21st Century Learning

Community: Personal Reflections from Then and Now

I have been reflecting this morning on community and its place in my life and learning.

Communal Living and Community
My first experiences happened as a young woman living on The Farm, the largest successful commune in America. It was there that I first began to see the power of relationships in enabling others toward positive change and the concept of how identity is formed through meaningful social interaction and conversations around practice and reform.

"Utopian thought, as the basis of communal ideology, idealizes social unity and maintains that humanness exists only in intimate and collective life" (Kanter, 1972, p.32). While on the Farm, my thoughts on justice, sincerity, honesty, and humanity really started to take shape.The foundation was laid to rethink the status quo, respectfully question authority, and always stand up against unjust acts towards marginalized populations. The desire to become a voice for the voiceless was birthed.

Christian Community
In my late twenties, I discovered the loving community that comes from belonging to a group of people who are held accountable to one another in relationship under a set of established spiritual beliefs. I came to learn and grow so much as a mother, daughter, and individual through the vertical and horizontal relationships  I developed overtime as a Christian. The molding and shaping of my character and personality through the exercise of being held collectively to a higher standard gave me the tools needed to be self-governed and disciplined. The unconditional love and friendship I received as part of the Christian community, nurtured me through the negative effects of my childhood and the untimely death of my spouse when my daughters were just one and two years old. The relationships I formed taught me through a social learning process how to be a good mother and a woman of integrity. I am still growing into  someone who tries very hard to embrace personal excellence, always holding myself to this high standard, but yet allowing others to have the grace to choose their own path and way.

Virtual Community
In my mid-thirties I got my first computer. I was running a small, innovative K-12 school at the time called Friendship Bridge, as well as teaching preservice teachers at Valdosta State University as an adjunct. Immediately, I discovered bulletin boards and IRC chat and began to establish a network of content experts and friends from around the world who became my personal learning network. We would connect at various times throughout our day sharing what we were learning. There was a solider in Germany who  taught me about networking and hardware, a father and hockey enthusiast in Canada who joined me in experimenting and pushing the new tools to the limit, a brilliant young man in his 20s that was living in Florida who was trapped somewhat by his circumstance and spent his boredom at the public library, sequentially reading every book on the shelf and then sharing with me each author's ideas, and countless others who each left their mark upon my life- some for my betterment and some - well, they were not so positive, but it was community and we were all left changed by the ideas of the other.

It reminds me of Tennyson's poem Ulysses:

I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

I continue to be molded and shaped by the relationships I form around the world.

Community of Practice
When I came to Virginia in 1997, I tried to escape education. I worked for awhile as a MCSE trainer helping various network engineers get their industry certifications. I was struck by how competitive the field was and how little community existed. While the money was incredible, I missed children, teachers, and the potential for positive change (both individual and systemic) that I felt when teaching. So I took a position with a high need (many homeless children) elementary school as a computer resource teacher in hopes to give back for all I had been given.

What I observed in terms of community in our large school district was what Richard Elmore (2002) describes as a buffer- a protective barrier that discourages and even punishes close, constructive scrutiny of instruction and the supervision of instruction. Its primary effect is to protect these two—the heart of schooling—“from outside inspection, interference, or disruption” (p. 6).

The buffer prevents true communities of practice from developing and from teachers and educational leaders being able to learn more about what is working within the classroom. It prevents teachers from knowing what or how well they or their colleagues (both local and global) teach. It deprives us all of any meaningful frame of reference and discourages us from learning from each other.

I remember my mentor Greg Anderson, who served as the principal of my school, warning me that I was using technology as a rebel would. That our district  used a culture of equity- all schools were equally as good as the other- even if that perceived equity meant schools simply met and perpetuated the status quo. Greg, in spirit, supported my change efforts (when he felt they were in the best interest of children) although he didn't want a "loose cannon" causing him to lose his job in the process.

I  pushed the teachers at my school to see technology as a communication and collaboration tool. As a way to connect with others and remove the barriers of isolation the four walls of the classroom created. I wanted technology to provide transparency, the same transparency I had experienced on the Farm and in my small school and in the Christian community. I wanted technology to help students and teachers connect with others around the world in an effort to make lasting change in the way we live and learn in schools.

Judith Little (1993) has often talked about the private, protected world of teaching:

In large numbers of schools, and for long periods of time, teachers are colleagues in name only. They work out of sight and hearing of one another, plan and prepare their lessons and materials alone, and struggle on their own to solve most of their instructional, curricular, and management problems.

She and others see this approach of non-interference, privacy, and harmony as part of the problem in that it prevents us from getting to the root of what needs to change in schools. This culture of privacy and non-interference is fertile soil for maintaining status quo. However, she goes on to say,

Against this almost uniform backdrop of isolated work, some schools stand out for the professional relationship they foster among teachers. These schools, more than others, are organized to permit the sort of reflection…that has been largely absent from professional preparation and professional work in schools. For teachers in such schools, work involves colleagueship of a more substantial sort. Recognition and satisfaction stem not only from being a masterful teacher, but also from being a member of a masterful group.

It was this kind of community, this kind of meaningful dialog I so fervently wanted to see happen. I wanted to break through the buffer so that collectively teachers could see the status quo for what it was and through the collective wisdom and strong relationships within the community, make a courageous commitment to challenge and change the status quo.

Teacher Leadership and Community
The first opportunity I had for this to happen was within the Teacher Leaders Network (TLN). Terry Dozier, for whom I was leading the Virginia Teacher Leader Forum, sent me in her stead to a steering committee meeting for the development of a national virtual community of practice for teacher leaders across the country. The Center for Teaching quality had gotten the recommendations for 200 top educators who were not only highly accomplished but were articulate and positioned locally as change agents. What was birthed out of that meeting was TLN and under the nurturing leadership of John Norton (community of practice expert) and CTQ's president Barnett Berry (national edc. policy leader) has grown to become one of the most visible groups of teachers impacting educational policy in the nation. It is through TLN that I am personally shaped and challenged daily. This is my community of practice.

Bielaczyc & Collins (1999) describe a community of practice as:

The defining quality of a learning community is that 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.

This is a radical departure from the traditional view of schooling, with its emphasis on individual knowledge and performance, and the expectation that students/teachers will acquire the same body of knowledge at the same time. Yet this is the model that not only provides systemic change, but holds the potential for a change initiative to push beyond the incremental culture of change expected in schools  to one of exponential reform that produces results now- so that our kids get what they need now, not after they graduate or from their own efforts.

21st Century Community
Through John Norton, I met Cathy Gassenheimer of the Alabama Best Practice Center.  Together we wrote a proposal that was funded by Microsoft that took the best of all of our experiences around using community as a vehicle of change. We created a 21st Century teaching and learning collaborative that used Web 2.0 tools to connect 40 school teams across the state in exploration and understanding of using personal networking literacies to change their practice.  We are currently in the third year of the project and teachers this year are focusing on the needed changes in pedagogy that relate to the new tools and changed paradigm. Working with student teams and other stakeholders, the impact of our efforts is being seen virally in the spread of these ideas throughout schools and across the state. Most recently, the state of Alabama has been in negociations with the Partnership of 21st Century Skills to become a partnership state.

Building Community Online
Communities of practice are clusters of people who share a concern or passion for something they do and as they interact regularly, they improve (Wenger, 1998). A driving force behind a community of practice is community knowledge, in which the sum of the collective knowledge is greater the sum of the individual knowledge (Gherardi & Nicolini, 2002) therefore as the collective knowledge grows stronger, so does the individual's knowledge (Bielaczyc & Collins, 1999). They operate on the premise, "None of us is as good as all of us." Wenger (2004) also suggests that by focusing on the system or the group as a whole, does not imply that the individual should be ignored.

Hall and Hord (1987) emphasized, organizations do not change - individuals do. However, it is through the relationships that learning occurs. McDermott (in Murphy 1999, p.17) describes it this way:

Learning traditionally gets measured on the assumption that it is a possession of individuals that can be found inside their heads…[Here] learning is in the relationships between people. Learning is the conditions that bring people together and organize a point of contact that allows for particular pieces of information to take on relevance; without the points of contact, without the system of relevancies, there is not learning, and there is little memory. Learning does not belong to the individual persons, but to the various conversations of which they are a part.

According to Wenger (1998) not all communities are communities of practice. Three characteristics must be in place: 1) a common commitment to the same sphere of influence (you couldn’t be in someone's community and not know it 2) community- members are engaged in activity and discussions; they help one another, and share information. 3) active practice- members are not just united by interests but by practice.

Is Twitter a Community?
So how does community fit in online? Are the relationships forged in the blogosphere and other social networking sites like Twitter, Delicious, Flickr, NING, Tapped In, and others - true community? Or are they networking or as some suggest a new learning theory all together called connectivism?

According to George Seimens, the principles of connectivism are:

• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information    sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
• Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is          a core skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

Virtual Learning Communities
Emerging technologies such as social networking and other Web-based tools have the potential to offer opportunities for new kinds of communities of practice for teachers and students. These tools bring enormous leverage to teachers at relatively little cost — intellectual leverage, social leverage, media leverage. Virtual learning communities use technology to established connections across barriers of time and space (Johnson, 2001). Teachers can participate in discussions at their convenience- anytime, anyplace.

A burgeoning body of opinion and research suggests that virtual learning communities are becoming the venue through which agents for change operate (Palloff & Pratt, 1999: Johnson, 2001; Barab & Duffy, 1998; Dede, 2003). The potential is enormous, as knowledge capital is collected and the community becomes a sort of an online brain trust, representing a highly varied accumulation of expertise.

According to Dede (2003) the most important challenge for educational leaders today is fostering 21^st Century skills and knowledge in today's students so they will be prepared to participate in our global economy. This challenge requires that teachers understand what types of knowledge and skills are required in leading edge workplaces and future careers. Teachers will also need to become adept at higher order cognitive, affective, and social skills such as systems thinking, creativity, and collaboration. This will require transformational strategies for developing deeper core content, new models of pedagogy, and development of personal learning networks (Dede, 1998).

Virtual learning communities are one way to provide the intellectual, emotional, and social support needed for teachers to unlearn and relearn contextually in an effort to bring about the needed behavior changes necessary to make way for the next generation of classroom practices (Dede, 1999).

Personal Learning Practice
Most  recently, my thoughts around community are playing out in the work I am doing  with Will Richardson  through our new LLC Powerful Learning Practice. Both Will and I believe that a teacher needs personal experience with the new literacies, using them to learn about their own passionate interests before applying them to the classroom. The reason many 21st Century teaching and learning projects have failed to make significant changes in school culture is directly related to both the buffer concept mentioned above and a lack of ownership and nurturing teachers need for these strategies to become pedagogically sound.  Learning, applying, and deepening understanding of the shifts in the changing learning landscape and how to use the new Web tools to break through the buffers of isolation occurs best in communities of practice. 

It is with great excitement that I look to 2008 to see how my understanding of community will grow and the new directions I will take in my own personal learning and the relationships I will develop along the way.

Teacher Friendly Professional Development

In this day and age of school reform, many are looking to how we train teachers as the key to educational improvement. Research shows that on average school districts spend the equivalent of $200 per pupil on professional development and these learning experiences add both time and effort demands on a teachers already impossible day (Killeen, 2002).

The federal No Child Left Behind Act’s emphasis on results has prompted school system leaders, staff developers, principals, and
teachers to become much more deliberate about the professional-development choices they make.

While our profession more than ever needs to build capacity in its teachers, we also need to be sure that time, energy, and resources are used only on "quality programs that teach with and about best practice" (Dede, 2006, p.1).

The World is Changing
Today, new and emerging Web technologies are connecting our children in ways never before possible. Through blogs, social networking sites, multimedia and other “Web 2.0” tools, their worlds are becoming more and more networked and engaging, creating environments for learning and collaborating
that look little like our traditional classroom spaces.

Schools, Not So Much
Conversely, schools have by and large been resistant to these shifts. Teachers complain, maybe rightly so, that they simply do not have the time to master the needed strategies. Attempts to gain the knowledge needed through workshops are often fragmented and unable to provide the ongoing daily guidance needed as teachers attempt to implement needed change in practice.

The Role of Community to Bring about School Reform
However, the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) across schools districts is one solution experience has shown me really works. Using a combination of face to face, synchronous and asynchronous meetings in a variety of settings (school-based, state-wide, and global) professional learning teams can participate in professional development that is tailored to teachers' busy schedules, while drawing on the valuable resources/experts not available locally, and that provides work-embedded support.

My Contribution to Educational Reform
Using the experience I garnered from the pilot I helped to develop and lead in Alabama, Will Richardson and I have recently teamed together to connect small teams of educators from around the globe in 21st Century learning environments. Our approach is different than the work in Alabama, but the intended outcomes are the same- bring education into the 21st Century.

Will and I are also working with administrators within the participating schools and districts in the development of systemic plans that lay the groundwork for a three and five-year vision for principled change. Our Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) project is currently helping educators to experience the transformative potential of social Web tools to build global learning communities and re-envision their own personal learning practice.

Outcome-Making the World a Better Place
The opportunities for learning thus far have been incredible. But the one that simply rocked my world is a project that one of the teacher leaders involved with our work helped her daughter create.

Laura, a ten-year old girl in upstate New York started a blog Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference that in just a week’s time has caught the interest of a whole bunch of kids from around the world (media too) who want to make a difference as well. Talk about transformative! Laura offers a classroom challenge- as teachers you will want to check it out and get your class involved and there is an opportunity to match funds for the winning "Make a Difference" project too!

Laura on Day 1 of her 25 Days to Make a Difference Project

 

References

Killeen, K. (2002). School district spending on professional development: Insights available from national data. Journal of Educational Finance. 28 (1) pp 25-49.

Dede, C. (2006). Online professional development for teachers: Emerging models and methods. Cambridge, Massachusetts:Harvard Education Press

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.   

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/

Making Curriculum Meaningful

Had a cool experience yesterday, I was invited to participate in a live chat hosted by Education Week on curriculum issues.

Two of my friends and colleagues were also guests.  Marsha Ratzel, a 6th grade math and science teacher at Leawood Middle School in Leawood, Kansas who has been part of countless online projects I have hosted and serves with me on the Teacher Leaders Network (TLN). And ...
Mark Clemente, the science chairman at Ocean Lakes High School, Virginia Beach, Va. who not only taught my child AP Chemistry but followed me as Teacher of the Year for Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Mark and I have worked closely face-to-face, online, and through TLN. The three of us were asked to be a part of this chat as a follow-up to our articles that appeared in the last print and web-based issue of Teacher Magazine.

LiveChat
The chat began with  Anthony Rebora introducing us all, "Welcome to our live Web chat on curriculum best practices. We have three accomplished educators on hand--all members to the Teachers Leaders Network--to discuss ways to make lessons more meaningful at a time when many schools are increasingly focused on test scores. We've already received a lot of challenging questions for our guests so let's get started." And wow-- what a fast paced fun way to field questions.

The Questions Were Tough!
I was surprised that the questions were so technical and wide-ranging and I was pleased at the positive spin participants had in favor of rigor and creativity both being needed in the delivery of classroom content. I found it challenging but quite fun to come up with intelligent responses to wide-ranging questions on the fly. I was in Raleigh NC yesterday morning and drove home to VA to be on the session with only 15 minutes to spare, only to find that my computer wouldn't connect to the network when I frantically tried setting the laptop up. I ran to a neighbor's house to get on the session...with
all my pre-prepared notes back home on my laptop. I was so disappointed because all the wonderful examples of what my edublogger friends were doing were on my laptop at home!

Overall though, I think it went off really well. And as I read back through the transcript I was generally happy with how if came off. Thanks Education Week for the wonderful opportunity!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

 

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.

New Zealand Connection Elluminated

I had the best time in Elluminate on Tuesday and Wednesday listening to the Advanced Teams (ABPC 21st Century teaching and learning project) tell about their Learning 2.0 projects. The highlight of both evenings was the guest visit with Chris Craft, a Spanish teacher in South Carolina and  Allanah King, a teacher from New Zealand.

Learning 2.0
As part of the 21st Century teaching and learning project I helped to design and implement in Alabama, year 2 schools (Advanced Teams) were required to design a Learning 2.0 project.

The projects were created by the school teams around ideas to meet each school's academic goals using the power of networks and Web 2.0 tools. The team designed a learning contract, created a blog to brainstorm with their team and the world about their project, and then implemented their projects in a way that would impact the entire faculty and beyond. This self-directed learning was uncomfortable for some, as teachers are often use to being told what to do- when. However, some of the project reports revealed amazing work unfolding.

Ah-Ha Moment-Teacher Style

One of the most exciting moments for me was during one of the team's Learning 2.0 presentations, when another school (who was listening to the presentation) offered to have their students contribute to the wiki the presenter's students were developing on how to prepare for and pass an Alabama assessment. 

A light went on for everyone in the room. They finally got it. Web 2.0 tools not only allow their students to create and engage with each other- but that other connections and collaborations  would make a good project - stellar. They are beginning to realize that they are only held back with this style of learning by their own self-limiting resistance to innovation.

George Hall Elementary

One of the Learning 2.0 projects that has truly been able to utilize the power of networking has been George Hall .George Hall is an elementary  high-needs school in Mobile Alabama. George Hall's teachers and students are dedicated to building student experiences and vocabulary through field trips. They are exploring the wonders of the Mobile and lower Alabama areas to share with the world.
The most powerful aspect to their work has been the comments they are receiving from other bloggers from around the world. It has motivated the students to write and reflect in ways that are impacting their traditional learning experiences.

Here is a student podcast about working on the wetpaint site:
student podcast

Collaboration in Action
When Allanah showed up from New Zealand, George Hall teachers, (and others) immediately started making suggestions for how the two geographically diverse schools could collaborate. I was dancing in my chair with excitement.

Amazement- Organic Connectivism

I am traveling to New Zealand in March as a keynote speaker for the Tuanz Educational Conferences. My daughter Amber is going with me to New Zealand. We have been sharing with each other- from the various social networking sites we are networked with (which are very different) the various contacts, offers, suggestions, and connections we are making with Kiwis (New Zealanders). It occured to me how powerful it might be to diagram these organic occurrences, as a practical way to show how networks form and inform when "just in time" knowledge is needed. I will share it here when I get it done.
Photo Credits:
http://www.immediart.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=61_62&products_id=239
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WoW 02

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

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

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

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