Congratulations! You are now following 500+ people on Twitter, have an RSS reader with 1000+ unread items, and feel a bit guilty that you never really made it around to using Diigo. No doubt you are beginning to feel a bit numb, like Lois.

Family Guy – Lois – Mommy

“I don’t have enough time in the day!” is the wrong answer.

There comes a point where the difference between sink or surf involves getting serious about managing your attention. Every few months I spend a few hours consciously considering who I’m following, what I’m watching, how I’m getting information, and why it’s important to me. Let me share three tips I use frequently to manage my “attention” online.

• Use the “Mark All as Read” button. If you constantly bump up against 1000+ unread items in a program like Google Reader, there’s significant guilt building up unconsciously that’s allowing a tool to mess with your attention.
• Unfollow everybody on Twitter. Make a list of those you can remember in your mind and follow them back. Take a look at who they are following and follow them. Not only are you managing your attention by pruning the number of Twitter updates, you will end up finding a handful of new voices each time you go through this exercise. (There’s one drawback. Each time I do this the folks I “refollow” get the message that I’m a “new” follower which sometimes triggers awkward social situations. Oh well.)
• In both email and your RSS reader, take time to make sure information is coming from people, not websites or usernames. I’ll pick on Will Richardson as an example. Subscribing to his blog in an RSS reader shows up as Weblogg-ed and receiving email from him arrives in my inbox with the same tag. I manually rename all RSS feeds based on the authors first and last name. I’ll also spend the time to keep a clean address book so that email is from people, not usernames.

Technology is an efficient way to connect things to things and people to things.  You are different.  Your intent is to connect to people, not things.  Take control of the technology and manage your attention on the front end instead of letting it manage you.

A vital part of the PLP experience is the period of time where outside experts, what we call “experienced voices,” are brought into the cohort and bring with them fresh ideas and new perspectives.

In the Archdiocese of Philadelphia cohort, we have recently been enjoying conversations with three people: Tom Barrett, Barbara Barreda and Kathy Cassidy. These three experienced educators brought with them many ideas relevant to classrooms and schools moving themselves forward to meet the needs of their students. Just to focus on one of these people, Kathy Cassidy brought to our cohort many discussions on topics ranging from Glogster to Vocaroo and from Kerpoof to Animoto. As you can see, Kathy is a busy educator with her feet planted firmly in the classroom.

This is one of the great experiences of PLP. Working as a school. Learning as a community. Connecting with world class experts who are willing to share their classroom lives.

One of the great ideas of PLP is the use of experienced voices. These are people who have established a clear online presence and have spent considerable time connecting and sharing in much the same ways as the we hope the participants of PLP will aspire to.
In the Ontario-Lower Hudson cohort Ira Socol, Scott Floyd, Tom Barrett and Susan Carter-Morgan all led groups around their areas of passion and expertise. In each case, quality discussions blossomed.
One example came in Ira’s group which centered around the concepts of Universal Access and Social Justice. In one discussion Ira asked,

If you look at your school, really look at your school, who do you think it is designed for? Consider everything, from architectural cues to time schedules, classroom shapes and furniture, “important” courses, rules of behaviour, places to eat, to rest, styles of “teaching.” Who made these choices? Why? Which students do “better” because of those choices? Which do “worse”?

Here are some highly insightful responses:

In my first classroom, the chairs were attached to the desks. This made group work or collaboration difficult. These desks fit into the room best when they were placed in rows. Sometimes you could group 4 together. For most students, it made sitting very uncomfortable. Even now, the desks seem small in most high school classrooms. They are designed for children and not for young adults. I remember the black board in my first classroom was on one wall only and power supplies were designed in such a way that if I wanted to rearrange the room I would have needed an electrician. This made the black board the front of the room. The bulletin boards were at the back and side, so posted student work was visible to me when I stood at the front, but not to students who faced forward. The clock was above or near the door and served to countdown the time until students could exit….Kim McGill

Despite making claims to be a progressive high school, my school is designed for teacher centered industrialized education. Students travel from class to class each day, and experience each course in segregation from one another. There a few school rules, which enable students to explore there own learning, and have freedom to explore during the school day when they are not programmed to be in a classroom.
I fully agree with Ira’s comment that we are ingrained in our environment. I almost think it would be better for my school district to be more progressive if we made the capital expense to tear down the school and rebuild it.
As a digital person, teaching in a school like this is difficult for me. My mind doesn’t work in a linear fashion, whether that be because of growing up in a digital society, or possibly an undiagnosed educational disability that I might or might not have. I am not sure how we expect students to learn that way.
I don’t think we know what is natural or un-natural, since society is so ingrained in the physical and mental structure of a school…. Josh Block

And the conversation continued….

What I find interesting in this process is that Ira served to illicit ideas that I’m sure both Kim and Josh had considered before but were given a platform and someone with background and research that confirmed or expanded their ideas. Again, this is just one example and it happened in Scott’s, Tom’s and Susan’s groups as well. Experienced voices are a very key part of the work of PLP.

Two face to face meetings –
A number of Elluminate sessions –
Sheryl and Will’s guidance and mentorship –
School teams mapping an interdisciplinary unit, planning together –
And recently on the PEARLS cohort Ning and the web, mini inquiry units begin to chronicle the ever evolving journey of teachers and students into 21^st century standards based, student centered, inquiry driven learning.

In the 3^rd grade at PS 16, PLPer Camille Terzino’s students have been learning the features of a non-fiction text through an “Artist Study” in which they generated their own questions such as Were they born with this gift or did they have to practice? about the artist they chose.  Each student then read a book on their artist and wrote an informational report duplicating the key features in the text.  They researched the country of the artist’s origin and recreated their favorite piece of art as they learned about line segments, shapes, and symmetry. The students will be creating Voicethreads with summaries of what they have learned and posting their paintings and images of the originals to the web for comparison. Camille noted:

“The kids were very excited about the project. They especially like the idea of exploring the different content areas and how art affects their lives. I can’t wait to finish their paintings and do the voice threads. I hope to have students from other classes comment on their voicethreads.”

Meanwhile 4^th graders at St. Clare under the guidance of PLPers Denise Olsen and Patricia Molloy are learning about the “Census”, How has the census changed?,  and conducting a census of their own.  Denise and Patricia posted their map and unit in a Google Doc transparently sharing their journey in planning and learning. Then a post in the cohort virtual learning community from three of their students:

“Hi this is Anthony, Melissa, and Rebecca. We are 4th grade students at St. Clare School. Our class created a census and we would love it if you can take it. To take the census, go to tinyurl.com/scs-census.

There is also an intro that you can listen to that tells you about our census. Go to tinyurl.com/intro-census to hear it.

It would be really nice if you would take this census. Please tell your friends and family about our census too. If you know anybody that lives in a different country please ask them to take our census so that we can compare data from other places.

Thank you for your help!  Anthony, Melissa, and Rebecca”

And Denise and Patricia note:

“We are moving along on our project. The fourth grade class is using the census (actually creating their own using Google forms) to learn about people. After the data is collected, the students will work in groups to analyze the results. Each group will be assigned one of the questions.”

As PLPer Joanne Teasdale and her kindergarten students at Blessed Sacrament explore “Oceans of Possibilities” she writes in her unit plan:

“How can teaching young students to seek information about a high interest topic (Oceans and ocean life), help them gain understanding of the natural world and stretch their worldview to help them to become caring, knowledgeable stewards of the earth and life-long learners?

This project was created to open up the world to my young students. The world of reading, writing, inquiry, practical practice and joy in learning. It was meant to empower the students by giving them the tools to seek out information, and enable them to transfer these tools to build their personal ‘fund of knowledge’.”

And Joanne reflects in the virtual learning community:

“My young students are just coming into their own – as far as skills – so we are doing map skills and ocean life studies, and book reviews at present – the rest is for the future! The student’s are very excited and really into learning about ocean animals. They have passionate favorites and already have a great vocabulary going: carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, camouflage, baleen, kelp forests, coral reefs etc. It makes going to work a joy every day!”

Their Ocean Book Reports, read by students with illustrations, garnered a plethora of comments on Joanne’s class blog and clearly demonstrate all they have learned.

They have connected, they have collaborated—and it’s just a matter of time until some take collective action. It’s truly refreshing and very exciting to read and hear the enthusiasm of both teachers and students as they all explore more deeply the oceans of possibilities that arise through 21^st century inquiry driven learning.

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?

“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 21^st 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 21^st 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, ‘21^st 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 ‘21^st 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 21^st 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 21^st 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 21^st 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.

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.

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.