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

Planning for 21st Century Instruction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australia- ELH Conference in Lorne

I met Bruce through Will and I have to tell you from Day 1 I was impressed. Bruce Dixon is the founder and president of the Anywhere, Anytime Learning Foundation and consults to schools, school districts, education departments, Ministries of Education as well as technology companies such as Microsoft, hp-Compaq, Apple, Bertelsmann and Toshiba on 1-to-1 and technology in education. Bruce has more than 25 years experience working with schools and technology and besides that he and his staff really know how to put on a first rate conference. 

It was a joy to meet  Bernajean Porter and Mary Burns, other keynoters at the conference and very smart women who understand the importance of 21st Century educational reform.

I left John's home and started the trek toward Lorne where the conference would be held taking in the beauty and history of the Great Ocean Road.

 

  

 

We all met for lunch at a place along the way called "At the Heads" and then on to the conference hotel in Lorne called the Mantra Erskine Beach Resort.

One of the most amazing things to us in Australia was the variety of animals and plants. Here at the resort cockatoos from the wild congregated on our porch. They would eat right out of your hand.

The beach was right out our hotel room back door and was so beautiful.

Some of you may remember this famous Indian.

 The conference itself was excellent. I got to meet so many smart people, some of whom I knew online and some I met for the first time.

The secret here is that even though I looked calm and collective my zipper broke on these pants minutes before I went on stage and I had to use the AV guy's duck tape to tape them to me so they wouldn't fall down. Hahahaha!

Another highlight of the conference was the critical conversations around broad themes. I learned so much during these sessions. I wish these were a key part of all f2f conferences.

    

The social events at the conference were just as educational as the sessions. Lots of networking and deep dialog.

Here I am talking to one of the other keynoters, Mary Burns. The gentleman is Mike Valentine who is a leader at Hale School where I presented in Perth. He was amazing and did a wonderful presentation on passion-based learning at the conference.

We ended our time in Lorne by celebrating Bernajean's significant birthday. Can't think of a more perfect place to celebrate a milestone than with Bruce and gang in Australia. Thanks for the memories.

 
The next post will be the last of the Australia posts and will cover my time in Perth!

Learning to Learn

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

I'd love to hear your take.

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

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

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

Here are my take aways...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ABPC 21st Century Learners Quarterly Meeting

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some of the projects from Alabama this year:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discovery Middle School

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building the Machine

My son and I finally built my new PC. My killer machine.

Processor

• 2.40 gigahertz Intel Core2 Quad  Q6600
• 64 kilobyte primary memory cache
• 4096 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Memory

• 4096 Megabytes Installed Memory
• Slot 'DIMM1' has 2048 MB
• Slot 'DIMM3' has 2048 MB
• Slot 'DIMM2' is Empty
• Slot 'DIMM4' is Empty

Drives

• 934.79 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
• 2 LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1S [CD-ROM drive]
• ST3500630AS [Hard drive] (500.11 GB) -- drive 1
• WDC WD1500ADFD-00NLR5 [Hard drive] (150.04 GB)
  

Display and More

• EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP (Ready SLI Supported Video Card )
• Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (22.0"vis, )Wide screen LCD Monitorr
• Logitech X-230 32 watts RMS 2.1 Black Speaker System
• Antec P182 Gun Metal Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
  
  

  Everything, from the case to the power supply and memory slots was built with a cutting edge perspective. I want this one to last five years before it is totally outdated.
  
  I mean check out this power supply-- sheesh.

  

Almost Ready on My Desk

The Other Desk in My Office

Dave and Noah Admire Our Work

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!

 

Geeking Our Way to a Better World

Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.

-Mother Teresa

Thinking more about the homeless issue and how to make an impact. Steve Hargadon and I have been throwing ideas around for awhile now. I plan to Skype him into my two workshops tomorrow at Preparing for Walking Home Together: Steps to a Practical Approach- NC's Conference on Homelessness to talk about using his Public Web Stations idea for setting up free Public Access computer stations for next to nothing with very minimal upkeep. Wouldn't it be cool to create immediate, affordable, maintenance free access for the homeless. Steve has figured a way to do it. 

Web 2.0 and its Potential for Breaking Generational Poverty
When I speak at conferences about homelessness one of the things I emphasize is the potential of the Web for helping enable those who need it most. There are lots of great examples of the homeless who are starting to realize the potential for using these tools as a way of climbing out. Now we just need to get homeless service providers and those of us interested in helping on board and connected.

The Role of Libraries?
Take a look at this interesting article,

America Gone Wrong: A Slashed Safety Net Turns Libraries into Homeless Shelters, which

Steve shared with me about how librarians fit into the solution. If we can get librarians to offer technology instruction to their homeless clients what doors would that open? I always recommend getting an email address (an address that never changes) by using free computers in the library to the homeless Moms with which I talk.

Maybe we could set up labs of Internet ready machines using Steve's CD in libraries and offer classes for the homeless to improve their job marketability by teaching them a valuable skill set, or offer online mentors (teachers) willing to help homeless kids with homework and nurturing, and possibly help the homeless get connected to services and people that can make a difference in their circumstance. For taking the computer class, libraries could give away a free USB drive to make any files they create portable.

Wouldn't a Craig's List for the homeless be cool?I bet you--like me--have tons of portable technologies to donate that would be perfect for the homeless and others trapped in poverty.

Cell Phones for the Homeless
One of the things that perpetuates the cycle of homelessness is not being contactable. How is someone going to call you back about a job application? How about if we got a grant to provide cell phones and prepaid cards for the homeless? And with the newer 3G cell phones that could even be the answer to connectivity! Because of their mobile nature, the homeless like things that are small and portable. Everything needs to be easily moved around, everything needs to fit into a backpack. With cell phones going for $30-$50 and the way we all upgrade continously there has to be a way to recycle older phones for the homeless. Recharging wouldn't be a problem as there are plenty of places to plug in to recharge.

Invitation to be Creative
I want to invite service users, service providers, grass roots organizations, and other interested stakeholders who work or care about marginalized groups such as the homeless who regard themselves as tech savvy and web 2.0 experts to help me brainstorm Internet/communication based outreach/interventions.

I hope you will take a moment to share your ideas here or on your blogs and then link them to here. If there are enough of us-- maybe we could create a social network community on Ning and start launching some of these ideas? I belong to the DDN but even there it seems to be lots of individuals doing their thing and then sharing what they have done. What if we figured out a thing or two that really worked and did it together? Please leave me a comment here if you are interested in collaborating and please spread the word to see if others would be interested. So-- please share.. what ideas do you have?

BTW...as I was writing this a family member came in and said I have an idea. The military has huge trucks that do laundry. They pull into an area where military are camped without washing facilities and do large amounts of laundry very quickly. Why couldnt they make themselves available to shelters and shanty towns? Or why couldnt laundry mats get tax credits for allowing people experiencing poverty to do their laundry for free?

Other Ideas and Sites

http://www.sparesomechange.com/ is a search engine dedicated to helping homeless find resources created by a former homeless guy.

Austin Free-Net has a cool idea. Austin Free-Net tries to involve computers in the everyday lives of high poverty citizens. Through showing them how to look up bus schedules, use email or even research potential employers, Free-Net integrates the Web into their lives." Austin Free-Net is attempting to arrange classes on using the Web and software while people wait in line each week at the food pantry in hopes that more disadvantaged members of society will get online.

Net Squared a site about remixing the web for social change.

Laptops for the Homeless

Homeless Bloggers
The Homeless Guy
Wandering Scribe
List

Organizations
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth
Project Hope
National Alliance to End Homelessness

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

Teacher Magazine

Thought I would share a 300 word piece that just came out in Teacher Magazine  that I authored. It is in the print copy version and available on the web.

Here is an excerpt-

While teaching at W.T. Cooke Elementary in Virginia a few years back, my colleague Becky Thomas and I chose a project-based approach for 4th graders’ exploration of antebellum plantations. We identified standards, objectives, and the necessary digital tools.

“A Mystery Adventure on a James River Plantation” integrated research, writing skills, social studies, and technology use—not to mention pirates and hidden treasure!

Student teams selected plantations, gathered information from Web articles, and chose real-life plantation figures to profile. They incorporated all this into fictional stories featuring ghosts based on their characters. To jump-start the kids, Becky provided a spooky opening and told them to include a treasure hunt in the plot.

Watch the Lesson
The lesson was featured on Public Broadcast Network's- NetFiles. (click on the link to watch it)

I helped two teachers design and implement technology driven lessons that were filmed to be featured on Net Files.

September 11, 2001
The second was taught by Sherry Trach, another 4th grade teacher at W.T. Cooke. The content was about how  she helped her students deal with September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. We were a little nervous when developing this lesson about how it would go over. But in hindsight, I think it was one of the more spectacular lessons I have ever helped to implement. It is accessible here-- however forward the clip to 7:15 to get right to Sherry's lesson.

Both lesson were filmed in my lab when I was teaching teachers and students at W.T. Cooke.