We are talking about the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner at the New York SLMS Leadership Retreat. Here is a one page document from a bit back that was created to help share the standards with administrators in our region.
Lately, in order to make a point about how the way we use the Web is changing, I’ve been saying in my presentations something along the likes of “you know, if you took this computer (pointing to my still somewhat shiny MacBookPro) and threw it in the river, it really wouldn’t mess up my life much. There’s almost nothing on here of any importance that isn’t out there on the Web somewhere.” I talk about my extensive use of Google Docs, Flickr, YouTube, Google Notebook and a host of open source software programs that are turning my computer into more of a connection device than a filing cabinet like all my old computers were. (I would miss the beautiful display, however.)
Of course, this raises some eyebrows, and I invariably get questions and comments along the lines of “How do you trust Google to keep your information secure?” or “What if you can’t get on the Web?” These invariably lead to conversations about how mobile devices and Web enabled phones are changing the landscape and how the potential reward of easy collaboration and sharing at this point at least outweigh the risk of losing files.
Between IBM’s recent announcement to build huge data centers to support “cloud computing” for its customers, Kevin Kelly’s recent Ted Talk about the next 5,000 days of the Web, and the continuing discussion on the Fast Forward blog, it’s pretty apparent that we are shifting away from our reliance on one or two devices to hold our information and that our focus is now becoming what devices give us easiest access to that information on the Web.
Few districts get the idea that if they think differently about how they create and store most of their information that there are potentially huge savings in the offing. I keep thinking about the New York City principal who told me she was required to spend $2,000 per laptop at her school because that’s what the bid contract said. Imagine what could happen there in terms of putting technology into kids’ hands with a little bit of re-envisioning right now. (And, obviously, that’s only a first step for many districts.)
Anyway, I’m curious. How much of your work is in the clouds these days? Know any districts who are starting to leverage these potentials?
(Photo: “San Francisco Clouds” by Zerega.)
I will be live blogging the 2008 NY SLMS Leadership Retreat over the next day and a half using CoverItLive.com. If you would like to follow along or contribute thoughts, check us out at http://schoolof.info/slms.
For all of its amazing potential for good, here is a sobering reminder of what else the Web is good for, namely preying on people and causing horrible havoc.
Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.
It’s a pretty unsettling picture of a Web where it seems if anyone really wants to, they can seriously mess with your life for no other reason than simply because they can. It cites the whole Kathy Sierra (who was Tweeting about the article) affair as well as some of the more headline-y stories that have occurred in the past few years. And while the article suggests that this type of behavior is not yet of a degree large enough to threaten the greater good, it is something we need to be cognizant of.
That the Internet is now capacious enough to host an entire subculture of users who enjoy undermining its founding values is yet another symptom of its phenomenal success. It may not be a bad thing that the least-mature users have built remote ghettos of anonymity where the malice is usually intramural. But how do we deal with…the possibility of real harm being inflicted on strangers?
And, as I was thinking as I read through the article, can we mitigate the extent of those cases by better teaching about social networks and literacies in our schools? I know that on a basic level, none of these behaviors are new, that we’ve always had the ability and, for some, the desire to terrorize one another. It’s the scale thing, again, and the ways in which it’s so much easier to connect to other people and do the terrorizing with them, together, from afar. But I do wonder if we don’t make it worse as a system when we choose to filter and forget the bad parts (and in many cases, the good parts) of the Web with our students.
I've spoken at nearly 3000 people, and with hundreds more over the last month of conferences, workshops and socials. I'm off to be a Godfather for a few days having found an antidote to all this conferencing:
- SMS Text News » Archives » Bluetooth RIP
Apparently, KDDI has put its super-fast version of the wireless infrared link on display at a Japanese tradeshow just outside Tokyo. The technology, called Giga-IR transmits at 1Gbps, which trounces bluetooth.
Inspiration Session #4 is the must-attend lunchtime session this year, showing, six weeks before the Scottish Learning Festival, how you can present anything in the most fascinating, entertaining and informative way when you know how. Since it's the summer hols for most teachers in Scotland, you're invited to join us with your laptop computer and creativity to see what ideas you can learn and share.
If you are presenting at SLF2008 or have to explain concepts to colleagues, teachers or outside partners, this workshop is for you. Inspiration Session 4 "The Best Stats You've Ever Seen (or how to present) takes place on August 11th, midday until 2pm, in the classroom in LTS's Glasgow office, with breakouts happening all afternoon. Please get your confirmation in early to aid planning.
All those wishing attend should confirm by email to me asap. We will begin by viewing a superb presentation on, potentially, the most boring of subjects: global statistics. We'll take a look at how and why that presentation and others are so good, before working on a presentation you are doing some time soon, or have done in the past.
You will not just learn how to exploit presentation packages, but how to present well without them at all, using the web and digital images, making and capturing short video. Please think about bringing along your favourite presentation laptop (Mac or PC laptop), and a presentation in PowerPoint, Keynote or other package (make a copy so you keep the original).
Full write-ups of the previous Inspiration Sessions will also begin to appear over the next few weeks on Connected Live.
Pic: Ewan as a borg at Reboot from Steph Booth
For those who may want to catch the archive, here is my interview yesterday with Indiana University professor Curtis Bonk as we chatted for about an hour about a variety of topics including the effects of technologies in Third World countries, the barriers to change in K-12 schools, and what the future might hold for the Web. We also talked at some length about a book he is looking to publish about how learning can be leveraged by the connections we can now make, and about his other new book titled Empowering Online Learning. He made the point that a lot of folks are making these days, that many of these ideas have been around for a long time, mentioning Seymour Papert and others from 20 and 30 years ago. When we asked him to pull off a few books from his shelf behind him, he grabbed Mindstorms, Apprenticeship in Thinking and some other older but still relevant titles. All in all, it pushed my thinking in some good ways. Enjoy!
Some session notes: Apologies for the choppy audio in the first half; not sure why it mysteriously cleared up all of a sudden. Thanks to everyone in the chat session (about 30 folks) who offered up some great questions, and to Sheryl who moderated. And last, having some trouble converting to MP4 since the .flv file was so big. UStream won’t do the conversion on files over 100MB.
New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks writes about the pretty dire state of education in this country in his piece “The Biggest Issue” which ran yesterday, and it cites some interesting research about the relationship between education and technology. Namely, not so great things happen when the pace of educational progress slips behind that of technological progress, which is what is occurring right now.
The pace of technological change has been surprisingly steady. In periods when educational progress outpaces this change, inequality narrows. The market is flooded with skilled workers, so their wages rise modestly. In periods, like the current one, when educational progress lags behind technological change, inequality widens. The relatively few skilled workers command higher prices, while the many unskilled ones have little bargaining power.
Now I know that “educational progress” in this instance is being measured by how much of an education most people get, a rate that peaked (in graduation terms) in the late 1960s and continue to decline. But can we really measure educational progress on the basis of graduation rates these days?
Two other points from the essay: First, the bottom line is that family environments, “which have deteriorated over the last 40 years,” have a great deal to do with the potential success of any given student. Second, it appears, at least, that the candidate better positioned to deal with this situation is Obama, given his emphasis on early childhood education.
Here’s another nugget to chew on:
It’s not globalization or immigration or computers per se that widen inequality. It’s the skills gap. Boosting educational attainment at the bottom is more promising than trying to reorganize the global economy.
I’m still doubtful that either campaign will push these conversations to the forefront even though, as Brooks suggests, they represent “the biggest issue facing the country.”
Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 2 pm EST I’ll be continuing my thread of interviews with authors with Curtis Bonk, professor of e-learning at Indiana University. Curtis has just finished a comprehensive companion to Thomas Friedman’s work that looks at the world through an education slant. His blog has been recounting some of his travels around the world, and he’s got a lot of great stories to share that might give a more global perspective on how this is all playing out. He’s early in the publication process and has some interesting ideas for putting the book out, which will also be fodder for our discussion.
The interview will happen on my Ustream channel, and I hope you’ll join in the conversation. If you have any questions that you’d like to ask, feel free to post them here.
Having spent far too long enjoying the superb suggestions for using a visualiser I'm ready to announce who's going to be offered the chance to pick up their very own - for free - from a dodgy pickup on the Redbridge platform of London's Central line. As a double celebration this is my 1501st post on edu.blogs.com. Hurrah! Thanks to you all for following me this long on my learning journey.
I won one of these devices, shown off with a certain degree of style by John Davitt in his recent BLC08 keynote, at the North East London TeachMeet, courtesy of the Visualiser Forum. The suggestions for its use included a lot from the world of science demonstrations, showing how to exploit Nintendo DSes and cutting down on photocopied texts. However, the example that, for me, shows a longer-term sustainability, with the student and not the teacher as the main user of the device, is Jaye Richards' short but sweet idea:
I saw these being used in Finland where there was one in every classroom in the schools I visited. I think though, that I would use it for pupils to do regular show and tell/ mini teaching sessions where they came up and demonstrated something or described a concept using their own objects or designs. I think this is a great way of encouraging real literacy and raising the confidence and self-esteem of our pupils. This approach also encourages deep learning and helps the pupils to take on the responsibility for their own lerning, and that of others. It takes peer-assisted learning to a new dimension.
I like the hook into Finland's exemplary practice, which I've been harping on about on this blog for some time, and I like the fact we're looking at peer assessment and student-centred show and tell, an underestimated skill and one that underpins TeachMeets.
So, Jaye, if you can get yourself and a visualiser from London back home, it's yours! Thanks to Anthony at Redbridge who has been keeping it locked up for me all this time. Indeed, he is the person with whom to coordinate your reunion with the kit.
- Fleck.com - Annote the web
Annotate webpages and share them with your class, friends or colleagues - The Ed Techie: The weirdness of copyright
Professional recognition for academic may not lie in writing books, especially when you lose ownership of your thinking - Stripgenerator v1.0.3
Cartoon generator for free online. - Remember everything. | Evernote Corporation
Take a photo of what you want to remember, and Evernote will search for it, find it and remind you about it later. - From the archive: John Naughton gives Google its first mention in the Observer | Completetosh.com, by Neil McIntosh
Particularly apt given today's Inspiration Session on Simplicity For no other reason than it’s a lazy Sunday morning, I was browsing back through the Guardian.co.uk archive to see when the first mention of Google was in the Guardian and Observer. I s
Just an observation here, but three times in the last week I have been speaking to different educators who in passing have made the point that we do a good job of teaching kids that .org sites are more trustworthy than .com sites but that in general, we really don’t have a solid grasp of online literacy.
Ya think?
- +KN | Kitsune Noir » The Desktop Wallpaper Project
Here’s the plan: I’ll be releasing one desktop wallpaper every Wednesday morning (California time) until I run out of wallpapers. They’ll be free to download, and come in a multitude of monitor sizes, as well as iPhone and PSP versions just for the - Table of Contents: Creative Examples | Monday Inspiration | Smashing Magazine
- swissmiss: font conference
It made me laugh - Forget about PowerPoint and Statistics...
- To involve people you need stories
- Presentation Zen: Robert McKee on the power of story
What makes a good story? It's not what you think—the beginning-to-end tale about how results meet expectations is boring and banal, McKee says. Avoid this. Instead, it's better to illustrate the "struggle between expectation and reality in all its nast - Superb poster for Barack Obama's speech in Berlin
Just great artwork
- Roo Reynolds - * is what a(n) * calls a(n) *
A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist. - unfiction.com
All about ARGs - Deleted Images
DeletedImages.com brings unsharp, moved, blurry and unfocused pictures back to life. Submit your own piece of art. - TES - Show your emotions
Good for when you're using games or images for stimulus for creative writing: "Show don't tell" has an immediate effect on the quality of pupils' creative writing. I ask my Year 10 class to brainstorm actions that correspond with specific emotions, such - TES - 'Big stick' approach not one to be encouraged
The Canadian province of Ontario has driven attainment up in its 5,000 public schools without employing a single schools inspector, according to Avis Glaze, its education commissioner. - Teenager beats speeding ticket with GPS - Yahoo! News UK
A teenager has successfully defended himself against a speeding ticket by convincing the court that his GPS was more accurate than a police radar gun. - Totally Amazing Posters!
Classics from the 1950s in Europe - swissmiss: yes!
The secret of a happy life
So the unending debate over whether or not reading on the Internet is “really” reading gets played out once again in this New York Times piece titled “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?” It’s the story of a “typical” family where the kids are online some six hours a day reading and writing at FanFiction.net among other places. There’s not too much hand wringing on the part of the parents, however, who say things like “I’m just pleased that she reads something anymore.”
Sigh.
So here’s the crux of the debate:
As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.
But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.
Kudos to the “experts” who note the difference with reading online:
What is different now, some literacy experts say, is that spending time on the Web, whether it is looking up something on Google or even britneyspears.org, entails some engagement with text…In fact, some literacy experts say that online reading skills will help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.
So here is the interesting question for me: do we need to teach online reading? Some think not:
Some simply argue that reading on the Internet is not something that needs to be tested — or taught. “Nobody has taught a single kid to text message,” said Carol Jago of the National Council of Teachers of English and a member of the testing guidelines committee. “Kids are smart. When they want to do something, schools don’t have to get involved.”
Don’t they? I think they do. I think that we have to help our kids navigate online reading spaces and provide an appropriate balance between print and digital environments. I think we have to help kids process and track and organized the things that they read, teach them to respond in effective ways, teach them to interact and become participants in the process in ways that don’t restrict their passion and creativity but also give them some context for what they are doing.
Read the whole thing. All in all, it’s a pretty interesting back and forth between old readers and young, and the bottom line is that it’s obvious that’s it’s something we need to be thinking of as we think about reading curricula and pedagogy.
(Photo “what am i reading?” by jamelah.)
Was introduced to this last weekend. It made me laugh, and think about the admirable effort that's gone into making something I almost believed. For just a second.
I was simultaneously pleased and concerned to see that storytelling has earned is place in the qualifications diaspora in Scotland with the UK's first storytelling qualification being launched next term.
But given it's designed for, amongst others, the master storytellers of them all - teachers - it should be a hoot. It was doing my MA dissertation in fairytales with Graham Dunstan-Martin that got me as good a degree as I ended up receiving. I really do have a lot to thank storytelling; it's quite right to earn its place on a new generation''s exam certificate.
Been taking a bit of break in these parts of late, still reading and watching a lot, writing a fair share of offline stuff, and plowing through a lot of trashy beach novels which, I’ve decided, are my antidote to over connectedness. (It’s also a great way to spend 4.5 hours on the tarmac while on your way to missing a keynote in Colorado…) Playing with some tools and my jail broken then unjail broken iPhone and all the new apps. Kind of in grazing mode. It’s troubling (?) though that at moments I still feel what I can only describe as some weird form of network separation anxiety from time to time, like I must be missing something important or not learning everything I need to learn. It passes more quickly the longer I stay away, it seems. Now, for instance, when I look at the really compelling video stuff that Dan Meyer is cranking out my first response isn’t “I need to find the time to learn that” as much as it is “thank god he’s investing the time and sharing out his reflections,” then reading and reflecting on others reflections, letting it all just sit.
Went for a couple of days to Virginia Beach to visit with Sheryl and her family and we spent a lot of time in a boat on the bay fishing and reading and chatting. In talking with her son Noah about how connected we all seem to be (text messages in between casts, etc.) one of us hit on the phrase above, and it bounced around in my brain for a bit. It seemed to fit the place I’m in right now, attempting, with pretty good success, actually, to control my connectedness, and to let the conversations happen elsewhere, jumping in when I feel compelled. Connecting, (ironically) to Nancy White’s idea of slow communities (like slow food) and wondering some more about the process of network participation and how much pull is too much pull, etc.
And that’s it…just checking in…just wanted to capture that. You have a great day now…
When it comes to technology simplicity sells. That's the title of David Pogue's TED Talk which provides the basis of discussion at the third Inspiration Session for Learning and Teaching Scotland employees. But this time, with Scotland's teachers on holiday and clearly with nothing else better to do, we're inviting you along.
With apologies for the late invitation, if you fancy a trip to Glasgow or live nearby, you are welcome to join members of the Glow, online services and technology teams, as well as Development Officers and Knowledge Management colleagues from across the organisation:
- Monday, July 28th, 11.45-14.00
- Classroom of the Future at Learning and Teaching Scotland, Glasgow
Optima building, 58 Robertson Street - Meet at 11.45am in the 9th floor reception, session from midday until around 2pm.
- If you wish to attend, please leave a comment here or email me.
This session will feature a team viewing of the, ahem, sideways look of technology and what 'simplicity' actually means. We'll then have a fairly loose discussion around how LTS could do its job better by finding its simplicity bone. Your input here would be most valuable. I do hope you can come along. If you want to see what we've done so far in our inspiration sessions, please flick over to Connected Live.
For the past three months I've been hosting these Inspiration Sessions, providing regular "thinking pitstops" for nearly half the staff in this time, getting to grips with what new technologies' potential might be for their own projects and mining the staff at all levels, from administrator to Director, for their creative ideas. Several new blogs and web services have been launched with the growing confidence of staff, and internally we're beginning to see much better sharing of information using the likes of social bookmarking on del.icio.us, an internal wiki and weblogs.
A collection of education blogs compiled by Christopher Harris of Infomancy to help spread the message. A second collection of school library blogs can be found at http://libraryblogs.suprglu.com.
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