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Archive for the ‘Reform’ Category

ICE 2013

Posted in Administrator, Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, Edcamp, EdChat, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Technology, Thought leadership, Twitter on March 6, 2013| 4 Comments »

I am very fortunate to have a position that gets me invited to education conferences around the country, and occasionally out of it as well. I have written a number of posts describing the benefits, and the blemishes, of many of them over the last year. I am writing this post, as I am en route to Austin, Texas to participate in one of the big ones, the SXSWEdu Conference. Last week however, I attended a gem of a conference conducted by the Illinois ISTE affiliate, The Illinois Computing Educator’s Conference, referred to as ICE13.

After attending so many conferences, it is easy to point out the flaws of any, or each. Most conferences require RFPs, the requests for proposals, to determine the sessions for the conference program far too many months in advance of the conference. The need for this is to have several, and in some cases, too many people, read over the proposals in order to determine which sessions to approve. Perhaps several staggered deadlines for RFPs might allow a more varied and relevant program. Another gateway to relevance could be a period of time within the conference to conduct an Edcamp format for a segment of the conference. I think all conferences could benefit by some innovative schedule planning.

ICE13 was a little different from many of the other statewide education conferences by virtue of its venue. Although I flew into Chicago, I had to drive what, according to my GPS, was a 45-minute trip outside of Chicago to St. Charles and a resort called Pheasant Run. This venue made a big difference in the tenor of this conference. The presentation rooms were spacious and well equipped as most conferences, but what made the difference was the sprawling hotel itself. There were two bars and several gathering areas with couches and comfy chairs throughout. It was hive of connectivity and networking based on discussions and discourse. It was a great place for presenters, keynotes and participants to meditate, mingle, and mashup ideas and concepts in education.

For me the highlight of the conference was what was called the PLN Plaza. It was used as an overflow area for the keynotes as those speeches were streamed in. The best part however was that the keynotes, as well as many presenters, were scheduled for drop-ins to conduct discussions on their topics with anyone who stopped by. It was up close and personal in the best way. This is an experience many bloggers benefit from at the Blogger’s Café at large national conferences. The PLN Plaza was the brainchild of a group of people including: Dan Rezac, Elizabeth Greene, and Amanda Pelsor, all of whom kept things moving along there for the entire conference. It was a comfortable gathering place where I engaged in many discussions, as well as networking, and connected throughout my entire stay.

There seemed to be more Twitter activity at this conference as well. Connected educators seemed to be a topic that was emphasized by many of the keynotes and several of the presenters. Camaraderie between the presenters because of their connectedness was very evident at ICE13. The conference also had more than one Wi-Fi network to connect to, which made many people very happy.

In addition I also enjoyed The UDL Playground. I first saw this at the NYSCATE Conference in New York. It is a place where a number of vendors can demonstrate tools as participants ask questions to learn about Universal Design for Learning. The activities there were interactive and very instructive. In full disclosure, my wife’s company, VIZZLE, was quite active in its participation at both conferences. It would be great if more vendors participated in activities like the UDL Playground to enable educators to engage authentically beyond a basic booth demonstration.

Education conferences are a needed component of professional development for teachers and administrators, but they are not going to maintain relevance without connecting their members in greater numbers during each conference. Unconnected educators are pumped up and energized with each annual conference. That occurs annually. They need to meet people and network with the new people who they meet at the conference. Connected educators are pumped up and energized year-round, and go into hyper-drive at conferences as they connect face-to-face with all of the educators they have been exchanging information and sources with during the year. We need to stop just talking about innovation as a goal and practice it as professionals. We need to innovate in every aspect of what we do, and we do it wherever and whenever we can. Connectedness has been digitally enhanced through technology, and it is an innovation we need to employ extensively.

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Twitter vs. Education or Women vs. Men

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, EdChat, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on February 22, 2013| 12 Comments »

Every Friday on Twitter, Tweeters will make recommendations based on their personal experience of exceptional people to follow on Twitter. As an educator, if I follow those recommendations I will almost certainly improve the quality and quantity of tweets I get on education since educators are the people who I follow for my own Personal Learning Network. Each of these tweets of recommendation will be tagged with the telltale hashtag #FF. This identifies them as such a recommendation and allows the hashtagged tweets to be aggregated.

In the evolution of Twitter it has become possible for each tweeter to create lists of people being followed into categories. Lists could be created for math teachers, or Administrators, or organizations. This would allow a tweeter the ability to aggregate tweets from a specific list dealing with a specific area of concern. It is another method of organizing information. These lists may be found in the profile of the Tweeter. A unique spin-off of this is that anyone can access anyone else’s profile giving access to those lists, as well as the ability to follow those very same people. If I have a great person that I follow offering great information, I might access that person’s lists to follow the same people they do. Their specific lists will focus my efforts even more.

Today, ever-trying to share good stuff, I decided to link out what I call “My Stalwart List” on an #FF tweet. It is a list of those, less than 100 people, from my big list of 2,000+ that I follow, who offer me up my best sources of education information. This is my personal Crème de la crème Twitter List. I shared that Link with my 29,000 followers, nice guy that I am. It was that act of sharing that brought my list to the attention of one of my female tweeters, a fact that I never even considered. I must admit to oblivious ignorance on this observation she made. My list was predominantly, male oriented.

How could that be? Of the 83 educators on my Stalwart list, only 23 were women, 28%. I asked, in a profession dominated by women, why do I have so few on my most influential list? I could understand it if I was dealing only with administrators because that is skewed in favor of men. The percentage of male administrators is not representative of the percentage of males in the education profession. It definitely exceeds it. Is it that Twitter itself appeals to males more than females? Could it be that women offer information more sparingly than men do? Could women be more passive when it comes to engagement in discussion on Twitter?

When I made my list up, my only consideration was who provided the most and best information and sources to me on Twitter. I never considered male or female, only tweeter. Do differences in men and women display themselves in the way each approach Twitter (The Venus and Mars debate)?

Thanks to Jennifer Borgioli ‏ @DataDiva I will never look at these lists the same. My #FF recommendation would be to follow her. She does vigorously promote gender awareness. The next big thing should be Educators of color on Twitter. Are they truly represented in the numbers that offer an equal share in the Social Media discussion on Education? I think not!

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Technology: Use it, or lose it!

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Common Core, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Education, Leadership, online learning, Parents, PD, PLN, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teched, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on February 8, 2013| 10 Comments »

I recently got into a discussion with my friend Errol St. Clair Smith, Executive Producer at BAM Radio Network on the effect that technology has had on the news media. Many of the old tried and true guidelines of journalism have been forever changed with the 24-hour news cycle, as well as, news on demand. There is also the ability of anyone to publish at anytime and have the capacity of communicating tolarge masses with the click of a enter button (return button for Apple Folks). This has had a vast and yet-to-be-determined effect on not just the media, but our entire culture as well. The computer is now the Publisher. The smartphone is the video cameraman. Woe has been the newspapers and magazines that had failed to heed the call.

As educators we tend to only consider the effects of technology in Education. Technology has always moved us forward with many industries and professions falling by the wayside. Where have the blacksmiths gone? How many shopping center parking lots have one-hour photo processing booths? When was the last time a college student walked the halls of the dorm trying to borrow a portable typewriter to finish a paper? How many surgeons can operate today based on scalpel skills alone? How many factory workers have been replaced by mechanical Robots? This list could go on for several pages of text, but I will end it here, hoping the point has been made.

Almost all industries and professions have been at the very least affected by tech, and at most, some industries have been eliminated as a result of it. Where does that leave education and educators? I have often said that the biggest myth in education is that computers will someday replace teachers. Now in some respects, I am not so sure it is still a myth. There is the often-quoted expression any educator who can be replaced by a computer should be. I am not sure that the best of teaching may survive at the hands of ill-informed legislators. I am definitely not a conspiracy theorist. There are however, a number of efforts taking place in legislatures around this country that may have a profound effect on the way we deliver education.

There are any number of initiatives going on that, taken as single events, may be non-threatening, or even having a positive effect on education. The combination of these initiatives however, may have a profound effect on the way we deliver education.

Some states have now passed legislation requiring a percentage of education be delivered in a blended form. Blended learning is a combination of delivery of instruction using the classroom and the computer. There is legislation allowing Charter schools to circumvent many of the restrictions of public education. There is the movement to increase class size in every state. Even more troubling, most recently one state is considering legislation to remove certification requirements of teachers.

Looking at all of those pieces as a whole, there seems to be emerging a possible threat to end Public Education, as we know it. States can create an atmosphere where kids can be placed in charter schools with few restrictions using computer-driven education, directed by non-certified technicians, delivering education to hundreds of kids, maybe in a single class, who do not even need to be physically present in a school. All of which was made possible through state legislation. It is cost cutting and might address the tax concerns of many.

We do not want to start a movement for educators calling for a Rebirth of the LUDDITES. We do however need to have educators be educated on the need to understand and use technology as a tool for learning in an environment that supports it. Professional Development must be continual and supported by districts. Educators are the professionals of Education and representative of some of the very smartest people in our country. They should not need to look to politicians and business people to determine how best to educate our children. However, if educators relinquish their relevance, they may be eliminating their profession. Educators need to be in the discussion of education as relevant, educated, informed advocates. I believe this can best be accomplished by being connected and collaborative through technology. We can make it work for us, or surely it will be turned against us.

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What Box?

Posted in Accountability, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on February 1, 2013| 4 Comments »

I just read a post by John Spencer, “Why Aren’t Teachers More Innovative?“ I was struck by a comment from a reader. The comment was a question; “What box? That prompted me to think about what “the box” was that so many educators refer to. My personal conclusion is that the box we generally refer to has different dimensions for each and every individual educator.

My understanding of the box, as it is referred to, is a set of limits. Why it has been assigned a square shape as opposed to round I don’t know. Maybe people find the angles of a square more restrictive and egregious than the supple curves of a circle. At any rate, and again this is my understanding, this box has specific boundaries outside which, people with innovative tendencies will strive to break “out of” in order to think.

I guess the first question is what is the box, and then where does it come from? Who created and placed this box out, in which educators must remain? The perimeter of the original box for educators begins with the model of education in which they teach from the early days of industrialization. The tried and true model of American Education that has been unquestionably supported lo these many decades. Of course the Federal, and State Governments have had a hand in establishing the perimeter and adding to the dimensions. The local district probably affects the size of the box most by either expanding, or more often the case, reducing the size of the box. That establishes the initial size of the box educators will be confined to work within.

Weather or not an educator gets outside that box, which is alleged to be a goal, will be determined by how that educator views the box. Although the goal is to get people outside the box, all of the methods of control within the system are designed to keep educators within the box or compliant. This of course is passed along as many educators place controls on students to keep them in their boxes as well. Control and compliance are key methods in our industrial model for education. Industries are based on that. Desks, textbooks, standardized tests, and even Higher Ed in many respects are multi-million dollar industries dependent on compliance of education and everyone remaining in the box.

The real keeper of the box however is the individual educator. The box is usually defined for people by other people. Acceptance of the box however is not always a given. Individuals may expand their box through the experience of others. Through collaboration, educators can experience how others have grown the box and in some cases broken free of the box. Sharing these experiences becomes an essential part of the profession to advance all. If we are to educate students we need to continually educate the educators. Many have jumped the box and that and that needs to be shared. Connected educators continually share these experiences. A key to outside the box is connecting with other educators. Of course this is an idea that will have to be taken to unconnected educators. This may require pen and paper, but it must be delivered to where these educators live. This is a similar method that we apply in the use technology to get to where our students live.

As educators we should NEVER argue for our limitations. In knowing that there is a better way to teach the skill of learning, if we do not pursue that as a goal, are we still the best educators. If we do not strive for relevance in education that is mired in the past because it is steeped in a nineteenth century model, will we harm our students? Teachers can see ’The Box” as an obstacle or a challenge, but “The Box” does exist and it must be recognized. The individual teacher determines the ultimate dimension of the box and whether or not to break out. In order for our students to employ out of the box thinking, we must employ out of the box teaching.

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EDUCON: Shift Happens.

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, conference, Education, EduCon, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Reform, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on January 28, 2013| 10 Comments »

This weekend I was again very fortunate to attend what many consider the premiere education Conference held each year in Philadelphia, EDUCON. It is the sixth year of this conference and it seems to just keep getting better with each year. It is not at a huge venue. It has no Exhibitors, so there is no Exhibitor Hall. There are no massive dining rooms. There are no planned Gala events. There is no schedule of Keynote speakers. Participation is limited to about 500 people. Students, rather than adults are the support staff at the conference. Without all, or even any of the usual components of a national education conference, how is this a premiere Education Conference?

EDUCON takes place in Philadelphia each year on the weekend between the last weekend of the NFL playoff games and the weekend of the Superbowl.

The venue is a school, The Science Leadership Academy. Compared to many American high schools it is relatively small. For that reason participation numbers are comparatively small when considering other education conferences. The result is a dimension to this conference lacking in others.

The close proximity of participants in a small area with chairs and tables strategically placed in hallways all provide an intimacy not experienced elsewhere. This is important because the very people who are presenters at EDUCON are also participants at the presentations of others. They are also the very people one sits next to at lunch and in the hallways and at other sessions. Engagement is constant and meaningful with educators and thought leaders. It is also happening at all levels: student, teacher, administrator, parent, author, and consultant.

Here is the other difference; every presentation is not a presentation, but rather a conversation. A team of people moderates most of these conversations. Each conversation usually has a group participation component. Group work is very common at this conference. The follow-up discussions from the group work are the driving force to what many refer to as the deep thinking provided at this conference.

I think my greatest take away from this conference had nothing to do with the ideas of Entrepreneurship or innovation, which seemed to be a threaded theme of this conference. It was the focus of two panel discussions. I am having a difficult time defining those terms in the context of education. However since it is an up and coming and ongoing theme among some thought leaders, I am sure we will all spend more time determining these definitions as well as how they pertain to education.

What I came away with was to me a more relevant idea as an educator. I saw a focus on teaching learning as a skill and not a consequence of content delivery. The ideas of thoughtful, and deep questioning of a subject, before tackling it, as a problem to solve was a striking revelation. The idea of teaching the use of the process to acquire the content knowledge as opposed to just providing the content made so much more sense to me. All of this emphasized the “How” to learn as opposed to “What’ to learn. I saw this as a much more meaningful goal for educators. Teaching the skill of learning as the focus of the lessons is a shift from what many do. Learning too often is a consequence of content being poured into the heads of students. Some students get it some students don’t. Throw enough wet spaghetti at the wall and some will stick. That seems to be a hit or miss method for success. More often than not, there is less success.

Teaching Learning as a skill certainly increases the chance for successful learning. That is what I took away. Inquiry based learning, and problem based learning are much more in line with teaching learning as a skill than lectures. Lecture and direct instruction will always have a place in education but they should never be the focus for method of delivery. The question is what percentage of our educators continue to do so, often because that is the way it has always been?

EDUCON challenges the status quo of education. EDUCON promotes deeper thinking leading to more meaningful questioning. If we are ever to find the best answers to our difficult problems, we will need to be asking the right questions. EDUCON promotes that. I believe I am a better educator for attending this conference. The shift in education, that we all strive for, will begin with the type of thinking promoted at EDUCON.

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Building a professional learning network on Twitter

Posted in Accountability, Blog, EdChat, Education, FaceBook, Internet, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Twitter on January 12, 2013| 33 Comments »

For those who do not know, here are two basic Twitter principles: 1. If you only follow 10 people you will only see the general tweets of those 10 people. 2. If only 10 people follow you, only those 10 people will see your general tweets. Although some might argue that the right ten people might be enough, I would argue that ten educators is a very limited Professional Learning Network. The never-ending task of building a PLN is to continually follow really good educators to get the information they put out.

I often say that the worst advocates for using Twitter as a PLN are power users. They come up with numbers, time on task, and strategies that overwhelm and blow away the average Twitter users, not to even mention how they scare off any novice. The accomplishments and numbers of power users tend to intimidate those who would consider using Twitter but see these numbers as unattainable and huge obstacles to success.

Building a professional Learning Network consisting of quality educators, who responsibly share quality information and sources, takes time and requires a plan. It is my belief that the people you follow are far more important than those who follow you. That doesn’t mean your followers are bad or have no value, but quite selfishly, they do not fit into the focus of what a PLN is designed to do. It is created and maintained to provide you sources and that only comes from those who you follow. Of course you should share those sources with those who follow you, but that is another Post.

How do you find those quality educators to follow in order to add value to your PLN? It is much easier to do today then it was when Twitter first started. A rule you should always follow is to check a person’s profile before you follow. You can view their profile, making sure they are a professional educator, and see a sample of their tweets before committing to them. An easy way to follow people is to take note of who is most often being retweeted and follow him, or her directly. Another good tip is to follow your favorite Education Bloggers. Most are on Twitter and many have “Follow Me on Twitter” icons on their sites.

The very best sources for good people to follow on Twitter are the best people you already follow. If you select your best follow and go to their profile, you can view the people that he or she follows. A simple click enables you to follow those people as well.

Additionally, many Tweeters have lists of people culled from all of their follows for the purpose of grouping. I have a list of what I call my “Stalwart List”. It is made up of all of the people I most frequently get information from. Another list I maintain is that of education organizations and publications. You can subscribe to anyone’s lists. As they are updated so are you.

Hashtags add range to Tweets. If you send out a general tweet only your followers will see it. If you add a hashtag to that tweet, then anyone following that hashtag gets it. In the case of #Edchat, that could be thousands. Following hashtags will often lead you to people who share your interests. If there is a specific hashtag that you follow, #Edchat, #Edtech, #SSchat, #CPchat ,etc… you may find tweeters frequenting those tweets. Shared interests may yield great sources as well as new good people to follow.

By constantly working and updating your PLN, you will continue to have relevant and beneficial sources flowing through your PLN. The one thing to remember is that you can unfollow people much more easily than it was to follow them. They are not notified of an unfollow. Having and working a plan, or strategy to follow people for your PLN development is essential to grow it and increase its value.

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Confidence Through Connectedness

Posted in Connected Educator, Education, Internet, Leadership, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on January 9, 2013| 15 Comments »

Confidence, as an educator, is something that is not a skill to be taught. It is not a method to be memorized. It is an attitude. It is a state of mind. It is also elusive to many educators. How do we foster confidence? How do we enable educators to be confident in their profession?

To answer the question of confidence, I rely on my understanding of what I know of my own struggles with confidence. I am only confident in areas that I have a proven knowledge of the subject. I think most people are like that. If one has an understanding of any given subject, then it is easy to speak out on it. Teachers are confident in their subject areas because they have been well versed in the specifics of their subject.

Of course there are exceptions. I find many English teachers are lacking confidence in the area of grammar for instance. Since they lack confidence, they are less likely to emphasize grammar in their teaching, causing their students to be less than confident in grammar as well. And so, the cycle begins. Consequently, we have great number of people hesitant about putting their thoughts in print, fearful of ridicule for grammatical errors. Spelling is another area where many lack confidence. Thank God for spellcheck, but that is not grammatical, and a whole other story.

I imagine that every subject area has some aspects that teachers lack the confidence to teach well. This lack the confidence may prevent them from delving deeply into it with their students.

I think the same principles may apply to education as a subject as well. Some teachers may lack confidence as educators to delve deeply into their own profession. That not only has a negative effect on what they need to be doing for success in the classroom of today, but it retards the possibility of innovation in education all together. Educators lacking confidence in what they are doing will never venture beyond that which they know. Well, that doesn’t bode well for the paradigm shift for which we have all been waiting.

Knowledge is the key to confidence for me. I would like to think that is universal. It would then stand to reason that with knowledge comes confidence. As educators we come equipped with knowledge of our profession from our teacher preparation courses. We are equipped with knowledge about our subject areas from our academic courses. As we began our careers we were confident in our knowledge but we lacked confidence in our experience. Time enabled that experience confidence to secure itself.

As time goes on change begins to become more and more evident. The very things that we were confident about before may be different today. The knowledge that we had may no longer be applicable for today. Methods that we confidently depended on may no longer apply to a culture that has changed by time. While time is an ally of experience, it is the enemy of relevance.

Technology may provide a fix for educators if they are willing to invest some time and effort for the sake of their profession. Some schools have a supportive culture with supportive staff and supportive administrators and progressive, ongoing professional development, and unlimited funding for the latest advances in technological tools for learning. If you are not in one of those schools however, you need to connect with people who can offer some element of that support. With that connection, you will be exposed to the knowledge in any area needed that will provide the confidence to move forward. The number of connected educators available today offers a virtual cornucopia of knowledge in almost any subject imaginable to those who are connected. The number of connected educators far outnumbers the educators in your building, district, state, or region of the country. Connected educators are a global connection. Connected educators without the impediments of time or space may access boundless sources.

Now here is the Rub. Too many educators lack the confidence to try getting connected because they lack the knowledge about how to do it. Some will need to be led by those with confidence to take them there. This requires leaders to be confident. How many school districts have administrators, who are the leaders, confident and knowledgeable to lead their schools to connectedness? Maybe teachers need to take the lead here. The Internet does not recognize titles. As we must do with English teachers and grammar, we need to break this cycle. Leaders need to overcome their lack of confidence in the area of technology to lead educators to connect. Teachers may need to step up to lead administrators to connectedness.

If we can get our educators communicating, collaborating, and creating collectively, we will increase our knowledge about our profession. We will become more relevant in a technology-driven culture. We will be more confident in the face of mounting opposition driven by business and politics. All of this is possible as we individualize or personalize our learning with Professional Learning Networks. How do we enable educators to be confident in their profession? It all begins with a tweet.

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My 2012 @tomwhitby

Posted in Administrator, Awards, Blog, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Internet, Leadership, Linkedin, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Twitter, unconference on January 1, 2013| 3 Comments »

It has come to that time of year that we all sit back and reflect on what went on in our lives over the last 365 days. For some of us older folk this yearly indulgence has become more of a legacy measurement than just a checklist of what was done last year. At this stage of my life I find myself in a unique position to help connect and engage educators in huge numbers and using methods that were not imagined a few years ago. I might say that this is an assessment of my digital footprint. I guess that this post is more for me than it is for others, unless some people view it as a possible model of accomplishment in a second career after education. The open secret to all who know me is that I am not a Tech wizard, and it is only through the use of Social Media and technology that any of these accomplishments could have been created having the effect that they have had.

SmartBlog on Education
One of my proudest accomplishments this year has come from my affiliation with SmartBrief. SmartBrief launched a new Blog for educators this past August. I was given the task of recruiting the best education bloggers available to contribute to the Blog. I viewed it as an opportunity to engage educators back into the national discussion on education that in my opinion had been hijacked by politicians and business people. The blog has been very well received getting 25,000 hits daily. Contributions from many of our best educator bloggers provide one or two posts daily.

http://smartblogs.com/education

Educator’s PLN

The Educator’s PLN continues to grow. It was conceived and constructed to offer sources and connections to educators so that each educator has a source to develop a Professional Learning Network. The Ning site is fully funded by a not for profit philanthropic organization. The membership now exceeds 14,000 members. We have added a number of additional Pages this year to meet the need for additional sources for the members.

http://edupln.ning.com/

My Island View

I am still astounded at the way this Blog has been received by educators. It is a project that was originally for my own reflections. I was micro-blogging on Twitter and I needed a larger platform to expand ideas and vent frustrations. This was an experiment. I never expected anyone else to take an interest in what I had to say. (So much for my insight)

https://tomwhitby.wordpress.com

#Edchat

Edchat has been a great force in education through Social Media for over three years now. Thousands of educators recognize Tuesdays as Edchat Day. Over the last three years educators each week have been able to discuss the issues in education that were close to them. The discussions often started in the Edchat discussions seem to spill over to education blogs in days and weeks later. Five Topics are presented each Sunday with the top two selected topics being presented for the two Tuesday Chats.

#Edchat on Twitter Tuesdays Noon & 7 PM EST

#Edchat Radio

My latest endeavor is in the area of Internet Radio. The folks at the BAM Radio Network approached the Edchat team about creating a show for Edchat. Our idea was to analyze and comment on the Edchat discussions taking place each week. We are also going to invite participants from each Edchat to participate on the shows. Each of the Edchat team members will be featured on the shows. Steven Anderson @Web20classroom, Shelly Terrell Sanchez @ShellTerrell, Nancy Blair @Blairteach, Kyle Pace @Kylepace, Jerry Swiatek @jswiatek, Jerry Blumengarten @Cybraryman1, Berni Wall @rliberni, and Mary Beth Hertz @MBteach.

http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=86&Itemid=249

Wise Summit

I was both fortunate and honored to be invited by the Qatar Foundation to attend the WISE Summit, The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). I attended this international summit in the company of fellow blogger, and friend Steven Anderson. This was an eye-opening experience for us to begin to understand the needs of education on an international basis. The worldwide need for education to reach all children in consideration of all of the hindrances and obstacles can be an overwhelming task. Through the efforts of many of the dedicated people at this summit there are inroads being made. I was humbled and proud to be part of this endeavor.

http://www.wise-qatar.org/content/2012-wise-summit

LINKEDIN: The Technology-Using Professors Group

I started my Social Media adventures as a user of LinkedIN. www.linkedin.com/in/thomaswhitby/

Today I have almost 1,000 connections, mostly educators. This has become my professional Rolodex. I started my first education groups on LinkedIn and they are all still up and running. The first Group I ever started was The Technology-Using Professors Group. It has always been an active group for higher Education educators. Today its membership numbers at about 7,000 professors.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMembers=&gid=934617&sik=1357063095108

Twitter

The one thing that has enabled me to accomplish any of what I have done is TWITTER. It is the backbone of my Professional Learning Network. I have tweeted 44,475 tweets. I am following 1,983 educators. I am listed on 2,111 lists of Tweeters. I have 26,964 followers. I view this all as a big responsibility to all to whom I am connected.

Thank you all and Happy New Year!

@tomwhitby

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Are we preparing students for life?

Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Common Core, Curriculum, Education, Leadership, Literacy, Reform, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on December 12, 2012| 17 Comments »

We are preparing our students for life. I hear so many educators use this sentence when asked, what is the purpose of education? Many years ago I believed that to be true as well. Maybe many generations back it may have been true. In consideration of all that I observe, even with some great innovation, and a whole bunch of technology integration that is taking place in so many schools across the country, I don’t believe “preparing our students for life” is the focus or goal of education today. The real irony is that school for kids is real life, a fact often overlooked by educators.

The most obvious reason this is not the case is that we don’t have a clue what the future holds for our children. We will have them in public schools for 13 years. Try to envision what it was like looking backwards to the world as we knew it then. 1999 was quite a different world. We had scarcely a clue of what to expect to find in 2012. The only way to prepare kids for life was to make adjustments every step of the way. The education system does not favor on-the-fly adjustments. The education system needs to weigh, deliberate and consider each and every change. It must all be research-based and research takes time. Education is not ahead of the curve in incorporating technology in learning, it continues to play catch up. A technology-driven society does not allow the luxury of catching up. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

Content in past decades was slow to change. Even as advances were made in science, history, geography, and literature, the world itself moved at a slower pace, so time and change were less critical. We had a print media that was driven by time sensitive events, but the time was stretched out by print deadlines. Textbooks were relevant for longer periods of time. Today, whole countries that were in existence a short while back have changed names boundaries, populations, and cultures seemingly overnight. Our outdated textbooks that we continue to use cannot hope to keep up with the rapid change of the world today. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

We have research showing us different modalities of learning. We embrace differentiation in teaching. We strive for inclusion of all students to learn in a single teaching environment, while addressing individual strengths for learning. We talk about personalized learning for each student. We use individualized learning plans to maximize learning. We recognize that all kids are created differently. Even in consideration of all of that, we standardize their assessment. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

We hold up the innovators as models. Innovators are our 21^st Century heroes. We encourage out-of-the-box thinking while restricting our teachers to in-the-box teaching and assessing it with in-the- box tests. We want our students to be innovative, but require them to be compliant with teaching methods of the past. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

Why do we continue to limit the learning time of our students in order to do test preparation? How can we continue to insist that kids limit themselves with the cramming of content for a test instead of using their skills to get that content anywhere and at any time? How can we continue to prepare our students for a tech-driven culture demanding critical thinking skills and the ability to problem solve by assessing their content retention? We are not matching up the skills that our children will need in a future that we know little about to the education that we provide today? Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

We cannot continue on the current path of education if we want to prepare our children for their future. Our children will not live in the world that we grew up in. We need to prepare them to be flexible, critical thinking, problem solvers. They need to be able to get beyond the limitations of their teachers and parents. Our kids are not empty vessels to be filled with content in order to pass a standardized test. Each day, as technology moves faster, that fact is driven home with more emphasis. Will we ever be able to truly claim that we are effectively preparing kids for life?

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Again; Relevance, Why Twitter?

Posted in Accountability, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on November 29, 2012| 18 Comments »

Twitter has been a topic for educational Bloggers for several years now. I believe that those educators using Twitter are drawn to those posts, while other educators, not using Twitter, are driven away. Maybe the problem is the emphasis, or focus of the blog posts. Maybe the focus should be on relevance and no mention of twitter. Are educators relevant in our technology-driven society? The obvious answer is that some are, and some are not. A more important question is which of these two groups is growing?

I earned an advanced degree in Educational Technology over 30 years ago. From the day that I received that degree, things have evolved at an unbelievable pace, driven by technology. Not one piece of the hardware or software, that I used to earn that degree, existed five years later. How does any educator keep up with the changes not only in technology and methodology of the profession, but the content of subject matter itself, as well as worldwide change? The world today is not the same world of even five years ago. How do educators keep up with all these changes? Relevance today is much more elusive to educators than when public education was conceived and introduced. We have gone from incremental changes over long periods of time to huge almost systemic changes, in some cases, in a matter of months.

In the distant past, teachers were able to maintain their relevance based on printed journals, newspapers, and magazines. Annual or semi-annual workshops often tied things together. Change was slow and it was simpler to keep up with things with these simple methods. As change began to speed up, the methods of maintaining relevance remained unchanged. The methods of information have now almost totally shifted from the print media to the digital media. Web sites and blog posts have replaced education journals. The print media, as an industry, has drastically shrunk in size, as digital the media has expanded. Educator relevance has fallen behind as a result of a fast-paced, ever- changing, technology-driven society, combined with an antiquated method of relevant professional development. The evolution of change is faster in the world than it is for the system of educators who teach about that world.

Educators need a better way to communicate about change in order to maintain their relevance. Collaboration may be the key to this problem. If we could connect those educators who have managed to maintain their relevance in this new reality to those educators who need to be brought up to speed, we will be well on the way to needed reform. Educators could connect, and discuss what works, and what doesn’t. If we only had a way to share the websites, or, better yet, free online webinars? If we only had a way to engage educators in real-time discussions on topics of education not going on in their school settings? If we only had a method to provide the latest methodology in things like blogging, BYOD, the flipped classroom, portfolio assessment and authentic learning? If we only had a way of doing all of this with little impact on precious time?

Too bad an application of Social Media like Twitter was developed for such a frivolous purpose. It was set up so that people could quickly send stupid, unimportant information to other people. It allows celebrities to conduct meaningless discussions with fans. It allows fans to keep up with up-to-the-minute facts about any celebrity they have an interest in. It enables an exchange of useless and silly websites, blog posts, videos, and live, celebrity interviews. It is really a waste of a good application.

If only an educator with the highest of degrees would invent such a collaborative tool for educators to do all of the same collaboration with real valuable education stuff? Maybe, until that time arrives, when a prestigious application designer develops a prestigious education tool for education collaboration that receives the approval of all educators for use in their noble endeavors, maybe, just maybe, we could consider using TWITTER. It might be the quickest and best method to acquire and maintain the relevance necessary to be an effective educator.

I must admit that this post comes from the frustration of listening to the many excuses from educators who choose not to use Twitter. Relevance is the prime consideration for using it. Twitter is used by many educators as the backbone to their Professional Learning Network. Why would any educator argue for his or her irrelevance? If Twitter is not for all educators, what applications or methods are they using to maintain relevance?