21st Century Learning

Transforming Teaching with Project/Problem-Based Learning

Mark Wagner http://www.edtechlife.com/ and I taught a two hour session in Elluminate last night to 22 Alabama teachers who are part of the ABPC 21st Century Teaching Initiative. It is a project  I co-lead with Cathy Gassenheimer, President of the Alabama Best Practice Center and John Norton, educational writer and virtual learning community expert.

Mark was incredible. He showed us how to use educational games to transform our classrooms.

This Elluminate session was designed to familiarize teachers with the basics of Project/Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and the strategies for implementing PBL projects in the classroom. Participants were to gain hands-on experience developing collaborative, inquiry-based projects that utilize the best of 21st Century teaching and learning. In hind sight, we didnt allow enough time as the amount of content we covered was huge and left teachers with a good deal of cognative dissonance. <smile> The feed back this morning is great though. It definately left teachers wanting time to sort through all they experienced. Thanks goodness for wikis.

Here are Mark's Slides

Resources mentioned in the presentation can be found on the slides (above)
One resource not included in the handout- Bill Mackenty is at mackenty.org

Sheryl's PBL Resources
My slides, resources, and planning tips for PBL can be found on the wiki.
Feel free to add your own resources or start a discussion using the discussion tab.

I also have included a clip from a news reporting of Dream School Belize that shows me as a "30 something" preaching the same message I do today. Student engagement. Check it out. The hair (side pony tail) is a hoot. What was I thinking?

Want to watch the archived Elluminate session? PBL Archive

WoW 02

Great time over at Women of Web 2.0 last night. David Warlick and I were the invited guests. We had a wonderful time talking about K12 Online, the recent Time article on How to Build a Student for the 21st Century, qualitative and quantitative research around social networking issues, professional  development, and more. David was charming and told some terrific stories and Vicki, Jen, Sharon, and Cheryl all added an element of grace to the event.

If you have never attended one of their events on Tuesday nights, you might want to check them out.

Here is the podcast: http://womenofweb2.podomatic.com/enclosure/2006-12-13T04_15_33-08_00.mp3

Please leave your comments and let me know what you think?

It Is Still All about the Comments

One of my preservice teachers posted this today...

One of our assignments throughout the semester has been to maintain a blog about our pre-service teaching experiences. Prof. Nussbaum-Beach has also encouraged us to get our students blogging. Thus far, I have been somewhat skeptical on the idea, as it seems logistically challenging to implement. However, the more I maintain my own blog, the more benefits I come across to blogging. The main aspect of blogging that I find increasingly exciting is receiving comments from other educators across the nation. Although this has not happened very often, the times that it has happened has motivated me to write again. Furthermore, other educators' comments have led me to new ideas...Initially, I thought that students may not care who is reading their blog. However, I find myself checking my blog just to see if I received comments. I can only imagine that elementary-aged students would be ten times more excited to receive comments!

Comments are exciting and motivating. I get really excited to know someone is reading what I write and has actually been motivated enough to comment. I was talking to Darren the other day about comments. I had recently been asked to share my "story" at a keynote presentation and had decided to blog about it. No one commented. And I wondered why. Darren said that sometimes people read and are moved, but just do not comment. He is right, but commenting is a very important part of blogging. It is the comments and feedback that motivates us all to write more and reflect deeper.

Bud, Lani, and Anne comment. Often, without prompting, they comment on my preservice teacher's work. My students, all soon to be teachers, get so excited. Lani's comments are so detailed. It is refreshing to see edubloggers giving back, modeling and helping to nurture novices along.

Another of my preservice teachers posted this about comments.

I came across a blog by Anne Davis, suggesting that parents really get involved in commenting on their children's blogs. Anne Davis showed an example of a blog where a parent had wrote on her son's blog, and her comments were very positive and thoughtful. In a world where papers don't always make it home and progress reports get lost in the bottomless pit of student bookbags, I think having student work online and parent posting is a great way to encourage invovlement from the home.

And then there is Tiffany's blog. She reflects deeply. Her writing is fascinating, and yet because she doesn't link out to other blogs or tag she doesn't show up on anyone's radar and very few comment on her writing. Which is quite a shame, because if she is out there then there are others. I wish there was a way to let those who are willing to deeply reflect upon their own experiences and thoughts and still have them surface- so I could find their writing, read their ideas and grow from having been a part of their lives.

In some ways I think it is a professional responsibility to comment on student blogs. Especially on preservice teachers blogs.  Maybe we should start a wiki for teachers to advertise suprglu sets of student's blogs on which they would like for people to comment. As teachers we could agree to adopt a few students to encourage each month.

I am grateful for those of you that have taken the time each semester to pour into my student's blogs. There will be a new set in January. I will post their blogs in my blogroll. I hope you will check in on them from time to time-to make their day and help shape their practice by leaving a comment or two.

 

Internet Safety

A group of teacher leaders were discussing Web 2.0 tools recently. A friend of mine posted this...

Hey Guys,

Had an interesting interaction today----I had a parent stumble onto a discussion board that is hosted on the main page of the wiki service that I use.  This is a page hosted by the wiki company---not something created by my kids.  It's also several layers deep in the website---I'm not sure my kids even know it's there.  Finally it's a page that I can't "turn off." It's there and it's not going away------but it's got some raunchy sex posts on it that include language that is inappropriate! The parent wants me to close our wiki down.  "This is unacceptable," she said.  "There should never be a time when my child is exposed to that kind of language or thinking.  We need to protect them from this kind of stuff."

So what do you think?  Should my students abstain from using our wiki---or the internet---because of the chance that they may (will?) come across inappropriate content? Is the proper decision for me to protect my children from the risky elements of the Internet by not using it and encouraging them to stay away from it until they reach a more responsible "age of consent?"  Or is the more realistic/responsible decision to teach children about safe surfing habits and what to do when they come across inappropriate content?

Another interesting question----Does your school/district practice technological abstinence in an attempt to protect children?  Do your parents?  Your colleagues?  What damage--if any--do technological abstinence practices have on children?

Rock on,
Bill

I responded with this:

You should do all of the above. Because of CIPA
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/civilliberties/cipaweb/cipa.htm schools have to protect students from inappropriate content. The easiest way to do that is to filter everything. Lock it all down. But that it is very much like "throwing the baby out with the bath water" or "burying your one talent in the sand to remain safe" isn't it?

John Seely Brown talks about the Web as as a transformative infrastructure which he compares to electrafication. But it can also be compared to another transformational infrastructure -transportation and its impact on the United States at the turn of the 20th century. The infrastructure of roads and highways changed nearly every aspect of how we lived, how we worked and where and how we learned. It changed many of our social practices. People were not limited by geography any longer. We became a global society.  Consider the car, plane, train, trucking industry as just a few examples that transformed how we lived and learned.

It took 20-30  years for transportation to take hold and for society to develop new social practices that leveraged the potential of that entire transportation infrastructure, and so it will be for the Web.

Transportation is part of how we do things --- and yet cars are lethal weapons. We do not just toss the keys to a kid and say, look this is a gift, this is an incredible tool that will change your life forever; sure bad stuff can happen, but we will hope for the best. Instead we teach them to drive at school and put them in driver safety courses. We make sure while they are at school we are very proactive in how we indoctrinate them to this technology, the car. I am sure there were many parents who said that cars were just too dangerous and their kid would never drive one. That horse and buggy was good enough for them and it will be fine for their kid. But as Ellen reminded us... we truly are the last generation with the prerogative of choice about whether we use technology or not. Our students are not afforded this same choice if they are to be successful in the 21st Century. They must use these tools within the safety net of our classrooms.

Your students need you (us) to teach them how to use technology safely and appropriately in the information age. We teach them not to run with scissors and to not to talk to strangers. They already go into convenience stores where there are pornographic magazines and exit unscathed and they sit for hours unsupervised in front of the "flickering blue parent" where values are shaped, often in front of cable where inappropriate material is a few clicks away, just like your wiki. They already have access, but their innocence keeps them from accessing it. It is *both* about teaching responsible use, teaching them discernment *and* making sure while they are on your watch that their innocence is protected.

Here is what I would do.

1. If I was going to start using the read/write/Web (thank you Will Richardson) as a valid instructional tool I would make sure that I knew my kids were not going to be exposed to anything inappropriate. You would never just pop in a video tape not having watched it as an instructional tool. Don't give access to a resource you have not thoroughly checked out. It is the Wild Wild Web right now as this transformative infrastructure evolves. (Think-- we are finding out we need seat belts. Cars didn't use to have those you know.)

2. Cultivate a relationship with your district IT person. Find out what the protocols are in your district, what the AUP that you and your students signed says, and who is in charge of filtering in your district and what the steps are for getting Web sites blocked and unblocked. Many times it is just a simple form. And through this relationship you can both work together to make certain students have access to this incredible resource and yet remain safe. It is important that central office knows you are not acting irresponsibly in relation to the use of the Web.

3.  I would do two things related to your wiki that you have already spent
so much time creating.

I would write or call the wiki's creator and let them know your dilemma and start a discussion of how their company can make this resource safe for students (maybe create a permissions level for students that will not give them access to the discussion board- done with a log in.) Who is your wiki provider? I know many of them and might be able to help you out. This gets at the bigger conversation of helping to make the Web a safe place for schools. This is the teacher leader level and you are the one to get the conversation going.

But immediately, I would ask  your district IT person to block the IP address to the page(s) that are offensive that can be accessed from your wiki. If it is only accessible from a site map link at the bottom (footer) I would go into the template and remove it. This is done by removing source code. Call IT, give them the web address of the discussion board and ask them to block it. Then when your students or parents click on it it simply will come up as blocked. You can still use the wiki, just not have access to the discussion board. Either way, I would be proactive and build trust in Web 2.0 tools by making certain your parents and colleagues know that you are protecting the innocence of your students. What they watch on TV or surf when they go home will be their parent's responsibility.

4.  Educate yourself, faculty, and parents on safe Internet use. Offer an after school workshop or make it the topic of a PTA meeting. As a teacher leader and a trailblazer advocating use of these tools you have to be proactive and not just toss them the digital keys and say drive, this road is nice but that one will kill you. Don't teach them... help them learn. Help them become discerning so thy can make responsible choices as they grow.

David Warlick says  say being literate means being able to read text, write a report, and calculate numbers on paper. But these Basics of the industrial age are merely a starting place for twenty-first century (contemporary) literacy. Students today must gain a range of skills.

What David calls the 4 Es rather than 3 Rs:
Expose- them to valuable information from a global electronic library
Employ- digital information in order to accomplish their goals
Express- ideas compellingly so that they not only communicate, but also
compete for the attention of our information customers
Ethical- teach them the ethics of operating in an information-driven world

The very nature of information is changing. In what it looks like, what we look at to view it, where we find it, what we can do with it, and how we communicate it. Our definition of literacy must also change. I am proud of you Bill for grappling with these issues and being a pioneer in helping to address how this transformative infrastructure will play a role in redesigning the way we teach and learn in the 21st Century. Many other educational bloggers are looking closely at these same issues. Let me know if you would like some resources and I will be happy to share.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/

How would you have responded? Please share in the comments below.

More Gaming in Education

Picked this up from Rob Fay and again in Edublogger News  -- a video on using video games in education posted by Mark Wagner of the EdTechLife blog. He created a webcast about video games in education, with interviews of Henry Jenkins, James Paul Gee, Clark Aldrich.

Worth watching...video on Gaming in Education. Thanks for sharing Mark.

House Overwhelmingly Passes DOPA

Andy Carvin posts about DOPA on his site. Wesley Fryer did a great post on this topic too.

Here is Andy's take,

Last night the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the
Deleting Online Predators Act, 410 to 15. It would seem that educators
had little to no impact on the outcome. Perhaps this is by lack of
numbers, or because the MySpace panic that's overtaken this country is
so overwhelming that no amount of rational pleas from educators would
have stopped it.

If you haven't been following DOPA just click here and catch up---
I had been following David Warlick's take pretty closely and comments from Jim O'Hagan caught my eye. It begins...

I posted this the other night and feel there some misleading tendacies in your post about the bill. It isn’t that big of a bill to read, and I will preface this with saying that I am actually against the bill, but want to have a realistic view of this bill if it becomes law.

Let’s look at the bill objectively... 

... Have you read the bill yet? Have you broken it down without relying on the opinion of another blogger? Blogging isn't banned. Learning Blogmeister will not go away. The commercial sites will be filtered in schools. Commercial chat services will be filtered. The list of sites will be provided to schools and libraries.

The back and forth is interesting. The tag on Technorati is http://www.technorati.com/tag/dopa
if you want to read more about this bill.

The part that struck a chord with me though was the statement "...Without relying on the opinion of another blogger." I read something lately on Robert Berkman's blog Intelligent Agent in his post Verify, Verify, Verify he blogs about Jay Rosen's session at BloggerConIV. In his discussion of the current role of citizen journalism in “Users Know More Than We Do Journalism: My Session at BloggerCon IV, June 24”, NYU Professor Jay Rosen discussed the challenge he has had when discussing using citizen journalists to do original research and gather and report information.

He shares the following which I found valuable.

And so it does seem that knowing how to verifiy is now becoming important not just for reporters, but for all of us when we get our information from blogs, citizen journalists, or consumer generated media (CGM).

Trust is nice when you have it in a particular source: we all do come to know those handful of writers or bloggers who have the most insightful, significant, and valuable things to say, and come to generally trust them… But verification of an unknown source is another matter. We'’re all our own editors now and need to know what it means to verify for accuracy.

So simple but so true... as responsible educational bloggers it is important that we not only check for  accuracy but teach our students to do so as well. We all know it. It is common sense. But we need to be reminded. His post goes on...

Starting with the fundamentals, I think that these are the three fundamental rules reporters'’ follow when trying to verify some claim or statement:

1. Going to any original source and checking yourself. You need to go to the primary material, original report, broadcast, document, etc and view it. Admittedly, the concept of "“original"” changes on the Internet: —for example, is a digital copy of a document an original? Not technically, but assuming that the document itself is authentic (another discussion altogether) then it is much preferred that you read this than relying on someone'’s own discussion, summary or interpretation of it.


2. Get a confirming source-- or two--if possible. Remember that our best estimate of truth generally occurs via probability: when it becomes increasingly likely that what you found out is accurate. The more sources or people that say the same thing, the higher the probability is that it is accurate.

3. Understanding the motivations and background of the person making the statement or claim. Although the culture of blogs is transparency and honesty, in some ways, this can make a blogger with a hidden agenda even harder to detect, since we may assume that the blogger is stating his or her views openly.

Now I am not saying that what many of us have been saying about DOPA isn't true. If nothing else, this legislation, while well meaning, opens a can of worms in ways it could be interpreted in court. What I am saying is that I am guilty of jumping on the bandwagon without having read the entire bill myself. Jim's statements to David were a timely reminder to me that I need to make sure I always do just that. We all do-- if we are going to bring the credibility to the power of this medium it deserves we need to check originial sources. I know most of you who are posting about DOPA did-- I am just admitting --I didnt. Thanks Jim, for the reminder.

Thanks to blogging I continue to grow as a human.

Owning Contemporary Literacy

Owning Contemporary Literacy…The Next Big Conversation

John Pederson on his blog posted this..."Rank this among the “Top 10 of 2005″ that make me think a bit deeper about everything that’s going on."  In reference to  my "Can't give away what you dont own" comment.
One strategy for helping teachers  "own it"  was covered in an article in Education World.
This was before I had ever even used a blog-- just think what could have happened if I had only known!

Other strategies for helping teachers to master the needed skills are covered in a Reading Online interview.

You want to motivate even the most relunctant teacher to embrace 21st century learning? The secret is the kids. I used reverse mentorship. It works!