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Is It Something, or Nothing?

Posted in Administrator, conference, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Ning, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Twitter, unconference on July 22, 2010| 11 Comments »

I have always enjoyed attending educational conferences. I have been an organizer, committee member, presenter, moderator, panelist, and attendee for various conferences over my career as an educator. Educational conferences were always more than seeing the latest and greatest gadgets and gimmicks being offered to teachers to involve students in learning. I always recognized the energy that comes from these events. Educators who attend conferences get to listen to other ideas and share their own. They network and collaborate. They are introduced to new ideas, as well as stretch existing ideas to new dimensions. Conferences also provided best practices examples that many school districts lacked in their Professional Development. Teachers often returned to their Districts recharged and eager to put into practice that which they were exposed to at whatever conference the last attended.

I must admit that I was also critical of some aspects of educational conferences. I understand the high cost of putting such conferences together. That fact limits the number of people any District can send to a conference. It also seemed to me that many districts focused on sending administrators more often to conferences than teachers. I understand there are very good reasons why administrators need to attend conferences, but the ratio of Administrators to classroom teachers was always out of whack. It seemed to me that the administrators outnumbered the classroom teachers. Considering the number of Administrators to teachers in any district, there should always be more classroom teachers by a 10 to 1 margin. Of course this is not possible. Teachers cannot leave their students for extended periods of time. Vendors whose table fees make these conferences profitable, much prefer the movers and shakers of education to be in attendance in larger numbers. Buying decisions are not usually made in large numbers by teachers.

Districts interested in making the most from conferences will rotate their people to conferences. They will limit the same people from going to the same conferences year after year. They will encourage teachers not only to attend, but encourage them to present. Districts need to consider branding their schools with educators whose best practices are shared with other educators, locally, statewide, nationally, and globally. This recognition builds pride and expertise that benefits everyone including the students.

Now there seems to be new models of educational conferences emerging. It is yet to be determined if they will become permanent fixtures in the world of education. The new models are a direct result of today’s technology. Social Media has connected a great number of teachers from around the world. It not only brings educators together virtually and intellectually, but it enables them to organize and plan face to face gatherings without the need for professional organizations. The development of webcast applications is also enabling people to organize and present to large groups of educators who are securely nestled in the safety of their home cocoons and the comfort of their pajamas. The U-Streaming and archiving applications enable presenters to record presentation for those who could not attend in real-time. It time shifts professional Development for convenience.

These online symposiums, and unconferences or camps and webcasts are beginning to happen more and more in many locations around the world. Educational Ning sites are having more and more webcasts with both educational luminaries, as well as classroom teachers offering best practices for professional Development. People are being accepted by what they have to offer in the way of ideas and not by what their title is. These conferences are for the most part free to attendees. They bring together educators worldwide. They are allowing Higher Ed teachers link up and interact with K-12 educators. Authors are no longer just faces on a book cover, but participants in the discussion. Contacts made from these conferences become continual with social media allow connections to stay connected. The energy is renewed on a weekly or daily basis as opposed to months or years at a time.

Time will tell if these tech-assisted conferences help us move professional development to a point where the new literacy required to learn, teach and communicate with technology can be mastered by a majority of educators. This may be at best a gateway to educational reform and at worst an idea expanding experience. I guess that falls in the category of a win/win situation.

I needed to finish this post today for tomorrow I am meeting up with Eric Sheninger, @nmhsprincipal and Steve Anderson, @web20classroom to drive to Philadelphia for the #ntcamp. That is an Unconference for new teachers. It was organized by teachers for new teachers. The word went out over social media and many members of my Personal Learning Network are coming together in Philly to work with any of the new teachers who will be in attendance for no charge. This could be something or it could be nothing. Knowing the people involved I would bet that it will be something. Take a look at the site. http://www.ntcamp.org/2010/ntcamp-update/

Your Thoughts are most welcomed.

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REFORM vs. TRANSFORM

Posted in Administrator, EdChat, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PLN, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Twitter on July 10, 2010| 31 Comments »

For those of you who are unaware of what #Edchat is, it is a weekly discussion involving thousands of educators discussing a specific educational issue. The discussion takes place on Twitter with two sessions, each discussing a different pre-selected topic. A common bond of an interest in education is only one of several bonds common to a majority of participants. Most chatters are technology literate or at least Twitter literate in order to participate. One may also assume that their participation indicates a common interest in the specific topic being discussed. The majority of the group is teachers. Others involved would be administrators, educational consultants, educational vendors, parents, authors, and people who were interested in the topic that was being discussed on social media channels in preparation for the Chat.

The many factors of commonality among the participants often foster agreement as to solutions for the problems being discussed. That does not mean that the solutions are weak or less warranted, only that they are recognized and agreed to by many of the participants. Educators, being who they are, often challenge these ideas to test their worth during the chat. It would seem the profession attracts those who love playing the “Devil’s Advocate”. This agreement on solutions among participants has labeled Edchat among some as an “echo chamber”. Unfortunately, labels sometimes cast doubt over what are very sound ideas as people place the emphasis on the label rather than the idea.

Changing education reform from discussion to action was the topic of last week’s #Edchat. It was one of the most active chats we have had since we began #Edchat. It was obvious that another interest common to #Edchat participants is the belief that there is a need for education reform and a need for educators to have some say in how that will happen. The resulting Blog posts during the week provided some answers to a growing frustration with things either not happening fast enough or not happening at all. People put forward some strategies for action.

The whole idea of connectiveness among educators for collaboration is still new to many. Again, labels seem to get in the way of progress. Twitter is connecting tens of thousands of educators around the world. They are successfully exchanging ideas and collaborating around the clock and over every time zone. Tens of thousands of educators collaborating sounds great until we consider the fact that there are millions of educators out there. Even if 200,000 educators were connected and collaborating, it is still a minority. There is a stigma attached to the technology label among some educators. There is a huge stigma attached to Twitter a s a legitimate form of collaboration or conveyance of ideas. The approach to Social Media and technology in general by educational institutions go a long way in discouraging participation in any collaboration amongst educators.

Technology is still viewed as something separate from education. People are still debating its place in education. They are still debating whether or not it promotes learning. There are some who insist on discussing if technology can ever take the place of the teacher. There are some who demand more research must take place before we can accept technology in education. All of this stalls any forward movement to change.

If we accept that “Ubiquitous” means omnipresent: being present everywhere at once, it would certainly apply to our everyday lives in regard to technology. It has affected most of what we do or come in contact with. Our health, transportation, entertainment, manufacturing, communication, appliances, and leisure time have all been infused with technology. We never debated it. We never questioned it. We never researched it. Except for a Will Smith and a Robin Williams movie of fiction, we never really questioned whether technology would replace people. Yet, in education, these questions are debated all of the time. ENOUGH ALREADY!

Technology is only a tool. It is the Platform that our children must use to earn a livelihood. Our children need to have skills that use the technologies that are ubiquitous in our society and the world. Educators do not need to teach technology, but they need technology to teach. Yes, one can be a great teacher without using technology, but what good does that do for a child who must use those learned skills in a society where technology is ubiquitous? A teacher providing the skills without technology is providing an incomplete set of skills for what today’s children need. It will be up to that child to fill in the blanks in his/her education. That child will need to pick up technology skills on his own. He will need to correlate the acquired skills from that teacher into a technology rich environment, which the teacher failed to do, in order to succeed.

There is no longer a debate to be had on whether or not educators should employ technology as a tool. It is already ubiquitous in our culture. It is here to stay. It is developing and moving forward. Our education system is not keeping up with that change. Our children are either on that train prepared to move forward or waving bye-bye at the station. Relevance is now key to our educators, because it is key to our children. There is now a new literacy required to use technology successfully. How many of our educators are lacking in that literacy? How many educators are now illiterate?

There are so many problems to address in education that it is always a challenge as to where to begin. My suggestion is to stop creating impediments by debating the need for something which is ubiquitous in our society and will only be more evident in the culture of our children. We need to encourage the smart use of technology. We need to teach and develop the smart use of technology with professional development. We need our administrators and teachers to model the smart use of technology. We need to provide exposure, education, and participation of parents in the smart use of technology.

We need to understand that teaching writing with an Underwood typewriter and erasable bond paper is not the best way to teach today’s children to be writers. Let us not debate whether it could be done that way. Of course it could, but why would we do that? We as educators must be relevant and that is a day-to-day struggle. Educators can use technology to accomplish this. We need to educate the educators how they can maintain relevance.

Feel free to comment

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#Edchat Revisited

Posted in Blog, EdChat, ISTE, Leadership, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Thought Provoking, Twitter on June 23, 2010| 15 Comments »

When Shelly Terrell and I first discussed the idea that spawned #Edchat neither of us had any idea what it would become. It started as a place to begin, conduct and record some thought-provoking discussions about topics in education that we had an interest to discuss. We created the hashtag, #Edchat, selected a time, contacted Steve Anderson for techy help, and we were off and running. We started with a few people who followed us and we discussed topics on the fly.

We began to involve more and more people, and soon needed more of a structure. Steve developed our #Edchat Poll and we began to publicize the established day and time of the chat. It truly was a case of “If you build it, they will come”. It was that simple. We were not building on other models. We were not pioneers, but more like novices on Twitter. We were in new territory, but we knew that we needed to develop strategies for success. We added moderators as we grew, and we needed to archive the sessions to accommodate those who were not able to attend live. Being educators we constantly assessed, reflected, and modified.

The hashtag, #Edchat, soon grew beyond a hashtag for a discussion. It was now a place for educators to shout out their ideas for education to an audience far beyond the limitations of their personal followers. Anyone following the #Edchat hashtag would receive those tweets. Additionally,we needed to create an afternoon #Edchat to involve the global Time zones. There are now requests for a third chat to involve more time zones. The chats grew from fifty participants to well over a thousand for every session. During an #Edchat tweets come in at a rate of about one tweet every second. We had a need to create a Facebook page to accommodate more people. We also created a Wiki Page to act as a depository for the #Edchat Archives. It has grown far beyond that which we originally discussed almost a year ago.

Considering the size of the chat, and the speed at which ideas fly in, participants need a strategy to get anything from #Edchat. The first consideration is to select a platform to maximize the flow of information. I use TweetDeck others use Tweetgrid. The last thing one wants to use is the Twitter platform itself. I need three screens. One screen follows #Edchat. That screen rolls by quickly with everyone’s #Edchat tweets. The second screen is for my Mentions. Anyone directing a tweet directly to me appears on this screen. The third screen is my DM or Direct Message screen. This is for any followers sending me personal messages during the #Edchat. Others have their own strategies, but this is what works for me.

There is no way for anyone to follow every #Edchat tweet as they roll in at a rate of over 3,000 in an hour. My strategy is to look at this as a very big party. I can’t talk to everyone, but I can pick and choose a few folks to converse with. I start by posting a few provocative educational questions pertaining to the topic. Usually, two or three responses will roll in and we are off and running. More and more people join in as we go. There are many discussions like this going on simultaneously in an #Edchat. The only way to see it all is to review the Archives which are posted shortly after the #Edchat conclusion. The official length of an #Edchat is one hour, but many people hang in longer to continue.

The Live engagement during an #Edchat creates a great deal of energy. Participants are usually enthusiastic and driven in their contributions and responses. The lasting effect of #Edchat, however, does not happen until after the chat is over. Almost immediately educators who participated begin posting to their blogs those ideas that were generated and expanded during the chat. Even more posts appear during the week that follows with more reflection and deeper thought on the topic discussed.

Beyond the great subjects explored during the #Edchat there are a few other elements that I appreciate about this weekly event. The ideas are the center of the discussion. Members of the #Edchat discussions are students, parents, teachers, administrators, professors, authors, and some people just interested in the discussion. These participants leave their credentials at the door and discuss the topic with their ideas and contributions evaluated with equal weight within the discussion. The ideas stand on their own to be reflected upon and evaluated based solely on their own merit without regard to who contributed the initial thought. Contributors do not seem to be limited or discouraged by the 140 character limitations.

I know this has all been said before and written about in a number of Educational Journals, as well as many Blogs, but there is always someone who is just joining us or creating a Professional Learning Network. We are even highlighting #Edchat to educators by conducting a large group participation #Edchat at the upcoming ISTE10 Conference. Anyone having questions may contact me on Twitter @tomwhitby.You may want to join us on The Educator’s PLN Ning at http://www.edupln.com. Visit the #Edchat Page on FaceBook at http://bit.ly/aN71KJ. Check out the #Edchat Archives of all the previous #Edchat discussions at http://bit.ly/c6yowP.

Your comments about this post or #Edchat are most welcomed here.

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Tech Org Reorg

Posted in Administrator, EdChat, Education, Interactive White Board, ISTE, IWB's, Leadership, PLN, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Truth on June 18, 2010| 9 Comments »

This post needs a bit of a disclaimer in the beginning. For several years I was a member of the Board of Directors of the New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education, NYSCATE an ISTE affiliate. Like many Educational Technology organizations its mission is to promote the use of technology in education. This organization is similar to many other State wide organizations of other states with the same basic purpose. The leaders of these organizations are volunteers, some paid, most unpaid. These are people who work hard for long hours in support of these organizations and the mission.

That being said, and this being my post, I am going to openly reflect on technology organization stuff. These are my reflections as an educator and a former director of an educational technology group. If it were a lesson, I would assess, reflect and then change things as needed to become more effective. Since I don’t lead any of these organizations, I guess I stop at reflection. I have no ability to change things.

Technology in Education has always been a sticky subject. It requires understanding, training, modeling and innovation in order to be successful in the system. Some districts have recognized this and have had great successes. It is still a lesson to be learned in many other places. The mission of the Educational Technology organizations however, goes beyond a few forward-thinking districts. That term “forward-thinking” itself implies that technology is the future in education and not the now. My question to start would be: If the purpose of Educational Technology Organizations is to achieve ubiquitous use of technology in education, how do we do a formative assessment of that mission? Technology is always evolving, but many of these organizations were formed in the 70’s and 80’s. After over 30 years of striving to promote Technology use in Education, how close are we to ubiquitous use. Yes, we are using more Tech than ever before, but many places are still debating its value in education. We may also be using more technology because there is so much more to use, which has little to do with the influence of these organizations.

“Top Down” and “Bottom up” are two of the ways Technology is adopted in schools. As a classroom teacher, I was always partial to bottom up stuff, because it came from other teachers who used it successfully with kids. Top down to me meant it was a product that an administrator was sold on, with limited knowledge of how it worked, or what was involved for the teacher to make it work. Mandates are rarely successful. My experience has taught me that people need to be lead and not directed. Leaders cannot demonstrate a product and overwhelm folks with bells and whistles and tell them that they will use it from now on. We lose the required understanding, training, modeling and innovation in order to be successful. If you doubt that, look at the Interactive Whiteboards placed in schools all over the country. What percentage of these expensive boards are being used as Video, or PowerPoint projectors.

Now we need to consider the leadership of these organizations, as well as, who participates in their conferences. Being a leader in any of these organizations requires a huge amount of time. Time to a teacher is not negotiable. The flexibility of time is more in the domain of the administrators. It stands to reason that it is easier to provide release time to an administrator than to a classroom teacher. Therefore, it stands to reason that more administrators than classroom teachers run these groups.

The perspective of the teachers in the organization is; “how do I get kids to use this technology to learn?” The Perspective of the Administrator is; “how do I get my teachers to use this Technology?” both of these perspectives must be considered, but it must be in balance. As Administrators monopolize the leadership, that balance seems to be lost. There is almost an elitist air about these organizations. Classroom teachers are the very people we need to attend these conferences. If you ask a classroom teacher if they would attend an ISTE Conference and you then explained what ISTE was, the response would be simple. “I don’t teach Technology, why would I attend that conference?” It is my observation that some of the leadership of these organizations shift focus. The focus shifts from the success of the mission to the success of running the group. To some that comes down to the success of the conference in attendance and buzz. Attendance is measurable, Buzz is not.

A goal should be to involve as many classroom teachers in the synergy that is evident at any of these conferences. It would be hoped that while they were pumped up with the conference high, they would advocate for tech with their fellow teachers. That would be “bottom up”. Who really attends these conferences anyway? I do not even know if that data is tracked. I do know from personal experience I saw a great many administrators repeatedly attending the conferences year after year. Not that anything is wrong with that, but if a majority of the attendees each year are the same administrators who deal with technology as part of their job, where does that leave the classroom teacher and the group’s mission? It should not be an elite club for technology administrators.

Before everyone starts to run to the comment box to blast me on the elite club comment consider this. If these organizations were not being perceived this way by a large group of educators, why are Tech camps springing up all over? Teachers have been filling the void. They are doing their own mini conferences. They are providing sessions on the Internet. They are involving educators in technology in greater and greater numbers. PLN’s for teachers are providing information and collaboration that these organizations have not provided to the classroom teacher.

Educators are striving everyday to be relevant. That is why Professional Learning Networks are expanding by the minute. When we talk about education Reform, relevance is a big part of it. We need relevant Educators. The same can be said of Educational Technology Organizations. They are needed and necessary. They need to focus on their mission and not their organization. If they put the mission first the organization will succeed. Again this is not an attack, but a reflection. If we cannot see where we are going wrong we cannot adjust to correct it.

Now you can run to the comment box and blast away!