with your communication today. When I spoke to you I knew you were really listening and felt valued. Simple but important.
So thanks :+)

[u raimondo]

Good job Sheryl - your presentation shows that creativity comes from adversity. In terms of dimensions of change within schools, I am delighted to inform you of the exponential growth of instructional creativity within my school. A trip to Niagara Academy to catch up with fellow High School New Facers Sushma Zortec, showed me how far along leadership can take a faculty and school. Visit me sometime and share our school growth with others

[grant wei]

Hi, Sheryl. Happened to come across your blog, 21 st century learning. I'm quite impressed with your work and ideas. Skype is ok, but if you could have tried to talk with more than one person REAL TIME, then you find something else better than Skype. I leave my url for you to log in if you like to try new things. It's so easy that all you have to prepare is a webcam(with USB plug)and a micphone. User name is teacher and password is boshihou. This is only a test version. We are improving it.

[(Eliza)Beth Holmes]

Good Morning, Sheryl,

I write to respond to Ka kite from Middle-earth who questions that this generation of teachers is preparing students for the jobs of a uniquely different future. I hope Ka kite has an opportunity to see a recent publication of www.convergemag.com "Careere of the Future." http://tinyurl.com/58du83.

It is unreasonable to argue that use of static textbooks in an age of exponential content changes makes sense. May I suggest to Ka kite from Middle-earth that strattling the fence on "middle earth" is akin to sitting still. Common, Ka kite, you're half way there. Join the rush to the 21st century! We need you!

[kayla]

awesome work, i wish you the best and i hope all is going well for you.

[Ken Allan]

Kia ora Beth

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment. I appreciate it.

My name is Ken. Ka kite is a Maori farewell. It means ‘catchya later’.

I think we need to get real here. You may have seen clips of Star Trek - that so-old 60s space fantasy series? A line that is now famous from that series is, “Beam me up Scotty”. It was said by Captain Kirk. I believe he was captain of the good starship ‘Enterprise’.

Even in these days, the idea of teletransportation was not-so-old-hat. So teletransportation should, by today’s technology standards, be closer to reality – I don’t dispute this. But the concept is nothing new.

The reality of teletransportation has not arrived yet except in 'Second Life'. In fact, when I was multi-tasking as a teenager, with one ear listening to a crystal set while watching (valve) T V, reading a book, answering the Bell-telephone and patting the dog (all at the same time I might add), Star Trek was truly time-barrier-breaking stuff. Your argument would have had much more clout then. I might have listened to it more closely. But, that was 40 years ago.

It doesn’t matter if, in 2020, ‘knowledge’ is doubling every 72 hours (as Sheryl said) – or every 72 minutes for that matter. The year 2020 is only 12 years or so away. A child, not quite born yet, will be just starting secondary school in 2020.

When I was at uni, knowledge was increasing at a rate that any one person couldn’t keep up with. Tell you what though, the essential knowledge wasn’t changing much at all. The essential knowledge served me till today, 40 years later.

Now I’m not saying that nothing about essential knowledge has changed in that time. It has. I think, for instance, that my kids need to know about cybersafety today. In 1963, the year I spoke about, when I was patting the dog, you might have said, “cyberwhat?” Googling the terms to do with cyber wouldn’t have helped then either, for though the essence has remained the same, the concept of cyber has evolved a bit.

Google, of course, didn’t exist. Nor did the Internet. Nor web1.0 never mind web2.0.

A computer was something that you read about in books. Yes we had books in those days. Basic technology for finding things out. Today I’d Google it. On Firefox. Using sensible search criteria that I wasn’t taught to use when I was at school.

My intention is not to ridicule you. But I could use a 20th century term and say let’s get real. No person can ever know enough that what is in a book isn’t any use to them. Put that same ‘content’ (I believe Sheryl used that word ‘content’ in her video) in a blog post or few, and the knowledge doesn’t really change in its quantity.

Y’know, there are blogs around with posts that are older than editions of some books. So converting the content of a book to web2.0 technology doesn’t make any difference to the content. You might discuss it in web2.0, this is true. But then, you can also discuss the content of a book. Many do – on web2.0 technology. It’s called blogging. Some prefer to twitter it.

The day we can get rid of the computer keyboard, completely – and I mean completely – will be the day I think we will, perhaps, seriously start to actualise the possibility that the paper book could be superseded by better technology.

Unfortunately, I think you typed your comment using as keyboard? I might be wrong. I apologise if this is the case. It’s true that you may have used a quantum computer and responded to my comment without even having to log on. I apologise to you if I have misunderstood your ability to use advanced technology. The concept is there. You’ve only got to use it.

Catchya later