What Do You Value?
By Karl Fisch
When educators talk about schools and technology, there’s a natural tendency to look forward, to a time when schools are “better,” with technology often part of the perceived solution. In fact, this is often a technique to try to focus on that elusive “vision” of what it is we do and what that could look like.
In the ADVIS Cohort of PLP, we recently had an interesting discussion that Will Richardson started around the idea of a “2020 Vision” for education and where we might be ten years from now. Will asked,
If you could see one “big shift” happening in your school or classroom between now and then, what would it be? In other words, what’s one thing that you see as being really different at the end of this next decade?
The ensuing discussion was rich with different ideas and viewpoints. One thread focused on how much of a presence books, and more specifically textbooks, might have in a classroom in the year 2020. Delia Turner, a teacher at The Haverford School, added this interesting insight:
We piloted a set of Kindles in one of our Upper School English classes this year, with mixed results. It’s easier to do e-books in our English classes because so much of our content is already available–much of it no longer subject to copyright restriction (with all that says about our curriculum).
But I wonder about the assumption that we should replace paper textbooks with e-textbooks without some serious tweaking or without re-negotiating education’s association with publishers. Some years ago, when I was teaching elementary school science, I got fed up with using the large, expensive, glossy books that were the best compromise for my curriculum, and I wrote my own text with only the facts I actually taught. Much of my curriculum wasn’t facts at all; it was skills and understandings, things I couldn’t put in a textbook. I focused on developing some habits of inquiry, the capacity to be surprised, and the ability to write about and reflect on understandings.
The textbook was a good deal shorter that way.
So if I were to wish a wish for ten years from now, it would be to have a great deal fewer and smaller texts, with teachers who were better able to teach.
Delia reminds us that it’s not enough to say “paper textbooks are bad, e-textbooks will be good,” but that we need to think more about what those e-textbooks (or other electronic resources) say about what we value in our schools. We need to focus on what it is we do with our students; on how technology can help us transform what we do instead of how we can use technology to simply improve on something we’re doing poorly.
There’s a reason PLP doesn’t have technology in the title. It’s about learning practices. What do the technology choices your school has made say about what it is you value?
Taking one step, then another, to an entirely new level
By Lani Ritter-Hall
“Part of the mission of PLP is to help participants build their cyber confidence while at the same time starting to build their personal and professional learning networks. One way we do that is by bringing in Experienced Voices. The idea behind “Experienced Voices” is twofold. First, it’s to bring into the PLP communities folks knowledgeable about both the tools and the pedagogy, and have them help PLP members explore various topics related to teaching and learning in the 21st century. Second, it’s a way to help PLPers slowly expand their learning networks by giving them some thoughtful folks to learn from and to follow.” – PLP network
To that end, four experienced voices, practitioners all, joined the Ohio Consortium to share experiences, answer questions, and engage in deep, inspiring, and thoughtful conversations around 21st Century learning. Embraced by community members, Brian Crosby, Kim Cofino, Anne Smith, and Barbara Barreda have encouraged, prodded, celebrated, questioned and most importantly of all, shared the reality and power of their day to day experiences with learning.
In one of Anne Smith’s ‘Learning in a 21st Century Secondary Classroom’ discussions, she has asked her group to consider blogging, why they blog, if they don’t why not, and what did they want to know about blogging. Jeremy Duncan, a Chinquapin PLPer and math teacher, thoughtfully responded –questioning his role in blogging and the value of blogging in his classroom:
“I will probably never meet most of the people whose blogs I read, but I have certainly learned from their thoughts. I have become a better math teacher because Dan Meyer blogs. … If I am going to learn from all of these people, shouldn’t I contribute something also? I have also seen how useful blogs can be. Susan Davis has done some really good things here at Chinquapin with blogging, glogging, vokis, voicethreads, etc… I can see that they are valuable tools for teaching, but I still haven’t found a good way to implement them in the math classroom (I have used videos, wikis, online quizzes, etc., but never blogs).”
and later received useful feedback from Anne and his colleagues.
Elementary PLPers have joined Brian Crosby in his group, ‘21st Century Learning in an Elementary Classroom’, finding his examples for learning exciting and his suggestions for starting doable, setting them up to take the next step. Carrie Lynn Murray, a Lakota PLPer, responded to a suggestion:
“So now I have a feasible goal – next step – sit in my thinking chair (to quote Blue’s Clues) and decide which lesson to begin with… Brian – you are an inspiration!!!”
And Tim Breuer, a Milford PLPer, reflects:
“Brian was able to give me solid answers about the trials of attempting 21 C lessons. One of the best pieces of advice he gave me was to let technology fit the lesson instead of making a lesson fit the technology. Only someone who has been through many repeated attempts would know the downfalls of forcing a lesson to be something it is not. I’m sure that single piece of advice will save me hours of work and headache.”
Barbara Barreda’s ‘21st Century Leadership: a Shared Work’ group has grappled with Barbara’s probing questions on identifying qualities of an effective leader in wide ranging discussion. In that conversation, Cathleen White, a 21st Century Fellow and Gilmour PLPer, asked a critical question:
“How do we get administrators to model change? Especially ones who don’t use technology?”
To which Lynn Ochs, a Milford PLPer and 21st Century Fellow, replied:
“This topic is near and dear to my heart Cat. I spent a good four years of my career working on the Ohio Leadership for Integrating Technology project. I think the big question is – what fundamentally changed as a result of this experience? Awareness increased, administrators were empowered to get more involved in local decision-making around technology and their comfort level with technology improved. As will all experiences, those that fully engaged gained the most – both from their facilitators and peers. We were pre- Web 2.0 so there really was no way to keep the community of learners together. I wonder if moving administrators in the direction of Personal Learning Networks of their own is the route to go… This supports the notion that job-embedded, sustained professional learning has much more impact than one shot experiences.”
And the discussion continues–
Kim Cofino has engaged her group, ‘Globally Collaborative Projects’, with specific tips on connecting, places to find projects and a guide to collaborative projects, opening new and exciting horizons for her members. Mary Pat Harris, a Milford PLPer and elementary teacher, reflects upon her participation in these discussions:
“I have been inspired by the exchanges with our experienced voice leaders.” The experiences they “have described in great detail are the kinds of things I’d like to facilitate with my students. … I’ve joined the Global Education Collaboration and some others that I learned about through my groups. …I’m just a hair away from some of this with our kids. And I’m confident that with the tools and connections I’m making through our Ning and the support of our experienced voices I’ll get there…. and most importantly… my students will get there! They have provided me with the sites and organizations to take what I have done with students to an entirely new level.”
Fist pumps, big smiles, enormous sighs and goosebumps accompany my reading as the conversations evolve. PLPers on a grand journey into 21st Century authentic learning, a journey in which our experienced voices have opened doors onto such vast landscapes that are new territory for so many. And with each response, with each question, with each thoughtful entry, I am incredibly thankful for the immense privilege of traveling with PLPers as they take that next step, then another, to an entirely new level.
No Choice
By Will Richardson
One of my favorite things that Sheryl says when she talks about the challenges that schools face right now is that this generation of kids in our schools is the first not to have a choice about technology. Most of us grew up in a time when technology was an add on, and for many of us, we still see it as a choice, especially in education. (Just the other day I was at a meeting of about 25 school leaders and teachers to discuss how social learning tools can be infused into an inquiry based curriculum and only one person was using technology to take notes…me.) I look at my own kids and I know that technology will be a huge part of their learning lives because a) they want it to be and b) they’ll be expected to be savvy users of the devices of their day to communicate, create and collaborate (among other things.) They’re not going to be able to “opt out.”
That no choice theme is borne out by a new Kaiser Foundation report that came out this week. The title sums things up pretty well: “Daily Media Use Among Children and Teens Up Dramatically From Five Years Ago”. And here is the money quote:
Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
Anyway you slice that, kids are immersed in media, and that immersion is having huge effect on the way they see the world and on the way they learn. And while most of that media consumption is still tied to more “traditional” forms like television, the computer now takes up, on average, almost 1.5 hours and it is the fastest growing medium on the list. It lead the director of the study to say:
The bottom line is that all these advances in media technologies are making it even easier for young people to spend more and more time with media. It’s more important than ever that researchers, policymakers and parents stay on top of the impact it’s having on their lives.
It’s interesting to me that she didn’t mention educators in that list of folks who need to be paying attention, because more than parents and policymakers, we’re the ones who need to help kids make learning sense of their time with media of all types. And I emphasize that learning piece of it because all too often those opportunities and being blocked and filtered away in schools instead of made a basic part of the curriculum. Right now, most schools are making what I think is a bad choice by not immersing their students into these online learning environments which are creating all sorts of opportunities for us to learn. In doing so, they’re implicitly saying that technology is an option. It’s not.
Probably my favorite quote from Seth Godin’s book Tribes is this:
Leadership is a choice. It’s the choice not to do nothing.
We may not feel comfortable in a world filled with technology. We may not like the way it’s changing things and, even more, how fast it’s changing things. We may not like the way it pushes against much of what we’ve been doing in schools for eons. But our kids don’t have a choice. And if we’re going to fulfill our roles as teachers in our kids lives, neither do we.
What is meant by transparency?
By John Pederson
Many of our PLP cohorts have teams that are starting down the path of their culminating action research projects. The TriState PLP cohort recently wrapped our third Elluminate session where a few teams gave early updates on their status.
Among the feedback that we provide is the importance of making your personal learning and your team’s progress transparent. As I listen to this feedback recently I made a quick note to expand on what we mean by transparent. Those of us living online through various Web 2.0 tools have learned this through straight up trial and error experienced over years of practice. Transparency online a bit like rock and roll. We know it when we see it, but it’s difficult to explain and understand until you experienced it.
The note I made during our last session was “transparency does not equal assessment or accountability”. Our purpose in pushing transparency is not related notions of accountability or assessment. Unfortunately popular media use the words “transparency and accountability” like “peanut butter and jelly”.
What we have experienced, and what we hope you experience over time, is that transparency in learning leads to interesting, unintended positive possibilities. Furthermore, the tools that we have at our fingertips make transparency much easier.
Let me make this a bit more concrete. Most Acceptable Use Policies are developed by school committees. Meanwhile, most of the rest of our schools are creating similar Acceptable Use Policies. Most of the AUP’s look exactly like the next one. The interesting ideas, unfortunately, are buried in the differences. Most are sitting inside policy or guidelines manuals that never see the light of day unless they are being reviewed by committees.
In the case of an AUP, transparency involves not only opening these types of documents to others, but also explicitly sharing what you feel are the unique bits that you’d like others to provide comments and/or criticism on. Notice we are a ways away from the notion of assessment or accountability. My main motivation for being transparent in the development of an AUP is to solicit unique ideas from both people I know (my “network”) as well as folks I may not know (their “network”). Circle back to what we’ve learned about “networked learning”. There’s importance in who we know, but there’s also possibility lying in who they know.
As these PLP action research projects take shape, watch for the impact transparency plays in how things develop. It’s a powerful piece when done well and a core element of what we hope folks take away from the PLP experience.
We are going to help each other learn
By Lani Ritter-Hall
From the PLP Handbook—
Team leaders—
- lead and motivate their school team, organize meetings, and push action research project development
- serve as a facilitator and “encourager”
- engage team members in regular inquiry-oriented professional learning community (PLC) meetings that help to develop teacher professional knowledge
In the PEARLS cohort in New York City
Brian Licata, from St. John’s Lutheran, a 5th to 8th grade math teacher, is one such leader—
He models virtual community participation in the main forums sharing projects his class is doing and inviting others to collaborate with him.
“Anyone interested in joining me in the Stock market Game…ITS FREE! I copied & pasted the email I received below”
Holiday Greeting around the world–“add your class to the Google maps holiday greetings” (When community members needed assistance to participate, he created a screencast explanation using Jing with step by step instructions.)
My 5th Grade Math is learning how to make surveys and record the results. I am teaching them about Frequency Tables and want them to get some practice. I had them collaborate on making a visual questionnaire (using Voicethread) for 5th graders. We will incorporate Google Forms once I feel they are comfortable with Tallies, and creating graphs. If you can forward this to anyone who teaches 5th grade, 9-10 yr olds, I would really appreciate it.
He participates in main forums contributing, for example, thoughtful questions on the use of facebook.
These are some concerns:
Am I now responsible to monitor and report on everything they do online. Should I be looking through their facebook pages daily for anything that I think is inappropriate?
What about their friends that aren’t in my class or school?
What happens after they leave my class do I unfriend them?
If I don’t look and there is something inappropriate, am I going to be held responsible as a teacher?
Is this interaction between student and teacher socially acceptable? At what grade level does it become socially acceptable? Am I putting myself in danger?
Brian has created an open team room in the virtual community and other members of the cohort have joined to benefit from his sharing and leadership. In his team room, he has at least 10 discussions around the topics of digital storytelling, student driven videos, podcasting, setting up twitter, finding classes to work with, Voicethread and setting up a delicious account and often creates and posts screencasts to assist his team with the tool or skill.
In “Gaining confidence”, one of his discussions, he encourages his team–
Gaining confidence is extremely important in using new tools in the classroom. I notice that I usually have two options, roll it out and the class learns with me at the same time or I need to find a group of teachers to play with.
Either way I still find myself with no skills and don’t want to look foolish. Let’s see if we can work this out here. …We are going to help each other to learn how to use these tools in our classrooms.
Leading and motivating, encouraging and engaging team members, serving as facilitator—helping to grow and sustain both a personal learning team and a community of practice—
I watch for his postings, his screencasts, his team’s participation —so appreciative of the transparency, the modeling, the expertise, the “we” that he brings to the community.
We are going to help each other learn–
Playing Together
By Clarence Fisher
Just about every school (and office) for that matter that I’ve been in has had some sort of system for filtering the content that comes in from the internet. Now, I don’t want to debate the pros and cons of these filters (believe me, I REALLY don’t want to do that), but I do want to take some time to think about the decision making process.
In the PLP cohort of the archdiocese of Philadelphia, there has been some discussion about implementation. For example, Bonnie Gowen, a technology instructor in the cohort has been thinking about filters:
“All the web filter we can set up don’t really give the students a chance to make choices regarding appropriateness (is that a word). I have asked my 5th and 6th graders to consider whether or not I should unblock Flickr for them. We are using a blog and their comments are very interesting.”
Including students in making decisions about the filters that are in place in their schools. A simple, but really, rather revolutionary idea. Asking them to judge based on their level of maturity, their information needs and based on the culture of the school is a much higher level exercise than simply blocking something off from them.
The same is true for the discussions around Moodle that have bloomed in our cohort. Sister Mary Ellen Tennity has weighed in over and over again in discussions, giving advice that parents and students be included openly and honestly in discussions and implementation plans around the use of a new tool such as this. Teacher Mary Gratton includes quotes from blog posts written by students who post about the power of being included in the implementation process, about being given a chance to contribute to what happens in their building.
Finally, Melissa Dow brings this important piece of advice:
“My biggest advice is to take it slowly and keep the big picture in mind. We are in year 3 of using Moodle and it is now part of our school culture, but this didn’t happen overnight.”
Changing school culture; that is what PLP is about. There are myriads of new tools and new tools to try out. Some of them are useful, while others are not. Tools will come and go, but the skills of communication and the ability to change the culture of your building to support student learning more effectively is the cornerstone of what PLP is about.
