21st Century Learning

21st Century Workforce Readiness

I had the opportunity recently to facilitate a group of business, education, political and community leaders in a discussion about developing a workforce ready group of graduates in the 21st Century.

I was given the task of relaying the experience. I have decided to share with you to see if you agree or disagree with these leaders' ideas and action steps and why. I encourage you to read and weigh in in the comment section below. I look forward to your responses.

Executive Summary

Newport News Public Schools is moving quickly to address learning in the 21^st century, its barriers and its possibilities, and kicked things off for 2009 with a 21^st Century Leading and Learning Conference.

As a precursor to the conference, held Jan. 9-10, 2009 at Heritage High School, global and regional leaders in education, business and religious organizations met to brainstorm together 21^st century learning concepts in a Global ThinkTank. 

An electronic global panel discussion kicked off the day’s events with an impressive group of thought leaders from Scotland, Thailand, and the U.S. logging in to Elluminate, a webinar software platform, to share their ideas and answer questions. Bios of the guest speakers can be found here. An archive of the conversation that took place can be found here.

In the following facilitated discussions, leaders were given a chance to voice their opinions about what they saw as barriers to implementation of 21^st Century workforce readiness and a re-culturing of our curriculum to meet the needs of today’s changing student.

Through the economic lens, business leaders expressed a need for 21^st century students to not only be prepared for the technology of the changing world, but to still grasp soft skills needed in the workforce, such as problem solving and leadership skills.

Education leaders saw disconnect between teacher preparation programs and the changing learning environment. High stakes testing was seen as another barrier to learning in the 21^st century.

“That accountability hinders the changes in curriculum and teaching practices needed to impact instruction, problem solving, literacy…”

“If pass rates are high, teachers/students feel a certain sense of fulfillment, but the SOLs are a minimum competency assessment. They are not enough to prepare kids for the future.”

A major theme from the breakout sessions was the disconnect between education and relevance.

“Students need to have the tie in – that what they are learning has relevance to the career they choose.”  

“When kids fall in love with learning it’s because they see the relevance.”

Leaders in the sessions admitted fear as a big barrier to 21^st century learning – the fear of change, of trying something new. This fear hinders the modeling necessary in 21^st century learning.

“Everyone needs to model from top down. . . .Principals model to teachers, teachers model to students, etc.”

After the facilitated discussions, leaders were asked to come up with proactive recommendations to the barriers addressed. From this long list, leaders filtered and organized their recommendations under different categories and then ranked the categories by the most important in their opinion. Some of the top ranked categories included leadership development, cultural awareness, professional/teacher development, partnerships/community involvement and student curriculum.

Empowering educators through leadership development, building relationships and cultural awareness, training and modeling were some of the most recommended steps to overcoming the barriers.

Out of the discussions recommended action statements emerged:

- Inventory the technological skills already available in the division to identify and address gaps. 

- Ask students to teach the teachers how they use technology and how they see these tools being used in a classroom.

- Allow teacher experts to train other teachers so there is no additional cost involved in the training. The business community can also provide in-kind support by providing training in these technologies.

- Build cultural awareness and infuse relevance into our instruction by teaching educators and students the facts of our global economy and community. 

- Teach educators the importance of and how to build their own online personal learning networks as a 21^st Century networking literacy leveraged for student growth.

- Teach students how to develop their own personal learning networks and discriminate information value and organization.

- Use technology to access and examine current events from various world perspectives through original sources and global connections.

- Teach the whole child by using inquiry driven approaches that reexamine curriculum through a 21^st Century lens.

- Work on belief systems, so that they produce citizens who can meet the challenges of this world with confidence and embrace all its people with compassion.

- Develop leadership networks that collaboratively function as professional learning communities to address and solve barriers to learning. These networks would include administrators, teachers, school staff, community and business leaders, and student leaders in the district, state and world.

Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Lead a Group
In addition to the facilitated focus groups that addressed 21^st Century issues, one group of community leaders also had the privilege of interviewing a special guest and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Rebiya Kadeer. A copy of the transcript of her interview can be found in Appendix E.

To review all data collected at the Global ThinkTank please refer to the following appendices:

Appendix A – Participants List- Removed

Appendix B – Round Robin Discussions

Appendix C – Categorization of Ideas

Appendix D – Crafts of Recommendations

Appendix E – Interview with Rebiya Kadeer

Appendix F – Panel Discussion Archive

Appendix B – Round Robin Discussions 

After breaking down into groups, participants engaged in round robin discussions of the barriers to 21^st century learning. They responded to the question, “Thinking in terms of the skills, knowledge, abilities and opportunities needed to prepare today’s students for the 21^st century workforce – what are the barriers that are currently keeping this from happening in our classroom and community?” One participant acted as scribe for the group, recording responses, while another facilitated the discussion. The notes from these discussions are reprinted below.

Group A

Round Robin Notes:

Financial Constraints are a barrier especially when we look at the technology budget. 

 There is not enough investment from all of our organizations.  Exposure and experiences are another part of 21^st century that our students are not getting.  Critical and Creative thinking is a big part of children’s learning.

We got away from the basic skills.  We still need to be able to read, write and do multiplication tables.  Attitudes start at home and are nurtured at school regarding the importance of learning. No matter whether their disposition is to go to college or not, these skills are important and you are not a failure if you don’t go to college.  And students ought not be stigmatized because they want to be a carpenter.  We ought to help kids know what they want to do and then help them do it and not stigmatize them if that means they don’t go to college. 

We are only allowing kids that can’t do to go to vocational classes. 

NNPS has the burden of raising children because of societal issues.  So now schools have to be responsible for social development too. 

Skills, Attitude and Disposition don’t cost a lot of money.

We underestimate kids’ ability to learn.  Expectations build the attitude that is needed. 

There needs to be a better cultural awareness across schools and business and finances need to be available.  Students need to be geared towards their interests not just college.  Tools to help students know their interests are needed and the finances to provide them need to be there.  

You can’t just work with the students and then send them back out in the community.  It needs to be a community effort. 

Young people have built their own community through technology.  Social networking, texting, etc.   We need to pick up on the skills our kids have and build on that with kids. 

As an instructor and parent, I am dealing with fear, not knowing what the kids are doing.  Amazement at kids’ ability to write a report, listen to iTunes and  text all at the same time.  How uncomfortable are educators and parents. 

Importance of educating our community…

Money is a problem.  We don’t have enough equipment.  Teachers are afraid that they are going to break the equipment.  They have to have critical thinking skills.  We are bad about the SOL’s but they have to be able to think.  It is more than rote memorization. 

 Consensus Issues:  Money issues, Critical Thinking, Tapping into the knowledge base of students around technology.

Group B

 I asked the question in the classroom of how our bureaucracy hinders us.  “Every school should be looked at as an independent franchise.”  So students and staff in the building has a sense of ownership.  Mediocre has become acceptable in this country.  I’m a stickler for more independent in the public structure.  Empower the individual school.

The current structure is interrupting the learning potential.

I’m coming from a different background.  I’m new to education.  “My insight is four years out of high school.  I wish I had this in my high school.  Why didn’t we have smart boards in high school or college?”  A lot of school board members are stuck in how school s use to be.  If we focus on that point that people are still involved in this process.  Teachers and students will be more willing to learn. A fear of learning something new seems to prevent the progression of the 21^st century concept.  A Student’s perspective.

Kids who start of in school are excited in the elementary level and by the time they get to high school they are brain dead.  “Why am I learning this?” Teachers have technology in front of them, but they don’t have the role models to know how to use it in the workforce arena because the have nothing to relate to. “We have to train our teachers to learn and teach in a different way.”  Relationship, relevance and investment.  When kids fall in love with learning it’s because they see the relevance.

A lot of what kids learn in the old way of learning is not relevant to what is happening in the real world.  It doesn’t mean necessary learning technology it means teaching kids so it’s meaningful. “We tend to teach kids how we were taught.”  Change is feared. Our perspective is what limits our growth.  One of the largest bearers is not teaching kids collaboratively. 

“For us to see this type of education is amazing.  We do not sit and discuss education in China.  In US a child can study any subject they chose.  That is not the case in China.   The Chinese education system only praises the Chinese government.”  Embrace change! American students should understand how fortunate they are and become global citizens to see how they can make the world a better place.  Later I was in prison for speaking about lack of human rights in education.  It is very important for me to let the children know in America how fortunate they are.

Besides the global competitive gap we need to get our kids to understand the global haves and have-nots.  We have to compete and support in service projects, awareness projects, etc.

Change is the wall that we need to overcome. “If we introduce it the right way it enables one to overcome the obstacles.”  Everyone needs to model from top down. . . .Principals model to teachers, teachers model to students, etc.

What points of consensus emerged in the discussion? The need to learn, teach, train and communicate not only within our community but throughout the world.

On which points were the participants’ responses divided?  none

On which points did participants reveal a wide range of responses?  Student learning, cultural awareness, exposure and appropriate modeling, best practices

Group C

In the classroom, too much emphasis on lower levels of learning due to standardized testing occurring- incredible peer pressure for kids to fit in instead of being individuals. “Kids need knowledge” but we teach facts, but not how they connect to their world.”

A barrier for SPED pop is transition. I like European out of the box thinking. “Keep the bar up, but we know were the students is heading.” Look at the child’s ability and go that track. Train them so they are vocationally sound by the time they exit school (rather than pushing them to be college bound – when we know they may not be). 

A barrier I see is a conformative mentality. We have lost the sense of being an individual. It is not sportsmanship or working as a team. WE have lost a sense of civility. We are not working in teams or offering assistance. Emphasis on SOLs, NCLB, - schools, teachers, principals are evaluated on how kids score on a mc test – critical thinking skills is missing. “The soft-skills of team-work and problem solving need to be part of our education to be ready for the work force.  We need situational leaders in addition to supervisors, etc. Know when to lead, when to step back, be cross-functional”

Barriers:  homelife – a major part for students who don’t have the support structures at home = community issue

School issue = playing the blame game on parents/community

Not all children learn the same way – we teach like they only learn one way. We teach in the same classroom environment as the one from the civil war. We need to convert the methodology of teaching to using the tools kids use today. = relevance!

Kids don’t believe their teachers care about them. So many distractions/baggage in the classroom. Teachers need to be thoughtful and think in terms to being able to relate to a particular student who is different or struggling…the teacher is influential –one of the most influential people in children’s lives. Engagement between teacher and student is critical piece. All the kids aren’t likeable – but they are all human beings, need to have a future. I am not casting aspersions on all teachers, but teachers need to get into the lives of kids – go beyond the content.

Kids cannot relate what they are doing in the classroom that day to the future. There needs to be a connection – this is why dropouts occur. Serious systemic challenges

Serious concern with the SOLs being the end all, be all of education. And it shouldn’t be.  If pass rates are high – teachers/students feel a certain sense of fulfillment – but the SOLs are a minimum competency assessment – they are not enough to prepare kids for the future.

Not enough articulation between colleges and public schools – teacher prep programs. 1^st year teachers often enter the teaching field ill prepared for the reality of teaching and learning in the 21^st century. There is also a disconnect in the classroom in the classroom to the real world = relevance.  There is no questions about the fact that we have different societal practices as before but we cannot let community “situations” interfere with teaching kids.

Global, 21^st century is exciting, but we have to pedal furiously like ducks on a pond.

Lack of training, experiences and connectedness between teacher prep training and teaching reality.

From a SPED perspective, one of the barriers is isolation. If you are the only teacher certified in a certain disability in a building, it can be very isolating.   The emulation exercise could be an interesting way to connect people via technology.

Lost sight of vocational side of education (for SPED students). Unrealistic expectations for students based on their abilities.

The preparation of elementary school teacher = 20 hours of elementary ed. We only test knowledge, not can the teach the knowledge. Does that teacher know how to communicate to that kid and teach him?

Deficit model – we cannot give up on the children, let them drop out and it becomes a community problem.

 Teacher quality is critical – do they know the content? Do they know the pedagogy?

Key barriers

“Trust, communication, team work, caring and vision are missing”.  Issues: “we can’t give up on kids”

We can predict a roadmap of a student (in school, in community) – we see it coming – there needs to be something we can do to prevent it from happening.

Prisons predict future jail population based on 3^rd grade reading pass rates of the SOL.

Most issues were agreed upon by all----

Group D

Barriers to 21st Century Learning

 Guiding Question: Thinking in terms of the skills, knowledge, abilities and the opportunities needed to prepared today’s student for the 21^st century workforce, what are the barriers that are currently keeping this from happening in our classrooms and community?

Respondent 1:

Part of barrier in our community – most of the businesses in our community are not global minded at this time – fear if school system goes ahead, businesses are not going to be ready for the students when they come out of school, her company builds buildings and the global market doesn’t impact what they do on a daily basis – is a progressive student going to be satisfied with what her company has to offer,” I can see there being problems”, students coming out today seeing everything as flexible time as opposed to working standard hours – doesn’t feel there is currently a demand for a supply of technologically advanced students – are they going to be more attracted outside the city of NN – not opposed to what the education system is doing just afraid of the outcomes

Respondent 2:

Colleges and university teaching 1950’s education – works with leadership and universities to redesign teacher and leadership programs – colleges and universities not training teachers to teach in 21^st cent mindset – works with school division leaders as well – just redesigned the principal leadership program – school districts are far ahead of colleges and universities – until we get colleges and univ.’s in line with school divisions, were not going to get there

Respondent 3:

One barrier is our history and educational bureaucracy – not preparing teachers as we are preparing students – 21^st cent. Learning is larger than just the tools – values and work ethic – that is part of the 21^st century skill set as soft skills – schools are still subscribing to minimum competency based standards that is scary concept– economy is a barrier to the success of 21 c learning over the net few years

Respondent 4:

– this area loosing many of its best and brightest – the numbers support that concept that there isn’t as much of a demand – we loose a percentage of our brightest college candidates to other states because the jobs aren’t here – while we focus so much on the tools of technology, there is a loss of values, social skills, personal interactions, teaching respect, but we can’t loose sight of trying to help our students learn how to get along – the heart of how we learn to move our schools forward

Respondent 5:

Education is critical to him – rapid technological advances – cultural lag in applicants that come forward, technology advances exponentially and inversely with students who can use them, analytical abilities not there, lack of motivation – problem with work ethic – no long term goal setting – need to have desire to excel and overcome learning shortfalls, lack of emphasis on why a solid education is important, students need to have the tie in of what they are learning has relevance to the career they choose, need to have long term goals and objectives instilled in kids early, HS diploma doesn’t guarantee students have the skill sets to perform the tasks, students having difficulty passing national exams, goes back to elementary school and the parental support system – we need to look globally, technology is just a small sliver – more emphasis needs to be placed on the soft and human skills – need to have long term objectives and goals, need to realize that college is not a universal goal

Respondent 6:

-emphasis on values and work ethic cant be overstated, starts in preschool with the early education and early intervention, spend years trying to catch up, in many cases they don’t have parents who are educated and realize the importance of all of these skills, reading comprehension and math are critically important need to have other skills before you can really use the technology, people who don’t have the confidence to learn the technology are always playing catch up need to be able to play catch up through self-directed learning, we need to be teaching are children make sure you have enough money to make good decision

Respondent 7:

Key barriers – high stakes accountability testing, when you look at needed competencies that accountability hinders the changes in curriculum and teaching practices needed to impact instruction, problem solving, literacy numeracy, people are beginning to see the importance of that

What about the children who are not going to need 21^st century learning sk

Appendix C – Categorization

After a round robin discussion of barriers to 21^st century learning, participants tackled the task of coming up with proactive solutions and steps to addressing those barriers. They were asked to think in terms of the questions: What’s working now? What’s missing? What can individuals/organizations do? And other innovative ideas not related to overcoming barriers.

Participants then paired up to discuss their steps and find common ideas. After sharing in pairs, participants organized their ideas with sticky notes under different categories, from leadership development to finance and budget issues, among others. After the steps were categorized, participants voted which categories were most important or pressing. These ideas and categories, as well as the weight each category received, are reprinted below.

Leadership Development - 16 Dots

·         Empowerment

·         Great leadership team

·         What about kids who won’t need the tech (21^st) skills to make it in life?

·         Basic skill sets missing: 1. Reading comprehension 2. Math skills 3. Analytical capability

How to motivate students? Need to have desire to overcome

·         Communicate, trust, teamwork

·         Leaders should be able to identify with subordinated as peers

·         Rapid technological advances- cultural log to utilize the advances need to have students

Cultural Awareness - 26 Dots

·         Relationship building

·         Give students an understanding of world

·         Cultural awareness between teachers and students who all “other”

·         Involvement in local and global community

·         Engage stakeholders in global conversations with other cultures to learn from each other

·         Solutions: 1. Create pen-pals in other countries 2. Websites/email/chat with foreign students live under dictatorship countries 3. Teach students about the unfortunate situation of children in other countries 4. Invite representative of foreign student groups to speak on campus 5. Visit the countries of less fortunate children 6.create a textbook on the lives of third world children

Professional Development/ Teacher Development - 27 Dots

·         Training

·         Professional development is learning differently

·         Individuals do- pair with each other to learn new strategies

·         Missing- knowledge of new ways of teaching

·         Teacher internships in business

·         Professional development that is on-going

·         Continue to focus on ways to develop good teachers

·         Teach adults how to be willing to accept empowerment

·         Top-down modeling

·         Overcoming barriers bring higher ed teacher prep programs into 21^st century

·         Teacher training that models that “one size does not fit all”

·         Create teacher candidate residencies in classes of highly effective teachers known for 21^st century skill teaching

·         Must start with the teachers

·         Professional development commit to lifelong learning

·         Develop appropriate professional learning programs for educators

Partnerships/ Community Involvement - 15 Dots

·         Effectively integrating community based programs into schools (mentors)

·         Community participation in schools- let students know what employers expect

·         Higher ed partnering with school districts to solve problems through data collection, analysis and research. Using college students in a clinical model and fieldwork based learning.

·         Increase utilization of social workers and community workers in collaboration with educators

·         Community partnerships are working

·         Invite community members to solution focused meetings

·         Increase community partnerships

·         Build more business partnerships

Student Curriculum - 18 Dots

·         Reprioritize education goals- career goals. Focus on students interests, abilities vs. only “college” goals

·         More class time

·         School-wide global awareness projects

·         Use other tools of assessments (e.g. something different from SOLs) that don’t bog down actual creative teaching- make classroom learning fascinating not repetitive.

·         Basic computer classes in elementary schools

·         Allow students to “educate” students

·         Development of career pathways

·         Expose our students to the human network by giving them a chance to interact with others and the world around them including the use of technology of course but also giving them the chance to see the outside world physically not only on a screen

·         Continue efforts toward differentiation of technological learning

·         Distribute lap tops to students

·         Let kids finish course as they learn it and do something more

Critical Thinking - 10 Dots

·         We need to teach critical thinking skills

·         Focus on lifelong vs. finite/terminal degrees

Engagement of Legislators/ Policy Makers - 9 Dots

·         Work with state legislators and policy makers to change ideas and needs of schools to prepare students

Parents - 8 Dots

·         Increase parental involvement

·         As individuals- learn what’s new- pay attention engage in the unknown

·         Encourage parents to keep in touch with teachers all of time when things are going right or not

·         Telephone call from each teacher to each parent at the beginning of the year

·         Parent involvement

Data Driven Decision Making - 5 Dots

·         Collection of data- not good at analyzing the data

·         Missing- assessments that truly measure what’s important- critical thinking

·         Allow more “independence” for schools

Collaboration - 7 Dots

·         Organizations, educators and community leaders must be open to what works for individuals

·         Teach openness-be open to new ideas

·         Business leaders to help contribute to school computers

·         Create action plans centered around skills needed for success in a society

Finance/Budget - 4 Dots

·         To look at the budget differently

·         Rally public support for our public school initiatives for 21^st century technology

External Resources - 4 Dots

·         Apprentice programs

·         Get rid of textbooks

·         Lap tops to be signed out just like books

Character Development (Soft Skills) - 2 Dots

·         Missing: Soft skills, etc, needed in place? Early development and continued emphasis

·         What’s needed? Etiquette classes as a “required” elective

Early Childhood Education - 2 Dots

·         More early childhood education

Set the Stage-Defining

·         Acceptance of change

·         “21^st century learning” needs to be defined so that everyone can understand exactly what it is without misunderstanding. Misunderstanding=fear=conflict=not productive. Must understand in order to implement and be successful.

·         Reduce the fear by giving a global definition of 21^st century learning

Relevance - 15 Dots

·         Real world education. Relating curriculum to jobs.

·         Organizations make their needs as employers known- join the conversation- help shape the education of their future work force

·         Establish a career emersion program to highlight career opportunities in a non college career path- i.e. Fire Cadet Program

·         Making teaching relevant to today’s learner. i.e. technology/flexible schedules

·         What do/will business need? Now and for the next 100 years!

Communication - 11 Dots

·         Explore learning through collaboration with and without use of technology

·         Effort of teachers/administrators

·         School districts are working together and sharing ideas

·         Open line of communication parent/teacher

·         Now? Kids can “text” 24/7 and think it is the best way to communicate

·         Proliferation of virtual schools

·         Communication between the community and school

·         Home visits

Appendix D – Crafting of Recommendations

 As a final activity, participants again formed their groups to craft specific recommendations for the school system to address barriers to 21^st century learning. Each group’s notes and recommendations from this discussion are reprinted below. Group B interviewed Rebiya Kadeer at the conference and their notes are included in Appendix E.

Group A

Inventory the technological skills already available in the division so that you can then identify the gaps. 

Have students teach the teachers how they use technologies and how they see these tools used in a classroom.

Allow teacher experts to train other teachers so that there is no additional cost involved in the training.  Also, the business community can provide in kind support by providing training in these technologies.

Group C

Cultural Awareness:

Build cultural awareness by teaching educators and students the facts of our global economy/community and infuse relevance into our instruction.

Teach teachers understand how to build their own personal learning online networks so it can them be disseminated to the students.

Teach students how to develop their own personal learning networks – discriminate information

Use current technology to examine current events from various world perspectives.  – ie. Change up the URLs to see what other countries’ perspectives are about the same issue.

Clash of values – disenfranchisement – look beneath the jacket – from disadvantaged to ‘different”

Teach the whole child….

Work on belief systems – can every child learn

Group D

Leadership network,

recognizing leadership qualities

community leadership

educational leadership

Objective

Develop leadership network that includes administrators, teachers, school staff, community and business leaders, and student leaders; that collaboratively function as professional learning communities to address and solve barriers to learning

Action Steps – Option I

Research current models of PLC’s and compare information             

Develop a school and/or district leadership team

Develop a clear communication system to share information, etc. with all stakeholders

Empower leadership team members and distribute leadership responsibilities

Build capacity within the school/district that encourages and ensures sustainability

Action Steps – Option I

Identify the stakeholders in the school community who should be invited to participate in the network.

Identify barriers to the target

Empower members of the network to lead data collection analyze the results to network and all stakeholders

Provide recommendations/approaches to solve the problem or remove the barrier

Appendix E – Rebiya Kadeer

Rebiya Kadeer, Chinese businesswoman and political activist, attended the conference and participants had a chance to work with her in a small group. Participants interviewed Kadeer, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, about her life, which included being tried and imprisoned in 1999 until 2005 when the United States pressured for her release. The following are notes from that discussion.

Concept: Reform

We would die for freedom in China.  I think that’s why your people take things for granted.  We take nothing for grant in my culture.  It’s a very unique culture.  We have our own music.  In our culture women are trained to cook.  We have respect for animals and we have stories related to these animals imbedded in our culture. 

The Chinese government could wipe us all out.  People would be detained if they learned a foreign language.  By being multi-cultural students can learn about any cultural.  They have the opportunity and privilege.  There are less then 1,000 Uyghurs in this country.  The government separated their people throughout China to keep them from forming strength.  Her two sons are in prison because of what she is doing in this country.  All her grandchildren were kicked out of school.  In China the entire family is punished when one family member does something wrong. 

Were you limited because of tracking or because you are a female?  I was limited because of my families’ social class. 

The government strips you naked of your freedom, your religion, your rights to force you to become Chinese.  The Chinese government is trying to wipe out our language.

Professors, teachers, professionals were fired and forced to become janitors or unemployed because they could not speak or teach in Chinese.

How was she able to create a business?  When the former Chinese president was in place he allowed for a few lower class citizens become business owners in an attempt to become wealthy.

Appendix F – Panel Discussion

 An electronic global panel discussion kicked off the day’s events with an impressive group of thought leaders from Scotland, Thailand, and the U.S. logging in to Elluminate, a webinar software platform, to share their ideas and answer questions.

 Biographies of the guest speakers can be found here:

http://21stcenturylearning.wikispaces.com/NNPS+Symposium

An archive of the Elluminate session can be found here

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/meeting.jnlp?suid=M.B35EA4F8E3D03B8032D6C429C65CB0

Video Podcast - Chillin' with Kevin

Do you know Kevin Honeycutt? If you do not, you should. He is wise, talented, sincere, loves kids, and wildly funny. Here is a vidcast we did at the recent NCAETC conference. The most fun I have ever had in an interview.

Making Change Happen

A year or two ago I had the pleasure of teaching/learning with a group of very sharp graduate preservice teachers. Today I find this in my mailbox.
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Hi Sheryl!
It's XXXXX. In case you can't remember me, I was in your technology class at William and Mary a couple of years ago. But of course you remember me, your help with my thesis was invaluable.

Something happened last week that made me think of you so I decided to get in touch. Our TIS (Technology Integration Specialist) declared me "Geek of the Week" and put my picture in the hallway. Apparently, I can no longer remain the wallflower--my secret is out. And I think I have you to thank for being declared a geek.

First, I guess a little background is needed. I am beginning my third year teaching Kindergarten. I teach half day Kindergarten, so I have two classes and 42 students. We have three SmartBoards at our school, one of which is permanently set up in a classroom. We can sign up to take our students in whenever it is free. I love the SmartBoard. I want one in my room. I was the first to take my class down the hall and thus was declared "Geek of the Week."  Of course, this led to much taunting, three requests from colleagues to show them how to use the SmartBoard (I had to hold my own little after-school tutoring session), and many comments that I used the technology because I was young. I keep telling people that it does not matter if you have been teaching 2 years or 20, everyone is capable of using technology in their instruction, but they don't seem to believe me.

I think it was really your class and the way you thought about technology that inspired me. It isn't an add-on, it isn't one more thing they make us do, it is really an integral part of everyday life and should be an integral part of education.

I get to present information in a new way and it holds their attention like nothing else. I was in the lab on Thursday with my afternoon class: 23 students, 15 boys! They are busy to say the least. Just sitting on the carpet in a major hassle. But as we were interacting with the SmartBoard, I turned and realized all 23 students were looking at me, sitting the right way and really just being perfect angels. I wish more people realized the power of technology to teach.

But I guess that is what you are up to. Out there in 9,000 different venues pushing what you believe in. I think it is awesome. I am trying to follow in your footsteps in my own way. Our entire Kindergarten program is based around thematic education and I have tried to show people that a theme is more than what type of clip art is on your math paper. I have established our presence in the SmartBoard room as a regular weekly occurance and I am the first teacher at my school to have a webpage. My principal even approached me about giving a presentation to the staff about my webpage to see if others might be interested.

So, Thanks. Thank you for inspiring me to use technology in my classroom and forcing us to make webpages, so I actually know how.

I hope all is well with you. I Googled you. You seem really busy. But I know that is just the way you like it.
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Well at least one student was listening.  :) This is what I love about 21st Century Teaching-- if you empower/enable a preservice teacher and model how they should teach within your own higher education instruction-- then when they set up their classroom two things will happen:

1. They will also use  21st Century strategies in their classroom and feel good about it.
2.  Even as a novice teacher they will operate in a leadership capacity by default because of the new strategies and concepts they bring with them to the school setting.

My goal is to create a change agent out of every preservice teacher I touch.   

Anne Davis Rocks

Wow. Talk about blown away! My students have been emailing me with excitement each time Anne Davis or anyone for that matter leaves them a comment. One of my students took joy in letting each one know they are not "special" in that Anne comments on everyone's blog. Well, just a few minutes ago I found out just how special my class is to have someone like Anne reading their first attempts at blogging.

Check out what she wrote- I hope Anne will forgive me for reposting her blog here, but in my opinion it warrants repeating.

You’ve come a long way baby!  -- Written by Anne Davis

April 26th, 2007 11:46 am

The bouncing baby bloggers entered the blogosphere with this delightful announcement this past February. To say that have come a long way is an understatement. Remember all you seasoned edubloggers out there, as Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach said in reply to comments on the announcement “it takes a whole blogosphere to raise a digital child.” Sheryl is their instructor for their class. Here’s the course wiki. So if you haven’t commented to any of them consider doing just that before they close the class in May. Give them the benefit of your experiences and wish them well. I’d like to whet your appetite for some of their interesting thoughts on their learning. Of course you’ll need to travel to their blogs to read some of the conclusions - a great way to spend a few minutes of your day! Enjoy!

Chris of c.michaels says Own It!

All semester our professors have been continuously talking about the idea of ownership and how students need to own their learning in order for them to better understand the material. My first impression of this idea, was that is completely ridiculous. It simply didn’t make any sense. As I heard more and more though, it made more sense and it seemed like it might actually be effective in the classroom. Now after being in the classroom for a few months and looking specifically for examples, I’ve seen it and that it does indeed work.

Kimberly of EDUC 330 (incorrectly                              

) labeled herself as Computer Unable in a beginning post had this to say in Learning through practice.

Working in pairs on Monday the class split up to complete a public service announcement about forest fires by using video clips, audio clips, and photos. The iMovie program proved to be simple to use with the guide, and we cut, edited, added transitions, and completed a video in one class period. I was amazed at how simple it was to create the video. I would definitely consider using this technology in an elementary classroom.

Rachel of EDUC 330 proclaims “I Have Seen the Light!!!”

Praise the Lord - I understand! To be completely honest, all throughout my learning of how to incorporate technology into the everyday classroom, I’ve had doubts. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of fluidly using technology in elementary lessons without it being a huge distraction (or in my case, complication). Yes, I heard mentors talk about blogging, wikis, projects, etc. but growing up without technology in the classroom and not seeing it used, it was a stretch of the imagination for me.

Priyanka of Teachers’ Words of Wisdom expresses horror and follows up with good counter points on What, No Recess?!?!

I was horrified to read that 40 percent of American schools have or would be eliminating recess! I couldn’t believe it! In Changing The Recess Paradigm?, it talks about how quite a few schools want to cut down on recess in order to increase more academic instruction.

Megan of Megan McInnes on her post Observing Technology in the Classroom shares some real benefits in technology as a tool for learning.

What was the neatest thing for me to see was there was a student in the class that had a few disabilities. I thought it was so neat how well his project was done. Using this technology of making a video really seemed to suit his learning style and the limitations he had. Now I can see how important technology can be for students like him, he could present what he learned in a technological fashion allowing him to learn and do the same projects as his classmates.

Andrew of Learning Enhanced Technology shares a new tool, WOT, that sounds quite interesting.

WOT is a social networking device designed to enhance internet safety and reliability. I downloaded Wot yesterday as a browser extension for Firefox and am intrigued. WOT allows you to check the reliability of a website based on user feedback, so that when you go to a website the WOT icon shows whether or not other users view the website as safe and reliable based on a general trustworthiness meter, reliability as a business partner, as a keeper of personal information, and as a safe destination for children.

Sarah of Sarah’s Technology Enhanced Learning posted about students’ reactions to technology in “Teaching about Plane Shapes” .

I can’t put into words how shocked I was by the student’s reaction to the laptop, it was the equivalent of buying a new driver a brand new car when they get their license. They were absolutely thrilled and their excitement for technology really made me think about how much I take computers and my laptop for granted. It also made me think about how little the students must be using the computers in their school if it seems so novel to them when I presented them with a computer. I also found it unique how I was able to take a technology free lesson and turn it into a technology friendly lesson. I know that it strengthened this lesson.

Sharlene of If you give a girl technology shares a post entitled “Education In a Non-Traditional Classroom Setting” about an after school program that she finds promising.

Going above and beyond the required basics of model after-school programs, this program provides economically disadvantaged students opportunities that may not have been readily available to them prior to this experience.

Monica of Me & Technology has a profound post that will touch your heart. The title of the post is The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.. by Shel Silverstein.

Wednesday evening, a 20 year old sat in the children’s books’ section and read this short simple story, but found a strong and courageous message

Angel of Ariana’s mom posts thoughtfully about Protecting Our Students!

The tragedy at Virginia Tech has really caused me to think of my life, my future career and my family and put everything into perspective. The story of the Professor who was a Holocaust survivor and risked his life and died trying to save his students touched me deeply. It caused me to reevaluate what my role as a teacher will be.

Jennifer of techlife is feeling Technologically Torn.

Technology has its pros and cons and there are definitely situations when it is difficult to determine which side outweighs the other.

Lizzie of The new and improved technological Lizzie shares her continuing journey to use technology in the classroom with this post, So I used Technology…a little bit.

I had this wonderful lesson plan all ready and created to use to integrate technology within my classroom, but as soon as I had it done my class was done learning about that subject. So I switched really quickly into integrated technology into the science circus that I taught with Angel.

Katie of Designs for Tech gives a thorough Lesson Plan Critique.

Even though the lesson was quite stressful, it was 100% worth the stress and effort. The students begged for math to continue when I told them the lesson was done and I am scheduled to go back in a week to allow the students more time to play math games during their “Friday fun.”

Lydia

of Technology Enhanced Learning has many good reflections on her blog. Her closing statement on High Stakes resonates with me.

Hopefully soon, our nation will return to valuing more than test scores.

Amy of EDUC 330 is seeing the value of having her materials on a wiki in Wikis and Webquests.

I always wondered why W&M was pushing for us to create an online portfolio. It is so inconvenient to make and it’s almost like learning another language. However, today it hit me when i was talking to my CT. I was planning the math lesson for next week and she asked me if she could look at my lesson plan to review it and make sure it fit into her curriculum. I told her that the lesson plan is saved on my computer and that I didn’t have access to it now. I was in the process of making another appointment with her when it hit me that I had uploaded it onto my wiki. I pulled up the wiki and my lesson was there! We were able to look at it right then and there. It felt really cool to have my stuff on the web and I didn’t even have to e-mail it to myself or print it out. Now I understand a little better how an online portfolio could come in great handy!

Amaya of Amaya’s Edutastic Blog has a really intriguing post on Teaching is Candy…No…Cookies…and I’m A Cookie Monster!

I challenge all three of the people who read this blog to pose a simple question to someone today, and see if you can’t change their life for the better. Maybe you’ll get a “fine” or maybe a “well, thank you, how are you?” But, you could get a “well, I have this problem with my mother, well, not really with my mother, but, wait, sit down and I’ll tell you… I think I want to be an elementary school teacher, but I’m not sure and I really need to talk to someone about it, but my mom lost her cell phone.” Don’t you wish you’d listened before?

Photo credit: http://www.stopdesign.com/log/img/200312/hp_blog_lg.jpg

Jeff Utecht's Tough Audience

Each Monday this semester my elementary preservice education students have been hearing from a variety of educational bloggers, many of them practicing classroom teachers, via  Elluminate on how they use technology to teach content based objectives. (See the class wiki)

Jeff Utecht had the tough job of his vitual Monday falling on April 16, the day of the Va Tech shootings. In addition, he had to get up at 2am (Shanghai time) to present.  He did an amazing job! Here is a copy of his archive if you would like to see what he had to share. He has also  created a support page on the class wiki.  I especially loved Jeff's connection activity he used to introduce his session.

Jeff is such an awesome role model for us all.  If you  are not famlar with his work-- you should be.  Thanks Jeff.

It Is Still About the Learning...

I was over on Christopher Sessums site today. If you do not have him in your feed, you are missing out. His blog is the perfect mix of art, information and intellect. This post caught my eye:Educational Technology and Teacher Preparation: Bridging Theory to Practice. Chris does a wonderful job of looking at the struggles teacher educators have with technology adoption, which in turn creates a struggle for preservice adoption, which in turn carries over to the classroom. As you can imagine a wonderful, engaging conversation began in the comments. One comment jumped out at me...Kelly says...

Christopher, so much to be done at so many levels. After reading through Will Richarson's discussion with soon-to-be-teachers and having several interns in our school in the past few years, it is clear that the new teachers will not bring about the momentus change in technology use that many thought would happen. From my perspective, we need to look to the people in the middle, those who have been teaching for a while yet who are willing to try new things. To me, they are the best hope. They are not struggling with all the stresses of new teachers nor are near the end of their careers. Most have children that are "wired" all day and see the possibilities of what could be done. We almost need to focus on a retraining program and then have these teachers be mentors. As someone in the middle of my career, I would love to do more work with technology and help others to do it but the time just isn't there no matter how I refine my schedule. As for higher learning, it is in the same rut. We've been waiting for quite a long time for there to be a change in teacher education. It must become a priority and this will only happen once we have gone the next step and begun to hire people who see that technology is important and not an add-on because they live with it. I feel that, until we see a movement in the upper administrative positions in these areas, technology will not be a part of the whole picture.

There were other comments too - all passionate and brilliant laying out well thought ideas. But Kelly's comments and one about tech integration kept gnawing at me. So I responded with this:

We have to stop thinking of it as integration and start thinking of it as teaching in the 21st Century. At what point did we stop thinking of the whiteboard as new technology and it became simply a medium through which we communicated to our classes.

Not sure I agree with preservice teachers not being part of the solution. If Ingersoll is right and 1/3 of the teaching force is retiring or leaving, then these bright idealist could truly become the tipping point for true educational reform. What I have noticed is this--

1. Who we think of when we think of netgenrs are not showing up in my ICT education courses. It is as if we draw the technophobic/resistent to education.

2. However, when they spend a semester in a virtual community with tech savvy minds from the blogosohere, when they start blogging for deep reflection based on what they are reading in their content classes and in the edublogosphere, when they start co-creating the syllabus and direction of the class and actually start using the tools and planning for the kids to use the tools to create and collaborate in their lessons--something happens. A light comes on and they see kids getting totally turned on by learning. Then they become true advocates.

My last few weeks are spent showing them how even as novices entering the workforce they can be teacher leaders. That teacher leadership is when you have an expertise to bring that can help other teachers- help their students achieve. That their expertise in 21st Century teaching skills makes them teacher leaders by default and advocates for children. By cultivating an attitude of advocacy early on, these fresh minds who can still remember why they went into teaching- "want to change the world and help kids"- are bold in advocating for using knowledge management tools, adaptive expertise, modeling connectivism, and being ok with the messy side of change.

I do think we need to be breathing life into mid-career teachers as  well, but I place my money on those who havent been tainted by the system or jaded by disempowerment- as being the real power behind educational reform.

We really need to focus on teacher prep programs -- cant wait to read Linda's new book, thanks for sharing.

Then I scooted over to David Warlick's site reading this post. Diane Hammond rocked my world with this-

“She talked about how they teach teachers to collaborate.”

I wonder if we shouldn’t be lowering the profile of the technology in these conversations with teachers and just focus on getting the job done. Why do the teachers want to collaborate? What do they expect to accomplish? What impact will collaboration have on professional practice? These are the questions they should be getting their heads around. The technology should be incidental, merely tools to accomplish specific tasks.

I don’t notice “technological apprehension” in other professional groups as much as I do in education. For instance my husband had a new ocular imaging system installed in his office last week. This is completely new equipment, software and processes for the office staff. This week staff are familiarizing themselves with the camera, imaging and analysis software, and patient database. We aren’t hearing questions such as “Why do I have to learn this; how will I learn this; how will I keep up?” Everyone is focussed on the end result, improved patient care. The staff are getting some preliminary images that are too dark or out of focus. They are practising and working together to take clearer, sharper images that will show the healthy eye, or the pathology, the doctors are looking for. Along the way…they’ll master the technology…

Why don’t we do that in schools - job-embed learning opportunities and give teachers a variety of tools to meet their pedagogical goals? Then along the way…

It Is What You Want to Do and Learn That Matters!

I couldn't agree more. I ask teachers all the time- When do you think about the air conditioning/heating unit? They always respond, "When it isn't working." EXACTLY!  Web 2.0  and other technologies should be just like that. You do not even notice them. They are so not the point. Have you ever seen this?  Proving change is always seen as premature.

Change will happen when we have a reculturation of the institution of school. When we focus on what is important rather than the tools. We are like a bunch of 4th graders who have just been given math manipulatives for the first time-- we have to play and explore with them first before we can actual get down to business of using them for learning.

Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/434872938/

Vinnie's Virtual Monday

If I was ever to believe there are computer gremlins, today would have been the day. Today's Virtual Monday speaker was Vinnie Vrotny and despite the tech issues we had in Elluminate he did a wonderful job. Vinnie's school is doing some incredible things with their students. You absolutely need to check out his resources on the class wiki. Also, you can catch the archive of his presentation here.

From student made digital movies about Vietnam to Google Sktechups of student created Mayan Villages, Vinnie and his colleagues are modeling for all of us the wonderful things we can do with open source tools to make students content creators rather than content consumers. Also a big thanks for Annie and Frank, two of the teachers at Vinnie's school for joining us today.

Tech Enhanced Learning and Social Networking as a Degree

Interesting discussion over on Will's site.  University of Michigan is offering a M.A. specialization in Social Computing.

Here’s the list of courses you have to take:

• SI 508: Networks: Theory and Application (3 credits)
• SI 532 Digital Government I: Information Technology and Democratic Politics (1.5 credits)
• SI 583: Recommender Systems (1.5 credits)
• SI 631: Content Management Systems (3 credits)
• SI 679: Aggregation and Prediction Markets (1.5 credits)
• SI 683: Reputation Systems (1.5 credits)
• SI 684: eCommunities: Analysis and Design of Online Interaction Environments (3cr)
• SI 689: Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (3 credits)

Amusing for Sure
I responded in his comments.

The part I find amusing is the content to be covered is an established set of courses-very linear. It kind of defeats the purpose of social networking which emerges out of an organic mix of "wisdom of the crowds" and "just in time" learning.

I have had a blast this semester with a course I am teaching at The College of William and Mary. I came with a general syllabus of concepts and then a suggested tentative schedule.

From day one I told them this would be a constructivist course modeling social networking and connectivism that would be built from student passion and interest. I contacted a few practicing teachers from the international blogosphere-- as I feel the content of teacher prep courses should be developed and often taught by those who are in the field--asking them if they would like to help teach the course. I showed them the course outline and said either pick a topic from there (topics are described in general ways so lots of room for redesign) or suggest one you think should be included.

I created a wiki and as a class we began to create. I model daily how to build a network and gain access to the content you need through access to experts around the world. We do not use a text, rather we use resources we are collectively building.

Virtual Mondays
Each Monday's class is virtual and the various teachers in the blogosphere present. Each Wednesday's class is spent creating content and unpacking the things we are learning together through this experience and in their other content courses in terms of how it all translates to 21st Century teaching and learning.

Mark Wagner and Aimee Smith
The two most recent speakers were Aimee Smith, who spoke on email and asynchronous discussions and Mark Wagner, who spoke on educational gaming and constructivist theory. Aimee's archive can be seen here and Mark's can be seen here.

Electronic Mentoring

In addition, we all engage in an electronic virtual learning community that consists of student teachers (another class I have) highly accomplished tech savvy teachers from around the globe and this class of students.

 All the students have started to blog and have created their own wiki space. Several projects have developed from the students collaborating together on their own and with others in their growing personal networks.

It isnt a degree in social computing but very much an example of how you can use a higher education course to help students (preservice teachers) make sense of all they are learning (both in and out of class) through a school of the future lens. Much like in the day of Socrates -- it helps to have a critical friend there modeling and asking hard questions for self- reflection.

Giving Back

The important thing to note-- as in any good learning ecology I am learning as much as I hope they are. I am also very grateful to those in the blogoshere (especially Anne Davis and Lani Ritter-Hall) for taking time to nurture these future teachers through their unsolicited comments on their blogs.

Feedback Wanted
If you would like to check it all out I would be interested in your feedback-
http://techenhancedlearning.wikispaces.com/

Photo credit:http://diskurs.hum.aau.dk/english/dexus3/images/collaboration.jpg

Vicki Davis - Teacher Extraordinare

Vicky Rocked the House

Vicki Davis graciously agreed to present during a Virtual Monday for my EDUC 330 course. She rocked the house. But did you really expect any less? Her presentation is on wikis. The archive can be viewed here. Her page on the class wiki can be viewed here and it has all her resources and the presentation she used.

The students have been contacting me in Skype all buzzing about how much they understood and enjoyed what she taught.

I first "met" Vicki as one of the presenters for the K-12Online Conference of which I served as an organizer. Then rediscovered her through Women of the Web 2.0. She is a prolific poster to her blog and is known for breaking Web 2.0 pieces down into understandable bits that are easy to implement in the classroom. On behalf of my students-- thanks Vicki!

Giving Back to the Profession