21st Century Learning

Good Day Mate

Sheryl's excellent adventure started in Australia! I was invited to keynote the ELH conference in Victoria, Australia.  As I was preparing to go an amazing thing happened that shows the power of the network. I had announced on Twitter I was going and lo and behold the most wonderful direct message came through, "Hi Sheryl are you interested in staying over at our place in Portarlington during your visit http://snurl.com/3hdn0?" John Pearce / mrpbps. John is an amazing author, presenter, and scientist. His wisdom about flora and fauna just blew me away and made my trip so much more valuable on a personal level.

Well if you clicked on the link you can see John's place is just north of heaven. We had such a wonderful time with John and his wife. He took us to the zoo and gave us the grand tour around Melbourne. It turns out his wife was also a bike enthusiast so we got to see the bike shops and David (David and his daughter Maegan went with me as a surprise for her 18th birthday and high school grad gift) even went for a ride. Their home was simply lovely and they were the most gracious of hosts.

The highlight of the evening was attending a blogger's dinner and meeting so many people I had come to respect through their writing. The Melbourne part of my journey started with meeting Jenny Luca f2f. I got off the plane and Jenny picked me up at my hotel and whisked me away to present at her beautiful school. I swear it was like being in Harry Potter. It was a pleasure meeting Jenny as she is an important part of the work I am doing with Will through PLP. Jenny is the Australian host school leader.

Take a look at the pictures and I will describe the next leg of the adventure in the next post.

John Pearce and I meet and tour the zoo.

Maegan, John Pearce, Sheryl and David at the zoo in Melbourne, Australia

 

 

 

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This guy's rear end was like cotton candy!

Melbourne at night.

Vicki and John Pearce with Lauren O Grady http://ogrady.globalteacher.org.au/

It was fun seeing Sue Tapp again. We met the first time at NECC. http://andanotherthing-sue.blogspot.com/

John telling the story about the one that got away!

Pam Arvanitakis http://pamelarvo.blogspot.com/

Lauren and Jo McLeay http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com/

The Melbourne Bloggers- Darren Murphy, Sue Tapp, Me, Lauren OGrady, Pam and Jenny Luca

Biking with Vicky near her home.

 

Sitting at John's home surfing the Web.

I'm Back...

It has been two months since I have posted. I don't know why I am telling you, because obviously if you are still hanging in there as my reader you know this to be true. I have been busy traveling, presenting, convening a conference and posting in the situated learning communities to which I belong- my scheduled was so packed I had to let something go and my blog drew the short straw.

It's good to be back and I have a lot to tell you. My work with Will Richardson in Powerful Learning Practice has been at the forefront of where I have spent my time. We kicked off seven cohorts that encompass two continents, three countries, sixteen states and over 800 educators and educational stakeholders. The work centers around a professional development model that immerses educators into environments and practices that allow them to learn and own the literacies of 21st Century learning and teaching.

This is PLP's second year and everyone, including Will and I, are learning a great deal about systemic 21st Century educational reform. Community leader, Lani Ritter-Hall is the first of the community leaders to post about what she is experiencing in the  Illinois/Ohio cohort .

PLP is built on my experiences garnered while co-leading a similar project in Alabama with the Alabama Best Practices Center , a project which was originally funded by a Microsoft Partners in Learning grant.
If you are interested in knowing more about the work in Alabama you can watch a series of short video clips found here

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

Need Motivation?

So I am on Twitter and looking at various posts. I see one about ScreenFlow and decide to Google it. I see a YouTube tutorial and decide to watch it. It is a Mac tool, but I like speaking both languages. So I click on the video above and like wow. Here is one of your students answering a question someone had about how to do something within the program. He is teaching it as well as any of us could. Why do we need to understand the shift in education? Because they can learn and teach themselves anything they want to know without leaving home. When you move from a classroom structure to a community structure- the students become teachers AND learners and so do we. 21st Century teaching and learning is about shifting classrooms to learning ecologies.

Here is another-

Can't get enough? Here is a 7th grader.

Let's quit talking about it and roll up our sleeves and change our classrooms and schools into meaningful learning nodes in our students' network of learning choices.

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.

K12Online Coolness

When you use a lot of technology to push the envelope and hang with others who do as well-- it is pretty amazing when you find yourself in awe of the tools. Darren, Wes, Dean and I continually use tools to collaborate since we all live so far away from each other. Wednesday night at NECC wasn't going to be any different than other countless K12Online virtual meetings we have had except that three of us would be together and Darren would be online- or so we thought.

We ended up at a pretty ritzy restaurant. Once we were seated Dean pulled out his laptop and called Darren on Skype. We made him full screen and sat him at the table across from ours. It made him seem as if he was eating with us virtually.

It was so dark that we had to use a candle to allow Darren to see us. It seemed a little like a ghost story moment. Dean took the laptop and walked Darren around with the camera on so he could see the RiverWalk and get a feel for what our surroundings were like. Someone walking by knew Darren and hollered out to him. It was wild, just like he was really there.

The waiter came up and greeted us all including Darren. When he found out he was from Canada he began to sing the Canadian National Anthem. Overall, it was an awe inspiring event.

Powerful Learning Practice-Creating Online Communities for Professional Development

Spotlight NECC08 Session with Will Richardson
This session will describe the work done by the presenters in creating a sustainable model for ongoing professional development using 21st Century technologies.

I have to admit that we were nervous about this presentation. Not the presentation part (Will and I do this "on stage" thing together a lot) but rather the what exactly do we share part. Will and I agreed that what we didn't want was a commercial or a presentation that smacked of "hey look at us-- we are the experts" or something that tried to imply we had *the*answer. What we wanted to convey was that we are all in this together. Here is what *we* know about using community for PD from our varied experiences- now share with us what *you* know and together-- we can get this thing figured out.

The session went well (if you do not count the room being 100 degrees) in that I think we helped folks think about how they could use virtual PLCs in their schools/districts to implement change. Some folks approached us about modeling the techniques and helping to lay the framework to get them started. Others were excited to have a place to start developing their own models.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on using community as a PD methodology and a way to implement sustainable change. Ideas?

Here is a Ustream and Live blog of part of the session. If you have a recording of this session to share please link here in comments.

NECC08-- Not quite the same as previous years...

I left the conference a little disjointed -- not sure why and decided to reflect transparently and see if any of you (my community of readers) can help me sort it out. Please comment below. I welcome your thoughts.

First let me say that meeting so many folks f2f (if I tried to list here would I miss someone) I had long admired or even had worked with on various global projects for the first time made my trip worth it. I enjoyed the human network element to NECC much more than any sessions.

I was looking back over the Tweets from NECC and saw a comment by Gary Stager, it was a push back to Wes Fryer (i think)- and I am taking it out of context -but it meshed with one of my take aways from the conference.

Gary said, "Contact doesn't matter if the connecting people are not doing anything. Don't you think?"

And while Gary often says things I do agree with, this statement left me shaking my head no. For me, connecting *is* the point. Connecting and listening to ideas and allowing this new contact to push my thinking beyond where I could take it myself, reflecting on what and who they are, and then deciding if it becomes part of my developing schema is in and of itself enough- regardless if we do anything beyond that connection. Alfred Lord Tennyson says that we are a part of all we have met. I believe that.

It was clear that NECC07 had an impact upon me in that I came to the realization that NECC08 was the anniversary of what came to be several key relationships in my life. But just as importantly, there are many folks this year with whom I connected and had a casual conversation with- that while they pushed my thinking in ways I had not previously considered- I will probably not do anything further. There may be tacit knowledge outcomes that will have a subtle impact on what I believe, but the meeting in and of itself was enough. These connections for me are much like watching a beautiful sunset. The beauty of the event is in and of itself perfect- there need not be any learning objective or standards met or end result- the beauty of the now is worth the time.

Why We Can't Go Back

I caught up with Vinnie Vrotny at the airport, he said something that I felt had deep meaning. I asked him if he had a good conference experience. He explained that this year's conference was different for him because he was different- he was in a different place. Others had approached me at the conference saying they felt this year's event had a different feel as well but attributed it to it not being the "love fest" last year's event became. One attendee told me she felt many of what she called "A listers" from last year had been saying they felt "D listed" this year. I must admit, I never have gotten this stream of thinking. Who exactly are the A listers? All I know is each new person I meet seems more interesting than the last. I am drawn to new ideas and quality conversation- regardless of how many readers you have online.

Class, gender, and race isn't something I naturally see. I tend to go straight to ideas- always have, even in high school. I am glad to have this type of blindness actually. However, I admit to feeling pulled at this conference. There were so many people I wish I had taken the time to connect with on a deeper level. I brought family and felt I was ignoring them when I spent time networking. I felt very ineffective. I am thinking that is what has left me in this funk-- of trying to figure out why I am not still high from the NECC experience.

So I am curious- did any of you feel similarly? Was it me? If you did-- why? Is it like Vinnie said-we are all at a different place so the conference should feel different? Or did I simply spread myself too thin?

Photo credit:
Texas Star- CSouthard
http://www.flickr.com/photos/csouthard/2622627476/

Ewan and Jeff at the Edubloggercon- DWarlick
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidwarlick/2618246017/

K12Online08 at NECC

K12Online08 Call for Proposals: Amplifying Possibilities
(due July 11 2008 - Extended till 1 week after NECC!) 

The Magic of Digital: Collaborative Interaction in Teacher Professional Development

 

Wes Fryer, Darren Kuropatwa, and Dean Shareski and I gave a presentation at NECC entitled  “The Magic of Digital: Collaborative Interaction in Teacher Professional Development” - it was recorded and is available on Ustream.tv.

The official description of this session in the conference program was:

The electricity often present when educators connect with each other using synchronous and/or asynchronous digital technologies is contagious for learning and transformative for professional practices.

Many thanks to our co-contributors: Bud Hunt, April Chamberlain, Jeff Utecht, Clarence Fisher, Carolyn Foote, Brian Grenier for sharing during this presentation which focused on participant, presenter and organizer experiences during the K-12 Online Conference.

Online Video provided by Ustream

Remember the deadline for submitting proposals for the 2008 K-12 Online Conference is July 11th, and the call for committee volunteers is still out!

Technorati Tags:
n08s422, necc2008, necc08, necc, k12online, k12online08

 

Letter to my Colleagues

I have been spending some time recently responding to a listserv discussion that has many brilliant, award winning teachers on it who are not sold on the idea that we really are going to have to change education to remain relevant; that *they* are going to have to change.  I thought I would share my most recent letter.

One member writes-
I've been waiting and wondering when someone would take up the thread that Mark began during our "Here Comes Everybody" discussion, wherein he talked about how the printing press put scribes out of work and wondered whether or not technology would have a similar effect on teachers.

I am often asked as I travel to various places to present why I would spend so much time talking about technology knowing that with outsourcing and such that I am undermining job security in that computers could replace teachers. To that I respond,  If you can be replaced by a computer then you probably should be! The truth is that technology will never replace teachers, however teachers who know how to use technology effectively to help their students connect and collaborate together online will replace those who do not.

Change is Here
The way we "do" school in the 21st Century will change. Teacher will be/is being redefined. (Lord knows it is time- while the rest of society has changed in its response to technology, education has
remained timeless the last 100 years.) What we have to do is ask ourselves what principled changes need to take place in order to remain relevant in the lives of the students we teach?

It Doesn't Change Some Things- It Changes Everything
With knowledge expanding at the rate it is and the world changing at a dizzying pace- to keep the status quo is to accept obsolescence. Teachers will need to accept the fact that even with all we have invested, the pace of change is going to demand us to unlearn and relearn. Every major technological innovation through time has demanded it of its users.  Think of the world and how it functioned before electrification and the how it functioned after electrification- before television- after television (the way we fought wars and politics alone because of TV changed drastically)-- As Mark alludes to, technology doesn't change *some* things, it changes *everything*. Before TV, the thought of allowing someone to interrupt you constantly trying to sell you things you didn't want was unheard of- people were run out of town for such antics. But now it is part of our culture- to the tune of 500 channels-- which have figured out that by providing mediocre content (like reality TV)  we will sit still and let them sell us things we do not really need and we will hum their jingles and use their products, all the while our culture becomes more and more superficial and kids lose out on developing deep, meaning (which they are so capable of grasping).

Incremental is becoming Exponential

Technology is and has changed society and the students we teach. The question isn't are you preparing for 21st Century teaching and learning- rather the 21st Century is here. The party has started. The kids have already arrived. We are 8 years into it.

Ask Them- They Know
Want to know how a 21st Century learner learns? Ask them. You will be amazed at what you hear and if you are smart- you'll act upon it. Sylvia Martinez says we are trying to solve this 21st C PD issue in schools with 6% of the population (teachers) when 94% of the population (kids) are better positioned to help us learn what we need to know to be successful. Turn your classrooms into learning ecologies- learn with and from your students. Get rid of top down, expert driven instruction methods and nurture self-directed discovery- both your own and theirs. Turn your passions into classroom curriculum. Get excited and mentor your kids integrating your passions with core content and foundational knowledge. Help them develop a love and understanding for culture and our rich heritage. Advocate hard to get the metrics we are using to measure classroom effectiveness changed- for we teach what we measure. Leverage NCLB to push for personalization of curriculum in an effort to meet AYP and all the various needs of your subgroup populations.

It Isn't "If", it is "When"
Technology WILL redefine schools- good or bad- it will/is happening. We are one node, one means, one stop in a 21st Century learners learning journey and options. We need to be having conversations about how to make sure that their time spent with us is preparing them for jobs that haven't been invented yet and enabling them in authentic ways to be a productive member of society now. As Dave Mathews says, "The future is no place for your better days." 

And teachers need to be driving these discussions and this change- not policy makers. However, it will require you to redefine yourself. It will require you to unlearn and relearn which means an implementation dip in terms of personal power and knowledge-- but oh well, you are in this for kids remember? This will be messy, but you can't give away what you do not own. You have to own these tools and concepts before you can give them (empower) your students with them. However, once you do- get out of the way and let them show you all the ways to use them to learn that
you never dreamed possible.

Want to be amazed? Check out Laura (a 5th grader's blog) from a project I helped lead in WNY. How many of you can say you have the attention of 30,000 readers and that companies who are known for their giving acts are in regular contact with you? http://twentyfivedays.wordpress.com/   

We think as teachers -- oh ok blogs can help kids learn to write - they will supplement what I,  the teacher does. When the kids think-- hmm blogs, you mean people can hear me? Watch what I can do with this- outside of school- in another node (space) of learning- my home.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Virginia Beach
Networked Learner

photo credit: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/careers/images/articles/stages_of_change.png