tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-206924142024-02-20T17:11:28.051-05:00Digital Natives & Digital ImmigrantsHere’s my opportunity to demonstrate the power of open, accessible tools for creating engaging learning environments for today's K-12 students - the Digital Natives. I've come to believe that the conversation about integrating technology into curriculum is over. It is now about a cultural change that is washing over our education system. Please sample these posts for events, talks, and classroom examples for a sense of what’s going on in today’s classroom - Steve WilmarthUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-34711084284745981232008-06-01T23:13:00.002-04:002008-06-01T23:22:52.639-04:005 Socio-Technology Trends That Change Everything...<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">I have a chance to express my long-held belief that there is indeed something truly different about the 21st century from the past, that we've entered one of those markers in the history of civilization we now see in retrospect as a true "discontinuity" - the "inventions" of language, writing, printing, the modern "academy," the scientific method, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Age. And so, with a cohort of thinkers, I'll be contributing to a book to be edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs and published, hopefully later this year, by ASCD.<br /><br />The working title of my contribution is "Five Socio-Technology Trends That Change Everything in Teaching &amp; Learning." My thesis is based on the idea that new technologies and the social behaviors they stimulate are literally rewiring our ability to learn in new ways, and that "curriculum" in the 21st century must respond by shedding its industrial age markings (left brain linear proclivities) in favor of creative, critical thinking models that are sustainable in an age of knowledge abundance. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-77509993233822263872008-05-23T10:10:00.004-04:002008-05-23T10:32:46.832-04:00Moving On...<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> I will officially be leaving my position as Program Director for the Center for 21st Century Skills on June 30th, the end of our program year. I am sincerely grateful for the experience of the past four years as a co-founder and leader of this organization, which has seen dramatic growth and provided so many wonderful opportunities to students from our urban, suburban and rural communities in Connecticut. <br /><br />The team is now populated with passionate and talented people and, as a result of our NSF funding, positioned for long term growth and stability. I'm confident that the team of people now leading the Center will continue the good work of developing highly innovative curriculum and project-based experiences that will help prepare secondary school students for the kinds of skills needed to succeed in a dynamic, information-based, knowledge-oriented global community.<br /><br />For me personally, it has been a rewarding highlight to see so many of our program graduates go on to do such wonderful work at universities and in communities across this country. I'm particularly proud of the kinds of "community service" commitments I've seen blossom from the work our students have engaged in. <br /><br />This year, for example, in coming up with a solution to an economic and entrepreneurship challenge, our winning team, an urban class of 20 students from a school in Hartford (one of our state's most embarrassingly under-performing districts) based its e-business model on a non-profit plan to feed, cloth and secure the victims of the Darfur tragedy. The solution took on it's shape and emphasis, in part, as a result of a trip I arranged, in cooperation with a courageous and determined school principal supported by a strong community of teachers and parents, for 18 of these students to go to China for 2 weeks, including a cultural immersion in a remote western region of China populated by multi-ethnic and religiously diverse peoples. <br /><br />For these students, the trip in March was life-changing and brought a real sense of urgency and passion to their project work. These students heard, first hand, from students in China how Chinese students share the same concerns about the global economic and humanitarian conflicts arising out of "national energy" needs and policies, and the collateral consequences of such powerful interests as evidenced in Darfur. <br /><br />It was a truly remarkable experience to sit amongst these groups from opposite sides of the world and life experience, and hear their intelligent and reasoned discussions, and then to see them put their new-found knowledge to work in such a passionately humanitarian way. Judges at this year's Exposition of student work from over 40 school districts in Connecticut were clearly blown away by the work of many of our teams and their focus on "community development" as solutions in a challenging world.<br /><br />My new directions are exciting and humbling at the same time. I'm going to effectively be operating as a free agent out of a need for some time to write and work outside the scope of any formal programs.<br /><br />First on the agenda for the coming years is my opportunity to live and teach in China, as a guest of the Board of Education and the Foreign Affairs Office of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the Peoples Republic of China. My home, for at least 6 months out of the year, will be a faculty apartment on the campus of Ningxia Polytechnic University in the city of Yinchuan. <br /><br />I will help with curriculum design and projects aimed at universities (Ningxia Polytechnic University, Ningxia University, Ningxia Medical College, and Ningxia Teachers College - all national universities in the Chinese educational system) and middle schools (the equivalent of our high schools) throughout the province of Ningxia. I will guest lecture on the kinds of skills needed - collaboration, communication, team-building, project management, creativity, critical thinking, cultural and social diversity, and global awareness - to be a fully responsible participant in a global knowledge economy.<br /><br />Part of this mission is to work with friends and networks in both China and the US to stimulate cultural, learning and teaching exchanges. Certainly the opportunity for teachers and students in both China and the US to travel to each other's country and gain first hand experiences that represent meaningful lessons in cultural identity, appreciation, and respect are part and parcel of this plan. <br /><br />But I've come to believe that the great historical and philosophical underpinnings that make China and America such uniquely iconoclastic societies deserves much more than a journey of any length and time period. There is so much more to be shared and understood. <br /><br />So using my experience with project-based learning activities supported by the increasingly accessible technologies that make the world a more reachable community in all its corners, nooks and crannies, I am working to prepare a framework for student/learner collaboration that will allow a multi-disciplinary experience, building lasting relationships, and hopefully creating a deeper, richer understanding and global awareness among all learners.<br /><br />In this context and as a beginning, there are two websites designed to support these goals through networked collaborations of students and institutions. <a href="http://www.dragonstudentexchange.org/">Ningxia Dragon Student Ambassadors</a> is designed to bring students together through active exchange programs, including traditional stand-alone exchanges, and through active blended learning programs and projects. Another site - <a href="http://www.nscgroup.org/">New School Curriculum Group</a> - provides a portal for a set of collaborative partnerships and programs to prepare students for significant cross-cultural learning exchanges.<br /><br />I am indeed fortunate to have critical relationships (guanxi) in China in government, education, and business networks that have offered me an opportunity to do some development in an area of both special interest and high sensitivity to both cultures. I'm learning first hand the range of opportunities and risks of a system - China in the 21st century - undergoing incredible change. <br /><br />So, with a commitment of support for my work in China for at least two years, I will be traveling and splitting my time (roughly six months in each hemisphere) between China and the US. What I regret not having done with my life-choices at the age of 20-something, I now get to do at the ripe old age of 60. I am indeed fortunate.<br /><br />Second on the agenda is to do some writing. I have a contract to contribute to a compilation of curriculum ideas in "A New Essential Curriculum for 21st Century Learners," to be edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs and published by ASCD by the end of this year. <br /><br />I'm also going to be working on some other book projects, notably a project in collaboration with Dr. Subhash Jain at the UConn School of Business on the state of leadership development at the dawn of a revolutionary transformative period in history where technologies have taken on a trajectory and convergence at a pace well ahead of our social and political institutions' ability to respond to the great questions - moral, ethical, cultural, social - posed to the next generation of leaders.<br /><br />I was pleasantly surprised recently to receive an invitation to join the Academy for Global Economic Advancement at the UConn School of Business, which will give me an opportunity to contribute to research on curriculum practices in management and leadership education, to speak at quarterly conferences of the Center for International Business Education and Research, and to write on topics of global business and economic leadership issues. <br /><br />As a friend and visiting fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, a card-carrying member of the Action Coalition for Media Education, and a participant at the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT, I have an opportunity to draw from the expertise and dialogues of organizations at the nexus of next-generation questions about global social, economic, and political leadership.<span style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br /></span><span style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br />In June, I'll be attending conferences at Princeton and in Upstate New York. In July, I return to China for the month, including chaperoning a grop of 20 students and teachers on an exchange trip to Ningxia, Mongolia, and Sichuan where we will "adopt" a school damaged in the recent tragic earthquake, so that the students can return home to build a community of solidarity and support for the rebuilding and healing process now underway.<br /><br />I'm planning on attending the DNC in Denver. I played a lead role here in our Connecticut <a href="http://www.ctobama.org/">grassroots organization for Barack Obama</a>. However, fitting the Convention into my schedule may be more challenging than I can manage.<br /><br />All of this activity creates a sense of wonder at how life's twists and turns are both unknowable in advance but humbling in the opportunities all of us have to contribute positively to our families, communities, and fellow travelers. I hope to hear from and share more with my friends and colleagues, all of whom I depend on for the mutual trust and shared reputations for good works and caring spirits.<br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-61447574353999054242008-01-21T15:37:00.000-05:002008-01-21T16:15:11.970-05:003D learning environment from Sun Microsystems...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/R5UKmo34aLI/AAAAAAAAATQ/c1GIL1gkN5c/s1600-h/MPK20+video.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/R5UKmo34aLI/AAAAAAAAATQ/c1GIL1gkN5c/s200/MPK20+video.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158040607145879730" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Many educators are beginning to hear about the potential for 3D learning environments. Perhaps the best known emerging platform is <a href="http://secondlife.com/">SecondLife</a>. For all it's promise and interest, early adopters of the <a href="http://secondlife.com/">SecondLife</a> platform find many problems and difficulties as a "ready for prime time" platform. Part of the problem relates to the question of openness. Linden Labs, developers of <a href="http://secondlife.com/">SecondLife</a>, has been struggling with the inevitable challenge of moving towards a more open framework in order to encourage a broad development community, while maintaining their early advantage of a "for-profit" business model. <div> </div><div><br /></div><div>To familiarize yourself with <a href="http://secondlife.com/">SecondLife</a>, particularly <a href="http://secondlifegrid.net/programs">in education</a>, check out their <a href="https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page">wiki site</a>. Also, Check out <a href="http://www.nmc.org/">NMC, a leading consortium of educators who are experimenting with virtual worlds and simulation in education</a>.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, Sun Microsytems' <a href="http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-6054494-7.html">DarkStar project</a> shows some real promise towards overcoming the practical problems of "bandwidth" and processing power that currently makes working with virtual world environments klugey in classroom settings. Sun's design creates a peer-to-peer network of user computers that overcomes the processing limitations of a server-client network in much the same way as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_%28protocol%29">bittorrent</a> does for large video downloads and streaming. <a href="http://research.sun.com/projects/mc/video/MPK20-oct2007.mov">The MPK20 Sun Virtual Workplace demo</a>, while graphically uninteresting as an early version of the technology, nonetheless shows some of the promise of 3D virtual worlds in education.</div><div> </div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-72849139954005847912008-01-21T15:30:00.000-05:002008-01-21T15:36:43.525-05:00Five Technology Trends that Change Everything in Curriculum Design<span style="font-weight:bold;">Social Production<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span><br /><ul><li>Production costs have gone to “0” in the digital age. Learners are now producers of content; not simply consumers of content.<br /></li><li>Examples: blogs, wikis, podcasts, and video production systems<br /></li><li>Social production technology provides learners with the opportunity to “learn to do.”<br /></li></ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Social Networking</span></span><br /><ul><li>Social networks enable affinity groups that build learning.<br /></li><li>Examples: Facebook, Ning, and eLGG<br /></li><li>Social networking provides learners with identity building tools; the opportunity to “learn to be.”<br /></li></ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Semantic Web</span></span><br /><ul><li>Web 3.0 tools are emerging that make the Internet a powerful repository of knowledge.<br /></li><li>Examples: Photosynth and ”friend of a friend” (FOAF) applications.<br /></li><li>The semantic web provides learners with an increasing efficiency to acquire knowledge; the opportunity to “learn to know.”<br /></li></ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Media Grids</span></span><br /><ul><li>Media grids create virtual worlds and 3D simulation environments<br /></li><li>New technologies make virtual world processing inexpensive and practical.<br /></li><li>Examples: SecondLife or MPK20 Wonderland (from Sun Microsystems)<br /></li><li>3D simulations and virtual worlds have the potential to permanently alter our sense of time and space in learning environments.<br /></li><li>3D simulations and virtual worlds amplify learners’ opportunities to “learn to do” and “learn to be.”<br /></li></ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The “New Zoo” Metaphor for Knowledge Creation</span></span><br /><ul><li>Biology opens new windows on the world of information and knowledge creation.<br /></li><li>Decoding the human genome is a significant development in our understanding of knowledge. The rate of new knowledge is on pace to grow at unheard of exponential rates.<br /></li><li>The biology metaphor for knowledge creation amplifies learners’ opportunities to “learn to know.”<br /></li></ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-42715130680439916852007-07-29T11:55:00.000-04:002007-07-29T23:04:27.811-04:00A tough week...This has been a tough week... <br /><br />Between the years 2001 and 2004, I taught psychology, economics, and history at Cheshire Academy. Those days now seem far away right given all the work and progress I've experienced at the Center for 21st Century Skills. <br /><br />But Cheshire Academy was my most rewarding teaching experience, allowing me to really branch out and learn about learning at warp speed. The students, colleagues, and community at Cheshire Academy were really like a family for 3 full years - with all the exultations and tribulations that families bring. <br /><br />That's why this week has been so tough. Over the past couple of years, tragedy has tinged the memories. Glenn Edwards tragically took his own life as the result of the pain and humiliation of a charge of sexual misconduct with a minor. Regardless of how one feels about an openly gay man living and teaching in a boarding school community, Glenn was immensely popular with, and caring towards the vast majority of students he interacted with. <br /><br />What happened to Glenn could happen to anyone of any sexual orientation, whose urges are not rigorously self-controlled in an arena of close proximity and relationship with students far from home and family. This may sound like a no-brainer, but many of these students come to view their "local parents" with the same emotions and intimacy that occurs in any close knit family setting. And so the line of "appropriate behavior" is always being tested.<br /><br />The news on Monday morning of this week was surreal. A gruesome triple homicide in the town of Cheshire... what was the family name? Oh my dear God! It can't be... Jenn Petit? Her 2 daughters? Her husband beaten to within an inch of his life? How could this be?<br /><br />Jenn Petit was a stalwart of my Cheshire Academy family experience. Beautiful, intelligent, professional... all of this and so, so much more. She had the completely rare and uncanny ability to do what some can never do - approach that very fine and undefinable line between keeping a "professional" distance and getting so personal with the students under her care, that never once in my experience would a child ever have any reason to feel anything but completely safe in Jenn's care. Jenn was perfect in the roll of student health provider and teacher. Her death this week is a tragedy for the world. Her death, and its gruesome manner tests our faith - in goodness, in charity, in kindness, and in doing for others.<br /><br />And so, it's hard to find any silver linings in this week of sorrow and broken hearts. One of Cheshire Academy's 2002 graduates, a Japanese student known to all as Masa, compiled a piece that I think reflects well on the Cheshire Academy family. I offer it here in tribute to Jenn Petit and her family. God bless them all.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7IMJnBswdYQ"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7IMJnBswdYQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-60611922661025001492007-07-07T08:39:00.000-04:002007-07-07T09:53:43.223-04:00Understanding the implications of "China rising"...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/made-in-china/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/Ro-ODkUYJWI/AAAAAAAAAOQ/utjtlkFBXDU/s200/china.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5084438696264476002" border="0" /></a><br />To fully understand and grasp the implications of the current "China phenomenon," I recommend reading the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200707/shenzhen">James Fallows article</a> (actually, the first in a series) in the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly magazine.<br /><br />If you're not a subscriber to the Atlantic Monthly, I've saved a copy of the article in PDF format here. <embed src="http://www.box.net/static/flash/box_explorer.swf?widgetHash=7zl94ytxr6&cl=0" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="250" width="275"></embed><br /><br />Also, there's an interesting multi-media version of the story. Click on the image.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/made-in-china/"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/made-in-china/" alt="" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-6186176799586248022007-06-23T10:27:00.000-04:002007-06-23T10:51:55.957-04:00Content vs. creativity as the goal of education...In my mind, there is little doubt that we are at the initial stages of tremendous change to our educational structures. The way in which we interact with knowledge - co-creation, commenting, amateur peer-evaluation, openness, etc. - is strongly at odds with traditional education. Classrooms have been conceived as comprising a single prominent node (the teacher). Yet, our daily interactions are multi-nodal. Our experience with information is multi-perspective.<br /><br />Forecasting the world in which our children will be working and living long after we are gone is an impossible task. We can not, with certainty and absolute confidence, even forecast what the world will look like in the next 10 years.<br /><br />School systems all over the world, literally everywhere - in so-called developed and undeveloped places - are set up to make academic professors of us all. Middle and secondary schools are set up to physically and academically resemble colleges -- curriculum is built around fifty minute chunks; academic seat-time is measured in quarters or semesters; grades are used to mark mastery, content is delivered only to be absorbed and repeated, etc.<br /><br />The trouble is, no matter how revolutionary secondary curriculum and participation is, if one stays on track a student will run smack into the walls of the ivory tower and will be transported back to a medieval system where the ultimate goal is to fill our brains -- slightly on one side, of course -- with content. How many of us were told as children not to dance because we won't grow up to be dancers; not to paint because we won't grow up to be painters; and so forth and so on. Sir Kenneth Robinson explains how schools kill creativity far more eloquently than I can.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iG9CE55wbtY"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iG9CE55wbtY" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><br />The question that remains for me is whether education can evolve on it's own...or whether it will be transformed and revolutionized by outside forces.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-22367889087919728262007-06-09T16:32:00.000-04:002007-06-09T16:42:16.958-04:00Access to all the world's knowledge is a human right...Here's a point of view I hold: Strictly in the context of the Internet age (and the promise of 21st century participatory cultures), our educational system is fatally flawed. (I'm really talking about the system that is in place from roughly the 4th grade through 12th grade.) Question: Can the "system" be fixed or is it doomed? <br /><br />I believe our current K-12 system of education is doomed. I believe that, in the absence of the rise of a replacement system, the great "divides," starting with the digital and ending with the income, quality of life, and "creative" class, will be greatly exacerbated until society is heavily destabilized, risking the outcome of a ferocious 21st century version of fascism. The countervailing response to such an outcome requires an economic theory based on abundance (<a href="http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=Main_Page">The Wealth of Networks</a>), not scarcity.<br /><br /> <blockquote>As the internet has become widespread, growing numbers of people have seized the opportunity to increase their participation in education, entertainment, and volunteerism. The development of networked space brings society another step further away from the dark ages of Taylorism by increasing our faith that we can make something of our own volition that is valuable to society. (<a href="http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=5._Individual_Freedom:_Autonomy%2C_Information%2C_and_Law">Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, Chapter 5</a>)</blockquote><br /><br /><br />I believe that all human knowledge is rapidly aggregating on the Internet. This makes access to "the world's knowledge" and the means of social production an educational right, indeed a fundamental human right - available to every culture and individual, regardless of socio-economic status. Weighing the risks and opportunities should demonstrate that whatever perceived "risks" to learners (again, I'm speaking primarily about learners in the 10-18 age bracket), opportunities for self-determined learning through unfettered access to the Internet are far greater and more essential to human health, economic, and social progress. <br /><br />The "free market" system is not to be trusted as an intermediary in this area. Our "free market" intermediaries remain bounded by fear and the threat of the shift of large segments of the population away from being manipulated "consumers" toward independent "producers."<br /><br />The work I've been doing with students raises the following hypothesis: Access to the Internet is a human right, on par with the rights bestowed by the great Civil Rights Act and the rejection by civilized individuals of apartheid practices everywhere. Access should not be filtered or qualified, indeed it cannot be filtered and qualified by gatekeepers of a failed educational system. Removing all barriers to accessing knowledge and the means of social production in our educational system is the signal challenge of the next 5 years.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-82123544286672586882007-02-13T17:08:00.000-05:002007-01-25T11:47:28.237-05:00Daniel Hand High School's Chinese Culture Day...I had an opportunity to wrap up today's Celebration of Chinese Culture at Daniel Hand High School in Madison, by speaking to 150 juniors and seniors. I'd prepared a "multi-media show" for the students, hoping I could get them engaged at the end of an interesting day, but the last period of any school day is always a challenge on the "engagement" front. The title of my talk was "China Rising - What students need to know about cultural participation in the 21st century." <br /><br />Alas, the technology failed me or more appropriately, I failed the technology. As I regularly make my rounds presenting topics on 21st century concepts to school district groups, I find incredible dis-similarities in technology topologies from district-to-district. There are no "universal standards;" only "local standards." This may work for curriculum design or teaching practices, but I don't think it's the model we need for railroads. <br /><br />Imagine taking a train from New Haven to Stonington, and having to change wheels at each town border because there's a different track guage imposed as a "local standard." That's what being a traveling presenter is like in the world of education. <br /><br />Oh well. It's not a complaint, mind you. After all, who'd have thought 10 years ago that the Internet and web technology might be as "pervasive" in public education as it has become? For me, it's always a risk to raise expectations about the power of new media to inform, by planning on using that very media as the basis of my school presentations. But risk is inextricably part of the message, said best in this short verse by an unknown author:<br /><blockquote> To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.<br />To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.<br />To reach for another is to risk involvement.<br />To expose your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd, is to risk their loss.<br />To love is to risk not being loved in return.<br />To live is to risk dying.<br />To believe is to risk failure.<br />But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.<br />The people who risk nothing do nothing, have nothing, are nothing.<br />They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.<br />Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves; they have forfeited their freedom.<br />Only a person who risks is free. </blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-6519525971136929162007-01-25T11:23:00.000-05:002007-03-15T21:35:29.246-04:00David Brin's vision for 3rd millenium problem solving...David Brin frequently uses the medium of science fiction to describe the future. His <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1700440519407762800">webcast at Google</a> is deep and heavy, but the good news about such a complex topic presented in webcast form is the ability to stop and start to let our minds wrap around the subject, even while allowing us to go elsewhere to gain better understanding and background on the subject. Brin talks at length about this ability of society to be both "anticipatory" and "resilient." Katrina is an example of the "professional protective cast" calling a stop to what Brin calls "citizen robustness, a resiliency to deal with the crisis."<br /><br />The result of engaging the professional protective cast, in this case the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, and a myriad of conflicting Federal and state bureaucracies? More chaos, more harm, and extended suffering. Brin points out that the attention economy isn't new. Our pre-civilization ancestors practiced the principles of the attention economy in furthering human evolution. Synchronous, face-to-face skills honed discourse and solved challenges. And just as we do today in the "new" attention economy, our ancestors practiced selective focus by:<br /><blockquote>Adjusting distance,<br />Turning to and away from others,<br />Heeding reputation,<br />Favoring what's interesting,<br />Remembering what's important,<br />Constructing rules of courtesy,<br />Keeping a train of thought,<br />And, staying alert for surprise!</blockquote>His thesis of 21st century problem solving ultimately boils down to the components of :<br /><blockquote>Art<br />Anticipation<br />Resiliency<br />and Discourse</blockquote>We shouldn't lose site of these things as we create educational policies that, unintentionally or otherwise, separate us from citizen robustness and resiliency to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-47842087546172189492007-01-20T13:17:00.000-05:002007-01-20T13:24:48.349-05:00Cong. Miller on "teaching to the test"...Congressman George Miller (D-CA) took the helm of the Committee on Education and Labor, one of the most important positions on Capitol Hill. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is up for re-authorization this year. The editors of Edutopia Magazine recently sat down the Cong. Miller and asked him questions about his views on the Federal Government's role in education. I thought Cong. Miller's comments on NCLB, particularly points he made about "teaching to the test" were interesting, and have provided some excerpts here:<br /><blockquote>First of all, what I think we're starting to see emerge from NCLB is that those schools that are starting to be successful -- where more and more students are learning at grade level, are being proficient -- are those that are rejecting the idea of teaching to the test. The drill-and-kill is doing exactly that: It's killing the appetite for learning among the students. They're not doing any better on the drill-and-kill, and they're not doing any better on the test.<br /><br />But, again, you come back to this idea of engaging students in the learning experience, in the learning opportunity. And we're starting to see where reading is incorporated throughout the entire curriculum, where mathematics is incorporated throughout much of the curriculum, that students are starting to be engaged in a different way, and it starts to appear that they're doing better on some of the exams.<br /><br />Where there's cooperative learning, where students are learning from their peers, where teachers are sharing their teaching experiences, where they have time to plan programs, to align the programs to the proficiency of the children, there are a lot of successes out there that we have to focus on.<br /></blockquote><br />You can read the entire interview <a href="http://edutopia.org/php/interview.php?id=Art_1764">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-70887367190636994552007-01-10T18:19:00.001-05:002007-01-10T18:19:48.186-05:00Listening to student voices...There's a way of expressing what new media formats do to the learning paradigm. It goes like this:<br /><br />I hear; and I forget.<br /><br />I see; and I may remember.<br /><br />I do; and I understand.<br /><br />21st century learners can "do" in ways no previous generations of learners could do, unless we go all the way back to before the era of universal education, when "learners" were put to work in the fields, raised the crops, nurtured the land, and cared for the animals as part of the experience of coming of age.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/662278/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/791427/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.019.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I regularly ask my students to contribute to my performance. Here's a student, Samantha Velez, speaking for herself about her experience in the IT Leadership Academy program that the <a href="http://skills21.org/">Center for 21st Century Skills at Education Connection</a> runs for 400 students in 20 school districts.<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P0741480608a6f526aba5a72fed8f4103Yl1%2FSlREYmN3&buffer=5&shape=6&amp;fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" frameborder="0" height="20" scrolling="no" width="246"></iframe><br /><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/P0741480608a6f526aba5a72fed8f4103Yl1/SlREYmN3.mp3">MP3 File</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-1165414164073357042006-12-06T09:07:00.000-05:002006-12-10T23:55:28.927-05:00Professor Julie Dobrow's "Media Literacy and Social Change" class at Tuft's University - Part II<span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE:</span> I've broken up this blog post into two sections. I was beginning to worry that the length of the post would cause some browser problems, given the number of images and the relative size of the audio download attached to the post. So, this is the last half of the course presentation I made on November 27th to Professor Julie Dobrow's course on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Media Literacy and Social Change</span>.<br /><br />To start at the beginning, <a href="http://digitalnativesct.blogspot.com/2006/11/professor-julie-dobrows-media-literacy.html">link to Part I here</a>. The audio file is located at the bottom of the Part I post.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Continuing...</span><br /><br />New media formats fundamentally impact the possibilities of student voices in learning. Whenever possible, student voices must and can be heard. Student performance is critical to learning. New media formats give us a unique opportunity to act on this critical issue.<br /><br /><br />There's a way of expressing what new media formats do to the learning paradigm. It goes like this:<br /><br />I hear; and I forget.<br /><br />I see; and I may remember.<br /><br />I do; and I understand.<br /><br />21st century learners can "do" in ways no previous generations of learners could do, unless we go all the way back to before the era of universal education, when "learners" were put to work in the fields, raised the crops, nurtured the land, and cared for the animals as part of the experience of coming of age.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/662278/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.019.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/791427/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.019.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I regularly ask my students to contribute to my performance. Here's a student, Samantha Velez, speaking for herself about her experience in the IT Leadership Academy program that the <a href="http://skills21.org/">Center for 21st Century Skills at Education Connection</a> runs for 400 students in 20 school districts.<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P0741480608a6f526aba5a72fed8f4103Yl1%2FSlREYmN3&buffer=5&shape=6&amp;fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" frameborder="0" height="20" scrolling="no" width="246"></iframe><br /><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/P0741480608a6f526aba5a72fed8f4103Yl1/SlREYmN3.mp3">MP3 File</a><br /><br />So, what are the key steps in 21st century learning once we engage learners through the new media formats?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/70794/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.020.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/31269/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.020.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Participation. The Internet invites participation on a scale never before available... through blogs, through wikis, through "podcasts," through social networks like MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube. The Internet allows for cross-generational, cross-cultural exchanges that are bound to accelerate the participatory outcomes of learning. This will happen, whether we "free" the classrooms or not.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/376910/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.021.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/525335/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.021.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Community generated content. If a page in a book is considered a unit of knowledge; an knowledge artifact, then the web pages that make up humankind's knowledge-base is rising each year at an exponential rate. The explosion of content is community based - define a "community" any way you like; a business, an institution, a solitary blogger with a readership of one. Regardless of any qualitative judgments, the Internet revolution is being led by "communities," including, no... <span style="font-weight: bold;">led by our students</span> - creating content.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/514438/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.022.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/903991/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.022.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Syndication. The new web allows us to parse content through feeds, to be dynamically updated on those subjects of our own choosing, at times and in places convenient for us. Learners routinely and instinctively understand the power and benefit of an "info feed," whether its in the creation of personalized news sources, or keeping in touch with "friends" in social networks. Syndication allows the needles to be separated from the haystacks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/551784/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.023.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/877492/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.023.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />As the world goes flat and learning communities are increasingly multi-cultural, learning itself is a social experience. I like to remind educators that this is why we'll always need teachers. Teachers "mediate" social experiences. But the role of teachers is changing and educational institutions need to change a million habits if we're going to insure that learning communities are sustainable in the digital age.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/345092/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.024.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/632966/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.024.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />How are we to keep up? The answer comes from a popular marketing slogan - Just do it! There's a limitless set of resources for educators, parents, and learners online. Start where many of us already start - with Google. The <a href="http://www.infinitethinking.org/">Infinite Thinking Machine</a> blog offers weekly tutorials in a variety of audio and video formats.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/86588/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.025.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/558563/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.025.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />MIT publishes a magazine called <span style="font-style: italic;">Technology Review</span>. The magazine's website offers videos on a range of topics - most relate to technology, but as is increasingly the case in considering the impact of technology on societal changes, many relate to the "process" of learning. While there are many video resources now available on the Web, take a quick look at this one on <a href="http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid79489195/bclid60818931/bctid234388844">evolutionary design</a>. By placing a link to the video into this blog post, I'm demonstrating another tool in the multi-media arsenal available to teachers and learners today.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/RXzavsM3fsI/AAAAAAAAAAU/bprwM_J4RFA/s1600-h/College+seminar+-+blog+version.026.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/RXzavsM3fsI/AAAAAAAAAAU/bprwM_J4RFA/s320/College+seminar+-+blog+version.026.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5007117398582984386" /></a><br /><br />Whether it's <a href="http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html">MIT's OpenCourseWare</a> or <a href="http://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a>' education podcasts or videocasts, there's a tremendous number of learning resources available on the Web. <a href="http://www.learnoutloud.com/">LearnOutLoud</a> offers lots of audio resources for learning. Let students contribute to creating audiobooks out of the classics at <a href="http://librivox.org/">LibriVox</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/RXzeScM3ftI/AAAAAAAAAAc/imDYCuTI8xY/s1600-h/College+seminar+-+blog+version.027.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/RXzeScM3ftI/AAAAAAAAAAc/imDYCuTI8xY/s320/College+seminar+-+blog+version.027.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5007121294118321874" /></a><br /><br />The next wave to hit the shores of education is online gaming. While video games may conjure up images of students playing "Grand Theft Auto" as some kind of homework assignment gone mad, please pay attention. <a href="http://secondlife.com/">SecondLife</a> is a virtual world used by thousands of people to create (re-create) a real world experience, with almost unlimited possibilities. Some major corporations are looking into SecondLife as a way to do training, and to host "virtual" business meetings. There's a "Teen" SecondLife, which is monitored to prevent incursions of inappropriate materials or activities. Can "bad" things happen in SecondLife? No doubt, but when it's picked up by the community and it violates "community standards," corrective action is taken. Meanwhile, no one gets hurt. It's like being in a flight simulator. The plane may crash and burn, but the student walks away a little wiser for the experience.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/RXzhQ8M3fvI/AAAAAAAAAA0/cC7YuoE1hWg/s1600-h/College+seminar+-+blog+version.028.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_R7kMvsX0DZs/RXzhQ8M3fvI/AAAAAAAAAA0/cC7YuoE1hWg/s320/College+seminar+-+blog+version.028.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5007124566883401458" /></a><br /><br />Still not convinced that online gaming has a place in education? Then <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/">watch the introductory video</a> to Harvard Law School's course in "Argument" at Law in the Court of Public Opinion. Or, try out the <a href="http://www.fantasycongress.com/fc/">Fantasy Congress</a> game, modeled after the very popular Fantasy Football online games. And coming soon, my favorite - total immersion in Shakespeare via the <a href="http://swi.indiana.edu/ardenworld.htm">Arden Project</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-1165077855938767512006-12-02T11:44:00.000-05:002006-12-21T21:29:51.451-05:00The Blue Ribbon Schools Blueprint for Excellence Conference, Charleston, SCThis is a complete podcast of my presentation titled:<br /><blockquote>Tech Savvy Students Stuck in Text Dominated Schools - 4 trends that change everything in education </blockquote><br />This conference presentation occurred on December 2nd at the <a href="http://www.blueribbonschools.com/">Blue Ribbon Schools Blueprint for Excellence Conference</a> in Charleston, SC. For the full effect of the event, the podcast can be listened to along with the movie version of the presentation slides. Simply start and pause the movie slides to stay in sync with podcast.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3AsoNFOWyvg"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3AsoNFOWyvg" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object><br /><br />This podcasted event has been broken up into 3 parts:<br /><br />(NOTE: These audio files were created as a demonstration of the use of "pocket devices" such as cell phones for podcasting. In the case of the following podcasts, I was in a conference room deep inside the Convention Center in Charleston, SC. It seems that my cell phone signal was not very strong, and so the quality of this broadcast is not particularly good in places. Nonetheless, it serves as an example of how cell phones can be used to create podcasts from almost any location, and without the use of special equipment. As cell phone services improve and Internet communications become more ubiquitous in coming years, the capability for anyone to podcast through the use of cell phones is bound to improve, with significant implications in education.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Part 1</span>:<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P8dabf0ce240498d72e3f5c338df2c697Yl1%2FSlREYmJ0&buffer=5&shape=6&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br/><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/P8dabf0ce240498d72e3f5c338df2c697Yl1/SlREYmJ0.mp3">MP3 File</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Part 2</span>:<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=Pd0476f2ba23ea83850ea8b116833257dYl1%2FSlREYmJ3&buffer=5&shape=6&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br/><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/Pd0476f2ba23ea83850ea8b116833257dYl1/SlREYmJ3.mp3">MP3 File</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Part 3</span>:<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=Pc067737efe38827fd30fae183921b0d8Yl1%2FSlREYmJ2&buffer=5&shape=6&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br/><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/Pc067737efe38827fd30fae183921b0d8Yl1/SlREYmJ2.mp3">MP3 File</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-1164658178019645662006-11-27T15:09:00.000-05:002006-12-22T15:50:28.077-05:00Professor Julie Dobrow's "Media Literacy and Social Change" class at Tuft's University - Part IOn November 27th, I had an opportunity to go into the Tufts classroom of Professor Julie Dobrow's course on "Media Literacy and Social Change," and engage her students on the syllabus topic: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Youth media, media literacy and media training</span>. At the bottom of this post is an audiocast of my talk. <br /><br />Admittedly, the quality of the audiocast is poor. There are 2 reasons for this. First, I was using a brand new cell phone to create the audiocast, and as is always the case with new technology, practice makes "better." I learned a lot about this particular "pocket device" in the process, and I hope the students who may visit this site do not take offense at being "trial subjects" for this experiment.<br /><br />The second reason that this "audiocast" is of less than stellar quality is that it's my purpose to demonstrate that audiocasts or podcasts can easily be created by non-technically inclined educators using a wide variety of "pocket devices." In other words, we no longer need costly systems to make rather simple and direct contributions to content on the world wide web. This fact has tremendous implications in education.<br /><br />Below, I am providing selected slides from my presentation, along with additional information. I had promised the students in this session that I would offer them these slides and information, and hope that they feel inclined to "push back" with information and comments.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/130753/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/939653/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.001.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The theme of this topic plays on the question of how to engage "tech-savvy" students in the 21st century learning challenges that our general education system faces.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/439863/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.002.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/379979/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.002.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />How do we change the "trajectory" of the debate about integrating the rapidly transforming technologies of the 21st century into our teaching and learning systems? I believe we need to address the question from a different perspective. It's no longer the domain of technologists to respond with "5 year plans" or updated "acceptable use policies." Our culture has gone beyond this, and our students - those entering the schools without ever having known the world without having virtually unfettered access to the Internet throughout their formative years - who pose the very real challenge of a cultural revolution in education.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/487220/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/700125/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.004.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Tom Friedman's book "<span style="font-weight: bold;">The World is Flat</span>" has become a major topic of conversation, not just in boardrooms and policy seminars, but in our education centers as well, because his "solutions" always come back to education. The book, its theses and its ancillary works have become a major focus of educators. If you haven't read the book, here's a little secret. You can watch a 45 minute presentation by Friedman himself at MIT, via a <a href="http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266/">link at MITWorld</a>, and garner a good grasp of all the concepts covered in the text. (Here's an example of using multi-modal, multi-media information resources... And while in the MITWorld space, don't fail to take advantage of the hundreds of other downloadable media files by some of the world's leading subject matter experts. I have often used these resources as classroom substitutes for my own non-expert presentations on relevant subject matter.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/148944/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.005.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/247388/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.005.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The problem we educators have, being schooled and trained in the iron grip of 20th century <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylorism">Taylorism</a>, is that our perspective of learning can best be summed up with an image of the walled garden. Both physically and psychologically (deeply cognitive, if you will), we do our best to keep the "outside" world from creeping into our classrooms. Most of the walled garden approach to learning is subtle, and yet core to our methods and practices. Ever more frequently, the walled garden approach is running up against a hard stop - no cell phones, no "pocket devices," no iPods allowed in the classroom.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/465419/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/906981/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.006.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Of course, this places us directly into a space of unyielding tension with what modern cognitive and evolutionary psychology instructs us about learning (See: Bandura Bruner, Sternberg, Gardner, Pinker, et al). According to the science, learning is messy, uneven, uncertain, complex, "wet," and organic. There is no certain outcome. In fact, "certainties" and "non-ambiguities" are to be avoided. "Truths" often depend on authoritative perspectives. Network maps - whether social, information, or neural - operate on much different principles than linear, sequential programs. "Scope and sequence" becomes a consummate challenge in an era of exponential computational and knowledge growth.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/513487/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.007.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/577264/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.007.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />So, what Friedman tells us is that we're riding a wave... a really big wave. See that guy on the surf board? That's you - the educator. And no matter how fast you go, that really big wave is about to overtake you. That wave is not technology. It is "culture" - the culture of digital natives!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/152265/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/939201/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.008.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />There are 4 trends that I believe change everything in education. Each can be represented by an icon - Wikipedia, Moodle, Google, and a new high speed broadband generation of public access networks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/625704/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/668388/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.009.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />What makes a lot of this interesting is how fast technology time-frames are collapsing. We tend to forget that we literally gained access to the Web a mere 10 years ago - 1995 with the launch of the Netscape browser that made the Web and e-mail and Amazon and the dot-com bubble available to the rest of us non-geeks. Web 1.0 was static and read-only. In spite of our awe and early enthusiasm, it wasn't much of an improvement over print media and television.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/950879/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.010.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/688733/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.010.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Then came Web 2.0 (Thanks, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Reilly">Tim O'Reilly</a>). Over the past couple of years, tens of thousands of blogs and wikis and podcasts and YouTube and MySpace have given us a chance to talk back - dynamic content, generated by everyman. A veritable cacophony of read/write interactions.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/590336/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.011.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/272491/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.011.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />And even before we can adapt our practices to this new, dynamic, read/write web, what do we make of the next "revision" of the Web? A recent article in the New York Time describes entrepreneurs working on a "contextual" web, an intuitive network that "anticipates" our needs. Scary enough? Maybe, but now my cell phone will be able to tell me when I'm near a friend I'd like to talk with in the flesh as I stroll down a city boulevard, or alert me to a book I'm interested in at a price that I find attractive, as I walk past a book shop I would not ordinarily enter.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/201686/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.013.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/64184/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.013.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Sure, iPod videos can provide me with 150 hours of streaming video in high-def resolution on a screen that'll fit in the palm of my hand. But so will my VCast or Mobile Web services using my cell phone. Who's the gatekeeper that manages my access to an unfettered Web? I am. I no longer care about local area networks. I'm free, and I challenge anyone to come up with an application that I can do on my desktop computer that I can't do on my cell phone or PDA.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/674443/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.016.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/31324/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.016.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The <a href="http://queenloana.wikispaces.com/">Queen Loana Annotation Project</a> demonstrates the power of collaborative work for scholarly pursuits. To grasp the implications of this tool in education, look at the detail richly woven into Chapter 1. Then look at the discussion tab to see what potentials exist for dialogue with the content creators. And assessment is build right in - look at the history tab and performance credit becomes immediately evident.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/909478/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.017.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/324949/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.017.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/1600/576178/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.018.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7609/314/320/306204/College%20seminar%20-%20blog%20version.018.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />A wonderful demonstration of how "mash-up" art is becoming a tremendously powerful medium for cross-disciplinary learning is <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a>. One of the things that most intrigues me in this new age of un-mediated knowledge creation is the way in which organizations like Google (arguably the most successful "business model" of the 21st century) invite "unqualified" third parties to "hack" their most important assets - the vast array of databases controlled through the Googleplex. The <a href="http://gombechimpanzee.blogspot.com/">Gombe Chimpanzee Blog</a> (from the Jane Goodall Institute) is just one of several, significant educational blogs that can enliven a cross-disciplinary lesson in earth science, geography, story-telling, and more. Click on a blog post link, and students can be miraculously transported on site! Tempted to comment and ask questions of the Jane Goodall researcher? Be my guest. What primary schooler wouldn't be enthralled and engaged? This is but one example of how Google Earth mash-up art is leading self-determined learners around the world into a richer, fuller learning experience.<br /><br />END OF PART 1 - <a href="http://digitalnativesct.blogspot.com/2006/12/professor-julie-dobrows-media-literacy.html">click here for Part II</a><br /><br />The following podcast covers most of my presentation. For other podcasts of other presentations, wander through this blog and check other posts.<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P0694c6e0c40bcd703b496cfedcb228f8Yl1%2FSlREYmJ1&buffer=5&shape=6&amp;fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" frameborder="0" height="20" scrolling="no" width="246"></iframe><br /><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/P0694c6e0c40bcd703b496cfedcb228f8Yl1/SlREYmJ1.mp3">MP3 File</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-1162948596218698932006-11-07T20:16:00.001-05:002006-12-22T15:52:15.332-05:00Oliver Wolcott Technical High School presentation on "Wikis, Blogs, and more..."On November 7th, I had the pleasure of delivering a presentation titled "Wikis, Blogs, and more: Technology trends in education" to a group of teachers and school leaders at the Oliver Wolcott Technical High School in Torrington, Connecticut. For anyone interested, I offer both an audio (podcasted using my cell phone) and video (saved as a movie file to YouTube) version of this presentation. <br /><br />Here is the real-time podcast of the Oliver Wolcott Techical High School professional development session. <br /><br />The following is Part I of the podcast:<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=Pad7497e4210e5ee9335740fef6282993Yl1%2FSlREYmNw&buffer=5&shape=6&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br/><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/Pad7497e4210e5ee9335740fef6282993Yl1/SlREYmNw.mp3">MP3 File</a><br />http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif<br /><br />The following is Part II of the podcast:<br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=Pcd09d219bb17a882323479319f15981aYl1%2FSlREYmNz&buffer=5&shape=6&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br/><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/Pcd09d219bb17a882323479319f15981aYl1/SlREYmNz.mp3">MP3 File</a><br /><br />Use the start/pause button to sync this talk up with the slices. Thanks for listening and watching and please add your comments to the dialogue!<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yREuFqo4r8U"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yREuFqo4r8U" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20692414.post-1161029088591605032006-10-16T16:04:00.000-04:002007-11-10T09:22:13.561-05:00Samantha's podcast for my AT&T presentation...Samantha Velez is an example, one of many, of a terrifically engaged student. Samantha is an example of what I frequently refer to as a "self-determined" learner. Last year (2005-2006), Samantha participated in the IT Leadership Academy Innovation Challenge program. While she is not a "techie," she is a prime example of the new culture of students entering our schools and workforces - the "digital natives" of the 21st century. By "digital native," I mean she is fully fluent in the tools - web surfing, cell phones, IM-ing, text messaging, music and video downloading - that allow her to create her own social networks, to collaborate, communicate, and deal with new media archetypes in a natural, socially and educationally productive way. <br /><br />Too often, we adults dismiss our kids who spend (according to recent studies by the Pew Foundation) up to 3 hours a day using these new tools of communication – cell phones and the web – as being socially withdrawn “geeks” who are becoming disconnected from the “reality” that the adults ("digital immigrants") grew up with. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reality in the 21st century, whether in work, play, or social interactions, is based on the power of our technology to connect and build real relationships, either face-to-face or across time and international borders.<br /><br />We do our students a terrible disservice by not paying attention to the “cultural” shifts currently underway. It’s not about the technology; it is about a new, emerging culture of global digital natives and we must be responsive or continue to lose ground in educating the next generation. <br /><br />Recently, I was invited to make a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5OU8XoA3_0">presentation</a> about new communication tools and their implications in education, workforce development, and economic growth to a group of AT&T managers. To demonstrate my point, I asked Samantha Velez to use her cell phone to create a podcast on this web site that I could use in my presentation. Here is her response. Please listen carefully and you will hear a message from a young woman from Waterbury’s Crosby High School who is wiser and mature beyond her years. She is one of many I have had the pleasure of working with over the past several years of my work at the Center for 21st Century Skills @ Education Connection.<br /><br /><br />powered by Audioblog.com<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.hipcast.com/playweb?audioid=P0741480608a6f526aba5a72fed8f4103Yl1%2FSlREYmN3&buffer=5&shape=6&fc=FFFFFF&pc=CCFF33&kc=FFCC33&bc=FFFFFF&brand=1&player=ap21" height="20" width="246" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><br/><a rel="enclosure" href="http://www.hipcast.com/export/P0741480608a6f526aba5a72fed8f4103Yl1/SlREYmN3.mp3">MP3 File</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0