21st Century Learning

Why Are We Here?

Photo credit: http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2009/01/dr-john-m-bennetts-solo-and.html

In the PLPNetbooks community (Australia work) this blog post surfaced after my interview with Steve Hargadon on The Future of Education

The Title of the post is the same as mine.. Why Are We Here? It follows:

Ok ... Now I've got your attention :)

I've just finished listening to the lastest episode of the "Ed Tech Live" podcast in which Steve Hargadon interviewed our very own community leader Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. This is a great interview in which Sheryl talks about the PLP and also her background in working with communities and some of her journey in education.

So if you need a re-charge or need to be re-affirmed why we are all here, I'd suggest you take a listen (at least the first half of the podcast!) Well done, Sheryl!

Elluminate Full: https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2009-09-08.1709.M.ACE02B5F35...
Audio: http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/sherylnb.mp3
Portable Video: http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/sherylnb.m4v
Chat: http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/sherylnb.rtf

To which I responded-- (trying to model community leadership)

Aww thanks! I had a great time. Glad you enjoyed listening. Maybe you would like to start a reflective discussion here about anything that we discussed during that interview that resonated with you... maybe a question or two!

He followed with several well formed questions that I thought you might interest you- my blogging community. Here is my response to him.

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Thanks for asking such powerful questions. I hope others will weigh in with their experiences as well.

You ask...
Like should I respond to as many posts as possible?
(Does this dis-empower other members? Does it scare them off?)

As the community leader you should make sure in the practice posts and introductions that 100% of member posts get a response from you or someone else. The thrill of getting a response encourages more participation. After the initial building of capacity it is a give and take in trying to balance your community building efforts and posts.

Remember as a community leader your role is facilitator/instigator-- not teacher. I think if you respond to posts with questions and use your replies as ways to bring others into the conversation, that your time is well spent. You do not want to be seen as the info giver here, rather you want to be the person that helps community members identify what it is they do well and what they have to add to the conversations and then help them do so.

Here is a public post from a past PLPer that highlights the feeling of getting a response.

From Lisa:
Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said this would be powerful! From the very first, I’ve done nothing but learn. I would admit, though, that a lot of what I’ve learned I had not expected to.

I figured that, by now, I would have gained a great facility with the tools. I’d know how to maneuver in the Ning; post to forums, read and organize blogs, create my own blog, etc. Full disclosure demands that I admit that I’ve never been much of a tool person. I’m not the type to get a new tool and play with it until I’ve got the whole of its applications down. But without really knowing what PLP would bring, I assumed that it would be the tools I would learn – how to use various features and how to apply them to my learning.

What I’ve come to realize is that, through PLP, we are gaining exposure to the world that our kids already inhabit easily – and learning in that environment is not neat and tidy. I wrote my first ning post about ambiguity and how learning to live – and learn – in an ambiguous world is not easy. It requires openness to new experiences and letting-go of my tradition-based ideas of what schooling is. Learning is not linear, and while I’ve espoused that for years, it wasn’t until this experience of PLP that I was able to live the non-linear, sometimes frustrating, always interesting world of a 21st century learner.

I’ve come away from these first two months with a more sophisticated view of teaching and with a growing empathy for our digital immigrant teachers, who are wrestling with change and how to navigate themselves through it.

I’ve also experienced the very powerful feeling that comes from having a ning colleague read my posts, find something in there of use, and respond in a thoughtful, serious way to my thoughts. Authentic assessment! Wow, I always knew it was an important concept, but I didn’t know how it would feel to receive authentic feedback from people I respect and admire. It feels great!

So, the lessons I’ve learned from PLP have been important ones – and I’m sure that Will and Sheryl intended for me (and the rest of us) to have the opportunity to share these same kinds of experiences. For those who are wondering, “what’s next?” or “when are we actually going to do something?” I would have to argue that, if you really take a learning posture – give up your control and your need to feel industrious – you will find that you are learning. And you have been all along!
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Should I be sending out reminders about contributing and participating?
(Does this annoy people people or prompt people?)

It can be annoying-- but out of sight--out of mind. It is great when you send out periodic links to great content being created by the community. What we do at PLP in our year long cohort is to have the community leader post a blog post on our PLPnetwork site or in a quarterly e-newsletter and we send those links out in NING. That way we are celebrating and recognizing folks for the good work they do which usually makes others want to participate more.

When you think of community as a place where a group of people make a commitment to each other to grow together and improve over time in their practice (teaching) and each team and each team member understands their role in collectively making the community successful, then the reminders are a welcomed intrusion.

Shepherding a community is different than being part of a network. Network connections have no expectations in terms of collective inquiry and improvement. They are what they are. But community is different. Communities have a purpose and understand that the best way to accomplish that purpose is to reflect, build, and grow together.

During norm setting with your community you could offer that regular reminders would be sent as a courtesy and in return the group agrees to not get annoyed.

Should I be encouraging members publicly or through private messages? Or both?

I love this one. You would NOT believe the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes in communities. You should encourage, recognize and celebrate often in f2f, synchronous and asynchronous ways. Also, find those in your community who have a gifting in encouragement and dub them with the role of Encourager. In a healthy community, you create a loose governance in the beginning and then part of the role of the leaders is to nurture leadership from the members. Natural leaders emerge over the months and designated leaders should recognize their abilities and share the load of shepherding. Community leaders should quickly become community members.

Bottom line-- We look at who is in the room and what strengths and gifting they bring to the table. Then we decide, as a community, what possibilities we want to tackle and who has the capacity to help us. The purpose of team's sharing projects is so that others who have wisdom, time, experience, or resources can offer to help. A team problem becomes a community problem. Transparent, deep, reflection nurtured through critical inquiry is what learning in a community is all about.

Bielaczyc & Collins (1999) identify the defining quality of a learning community as one in which:

...there is a culture of learning, in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members, who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning and how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned. If a learning community is presented with a problem, then the learning community can bring its collective knowledge to bear on the problem. It is not necessary that each member assimilate everything the community knows, but each should know who within the community has relevant expertise to address any problem. (Bielaczyc & Collins, p. 272)

Should I be adding lots of content?
(What effect does this have on member contributions?)

You add a little as a way to model and to be a good community member. However, your more important role is to build into your community design ways for others to add content and co-create and evolve over time. The reason we use community leaders, fellows, experienced voices, team leaders, and team members is so we are all sharing and adding content in different ways.

Your intuition is right. If you have one person always adding content, then it is seen as a top down initiative and members will slip back into the 20th C pattern of passive learning.

As to your last comment--

So I suppose it's about trying to work out the balance with participation that best grows the community. And I wonder if it's different with a group of adults? I assume we'd do more modeling etc with students? What do you consider 'best practice'?

Adult learning theory is different and new notions are emerging as our learning landscape shifts. But in a participatory culture and as we shift our classroom structures to community structures, I think we will find that community is community, and while the passionate interests and discussions may change the model holds true for kids or adults.

Here are some graphics that I created  for some work I did with Intel that may help in your understanding. (The pics are copyrighted- so please give attribution if you use them.)

I sure hope others will weigh in and share what they know or believe to be true from their experience or-- maybe ask some more questions. I am a co-learner in this and VERY interested in what you have found to be true.

The Fabric of Community- The Key to Transforming Education

I have been thinking a lot about how to manage the needed change process in education. Looks like a lot of folks have been playing with that idea as well. ISTE released their new NETS for ADMIN framing it as having the potential for -

Transforming Education- Administrators play a pivotal role in determining how well technology is used in our schools. The NETS for Administrators enable us to define what administrators need to know and be able to do in order to discharge their responsibility as leaders in the effective use of technology in our schools.

And take a look they are NOT too shabby when thinking about the characteristics leaders need to reform education in today's fast changing world.

The rub for me comes in when I try and look at these and other efforts to "transform" education and wonder if we aren't really just talking about reform- small principled changes that look at change as we always have - through the lens of problem solving.

In Phillip Schlechty's new book, Leading for Learning: How to Transform Schools into Learning Organizations  (great read btw) he distinguishes between reforming and transforming a school.

REFORM usually means changing procedures, processes, and technologies with the intent of improving the performance for exisiting operating systems. The aim is to make existing systems more effective at doing what they have been always been intended to do.

TRANSFORMATION is intended to make it possible to do things that have never been done by the organization undergoing the transformation. It involves metamorphosis: changing from one form to another form entirely. In organizational terms, transformation almost always involves repositioning and reorienting action by putting the organization into a new business or adopting a radically different means of doing the work it has traditionally done. Transformation by necessity includes altering the beliefs, values, and meanings- the culture- in which programs are embedded, as well as changing the current system of rules, roles, and relationships- social structure- so that the innovations needed will be supported.

REFORM in contrast, means only installing innovations that will work within the context of the existing structure and culture of schools. 

During a recent PLP Bootcamp I posed the following question to the attendees.

So as you develop your vision for leading in the 21st Century how do you see it- should you be a reformer or a transformer and why? Make a case for using one or the other as a change strategy.

I was really surprised at the passion in the responses supporting reform. Here is a sample-

Transforming, without careful consideration of a vision and steps required to achieve the vision, can lead to chaos and be counter productive. I recognize that change can and will emerge from chaos. However, I am cautious in placing students and staff into situations, without some insightful thinking and an understanding of an explicit goal(s), because the implications of change without thoughtfulness and explicitness, even in the short term can be detrimental. Change requires careful and responsible thinking to inform action.

And another-

I think for my school and the circumstances I find there, I am more a reformer than a transformer. The school has an ingrained culture that is sort of self-satisfied. But I think there is a desire by many to improve the existing system, and that includes the uses of these technological tools.

Interestingly enough not one educational leader in attendance spoke out for transformation. Probably because transformation is so risky. Whenever leaders tinker with values, technique and skills things get messy. But is reformation of our schools enough? Will 21st Century reform bring schools to where they need to be to meet the needs of the 21st Century citizen and learner?

Peter Block in his new book, Community- the Structure of Belonging
suggests that transformation is the only way we will create a future distinct from the past. Peter suggests that the current context supports the belief that the future will be improved with new policies, more oversight, and stronger leadership. However, creating a future is different from defining a future.

PROBLEM SOLVERS
As reformist we typically ID a problem we want to address, fix, or improve. Next, we study and analyze the need by gathering data and making a compelling case for change. Then, we search for solutions, looking for examples of how others have addressed this issue. We bring in experts, consultants, academics to offer advice. Once that is done we establish goals and initiate a pilot project to validate our strategy. We bring others on board creating buy-in and the launch the program. Next, we measure and hold people accountable for results and showing outcomes. Finally, we loop back. We take what we learn about what's not working and adjust, starting the problem solving process a new.

Block feels that these classic problem solving steps are fueled by the belief that "to make a difference in the world is to define problems and needs and then recommend actions to solve those needs." This resonates with me as I think back to my days as a district administrator and remember a culture that demanded that each meeting I attended (and they were seemingly endless) had to end with an action plan type "to-do" list. We wanted measurable outcomes that somehow justified the time we spent solving problems. We believed that only if we had better or more leadership, programs, funding, expertise, studies, training, and master plans then we could reform education in ways that prepare this next generation- digital citizens of a global economy fueled by connections and collaboration- for the world that awaits them. But is anything really changing?  For all our conversation and sharing and meetings and action plans are we seeing a significant shift?  We keep trying harder at the very things that just gives us more of what we already have. These are the steps to improvement but not transformation.

So I am curious- what do you think? Should we be focusing on a different conversation than the one we are having? Should we be reinvisioning education in ways that are radically different? And if so- How do we move from talking to doing? Or is that important?

Personally, I believe that the secret to change lies in developing the social fabric, capacity and connectedness found in communities of practice and learning networks. I believe that by focusing on a strengths-based model of education, looking at possibilities rather than problems, by using inquiry to ask the kinds of questions that reveal the gifts each of us bring to the table, by realizing that "none of us is as good as all of us" and somehow leveraging all of that to shift the conversations toward building a new future- one that focuses on the gifts each teacher, student, parent and leader has, that we have all we need to create an alternative future for schools. One that focuses on the well-being of the whole and uses diversity as a means to innovation.

What do you believe?

Planning for 21st Century Instruction

In his book, Shirky describes a "ladder of activities that are enabled or improved by social tools" in which "The rungs on the ladder, in order of difficulty, are sharing, cooperation, and collective action." (Here Comes Everybody, p.49).

While I am sure Shirky never intended for anyone to use these steps as a planning tool for scaling lessons and helping students own their own learning and build their own networks, I do think the four verbs work nicely for 21st Centuryizing (if you will) what we could be doing in the classroom.

I suggest that these constructs should be used, if used at all, as a scaffolding or spiraling framework. Online we can be sharing-connecting & collaborating at the same time and at different levels.

Basically, my current thinking is you can take any of the current 21st Century skills lists-- for example Wagner's "7 Survival Skills" or Linda Darling Hammond's "Changing Expectations for Learning" and you still get individuals publishing and sharing at best.

The ideas I am playing with now take the highest level of the new Bloom's Create and move it out from there to community. Living in a participatory culture (Jenkins, 2007) suggests that we need to move from a traditional classroom framework to a community framework and that in doing so the focus moves from the individual creating and publishing to the community collaborating and taking action.

It isn't enough for my colleagues or my students to be engaged and sharing with each other in the isolation of the classroom. Instead we need to understand how to publish our work and ideas to an authentic audience (teachers first and then model, once they own it, for students).

But it shouldn't stop there- because once we share our thinking online, others will find it and begin to connect to us via the medium. And from those connections we will find others with passionate interests similar to ours. We will begin to build a professional network of learners. And from that network we may decide to collaborate around a shared interest or passion as a means to learn and grow. And who knows-- from there we may find a project that will address the common good and bring even more caring individuals into a situated learning community which is starting to develop around our shared interest.

What I am trying to do is find a way teachers and students can think about/explore their passions and take them beyond the walls of a classroom to the community. A place where kids can learn what they need, when they need to learn it- rather than learning according to some artificial curriculum plan (Papert, 2004). And from those connections begin to understand how to build and leverage the potential of their PLNs and CoPs in ways that will take them through life.

Currently, I am trying to place these ideas in a grounded context while at the same time conducting some action research to see how they play out as a planning tool for teachers in "21st Centuryizing" their instruction.

http://abpc.wikispaces.com/21st+Centurizing+Lessons

Learning to Learn

My life has been a whirlwind of activity since NECC and I have found it hard to keep up with blogging. I don't know why, but I feel guilty blogging when I have other deadlines looming. Do any of you experience that? Is it illogical? Should I blog anyway, much like we still get the day to day things done at work or home, even when we have extra tasks on our "to do" lists. Or should I put 100% of my attention toward the deadlines and follow Grandmas' rule of "work before play"?

I'd love to hear your take.

Disclaimer: Blogging is like play for me- sheer enjoyment. Not necessarily the writing, as for me the writing doesn't come easy, but the thrill of the hits and conversation that follows does.

Community Driven System
The purpose of stealing moments away from my already full agenda this morning though to share my experiences of the last week. I came to realized more than ever that I am a community driven woman. I believe in the power of the community, the wisdom of the crowd, that the network is more powerful than the node and that none of us are as good as all of us. I believe that School 2.0 means moving from a classroom system to a community system. And now more than ever I also believe that about PD and I mean all PD- conferences(e.g. K12Online08), workshops (e.g. most recently CABOCES Summer Instititue), ongoing, job embedded sync and asysn (e.g. PLP) and as a result I am going to change my keynotes even more to flow from a community model as well. As I reflected over the last week, I realized even my family operates as a community. I am no loan wolf.

CABOCES Summer Institute
One week ago I landed in Buffalo and was greeted by Rick Weinberg who took me to Selemanca where I would be spending the next week working with educators from the surrounding area. When the day drew closer to the conference Rick shared that unexpectedly numbers were down. I gave him the opportunity to cancel rather than bring me out for just a few people, (I am knee deep in buying my first home in Va and could have used the time) but Rick was firm that they wanted to move forward. I am so glad he made that decision because this week was an incredible week of learning for me personally.

Here are my take aways...

1. When you are focused on educational reform from a community perspective- more is not always better.

 Monday- I had 10 administrators who were with me for one day. The small number enabled me to spend time personally getting to know each attendee. I invited Karen Richardson, Chris Lehmann, and Jon Becker to attend a panel discussion answering their concerns and questions. You can listen to the panel discussion here. The strength of intimacy because of such a small number of participants in the room made me realize that relationship is a more powerful tool when trying to leverage change than having large numbers of people in a room who are passively listening to you talk.

John Norton's wine glass metaphor rings true here- (He was drinking a glass of wine when it occurred to him- hence the name) that it is better to have small numbers of highly engaged people when influencing school reform than hundreds of folks who show up but walk away unchanged by the experience.

Also, on Friday when we knew our numbers would be minimal and we had such brilliant panel members coming from the community (Darren Kuropatwa, Kevin Honeycutt, Allanah King, and Mark Clemente) we made it a teachable moment. We spontaneously opened the Elluminate session up to the world (and the world indeed showed up) and we used Ustream and a chat channel as well to show if you offer quality the community will come to you- no matter how rural or small you are.

2. My belief was reinforced that for most newbies, teaching tools in isolation is too overwhelming and a waste of time.

Tuesday I tried to lay the foundation and set the context. I also wanted to help attendees understand today's digital learner. Wes Fryer (Oklahoma), Laura Deisley (Atlanta), Meg Ormiston (Illinois), and Sue Waters (Australia) talked about personal learning networks and the tools that support them (listen in here) on Wednesday. On Thursday my plan was to look more closely at tools and their pedagogy and how they best relate to various instructional activities and then on Friday to create inquiry based instruction with an interactive model of building a PBL mini-unit. For the most part things went according to plan, but Thursday's tools, tools, and more tools left me feeling overwhelmed and tense. I know if I had been a newbie in that audience not having been given the opportunity to use the tools in a meaningful application, I would have been frustrated. The idea was to create an awareness of the tools, not mastery, so that on Friday when we created lessons using the TPCK model we would have a web 2.0 list of applications from which to choose. The result though was painful, at least for me.

I brainstormed with Rick Weinberg and Tim Clarke afterward and what we felt would have worked better was to have four tables- with one of us at each table presenting a tool. Our presentations would include the tool, an activity using the tool, and a chance to reflect on best uses of the tool. Then after 45 minutes we would break for 15 and then could present another tool. We would do that three times (12 tools) and participants could choose which tools they wanted to learn.

I really believe that the best examples of tool instruction are within the context of what you are learning. Like our heating and cooling system they should be invisible. The only time we focus on our heating and cooling is when they aren't working properly. Then we have to focus on the tool itself and decide why it isn't working.

Even Bill Fitzgerald (Funny Monkey) after his discussion on Open Source tools left the attendees with the idea of forgetting the tool- focusing instead on what you want kids to know and be able to do- then figuring out the right task and tool for the job to help kids achieve their goal.

3. What is most important to 21st Century educational reform is to listen to kids.

On Tuesday, I decided to create a panel of kids from 11th grade to college juniors and talk to them about their reflections on technology. It was the most inspiring part of my week long work. I am still learning from all they taught me during that hour. Meet Gracie, Maegan, Ryan, Jay, Danny, Christian, Thomas, Will and Jesse. You won't be sorry you did.

4. Teachers need time to reflect, explore, and build in the safety net of your workshop.

Teachers, like kids, need you to model and then let them explore authentic use with you there to help. They need to understand how to create lesson plans that use the tools in meaningful ways, but then they need to actually collaborate together to build activities that they can use in school; activities that leverage the potential of these new mediums for connecting and collaborating.

Typically, in my workshops I only have time to present the shift and the tools- never to actually jump to the most important step of helping teachers contextualize what they are learning. I walked away from this week realizing that this step is what is missing in school reform and is why in my opinion, that change is happening so slowly.

The most exciting time of the conference for me personally was to watch the groups choose a topic- create a concept web, a curriculum web, choose appropriate standards, an essential pedagogy, an appropriate tool and develop several lessons that all integrated not only core disciplines but fell together under a theme, project or problem. The creative juices really began to flow as we constructed together a killer initiating activity that would usher in our year long project and the lessons we would use to teach state mandated content from a passion-based perspective. The tools made sense because they were merely a means to an end- helping students learn about things that interested them from the perspective of a scientist, historian or author.

I am thankful to CABOCES for being willing to invest the time that allowed their educators to not only gain an awareness but to deeply reflect, discuss, and wrestle with the concepts- while facilitators and their newly formed PLN stood by to help them make informed choices about change.

ABPC 21st Century Learners Quarterly Meeting

While I obviously haven't been blogging- I have been fast at it. I would say I have been busy, but Dean Shareski (our new convener for K12Online)  has taught me we are all busy and I am not suppose to talk about how busy I am, but rather just talk about what I have been up to lately.

I keep a running "to-do" board above my desk. Lately, there have been too many "to-do" items to fit them all. My life is full of meaning, exciting and that word I am not suppose to say (whispering ...busy). So busy in fact that I forgot to share about one of my most passionate interests.

ABPC 21st Century Learners- Year 3 Culminating
Anyone who has followed me knows that one true passion I have is the incredible work I am helping to deliver in Alabama around 21st Century literacies. On May 1 we had our culminating celebration for this year's 21st Century Learners journey.

What Was Different in Year 3?
In a word-- students. ABPC's leader, Cathy Gassenheimer felt this year's project with schools needed to have an clear connection to student achievement.  We wanted to developmentally move teachers along the continuum of use and understanding of the transformative potential of 21st Century teaching and learning strategies to actually applying them in the classroom.

We created a student strand and added students as members of the team. Together we looked at how to change teaching to a self-directed process tied to student passion and rigor, as well are core curriculum standards.

During the culminating event students and other team members were led in a fishbowl exercise that turned out to be the most enlightening experience I have had so far in working towards 21st Century educational reform. Students were asked hard questions about how they learn best and evidence of those strategies used by teachers in classrooms. They were asked what do teachers need to change to be the kind of teachers that would help you learn best? Their answers were profound and I realized for the first time I think-- if we would just ask kids what they need, they know and would tell us. Wow. What a concept.

Here are some of the projects from Alabama this year:

WinterboroSchool
Our theme is:  Taking Technology to the next level- The competitive level. Our teachers have worked in harmony to help our students take their individual projects to the competitive level.  We decided to encourage and help our students to compete on the local and state level using 21st century skills we have introduced and use in the classroom throughout the year. Winning at this level helped validate that we can compete in the local and state arena using these newly acquired skills.  The publicity has also been great for the entire county.  It has been a great success.  We will display our students’ medal winning projects along with the bling bling they have won in the process. 

West Blocton
For our student project, we created a wiki. On this wiki, the students would choose a book to read that they wanted to carry on a conversation about in the wiki. Then, they would rate the book. Next, they would write why they rated the book the way they did. The next few sentences had to include a comprehension strategy that they used while reading the book. Whichever strategy they used, they had to support it with text and tell what detail from the story made them use that strategy. Then, they would write a sentence to try to encourage others to read the book, even if they gave it a low rating.

Finally, they would look at other responses other students had made and carry on a conversation about their book.

Hewitt-Trussville Middle School
Our team created a wiki as a resource for the teachers.  The wiki contains descriptions, examples, and uses for 21^st tools in the classroom.  The wiki also contains information about project based learning. 
You can find out wiki at http://21centurylearners.wikispaces.com .

Challenger Middle School
Challenger 21^st Century Team Group project:
Our professional development project is called "iTeach 2.0" and we invited the middle schools in our district to become a part of iTeach 2.0. Each school sent two teachers to a workshop we sponsored to learn about 21st century tools. We established a wiki for our team and participants to use to share ideas. Our April face to face meeting was a type of fair where each school shared a tool or project that they successfully used this semester. Our computer will display screen shots from our wiki and our display board will define data collected and cool tools explored during this year’s iTeach workshops. Our wiki is http://iteach2-0.wikispaces.com .

Student Project:
We invited 18 students to commit their own time to work on a project they would select. Twelve saw the project to completion. We gave three basic guidelines: the students must develop their project around an issue that affects teens, the project must help someone, and the project must be communicated using technology tools.  Our students brainstormed on their own private wiki and were very passionate about teen issues! They decided that they wanted to work on a project related to poverty. The students then researched and decided that they wanted to adopt an impoverished school in another country, which led them to Uganda. They formed an Invisible Children Club to raise money.

The students created posters, a website and a multi-media embedded PowerPoint to present to the student body. They learned so much about war torn

Uganda and the suffering of the children there. They have a basic knowledge of how this war started. The amazing part is that we have not taught this information to our students. They have taken a project with very few guidelines and have learned so much! For this year, the project culminated in a fund-raiser, which raised $1778 in 3 days! This has become a project that encompasses many of the 21st century skills. Our students are learning about society, geography/history, communication, discernment, teamwork and many other skills.  We will display a computer with a timeline/info about their project work and their presentation.  We will have an additional computer with screen shots of their webpage. Their website is http://www.freewebs.com/guluschoolproject/

George Hall Elementary
Collaboration is the main thesis for our project. This year collaboration projects includes Skype interview with Janis Kearney, diarist for Bill Clinton and author of "Cotton Fields of Dreams",  Elluminate session with children from the Dominican Republic and a weekly Skype collaboration with 5th grade students in West Blocton Al. We continued the wiki field trip project using Scaling where the students were proactive in the production of the projects to go online.

Blossomwood
Blossomwood Elementary's team project for 2007-2008 has been to obtain more technology resources for classrooms and adequately train teachers on how to use these resources.  Promethean ACTIV boards have been purchased for all classroom units and teachers have attended both training at school and online training from Promethean.  Today, Blossomwood is displaying some sample classroom flipcharts, as well as flipcharts that were used to train the faculty.

Clay-Chalkville High School
We will be presenting a Power Point presentation that highlights some of the work that our teachers have created with their classes to enhance student learning, as well as to promote communication between the classroom and the home.

For instance, we have teachers that have created wikis with the main purpose to keep the students and parents updated on assignments and projects that are coming up. At the same time, other teachers use blogs to allow the students become more involved in the learning process.

Discovery Middle School

Middle School will showcase our journey from local to global connections through a photostory.  We will highlight our challenges and how we have overcome them.  We will also share our current projects that will lead us to district wide integration of Web 2.0 tools.

Mt. Laurel Elementary
Sharing Web 2.0 Tools
Mt Laurel Elementary School is a K-3 school right outside of Birmingham. We are in our second year with the 21st Century Learning Team.

Our team's focus project was sharing Web 2.0 tools with our faculty. We conducted a survey to determine awareness and use of Web 2.0 tools and found that very few were aware of Web 2.0 tools, and even fewer were using them.

As a team we compiled a resource list of Web 2.0 tools. We held a meeting with our teachers and presented an awareness training to share the uses of each tool. We shared examples of how we had been using these tools and how students could benefit from using Web 2.0. We also encouraged them to let us help them set-up any of the tools they would think they would like to use in their classroom.

As of today, the number of teachers that are using Web 2.0 tools has changed by 60%, compared to when we initially took our survey. We now have grade levels participating in projects and teachers using these tools to create works with their students. We have teachers participating in book studies using Wiki’s, classes and parents blogging, podcasting galore, but most of all the awareness of the many tools that are available to each of them to enhance their class lessons and projects.

Cullman Middle School
Collaborative project-based teaching aligned to state content standards, reviewed by students. That is our lofty goal with this wiki. For 2008, we have selected 4 courses to focus on: Social Studies, grades 7 and 8 AND Computer Applications, grades 7 and 8

This project is designed in conjunction with the Alabama Best Practices Center's 21st Century Schools professional development. The project will be developed by a team of teachers and students from Cullman Middle School.

We hope that this will be a treasured resource for educators across the state, the country, and the world. Depending upon the success of the site, we hope to add additional areas of study in the future. We recognize the level of learning and retention of learning that project-based lessons hold for students, as well as the interest it adds to classes. On the outset, this seems like a project designed to aid teachers, and it will do that, but more importantly, this project will aid students in fostering a deeper interest in learning. With the Computer Applications courses, we are fortunate to be embarking upon new territory. At this time there are not specific standards for grade levels, only grade bands. This project will assist us in focusing on learning objectives and organizing those objectives in a sensible format. The student team will be comprised of students involved in

Cullman Middle School's SWAT (students willing to assist with technology) team. The teacher team will select a student team leader that will serve as a liaison to the teacher team.

Dean Road Elementary School
Our team sought to showcase the various ways we use the Smart Board to communicate more effectively among staff members and students. An immense part of our daily communication begins each day with our morning broadcast, WDRE, which features fourth and fifth grade students as broadcasters. Other grade levels are involved by reciting the pledge of allegiance and sharing the daily weather. All parts of the broadcast are viewed through the use of the Smart Board.

Not only do we begin our day with the Smart Board we also use this valuable learning tool in many other ways throughout the day. We display our morning messages, share interactive websites embedded in our daily lessons, and research an endless amount of information that can be easily displayed for all to see. This beneficial tool as helped foster communication through shared lessons created on the Smart Board software that assists teachers in planning and presenting the curriculum in a way that increases the students’ motivation to learn. The Smart Board, found in all classrooms, has become an irreplaceable learning tool that teachers and students just can’t seem to live without.

Fayetteville High School
The Fayetteville High School team has led a 21st Century Learners initiative for 10 schools throughout Talladega County. Modeled after the training sponsored by the ABPC, the FHS team, along with other teachers from Winterboro School, have served as mentors to over 20 teachers in their school system.  The team will display the materials used for this project as well as evaluations from some of the participants in the program.

Wrights Mill Road Elementary
Tech-Know Expo
5th grade students brainstormed topics related to technology that interest them.  Then, they volunteered to teach those topics they felt they were “Tech-sperts” in.  The students prepared presentations for the younger grades and invited parents and members of the community to attend.  Topics ranged from “Lights, Camera, Pinnacle in Action,” to iPod 101 and “How to Convince Your Parents to Let You Get A Cell Phone.”  Students taught about blogging, making avatars, using Blabber, and the latest and greatest in text messaging.

Powerful Learning Practice- Powerful Indeed

This post may be premature as I have only seen 2/3s of the PLP Independent Schools' team presentations of their impact journey through PLP and team projects- but I must say, Will and I were more than impressed. It was more on the level of WOW.

From extensive summer institutes with a Web 2.0 registration process for other schools to attend (all taught by the team members) to an 8th grade project that will utilize the best that Web 2.0 has to offer in a project based format implemented by all 8th grade teachers next year to a creative Lunch 2.0 project or school-based wikis with all digital curriculum shared and more, we found ourselves renewed in the faith that schools can make principled changes in the way we "do" school as a way to remain relevant in the lives of the students we teach. Independent school culture is such that teachers need to make certain they build on the rich heritage of what works and yet make room to rethink delivery of AP courses and such so that these kids not only get into some of the most prestigious colleges around, but they are fluent in the new literacies when they arrive.

All the project plans will be shared on the Independent School wiki after the remaining 1/3 of the teams present next week.

Cohorts are forming for next year's Powerful Learning Practice opportunity. If you are interested in learning more visit http://plpnetwork.com

So Much to Say-- So Little Time

There is a price to be paid for community driven learning- TIME. There are only so many hours in a day to invest in reading, learning, writing, and all that goes with being part of a community of learners. The benefits far outweigh the cost, so I am not complaining, however, it is beginning to impact the time I had previously devoted to blogging.

I was reading a post on Our Virtual Class Blog called 2.0 Riptide. He quotes Konrad Glogowski who after finishing his dissertation establishes research questions that  he hopes to be able to work on in the near future:

1. How do we prepare teachers to teach 21st century learners whose lives are based on rich interactions in multiple online environments?
2. How do we help new teachers move away from what Marshall McLuhan once called the “imposing of stencils” and adopt a practice of probing and exploration?
3. How do we help new teachers acquire the courage to transform their classrooms into communities of learners and transform themselves into participants who can embed themselves in those communities?

These questions are near and dear to my heart because they are the very questions I have found myself grappling with for the last four years. As I have shared before, years of experience working in several large projects that look directly at these very  issues (ENDAPT, TLN, ABPC 21st Century Learners, ASSETOnline and now Powerful Learning Practice) it seems I keep coming full circle to networking, community of practice, true collaboration and what my friend John Norton terms "mutual accountability" among teachers.

MUTUAL ACCOUNTABILITY
John asked recently on TLN, "What's the difference between "negative competitiveness" and a willingness to trade narrow accountability measures from the outside for collaborative accountability -- where teachers hold one another accountable for teaching quality? He suggests that until teachers seize that ground, they will always be on the defensive and easy targets for top-down reform.

One teacher's response caught my attention-

Teachers need to be seen as professional leaders in their districts and communities, leaders able to work together to improve student learning...  Teachers are either working as silos, not interested in collaboration, or scared to show their areas of vulnerability for fear of ridicule or reprisal.

To "[seize] that ground", convincing administrators, public opinion, media, etc. that collaborative accountability is the best method for improvement, I believe we must expand our playing field.  We need to seize the grounds of media and public opinion regarding education, testing, school and community partnerships, and the nature of improvement and change.  This requires organization.  Where is the teacher voice?

Then it hit me, this is exactly where participatory media can make its biggest impact. Allowing teachers to network together online first - forming personal learning networks around areas of passion and interest and gaining comfort and trust in the nonthreatening use of the medium helps to give teachers the confidence they need to use these tools to hold each other accountable for learning.  Using tools like Twitter, Tapped In, NING, Blogs, wikis, Ustream, Diigo, Elluminate, etc, teachers who understand how to "seize the ground" can apprentice teachers who are emergent in their understanding of such concepts. Conversing and working at it together in spaces that are somewhat separate from the local context, educators can learn within the safety net of the community and develop the self-efficacy skills and boldness needed to generalize what they are learning to their local context.

WHY IS IT EASIER TO COLLABORATE TOGETHER ONLINE THAN IN OUR SCHOOLS?
One of my consulting projects this year has been CTQ's ASSETOnline project. I have had the wonderful experience of working with Anne Jolly, a professional learning community expert. In a recent conversation online she asked teachers if they liked collaboration and if not, why not. In her true researcher form she compiled the results.

Frustrations that lead to a preference for working alone in some cases.
These include . . .

1.  Not knowing what collaboration really means
2.  Not knowing what is actually expected from those collaborating
3.  Insufficient implementation support
4.  Not finding real value in collaboration
5.  Different teaching philosophies among participants/ little to share
6.  Doesn't spring from teacher's needs
7.  Dictates and limits from administrators about content for collaborative meetings
8.  Teachers left out of decision-making
9.  Lack of modeling/understanding of collaboration by administrators
10. Need space to be creative - tricky to do this in teams
11. Lack of training for collaboration
12. Lack of trust and comfort in sharing with other teachers - feeling threatened
13.  Not enough time
14.  Getting everyone on the team on the same page is hard
15.  "I don't like meetings!"  :-) - a waste of time that could be spent grading and preparing
16.  Need more time for self-reflection rather than group reflection
17.  Others on the team pass off other's work as their own
18.  Too much talk and not enough action
19.  Not enough clout - except in the classroom
20.  One person does all the work
21.  Merit pay breeds competitiveness rather than sharing
22.  The education system is designed for isolation - and the status quo is strong
23.  The atmosphere can be punitive
24.  The school setting doesn't support collaboration
25.  Teachers are overwhelmed and trying to survive difficult situations
26.  Lack of communication about changes and the reason for changes

Feeling that collaboration works at times too, such as when  . . .
1.  Teachers see value in the collaboration
2.  Teachers have similar teaching philosophies and complementary skills
3.  Collaboration is more natural and spontaneous than structured
4.  Collaboration springs from teachers' needs
5.  Collaboration is not mandated
6.  Teachers make decisions about what they collaborate on
7.  Administrators practice what they preach
8.  The atmosphere is trusting, respectful, and comforting
9.  The school is successful at supporting collaboration
10. Teachers have time to think through together what they want for their kids
11. There is time for introspection as well as collaboration

I am curious-
How do you feel about collaboration?  Do you feel safe enough in your school to "seize the ground" or do you hesitate to share for fear of ridicule or reprisal. Do you feel collaboration online is easier than it is locally in your own schools or organizations? Or do you feel the same hesitancy to publish and as a result become "clickable?" Do walled gardens (private online communities of practice)  make you feel safer in terms of being transparent enough to hold each other accountable for what kids are learning in our schools?

What is your take?

 

Living Under the Rainbow

I have finally surfaced from my doctoral COMPS preparation. On Tuesday, after I had penned the last words and hit submit on the prompts that serve as the gateway to demonstrating if I have what it takes to be a researcher and academic, I came home to this beautiful rainbow. I immediately went out searching for the pot of gold! <smile>
Then I realize- I have it already.

Lately, I find myself living under the rainbow. There have been so many really exciting things happening. My brain stays constantly challenged, which is just the way I prefer it.

Shanghai and Learning 2.0
The travel was amazing coming to China. Sure- it was long flights, layovers, and cramped- but still, it was amazing. Why? Several reasons:

First, I am traveling with my 21 yr old son Noah. I am more pumped about that then coming to China and presenting.
Noah is the most interesting young man. Our house is a very busy one. All of us work and attend school. We always have. In addition, all of us have passions and hobbies, so as a result, there isn't a lot of time to talk and share. So the flight was spent with the two of us sharing ideas about the books we were reading on the plane. Noah was reading "The Code Book" which is about the history of cryptography. It was fascinating listening to him describe his insights as he was gaining them. I came to the realization that he had grown into the kind of person I would actually choose to hang out with-

even if he wasn't family.

Second,  I am traveling with Wes and Shelly Fryer, and Will Richardson. On the plane, Will and I kept knocking ideas around in between jokes, sharing passages from the books we were reading with each other and sharing small nuances of life we feel are important. Then it hit me, relationships are the beginning of wisdom. I realized while talking with Will, that vision starts with relationships; whether it is relationship with kids, colleagues, or our communities- vision begins with connecting ideas. None of us could get over the surrealness of actually flying around the world and landing in a communist country. I have had the good fortune of having traveled many places around the world, but never to Asia.   

To show you the difference between where I am now and where I live. We get a notice under our door- Dear Guests- We have received notice from our government: The People's Government will deploy a test of aerial defense in the Pudong New Area. Do not be alarmed.

On another note--Check out these cool tunnel pics I took at the Detroit airport.

 

Finally-- a pic not to be missed. We land in Tokyo and this is on the TV in the waiting room. Classic!

Senior Year: A Teenage Wasteland

My brilliant friend Mary Tedrow posted this piece over on Teacher Magazine. It is a must read.

Senior Year: A Teenage Wasteland
In 2001, the U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley called the high school senior year a "wasteland." In 2005, researchers concluded that the majority of high school students were not challenged during their senior year in reading, writing, or math. To many teachers who work with high school seniors, these findings ring true. They best apply to the wide swath of "average" students who travel the featureless landscape called senior year. Teacher Magazine, 8/1/07 (free registration required)

To give you a taste of why the free registration is worth it, here is a piece from the article as Mary describes what the senior year *could* be...

I would go a large step further and treat the senior year as a unique capstone experience. By eliminating strict scheduling, a team of teachers and counselors could shepherd seniors through a meaningful transition. Students could work with teachers to design a schedule that would include coursework, apprenticeships, and community activities. Seniors could also accept ownership in the school community by participating in tutoring, student courts, in-house television and radio programs, designing and writing school publications, maintaining websites, or even helping interview prospective teachers. In short, let kids test the waters. Let them make decisions in close mentorship with adults.

I say-- YES. And let's take it a step further. Let's imagine the entire school experience being that meaningful. Why stop at one year?

Mary Tedrow, a National Board-certified teacher, has taught high school English and Journalism for 17 years. In the fall she will begin teaching juniors at John Handley High School in Winchester, VA.

Learning 2.0

The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Bob Dylan 

When the World Wide Web first emerged as a global phenomenon, most of us defined it in 20^th Century terms. Many Web users, including educators, still think about the Web primarily as an information repository--even though there is ample evidence it has evolved into something more. Today, as we surf the Internet, we see endless examples of the Web’s ability not just to serve up content, but to empower us to share our imaginations, insights and opinions. If we're "a mind to," we can add to the world's understanding and advocate for positive change.

Web 2.0 – and ultimately School 2.0 -- is all about this two-way or group communication. The Web is no longer just a place to search for resources. It’s a place to find people, to exchange ideas, to demonstrate our creativity before an audience. The Internet has become not only a great curriculum resource but a great learning resource. The second generation Web is in fact, laying the foundation for ideas such as Classroom 2.0, Teacher 2.0 and Learning 2.0.

Personally, I still struggle when trying to explain concepts that simply have out paced the educational jargon we have available to describe them. 

"If you want to project a cool, web-savvy persona, just tack 2.0 on the end of something." - Anonymous

Twitter Takes

I threw the question to my Twitter community to see if they too struggled with the concept or term Learning 2.0. Here are their responses:

Jane Nicholls, " I can understand Web 2.0 and School 2.0 but learning 2.0 is taking it a bit far."
Christian Long, " I am not sure 'learning 2.0' exists if we're sincere about universal act of 'learning'. Tools are another thing entirely.
Paul Harrington, "In my case it is the term learning, as Learning is the pedagogy of School 2.0. I would call myself a lifelong learner - how I achieve it may vary along the way.
Ewan McIntosh, "   Learning 2.0? No such thing. Learning 2.0 is mostly tried and tested pedagogy made more possible with tools that fit the bit: assessment for learning, x-curric, mixmedia."

I think Brain Crosby came closest to how I would spin it. " Learning 2.0 is shared knowledge, constructed through Inquiry based, networked, digitally enabled collaborative conversation, using Web 2.0 applications."

Goodbye, Seats and Rows

Web 2.0, or what others have called "the read-write web" (and most recently called "participatory media"), is transforming the traditional structures of many of our most important institutions, including (very slowly) our schools. 

We have to ask ourselves: What happens to traditional concepts of classrooms, teaching and most importantly learning when we can now learn anything, anywhere, anytime?  How and will Web 2.0 shape the way we learn- Is there such a thing as Learning 2.0?

Roger Schank's thinking suggests that, "technology is not additive, in that it doesn't change some things, it changes everything." If that is true, and I believe it is, then learning has to be impacted when we begin to use different methods and cognitive structures for processing information. As the evolutionary process of the technologies and learning strategies we use in the classroom change and seek to improve pedagogy in an exponential fashion, we are going to realize that the innovation (the mash-up of 20th Century teaching ideas) will begin to build upon itself and continue to accelerate to the point where what takes place in terms of learning in the 21st Century is very different, not just a variation of times past.

Schank's  Law

Because people understand by finding in their memories the closest possible match to what they are hearing and use that match as the basis of comprehension, any new idea will be treated as a variant of something the listener has already thought of or heard. Agreement with a new idea means a listener has already had a similar thought and well appreciates that the speaker has recognized his idea. Disagreement means the opposite. Really new ideas are incomprehensible. The good news is that for some people, failure to comprehend is the beginning of understanding.For most, of course, it is the beginning of dismissal.

Learning is about making schematic connections. Where we attach new knowledge to our existing understandings.  The a-ha moment.  Piaget calls it moving from disequilibrium to assimilation of the new ideas. Learning 2.0 for me is the jumping off place where we not only have attached the new ideas to the old and assimilated, but we have made peace with the fact that we might have to unlearn much of the knowledge with which we started. It is by developing an adaptive expertise that we begin to innovate in such a way where the innovation becomes multiplicative, not additive and that in my opinion is Learning 2.0. It is also the uncomfortable place where we find ourselves as educators- having to unlearn and adapt. Teaching today puts the teacher in the role of chief learner, who ideally is modeling these lifelong adaptive learning strategies for her students.

What's a Teacher To Do?

Think about it. The media rich generation of school-aged kids today have visually pleasing information at their fingertips – "input" that is constantly popping, sparking and competing for their attention. They bring the world into their brains via cell phones, handheld gaming devices, PDAs, and laptops that they take everywhere. They are truly mobile. And at home they "mainline" electronic media in the form of computers, TV, and collaborative video games they play with users from around the world. If they choose, they can go and live a Second Life online, creating an avatar to explore the virtual terrain of a complete world, with its own economy, real estate, entertainment activities and, yes, even schools.

Everywhere the Digital Generation goes in society, technology beacons. The future is rushing at them full speed ahead. Until, that is, they enter the learning zone (cue Rod Serling). When they cross the threshold of most of our public schools, it's like stepping back in time. As one high school freshman said to a national pollster: "When I go to school, I have to power down.” When many of our students are already building networks far beyond our classroom walls, forming communities around their passions and their talents, it's not hard to understand why rows of desks and time-constrained schedules and standardized tests are feeling more and more limiting and ineffective. We can almost hear the our students humming along with Pink Floyd, "Teachers, leave those kids alone."

Learning 2.0 is about these core components:

Knowledge: Realizing, that with knowledge increasing at its current rate "none of us is as good as all of us." No one can master all the content that comprises a particular discipline.  Our job is to help students and ourselves become producers of knowledge and to help each other understand the transformative potential of Web 2.0 tools in a global perspective and context. Learning 2.0 is about reversed mentorship and transforming our classrooms into learning ecologies. 

Pedagogy: Creating an understanding of the shifting learning literacies that the 21 Century demands and how those literacies translate to classroom practice. Ultimately, 21^st Century teaching is constructivist teaching, using digital technologies and the Internet; John Dewey revisited or Alan Levine's Rip Mix Learn.

Connections: Modeling for students (and in some cases them modeling for us) the creation of sustained professional learning networks where we can all begin experimenting and sharing with online colleagues from around the world. Learning 2.0 is about making connections to content experts and using the new tools for 21st Century scholarship.

Capacity: Today’s web technologies make it possible to build formal and informal human networks -- using tools like blogs, wikis, and social networking software -- to build human capital in our students in such a way that they become the visionaries for giving back to society in an effort to end human suffering.

Emergent Understanding

Times are a-changin' - this is not business as usual, but business as unusual. But together we can begin to get our minds around these concepts. We can ask ourselves and each other the tough questions. We can let all the stakeholders, even students, use their voices in finding our way in this new learning landscape as we grasp for new syntax to describe 21st Century learning phenomena.