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Archive for the ‘Skills’ Category

To Be Better Teachers, We Need To Be Better Learners.

Posted in Administrator, Blog, conference, EdChat, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Literacy, Mentoring, Ning, PLN, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter, unconference on December 7, 2010| 22 Comments »

This past weekend I attended an unconference in New York City called EdcampNYC. For those unfamiliar with the term, an unconference is a very informal conference of volunteer speakers talking in small groups about areas in which that they may have some expertise. It enables the classroom teacher to be exposed to other educators who may be doing things differently or employing different tools to help kids learn. These unconferences are beginning to spring up all over the country. Participants in each group have the ability to leave any session at any time and join another. The speakers are volunteers and the conference is Free.

I attended this unconference to volunteer what I have learned about developing and maintaining a Personal Learning Network, a PLN. I was a bit hesitant at first thinking to myself that this is a subject which has been beaten to death on Twitter and in Blogs, so why would anyone have an interest. I have come to realize however, that it is my very involvement in Twitter, Linkedin, Delicious, Diigo, Ning, Skype, Webinars, and all of the other components of my PLN that set me apart from a majority of educators, who are not involved with learning through technology. My connection with like-minded educators has insulated me from the fact that most educators are not so involved. I think it is safe to say that when it comes to 21^st century skills, many educators don’t know what they don’t know. If technology skills for media literacy require more than just awareness, many of our educators would probably be considered illiterate.

Education, as an institution, seems, to me, to be quite conservative and not quickly accepting of change. The problem with that is that change today is profoundly affected by technology. Whereas, the institution of education limits change, technology turns it loose or even speeds it up exponentially. As a result, technology is creating tools for Information gathering, communication, collaboration, and creation at a much faster rate than the educators can absorb. The very skills educators strive to teach are not being utilized in ways that they were originally intended. Publishing is no longer a process of trying for acceptance from a publisher; it is instantaneous. Access to information is instantaneous and always at hand. Because of this fast paced media-frenzied society, we now have a greater need for reflection and critical thinking.

In this technologically based, information-driven society, how do educators keep pace with what they need to know? How do educators remain relevant? Do they even understand the need to do so? Is the professional development offered in schools meeting the need? Is it acceptable to teach using 19^th Century methods with 20^th Century tools to prepare kids for their 21^st Century even after we have gobbled up that Century’s first decade?

I earned a Master’s degree in Educational Technology back in the late 80’s. Back then, I was a state-of-the-art educator. I did not however, work in a state-of-the-art-School. I did not have access to state-of-the-art tools. I did not have state-of-the-art colleagues. I did however have a belief in the concept of teaching with technology, and I searched for ways to do it. Back then it was all a matter of money and training, both difficult to come by. Today WEB2.0 tools are readily available and most are free or inexpensive. Training now comes in the form of free tutorials, webinars, or conferences delivered to a computer in an environment of choice. Usually, I choose my Den.

In a society that now goes to the internet to search for products, restaurants, celebrity news, weather, news, companionship, or any of the other hundreds of things we use it for; why not use it for information about our profession? What is holding Educators back? It is not a generational thing. Many educators that I connect with every day are in their 60’s as am I. It is not an intellectual thing many people, as clueless as I, have learned from technology. It is not an access thing. Libraries offer tech access to anyone. It’s not a device thing. More and more smart phones, Ipods or Ipads are available each day. They are connected computers. As a matter of fact mobile devices are the primary source for accessing the internet, surpassing desktop computers.

Educators need to get over their fears and give up on this resistance to technology. We need to support more unconferences and the movement that drives them. We need to teach Educators how to know what they don’t know, and learn it. We need them to buy into the concepts and adapt to the tools, for the tools will continually change and develop. We need to connect teachers through their own Personal Learning Networks using social media for professional Development. Collaboration outside of our classrooms will take us beyond our personal limitations and allow us to learn continually and globally. As an added advantage, we will also be able to take our students with us.

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Who needs Relevance and Literacy?

Posted in Administrator, Blog, conference, EdChat, Education, ISTE, Literacy, Ning, PLN, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Twitter on November 11, 2010| 8 Comments »

Relevance enables professionals to rise above mediocrity. When I go to a professional for advice or service I have certain expectations. If I go to a Doctor I expect that person would be up to date on the latest procedures in their specific area of medicine. If I go to a lawyer, I expect that person is up to date on all of the recent laws that will affect my issue. If I go to an architect, I expect that person is up to date on all of the building codes, new materials and latest methods of construction. If I go to an accountant I expect that person to be up to date on the latest tax implications that will affect my investments.

There are several ways that professionals can keep up with the details of their professions. They may read journals; they may attend workshops; they may network at conferences; they may join and network in professional groups; they may attend lectures; they may give lectures; they may write articles, and some may even choose to write blogs. All of these efforts are taken and are continued long after a degree is earned and a license is secured for that professional’s position. Any profession that relies on ever-changing information must keep up with those changes in order to be effective. I think of this as professional relevance. However, not all professionals employ these methods to maintain relevance. Some professionals see the degree and the license as the means to secure a position and that becomes the final goal. All of the learning and work involved by some professionals was for the sole purpose of attaining that position, and now, with that position secured, the learning and work can ease-up. Taking the easy and comfortable path of non-involvement leads to being mediocre and irrelevant in competitive professions. Of course this is a generality, and there are exceptions.

Literacy has come to mean more than just the ability to read and write. Living on an island I often go to the ocean for metaphors. Watching the ocean every day, one learns how to read it. In order to engage the ocean in some way, one needs to read the conditions to determine how to participate. Body surfing is always a first option, but beyond that choice, there is boogey boarding, skim boarding, surf-boarding, kayaking, or just swimming. Each choice requires different conditions and success depends on the ability to correctly interpret that information. I guess this might be considered ocean literacy. Information about ocean conditions changes on a minute-to-minute basis, so an ocean-literate person must assess and reassess the conditions continually in order to maximize the experience, as well as avoid dangers.

Since Gutenberg evolved information from the scrolls and manuscripts of the dark ages to the media of mass-produced, printed text, the introduction of the digital age has taken us further in information delivery. Accessing, analyzing, understanding, creating and communicating information using the tools of our digital age has become the 21^st century literacy. A major drawback to this new literacy is that the tools, or apps (applications) that deliver the information keep evolving, or changing altogether. This requires that in order to stay literate people need to stay relevant.

Now, you may ask, when is he going to mention teachers or education? That takes me to a tweet that I sent out this week. During a recent #Edchat discussion on Twitter, we discussed if class blogs, student blogs, or even teacher blogs have a place in our education system. For those of you who are unaware, #Edchat is a weekly discussion on Twitter which spotlights different topics concerning education, or educators. The discussion was quite informative as many offered their opinions based on personal experiences with blogging in education. I tweeted out something to the effect that it was unfortunate that we could not share this discussion with more educators. When I consider the thousands of educators that I am in direct contact with through social media, I understand that it is only a tiny fractional percentage of all of the educators in the world today. Why are not more educators involved?

I am not saying that all educators need to involve themselves with #Edchat. It is not for everyone, and as all social media tools, its time will pass as it is replaced by some other digital delivery system. That is the nature of using technology. The bigger picture however, is educators’ involvement with any social media as a means to be relevant using the tools of 21^st Century, literacy tools.

More important than teaching content is the task of using content to teach learning. The content of those scrolls and manuscripts may still be relevant today, but we do not get that content by unrolling the fragile scrolls and allowing students to approach one at a time to read them. For year’s we counted on the Gutenberg method, using printed text in textbooks. Today and tomorrow however, the new literacy will depend on additional tools. Tools of a digital world will be used more and more to deliver content. Take note of all of the businesses and media programming tagging their ads with Social media icons of Facebook, google and Twitter to contact for added information. Take note of all of the print media icons that have gone away, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report. Blogs are replacing printed media.

As professional educators we do not heal illnesses, advise on the laws, provide blueprints, or arrange investments. We teach others how to learn the very skills needed to accomplish those things in their chosen professions. Professional educators model and teach lifelong learning. How do we as educators stay relevant and literate? Are we reading Blogs, engaging in collaboration with other educators through Social Media,and teaching with tools that our students will need to use in order to be relevant in their world? Or,are we as educators saying to Gutenberg, I like the feel and smell of scrolls and manuscripts, it gives me comfort, so I will stick with them.

This Link from the Educator’s PLN provides a Prezi presentation by Joshua Coupal connecting Bloom’s Taxonomy in Digital terms to combine Relevance and media Literacy in Education: http://edupln.com/video/blooms-digital-taxonomy-prezi

Your comments are welcome.

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Is Innovation a Destination?

Posted in Administrator, Education, Leadership, Skills, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking on November 4, 2010| 7 Comments »

Many years ago I attended an education Conference in upstate New York and saw, as I remember, a Keynote speaker who was a superintendent of an upstate district. He told the audience of an experience he had with a business owner in his region. The businessman told the superintendent that the students being graduated were not coming to him with the skills needed for his industry. He invited the superintendent to visit his plant and see the problem he faced matching the needed skills with the skills being taught. He then told the superintendent that he couldn’t even hire Lathe operators from the high school graduates.

The Superintendent visited the industrial arts teacher the next day, and asked if the proper use of the lathe was taught in his class. The superintendent even looked over the lathe that students used to do their work. It was an impressive piece of equipment and it all seemed in order. The students seemed to be doing a fine job with the lathe. This superintendent was ready to face the businessman in his plant assured that the school district’s students were certainly prepared with the skills to operate a lathe.

The next day after the social amenities were exchanged between the superintendent and the plant executives, they all took a walking tour of the plant ending up in the area of the plant where the lathes and the lathe operators did their work. To the superintendent’s surprise it looked nothing like the lathe area of the school’s shop. The touring group entered a closed-in, air-conditioned area. In that area the superintendent was introduced to a young woman in a white lab coat as she operated a computer that made all of the needed adjustments to operate the plant’s lathes. The superintendent was educated at that moment about relevance in education.

Now we are hearing from many of our leaders that in order for our country to recapture and secure its prominent position in our new global economy, we need to be innovative. Innovation will drive us to where we need to be. It was, after all, innovation that put our country in its position of prominence in the world initially.

When our public education system started out, we were way ahead of so many other countries with unlimited resources to work with; it is no wonder that we were successful. We may have conceived of the public education system to provide workers for the country’s workforce, but that, as a goal, was surpassed by many, as opportunity and innovation offered a path to security and wealth.

How do we now, in our present system, promote innovative thinking in order to produce innovation? When we look at the lathes that we are using in education, do they look like the lathes of today’s industry? Can we continue to use yesterday’s methodology to create today’s thinkers? Are we creating workers for industry, or are we creating leaders of industry?

If we continue to assess students who find no relevance in a mandatory education that they are not interested in, we should not be surprised at the failing results. Should we not consider other factors of poverty, race and language gaps as possible reasons for failure? Is the blame to be placed on the teachers who teach it, or should we look at the methodology and the goals of education? Could it be that the system is failing the teachers and not the other way around?

We need to assess what skills our children will need in their world, for it will be very different from ours. We need to provide them the opportunities to develop those skills. We need to promote innovative thinking in order to promote innovation. We need to be more innovative with education in order to move it from where it is, to where it should be going. We need not look back at what we had, but rather support teachers who are innovators and moving us forward. We need to support teachers with best practices, professional development, and encourage and support those teachers who do more than just ask students to be lifelong learners. The best teachers are learners themselves. They practice and model lifelong learning. They are education innovators, finding new ways to learn and teach in relevant terms, providing opportunities for their students to do the same. The successes of these educators can be more than models for others; they can be inspirational as the successes of the students are shared with teachers who have yet to become innovative.

Skills of acquiring information, communicating, critically thinking, and creating are the skills of innovation. To pull out an old chestnut, you don’t get that through osmosis, it must be taught. Our students need more than a lecture about the use of a lathe in a shop class. We need them to understand the world in which they will live.

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Cool Tools.

Posted in Banning, EdChat, Education, Leadership, Reform, Skills, Technology, Thought Provoking on October 29, 2010| 22 Comments »

I was reminded in a recent #Edchat that there once was a time when calculators were not allowed to be brought to class. I remember math teachers in a building I worked in during the 70’s. Teachers said that, if for some reason all of the batteries in the world died at once, kids would need to be able to do math without calculators. Dead batteries means dead calculators. I was only an English teacher, so even though that scenario sounded a bit beyond reality, I did not question the Math people, who convincingly spun that tale, after all Math teachers are always so factual.

After years of continuous battery success, as well as outright battery evolution, we have taken a great chance with a dependence on calculators in education. Math teachers have developed curriculum around the use of calculators. Today, they are required for most math classes. Parents cringe at the cost as calculators appear on items to be purchased for class supplies lists. Many districts supply them to their students. In this instance this tool of technology was successfully integrated into education.

The obvious connection now would be for me to jump to the Mobile learning Device. You may know it as the Cell Phone or Smartphone; however, I am not yet ready to go there. Technology is developing at a pace faster than we are able to absorb into our education system. Teachers have a need to fully understand something before they incorporate it into what they teach. This requires professional Development. Districts provide PD, but it takes time to put it together. It then requires time to fit it into the busy schedule of teachers. Unfortunately, by the time the PD is put together and workshop sessions are worked into teachers’ schedules the technology may no longer be relevant. Since our students are more comfortable with technology and less encumbered for a need to fully understand technology before engaging it, they move forward with its use, leaving their teachers behind. At this point educators are being affected by the technology as opposed to controlling the technology to their advantage.

If we believe the goal of education is to prepare our students for future employment, then we need to ask what future employers are looking for. Many employers need their employees to be able to access technology to acquire information, collaborate with others, create projects to meet a need, and communicate that out to others, either locally or globally. All of this requires the use of technology. Many of the tools which enable people to do this are Web 2.0 tools. They are free for the most part, and they are continuing to be developed in vast numbers.

It would stand to reason, that if employers are looking for perspective employees to be able to acquire information, create content, communicate content, and have a global perspective, we as educators, should be teaching those skills. Of course this would necessitate the teacher’s awareness of the technological tools necessary for students to utilize these skills in a way that future employers would require. That would require utilizing whatever technology tools that are considered mainstream at that time. Since that may change year to year, or every six months, teachers need to teach the concepts that would apply to any tool of choice and not get hung up on specific applications. None of this requires an intricate knowledge of applications by the teacher. It does require knowledge of what applications have to offer in general terms. Students, with guidance, will be able to acquire knowledge of the application through exploration. This is a skill we need to develop with our students in the interest of Life-Long Learning.

And now I have arrived at a point in this post for the cell phone discussion. As the Calculator was once banned, so is the cell phone in many schools. We need to consider cell phones not as phones, but rather Mobile Learning Devices with phone and texting capabilities. These devices are more powerful than the devices used to send men to the moon. Why would we, as educators, not want to utilize this tool for education? I know students are distracted with texting and gaming. They don’t use this device for research. Students engage their phones and not the lesson.

Have kids ever been taught how this device should be used for learning? Mobile learning devices have surpassed the desktop computer as the number one device for accessing the internet. That fact should be meaningful to educators. This tool, however, is viewed by many educators as a distraction. I will not ask why a student would be more engaged with the cell phone than the lesson delivered by the teacher. I will say that the misuse or abuse of cell phones is a behavior problem. It need s to be addressed in a discipline policy and not a ban policy. If we are not teaching the proper use and protocols for these devices, where will these kids learn them? We are leaving them to “learn from the streets”.

We cannot hold kids responsible for the appropriate use of this tool, if we never teach it. Broadway theaters instruct audiences in the appropriate use of cell phones in a theater with every performance. Most people comply to those instructions. Technology tools whether devices, or applications need to be integrated into education. It has become our responsibility to teach appropriate use of technology tools, including cell phones. We as educators no longer have a choice in this. Our students will be required to use these tools in their lives. If we are not teaching the concepts of accessing information, collaboration, creation and communication utilizing the tools of technology, we are not preparing our students for their future.

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Year-Round School

Posted in Administrator, Blog, Education, Leadership, Reform, Skills, Teacher, Thought Provoking on October 17, 2010| 5 Comments »

One suggestion for education reform has been to extend the school year. This sounds like a simple plan. If kids spend more time in school, they will receive more education. Well, I find myself somewhat in agreement with this idea, but there are a few considerations that might add a few layers of complication to this simple plan.

It has always been my belief that in the history of American public Education, our school calendar was adopted to accommodate the needs of farmers, so that they could have their children and children of others to work in fields right through harvest time. After the kids helped with the harvest, they could return to the rigors of the classroom. I was always appreciative of the sacrifice those farm kids made for me every summer. I was not a farmer’s kid, so I could hang out at the beach in the summer while they worked the fields an awaited the harvest.

The academic year that I am familiar with is one of four quarters, each being approximately ten weeks in length. That leaves about ten weeks of vacation, or farm work. This summertime has become a good, fun part of our culture. People plan family vacations around that time. Some kids use the time to earn money. The best festivals and fairs are planned in this time period. This is usually the time of year that families experiment with always popular family driving vacation. All of this would be sacrificed with a year round academic schedule.

The second drawback in extending the schedule would be in the area of monetary compensation. It is not reasonable to assume that we can increase anyone’s work schedule by twenty percent and not expect to increase their compensation. That does not only affect teachers and administrators, but also additional secretaries, aides, cafeteria folks, janitors, bus drivers, grounds people and various other support personnel.

To me however, there is a more obvious objection to extending the academic calendar by ten weeks. If we are being, at best, questionably successful with our students, how would spending more time of doing the same thing improve learning? That age-old question: Why would you expect different results if you continue to do the same thing over and over?

Even with all of these considerations, there are schools providing successful learning experiences over the summer weeks. For a few decades now my school district has had a summer program of enrichment for kids. It offered teachers the ability to develop courses to engage kids for learning and not grades. Innovation is promoted and supported for teachers and students. It focuses on the elementary level. Teachers develop the courses that they plan to teach. Students and their parents select courses based on interest. There are also courses of remediation, but that is not the focus. The schedule is based on three periods a day. This allows kids to explore more than one interest.

Compensation is less of an issue since it is a voluntary program with an agreed upon hourly rate for those who choose to join the program. Attendance is not mandatory, so kids can be removed for family vacations. Grades are removed to promote the learning in a stress-free environment. Teachers can innovate and teach to their strengths. Kids can be grouped according to interests with little regard to age grouping. At the halfway point in the program Parents are brought into the class to share in the projects.

If programs like this were enacted on a large-scale across our country, we would be able to engage kids year round and promote learning. It would also allow teachers to innovate with lessons that may be incorporated in their other academic endeavors. It allows kids to explore subjects in a way that the rigors of other academic programs do not allow. Promotion and support of more elementary programs like this might reduce the remediation classes required for the secondary level kids during the same time in the summer. The only issue left would be: How do we involve all of those kids in the fields?

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Education Nation Reflection

Posted in Administrator, EdChat, Education, Merit Pay, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Skills, Teacher, Thought Provoking, Truth on September 26, 2010| 13 Comments »

NBC should be commended for shining a light on what should be a national discussion on Education Reform. Expense was not spared to create more than just a venue for this examination of education. It was an atmosphere created from banners hanging from streetlights to a modern tent pavilion which encased the iconic skating rink in Rockefeller Plaza. All of this created an air of excitement and passion to finally gather educators in a public forum to clearly state what so desperately needed to be clearly stated in the pursuit for education reform. With all that sizzle, I could not wait for the steak.

The Town Hall style meeting began with a touching film about the experiences of a first year teacher. It was well received by the several hundred educators under the big tent. That was a great start with all the members of the tent in accord and reminiscing about their first days as a teacher. The next big question further solidified that feeling of solidarity. Do you feel that teachers are under attack? There seemed to be no one standing up and saying, “No, it ain’t so”. It was shortly after this that I viewed the big tent as more of a circus tent with three rings in the center and a different activity in each of the rings. There was no focus.

I understand the Town Hall meetings are for everyone to get up and say their piece, so I really should not be so critical. Maybe I should be critical of the selection of this format as not being the forum of choice to advance Education Reform. It seemed to me anything but productive in moving reform forward. If this were a class discussion, I would say that the teacher needed a better lesson plan. I don’t know if it could have been done in this format, but I wanted a moderator to summarize, focus, refocus and lead with facts and questions. There were some facts flashed on the big boards, but they were not addressed or reflected in the questions or answers from the participants.

One big objection I had with the entire discussion was the lack of definition. I always have problems with people addressing a problem without defining what the problem is. I bet if you asked a dozen of those educators, “what does a successful education look like?”, you would get a dozen variations. We easily point out all of the failure signs, but even the failure signs are determined by standardized tests and few educators agree on that as a valid assessment. One problem we can identify is that we as educators do not all agree on what a good education is let alone how to get there.

The other lack of definition was that of a “Bad Teacher”. The only thing clear as to what a bad teacher was, was the fact that anyone using that term did not include him/herself in that category.I sumized that a “Bad teacher was similar to the definition of pornography. “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. It always gets ugly when teachers go after teachers. Why do we always find a need to FIRE the offenders? We are teachers. Do we fire our students who don’t get it or do we go back and continue with a different approach. Teachers are amongst the most educated people in this country. One would think that they are at least trainable. Is it possible that some of these “Bad Teachers “are victims of poor leadership and/or a lack of professional development? We are talking about people’s careers. They too had that first day in the classroom experience that we all reminisced in the opening movie.

Where the entire meeting seemed to be sidetracked was when someone brought up the topic of TENURE. As an educator of 40 years it was obvious to me that there is a huge disconnect on the part of young teachers as to what tenure is and why it is necessary. It was also obvious to me how naïve some of these young people are about thinking the only thing that would affect their maintaining a secure teaching position was the quality of their teaching. This subject also seemed, at least to me, to open a rift between Charter School educators and Public School Educators. I was getting a feeling that each felt threatened by the other. This was when I noticed that many of the audience members were wearing shirts identifying their schools. Of course my Hawaiian shirt did not give anyone an inkling as to who, or what I represented.

I came away from the Education Nation Town Hall Meeting more frustrated then when I went in. I understand that by a number of assessments our education system needs to make changes. I consider myself a reform advocate. The changes are many and it will require that we define things clearly and dispel any of the myths that people seem to hold onto from their education experience. Of course, with education the common experience of all citizens of this country with compulsory public education, everyone is an expert. There is no single answer to solve this problem. We can’t fire the Bad teachers and expect all will be right with the world. We also need to be truthful about agendas. Education Reform to many people is the code for “Lower my taxes”. Or fire the most expensive teachers. Or, let’s get in on the profits and make money with charter schools. Or, I need to get re-elected by jumping on the education bandwagon.

We need to make changes in the system, but they must be made by people who have an understanding of the problem. It can’t be left to town hall meetings. These meetings are useful in underscoring the concerns, but emotions tend to cloud the facts. We need educational leadership to step up and replace the business people and politicians who are stealing what should be our issue. We need educators on every level to be aware of not just their problems, but how they fit into the big picture. We need to take responsibility for our actions. We expect nothing less from our students. We need to model that which we teach. We need to be educated about our profession in order to guide the discussions to a positive outcome for reform.

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Short Term Learner

Posted in Administrator, EdChat, Education, Filtering, Leadership, Ning, PLN, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Twitter on September 8, 2010| 7 Comments »

Personal Learning Networks have taken up a great deal of my time of late, about the last two years. I have always had a PLN although it was never called that. The digital slant, of what before this, might have been called a group of study buddies, has caused a re-examination by educators on a global scale. Instead of being limited to a small group of educators comparing notes or lessons in a building, a PLN can now draw upon literally thousands of educators, worldwide, at any given time. Study buddies without the boundaries of time or space, very Star-Trekkie. Educators can even Skype anywhere in the world for the ultimate video connection. It is no flying car, but the video phone was predicted at the ’64 World’s Fair. I remember. I was there. Belgian Waffles were great.

The key to developing my Personal Learning Network had nothing to do with me being a digital Native, because I am not. My motivation to learn comes from somewhere within. I enjoy taking my own route to get to a goal that I set for myself. I think the term Lifelong Learner applies to me. The thing that makes the learning fun and easy for me is the technology. I am not always comfortable with it, but I do not fear it. I only say that because the reasons I am most often given by others for educators not embracing technology is that educators are fearful of it, or they are not comfortable with it.

Learning is not a passive activity. One cannot place a tape recorder (old tech term) under a pillow at night and wake up with the knowledge in the morning. I have personally researched this. Additionally, one can’t join a Personal Learning Network. If it is to be of value, it needs to be built by the individual who owns it. This requires a commitment of time, but not so much energy, except for the exercising of the mind. When one engages a Digital PLN, it will involve receiving a great deal of information in the form of links. Each link is a hot button. It is a click to: a website, a blog post, a video, an article, a webcast, a podcast, or a picture. I imagine without the technology, one would read books, Journals, articles, videotapes, DVR’s and talk to people face to face. That would be a very early 20^th century PLN, but still doable today for a while longer anyway.

It takes a lifelong learner’s commitment to a PLN to reap the benefits and apply it to teaching. This should be no problem for educators because they all teach kids to be Lifelong Learners. If you don’t believe me ask a teacher. Better yet, look at the school’s Mission Statement; it probably addresses the school’s dedication to lifelong learning. The problem is that too often that only applies to the kids and not the staff. Lifelong learning is too much a case of do as I say, and not as I do. Too many educators subscribe to the theory that once the degree is secured, and the teaching license in hand, the goal is reached, and now the coasting begins. Maybe some courses to meet requirements will be taken. Certainly, courses for pay raises would be needed, but those are but small bumps in the road. I know, not everyone is like this. However, we are in a profession that is in a fishbowl and under attack. We cannot afford to have any individuals representing us with this mindset. These folks are not the majority but this minority has an ability to influence others to the dark side. We cannot have this jeopardizing our profession.

Most educators are collaborative and nurturing individuals. That is their strength. We use those qualities with our students. We need to apply them to our colleagues. All information does not stop evolving once we get our teaching job. We need to stay relevant. In a world with a technology rich environment it is fool hearty for educators to think they still have a choice about using technology as a tool in education. We are teaching kids who will be affected by more technology than we have today. They will have jobs that are not yet in existence. Their skills will require the use of technology.

Educators teach skills and encourage children to learn. A good teacher can do that without technology, but why? Technology is but a tool for educators and students to use. The skills remain the same no matter what the tool. Teachers do not need to be technology experts to allow students to use it to retrieve information, collaborate, create, and communicate. That is what will be required of them in their world. While educators debate and control technology as a tool, business and industry are embracing it. Technology continues to advance and many educators are not even familiar with what possibilities are available. If technology requires a new form of literacy, many of our educators are illiterate.

A PLN allows people to explore and collaborate on whatever it is they determine as a need to know. A PLN is not exclusive to educators. They can have: Boat builders connected to boat builders, doctors connected to doctors, educators connected to educators, learners connected to learners. People can choose their direction and go down that road as far as they need to go. A PLN enables a person to control her or his learning. A PLN is a digital tool for learning. We can use it to model the very thing that we strive to teach our students. A PLN is not learned, as much as experienced. A PLN enables us to continue our path to Lifelong Learning.

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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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Feast of Assumptions

Posted in Administrator, Education, Leadership, Ning, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Skills, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on June 3, 2010| 26 Comments »

An assumption is a proposition that is taken for granted, as if it were true based upon presupposition without preponderance of the facts. There are many assumptions in education that are common in many schools from many districts. Some assumptions can be a hindrance to education reforms. Because these assumptions are believed by many educators to be true, they plan and make decisions based on these assumptions as if they were facts. Assumptions are not facts, but people continue to believe that they are. By the way I have no way of proving these statements that I am about to explore before you. I am making the assumption that my observations over the length of my career are proof enough for me to make generalizations.

First Assumption: Kids know more about technology than the teachers. We do not have to deal with technology since they know all about it.

Kids; are cell phone masters, can program DVR’s (VCR’s before that), text, use social media, download mp3 files, download videos, and use search engines. All of these abilities, however, are not a mastery of technology, although it might seem so to those who are even less technologically skilled.

Second Assumption: As an educator, if I can do PowerPoint presentations, I am effectively integrating technology into education.

With the introduction of a vast array of Web2.0 tools technology is cheap and abundant with applications to search, analyze, collaborate, create, communicate, and present. PowerPoint as good as it is, has become a digital Overhead projector. It is still useful, but limited compared to combinations of applications available.

Third Assumption: Colleges will turn out students to become teachers with a complete understanding of technology and education integration.

Many Colleges are using more and more Adjuncts. Many of these Adjuncts come from the ranks of secondary teachers, often older and many are retired. These are the very same educators who failed to integrate technology into education to begin with. They are believers of the first two assumptions.

Fourth Assumption: Senior teachers will never change; they are burnouts and will never take the time to learn new things.

As the founder of The Educator’s PLN Ning I accept members to that site every day. Many if not most of over 4,000 members are over 45 years of age. Veteran teachers are becoming targets and victims of assumptions. They are the highest salaried teachers, so the reason for targeting should be obvious. The fuel for this might be those senior teachers who do burn out, or refuse to professionally develop, but we are talking about a few and applying it to the whole.

Fifth Assumption: Administrators do not need to go through Professional Development. It is geared to teachers and not Administrators.

Administrators are our educational leaders. They need to model that which they expect their teachers to do. It goes without saying that they need to understand pedagogy to assess teachers’ lessons. Why should we not expect them to have a working knowledge of the newest tools of education as well?

Sixth Assumption: If we teach every bell and whistle in an application, teachers will see its worth and make it work in their class.

IT people need to understand that teachers need to fit the tool to the lesson not learn the application just to create a lesson. Professional development is very important for educators to stay relevant. I received a Masters degree in Educational Technology and none of the software or hardware that I learned on even exists today. Without Updating with PD I could not enable my students to effectively use the tools that they will need to be effective educators in our digital world.

I have offered a feast of assumptions which I have observed. I assume that you have your own favorites from you own experiences. The point of this post however, is not to swap war stories. We need to question and reflect on assumptions that are stalling change in our education system.

The biggest assumption: If I teach the way I learned, they will get it. We don’t need this technology stuff. If it was good enough for me it will be good enough for them.

I could continue the assumption list, but unless you have been living in a cave you should get the point and see some comparison of my examples to your own experiences. Feel free to comment here on assumptions that you are aware of and expose them. The sooner we dispel this stuff the sooner we can focus on what is real and get on with change. By the way I believe that my assumptions about these assumptions are factual.