Archive for the ‘Truth’ Category

A PD Perspective

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, Edcamp, Education, Leadership, Mentoring, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on October 5, 2016| 7 Comments »

Recently, as I was tweeting about the need for teachers to be more aware of what was going on within their profession an unexpected tweet response came from a connected educator who I greatly respect and hold in high regard. He tweeted that he was tired of the teacher bashing. I was upset for that was the furthest thing from my mind as I tweeted my opinions out.

I have always supported teachers and have a record of doing so during my very public run in social media for the last decade. It is my belief that those who would limit or even dissolve public education for the sake of advancing a for-profit alternative have scapegoated teachers in recent times.

There are few things wrong with the education system that can’t be improved by properly educating and supporting teachers who are already working in the system. The exception to this of course is the problems specifically related to schools in areas of poverty, both urban and rural. These schools have problems that will require more solutions than supported professional development can provide. The problems: personal, political and cultural of these schools may be helped by supported PD, but the foundational issues need more political solutions.

Probably the biggest problem teachers have is the rapid rate of change that occurs in our computer-driven culture. Things change so fast, that we are now faced with “data obsolescence”. That which we believe to be true today, may not be true, or might be replaced by another fact or improvement in the upcoming year. Unless the very system that educates our population keeps up with these changes in a timely fashion it will itself in time become irrelevant.

The model of professional development that the system relies on most heavily is the same system that has been in place for at least century. Educators can get PD from in-house programs by consultants or peers, college courses, and conferences. Some schools have prescribed topics for PD others allow a more personal selection for educators. Most of these courses rely heavily on pedagogy to deliver the content. The problem that I see with this model is in two parts.

Using pedagogy to teach seems the right way for educators to teach because they have all been educated on what it is, and how to use it for teaching. It makes sense educators are masters of pedagogy, the method of teaching children. Therein lies the rub. Professional Development is the teaching of adults, not children. Andragogy is required for teaching adults who have different goals, needs and motivations from children.

Adults learn best through collaboration (I believe most kids do as well.). The best tool for collaboration is discussion. Adults come to the table with life experience. Many educators getting PD may be more experienced than the person providing the PD. Adults need to be respected as adults and not children. Adults are goal oriented. They know much of what it is they need, or at least seek, to know, and they want to learn it today in order to use it tomorrow. Adults are relevancy oriented; if it doesn’t fit their needs they will be less interested in learning about it.

All of this suggests to me that a Power Point presentation delivered by someone who may be lacking knowledge of effective Power Point delivery fails to meet the needs of adult learners. Here is a quick video taken at a public school’s system-wide professional development session. This came at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Is this the way we should teach adults, or anyone for that matter? https://youtu.be/eAy3vJn4pbs

The second area of professional development that concerns me is the relevance of what educators learn. We know change now comes faster than we have ever experienced in history before and, if technology has its way, that rate of change will always increase in speed. In order to keep up with change in education someone needs to be involved with it, where it is happening, or at least connected with those who are. Most educators lack the time or the inclination to do so. Most efforts to get a majority of educators connected and collaborating have failed to capture the intellectual drive of a majority of educators. There are districts however, that have placed amongst their faculty teacher coaches who support the learning teachers need with support time and direction.

After a decade of trying to get all educators connected and collaborating, I have come to recognize this probably will not happen. However, if we can’t get the entire faculty of a district connected to the thought leaders in education, than why not connect them with colleagues who are connected educators? These coaches may provide relevance, collaboration and support that are not evident in conventional PD delivered by most schools. It gives educators time to get comfortable with connecting with others. Even if adults know what it is they want to learn as a goal, too often they don’t know what it is that they don’t know. They have not been connected to the very people driving the latest thinking in education. The ideas that are being discussed in the connected community of educators are not yet being discussed in faculty rooms of the unconnected. Teacher coaches are connected and they can provide relevant new ideas to the less connected majority.

To many, the idea of teacher coaches is still an experiment. These coaches are often regular teachers with a penchant for technology and a collaborative mindset. They are often on split schedules as a part-time teacher and a part-time coach. We need to establish these coaches as a firm position in schools. They need to be trained in both technology and adult learning. Their class load will consist of adults and their schedules must be flexible in order to teach, collaborate, and nurture their students. This will prioritize relevant professional development incorporating it into the job description of educators. It will be part of every educator’s workweek.

Many of the problems in education can be eliminated or at the very least improved by properly providing, supporting, and maintaining respectful, relevant and collaborative professional development. If we are to better educate our kids, we must first better educate their educators.

Read Full Post »

Why Change as an Educator?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Education, Elementary, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on June 1, 2016| 5 Comments »

One undeniable fact about teaching is that teachers not only need to be masters of content within their subject area, but they must also be masters of education as a subject. Another undeniable fact is that neither of those subject areas looks the same as when any teacher first mastered them. One effect of the integration of technology into our society is that change in almost everything is happening at a pace never before experienced by mankind. As much as some people may yearn for the simpler times of the past, life will continue to move forward as the natural order of society requires.

The influence of additional information on any subject may often affect how we deal with that subject. In our history, once we had more information on the effects of smoking, smoking habits of millions of people changed. Once we learned what we now understand about the benefits of physical activity, several sports related industries were spawned. Once we learned what we now know of communication, several music and print industries disappeared while being replaced with better in many ways. If we do not take time to understand new information and how it interacts with what we do, we, as a profession, may go the way of typewriters, photographic film, super 8 film, 8 track cassettes, landline telephones, or block-ice refrigeration.

I always viewed education as a preparation for students to learn enough content and skills to use for creating their own content in whatever field they decided to enter. Teachers residing in schools were the keepers of information. Schools determined who got what information and when they got it. Information for kids was determined and dispensed by the teacher. Control and compliance were the keys to the information and allowed for the orderly distribution of content. This was education or centuries.
Now, with the advent of technology and the unlimited access to what often appears to be limitless information, as well as access to untold numbers of people through social media, there is a great change for those who understand it. There is also a great change for those who do not choose to understand it. The cold hard fact here is that technology is now providing us with the tools for “Do It Yourself Learning”. It is not the “mail order courses” of days gone by. It is a real way for some students to circumvent the system that is in place and at their own pace and their own direction learn what they choose to learn. All of this can be delivered in whatever form a student determines is in his or her learning preference, text, video, music, or live face-to-face interaction. There may come a time for some that they will learn in spite of their teachers not teaching them what they need in the way they need it.

In the past I have always said that a computer could never replace a teacher, because learning was based on relationships. Today, I am not so sure. In a profession that is information-based, we must acknowledge that information undergoes change. What we knew a short while back may no longer be relevant in a rapidly changing world. Both areas that teachers are required to master, their subject content, and education have both undergone change no matter when it was any teacher mastered them. Staying up-to-date, relevant, on information in your own profession is a moral imperative. We can’t expect what we learned as college students to carry us through a 30 or 40-year career.
Time and money are often the reasons educators give for not seeking to develop further professionally. They are powerful reasons indeed, but not insurmountable. A fear of technology by many is also offered up as a reason for lack of development. I have come to believe that these are just the excuses, while the real reason for the lack of professional development for educators is the comfort of the Status Quo. Comfort zones are obstacles to change. It may be change itself that most are fearful of. We can’t all agree that change is needed in education, and then refuse to change as individual educators. The system can’t demand change of teachers without examining its own professional development programs that have been so ineffective over the centuries that PD has been offered. Colleges can no longer continue to produce teachers based on a twentieth century model of a classroom teacher.

Anyone entering teaching as a profession must do it with the awareness and a commitment to life long learning, because the teacher you come out of college as, is not the teacher your students will need. It will forever be a changing and evolving position. Teaching is not an easy job. It requires teachers to be uncomfortable with change for a lifetime. However, if we are to better educate our kids, we must first better educate their educators.

Read Full Post »

Pornography and Relevance in Education

Posted in #CEM, Blog, Connected Educator, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Truth, unconference on October 18, 2015| 1 Comment »

When asked to define what Pornography in the public domain was, United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that”.

The point was that the term was too subjective with too many variables to specifically define it, but its existence should be obvious to the average thinking person. Of course there will always be those whose views are more conservative or more liberal on any interpretation, but the general consensus usually prevails.

I have written as many authors and bloggers have about what is relevant in education, yet the term “relevance” is too subjective with too many variables to specifically define it, but its existence should be obvious to the average thinking person. Of course there will always be those whose views are more conservative or more liberal on any interpretation, but the general consensus usually prevails. I know it when I see it.

As things change the relevant person keeps up with that change as it affects the world in which we all live. At one time change was slow so relevance was easy. Slow change allowed slow acceptance. Change requires people to stop believing in what was a truth and accept something else in face of change. That is not easy, but given time, people eventually come around to accepting change and being relevant, at least until the next big change comes along. With each big change the process repeats. Relevance is not a passive exercise. It requires steps and commitments for it to happen.

The 19^th Century in education was fairly consistent because change was slow in happening. Textbooks could be used for years with little change in content. Education controlled the information used to educate people, so everyone followed the system’s rules to gain access to an education. Relevance was not an issue since the system itself could determine what was relevant.

The 20^th Century started the same way, but about halfway through it more advanced technologies began to affect the rate at which change happened. Relevance began to outpace the system. The space race blew up the pace of change. People needed to keep up with the changes in information and content in order to remain relevant. Education needed to make more and more adjustments to keep up with this rapid pace of change. Television, videotape, audio recording, offset printing all began to influence changes. Personal computers and the establishment of the Internet came in the latter half of the century spurring on faster-paced change that was to never slow down. The institutions of learning no longer controlled access to information, and that alone began to question the relevance of these institutions, as well as the teachers within the system.

After we survived Y2K information became more and more digital. Industries that could not maintain relevance disappeared. The world became digital with almost unlimited access to information and content. People no longer needed permission to publish content. Curation and creation of content is different from the 20^th Century. Access to information, which is content, is the staple for learning and it can now be done without permission from learning institutions.

Educators need to realize that these changes have taken place in many cases in spite of them and their efforts. There will be no slowing down for people to catch up. In a world that is so affected by technological change educators need to be digitally literate in order to maintain relevance in this world. Flexibility and adaptability become important skills for the modern teacher. This is the world that kids are growing up in. Change is inevitable and the teacher is no longer the sole keeper of information. Kids can access information at any time and anywhere. Permission to do so is a personal password away. As educators, what and how we learned may not be what and how we should teach.

In order to maintain relevance, one needs to be aware of what is going on in the world around him or her. Collaboration with other educators can be a key component to succeeding at maintaining relevance. Joining collaborative education communities can inform and support any educator willing to share openly with others. These connected colleagues can lead and participate in education discussions that will never take place in staff rooms, or department or faculty meetings.

Pedagogy and methodology to meet 21^st Century needs are regularly discussed. Ideas are proposed, discussed, vetted, modified and improved through many of these connections. Blog posts have all but replaced the journals and newsletters of the 20^th Century. Teachers may personally and directly discuss, and collaborate with the thought leaders, authors and policy-makers in education to affect change.

We have come a long way from the 1800’s and looking back we can see the flaws in the teaching methodology of that time. We can also agree on how that would not be relevant for today’s learner. We would also agree that the same would hold true for the first have of the 20^th Century. Where people start getting off the train is when we hit the latter half of the 20^th Century. We are all products of that latter 20^th Century mindset. If we are not careful, our students and we will be victims of that mindset, because it is no longer relevant for our learners. We need to make those uncomfortable steps forward, so we will not be left behind. In this fast-paced-rate-of-change era in which we live, even those who are just standing still are ultimately falling behind. An irrelevant educator may not be obvious to everyone, but he or she only needs to be obvious to his or her students to be ineffective. If we are to better educate our kids, we must first better educate their educators.

Read Full Post »

Why Twitter Will Never Connect All Educators.

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Connected Educator, Education, Leadership, online learning, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on January 26, 2015| 21 Comments »

If there is one thing I truly understand about educators it is that they are slow to change. It might be from decades of people jumping in with the “latest and greatest” answer to a better way to do things in education, or some legislative mandate to fix it all through legislation, only to find it to fizzle out and fall way short when actually implemented. If teachers learned one thing from these experiences it is that, if you wait and ride it out long enough, all of these initiatives will all go away. The problem however is that many educators want to apply this sit and wait posture to anything that requires them leaving their zones of comfort.

The mindset of a 20^th Century educator is very comfortable for most educators since they were trained for the most part by 20^th century educators. A majority of educators are very comfortable with the methodology and pedagogy of that time. Structure and student compliance matched to a focus on lecture and direct instruction are the common experiences of most educators.

The gap however, between 20^th Century educators and 21^st Century learners, is now beginning to widen at a much faster rate. Today’s learners have become more directed and into the ownership of their learning. The classroom is no longer the only location where learning takes place. If today’s learner has a need to learn something that has meaning to him/her, he/she can access information and tools to curate, communicate, collaborate and create without any help from someone standing at the head of the class.

If students need info, they can Google it. If they need a demonstration they go to You Tube. They can use any number of applications to create something from what they have learned and to make things better they can collaborate with anyone globally at anytime. The very best part is that after all is said and done they have the ability to publish their work at will.

Many students today learn for a reason, not because they are told to. They have found their voice. Many are finding themselves limited by what is being offered in classrooms. Many have inquisitive minds that do not want to wait to get to the next grade to learn what they want, or need to know now. Students want to learn in order to contribute and gain from meaningful, authentic learning and not because we tell them that, “someday you may need to know this”. Quite honestly the world is changing so rapidly, we do not know the “what” it is that they will need to know for their future. The best we can do to help them is to focus on the “how” to learn for the future, and they will determine the “what” based on their specific needs at that time.

The gap between teacher and student will continue to widen if the educators’ mindset for learning does not evolve. Educators, themselves, must be the Life Long Learners that they speak of in school mission statements and addresses at “parents nights”.

It is the growth mindset of educators that is the key to changing an antiquated system. We can have every educator in the country sign a future ready pledge, but if they have no understanding of what future ready means to them personally, it will be another wasted initiative. Committing to working technology into the infrastructure will have little effect if the educators are not willing to embrace the teaching and learning that must go along with that. We can’t cram 21^st Century learning into a 20^th Century model of teaching because it is more comfortable for our educators. There should be no comfort zone for an educator that is more important than a student’s relevant education. The students and their learning must be the focus. Educators can only be effective if they to are learners. Teaching is not a passive exercise; it requires work, study, and involvement in an ever-changing world. That is why everyone can’t be a teacher. It requires a growth mindset and a willingness to evolve as a learner for a lifetime and that is a necessary commitment that many are not willing to choose to make.

The idea of collaborative learning has always been with us in education, and in life in general. It is the social learning we talk about. The idea that we can now collaborate globally on a huge scale is something of a shift in thinking in education. It is only as a result of technology that this has become possible. It does afford educators an unlimited pool of collegial sources. Educators who can share ideas and help others avoid problems make up an individual educator’s Personalized Learning Network. This PLN is made up of people, who collectively are smarter than any one individual, and are willing to share. The ability to create and access these sources is all part of a growth mindset for learning in the 21^st Century. It also requires an openness to learning about the tools to accomplish it all. This takes time and is not a product of a workshop, or a daylong PD event.

Without a mindset for continually learning, or a limited view on what one is willing to learn, it will be difficult to change the status quo in education. Connecting with others may be a great idea that we all agree will make a difference in education, but what good does that do us, if a majority of educators are only comfortable doing what it is they have always done. Of course, it should go without saying that if staying within those comfort zones worked, we would not be having a global discussion on needed reforms for education.

In order to create these much-needed Personalized Learning Networks educators will need to learn about social media and its culture. The ins and outs of Twitter would be the most efficient and effective way to share what is needed for educators. This however takes some time to learn, and it also takes a commitment of at least 20 minutes a day interacting with connected colleagues for anyone to benefit from this. The benefits far outweigh the time and work involved, but the fact of the matter is that not every educator has a growth mindset. Not every educator shows a willingness to leave those zones of comfort. For those reasons Twitter will never connect all educators. The shame of it is that Twitter is probably the best way to share and learn available to us now. If we are to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators.

Read Full Post »

Enough with Connected Educator Month!

Posted in #CEM, Accountability, Administrator, Blog, Connected Educator, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, Mentoring, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on October 6, 2014| 6 Comments »

Being connected is not just limited to educators as a method of directing an educator’s professional development, but rather it is a shift in culture in the way all people may collaborate and learn. Educators have seized the initiative claiming it to provide collegial collaboration, transparency in schools, as well as its ability to personalize a path to professional development. However, it is a shift that is taking place globally, and the educators’ use is the tip of the iceberg. That is the glaring fact that underscores the need for all educators to be connected and digitally literate. It is not to keep up with colleagues, or achieve social media notoriety, but rather to keep up with the shift in the way all people will approach learning as the digital divide begins to close at an ever-increasing rate.

The only thing that surpasses technology’s ability to simplify our lives is technology’s ability to complicate our lives even more. If change in our world occurred as slowly as it did in previous centuries, it would take far less work to stay relevant. Our culture however has become technology-driven, which promotes change at a pace never before experienced in history. This is not a condition that will slow down. If anything, the evolution of technology will produce much more stuff at even faster rates of speed. That is the world that we are all moving to. That is the world that we are preparing our students to hopefully strive and thrive. As much as the use of technology for learning in a classroom is far less a choice for educators, a connected mindset for an educator or learner is even less a choice.

When it comes to education, the ways of past centuries in terms of methodology and pedagogy no longer serve our needs. We can all be nostalgic about the “good ole days” when content was king and the teacher was the unquestioned expert of all things. That may be a place that existed in the past, but it has no place in education today. The Internet contains more information than any educator could possibly know. With the rapid changes taking place everywhere in our society, we can no longer predict the specific needs for students to live in the world in which they will live. Many jobs today were not in existence when the people now doing them were in school. All of this leads us to realize that teaching kids what to learn is not as important as teaching kids how to learn and how to continue to do so. Life long learning is no longer a lofty sentiment, but a cultural necessity for surviving in an ever-changing world.

This connected mindset comes at a price for educators. It requires more time to collaborate with others. It requires a practice of reflection, which is often talked about, but less often practiced. It requires at a minimum a digital literacy to competently use technology where appropriate for teaching. It requires a change in the concept of a teacher from that of a content expert to that of a lead learner and mentor. Change is never easy or comfortable. It requires learning ways to do things differently. People do not usually volunteer to give up what they are comfortably doing in order to do something that requires more work, time, and other inconveniences. It is that fact that leads me to question how long this connected-community-of-educators idea will take to catch on. More importantly, when can we expect connectedness to be ubiquitous as a mindset for all educators, for that is where we truly must be?

This shift in education will take place. It is a question of how long will it take us to get there? As a conservative institution, education has often been behind the curve when it comes to change. That is one of the reasons a call for innovation has come so loudly from so many voices. We have a rare opportunity to get ahead of the curve, if we recognize collaboration and connectedness through technology not only as the needed change for educators, but an accepted form for learning for everyone. Digital literacy will become as important in this century as reading or writing were in the earlier centuries.

I am growing weary with the rate of time it is taking for this change to take place. I believe that we must be the patient in getting all educators on board, but we must keep moving toward that goal. Patience for the Unconnected was a post I wrote for last year’s Connected Educators Month. My position on connected education was much more tolerant in the first year of Connected Educator Month when I posted: The Connected Conundrum for Education.

What prompted me to revisit this again with a stronger belief for this needed change came from three connected colleagues. People whose opinions I hold in high esteem. Pernille Ripp @pernilleripp who wrote about the drawbacks to being connected in this post: The Downside to Being a Connected Educator. George Couros’s @gcouros comment in my last post also caused me to rethink a little: Whom do we need to educate? The post that had the greatest effect on me was from a prolific blogger and friend Mike Fisher @fisher1000 Connected Professional Development Is Now An Imperative

If there is a better way to learn and teach than we are now employing than we need to support it. If the ways of the last two centuries were working well, we would not be having so many discussions of reform in education. The technology is not going away, so why shouldn’t we use it to our advantage? We need to hasten the change to better meet the needs of our kids, not just for their needs today, but what they will need in their future. To better educate or kids we must first better educate their educators. We can’t have the same conversations on connectedness every October without some expectation for change.

Read Full Post »

Why do we do what we do?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Assessment, Connected Educator, Education, Homework, Leadership, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on September 9, 2014| 7 Comments »

How much of what we do as educators is done because that’s the way it’s always been done? I imagine that whenever these things, that we do out of a respect for history, were originally executed, there was probably a reason for it. My question is with our society and all of the systems within it changing so rapidly over the past few decades, are those original reasons for doing things a certain way still valid? How would we know unless we re-examined the things that we do in education and see if they stand up in today’s technology-driven culture?

I often use my dentist as an example of obsolete practices in a modern setting. It has nothing to do with teeth, but rather information forms. You may have had the same experience with any medical or dental office. Every year at best patients are required to fill out a form to update all of the doctor’s patient information. The office person hands out blank forms to fill out all of the information that already lies within the computer system. When I asked why do I need to fill out all the information that you already have, I was told that this is the way we have always done it.

Of course the method, obvious to me, would be to print out the needed information that the computer already had, so that I could check if it needed any corrections. That is one of the reasons why we have computers, to do those repetitive tasks that waste our time. Apparently, it never occurred to the dentist or the staff to use the technology at hand to make a dull, time-consuming task for a patient a more productive and less tedious experience. Why? Because that’s the way we have always done it. That leads me to ask, how many policies or practices do we have in our schools that only exist, because that’s the way it has always been done.

In many instances in education there is also a research component that affects everything that we do. At least we hear that as educators all of the time. Does the research support this? That question may not apply to some things however. Research tells us that the teenage brain does not function well in the morning hours. Few schools have changed their AM openings to accommodate the research. The overall positive effects of homework continues to be questioned by research, yet there are still schools mandating homework be given at alarming rates. Research tells us that physical activity enhances cognitive thinking and promotes more lasting learning, yet, as a money-saving effort, playtime, recess time and even Physical education are often the first programs that fall victim to budget cuts. The reason: That’s the way we have always done it.

How many kids have come to hate Fridays because many of their teachers see that as testing day? It is not uncommon for a kid to have three major exams fall on a single day. Is that a valid assessment of any learning in each of those classes? That is a direct result of educators testing on Friday, because that’s the way it has always been done. I could point out that direct instruction and lecture are no longer valued as the most effective methods of teaching, yet they are still the focal point in methodology of too many teachers. Why? Because that’s the way it has always been done.

No, this doesn’t happen in every school with every educator, but it happens more often than it should. We need to have a better understanding of why we do things in education. We can no longer take for granted that just because something has always been done a certain way, that it is good for kids. It is time to apply what we know to what we do. Isn’t that what education is about? It may be time to examine policies and practices to see if they still fit in an ever-changing modern world. The way we do things should always be affected by why we do things. If research, or common sense changes the why, we need to adjust the way. That is progress. If we skip progress, change will come through reform. Reform is never an easy alternative.

There are so many things to look at in education that it is just easy to continue doing things the way they have always been done in the past. We need to look at and consider just where that mindset has brought us. We need to make time to re-examine what we do and why we do it on all levels of education. If administrators don’t want to take it on, than teachers should. As educated people we have the research and the know how to apply methods to maximize learning for students. We need to prioritize that as a goal for education. That is not something that has always been done that way.

Read Full Post »

8 EDUCATION BOOKS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE: CONNECTED EDUCATORS SERIES

Posted in Connected Educator, cooperating Teacher, Edcamp, EdChat, Education, Elementary, Email, FaceBook, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, Linkedin, Literacy, Ning, online learning, Parents, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Student teaching, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on August 19, 2014| 2 Comments »

Reposted from the Blog of Mark Barnes, Brilliant or Insane: Education and other intriguing topics.

8 EDUCATION BOOKS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE:

CONNECTED EDUCATORS SERIES

Mark Barnes | August 16, 2014 | Featured, Innovation, Mobile Learning, Social Media | No Comments

Ask any of the thousands of teachers who regularly use Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook about connected education, and you may get an earful about using digital tools as a means to connect with educators and students worldwide.

But if you ask teachers who have never used a social network, blog, or mobile device for learning in their classrooms to discuss connected education, you are likely to be met with blank stares, furrowed eyebrows and shrugged shoulders.

Enter Corwin Press and the Connected Educators Series.

In an effort to connect all teachers, EdWeek author and Corwin editor Peter DeWitt enlisted the help of his professional learning network (PLN) in order to launch a series of books on digital learning, digital leadership, mobile learning, digital citizenship, and everything else that is connected education.

“It is our hope and intent to meet you where you are in your digital journey, and elevate you as educators to the next level.” Peter DeWitt, Connected Educators Series Editor

Corwin’s Connected Educators Series features short books, about 70 pages, in both paperback and electronic formats, aimed at helping educators improve classroom practice and educational leadership in the digital world, something that has been sorely missing in the education book world.

The first books in the series will be published in August and September.

Corwin Connected Educators Series

The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning, by Tom Whitby and Steven Anderson: Two of the profession’s most connected educators explain how to effectively use social media to build a professional learning network.

Flipped Leadership Doesn’t Mean Reinventing the Wheel, by Peter DeWitt: If we can flip the classroom, why can’t we flip faculty meetings and other kinds of communication with parents and teachers? According to DeWitt, we can.

The Edcamp Model: Powering Up Professional Learning, by The Edcamp Foundation: Professional development has never been so simple than when teachers create it. The Edcamp model connects educators to PD like never before.

Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom, by Mark Barnes: Knowledge is in the palm of learners’ hands, making them iStudents. This book helps teachers understand how to maximize this incredible power.

The Corwin Connected Educators series is your key to unlocking the greatest resource available to all educators: other educators.

Connected Leadership: It’s Just a Click Away, by Spike Cook: In the 21st-century, it’s critical that principals create a transparent school for all stakeholders. Principal Cook shows school leaders how to author blogs, PLNs and more, in order to open up a digital window to your school for parents and community.

All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities, by Brad Currie: The connected educator doesn’t just connect with students and colleagues. He connects with parents and community, using 21st-century tools. Currie shows readers how this is done.

Empowered Schools, Empowered Students: Creating Connected and Invested Learners, by Pernille Ripp: Connecting also means empowering. Ripp shares a variety of methods for teachers and school leaders to empower colleagues and students to help each other build a strong learning community.

The Power of Branding: Telling Your School’s Story, by Tony Sinanis and Joseph Sanfelippo: Connected educators must teach students about digital citizenship, and what better way to teach this lesson, according to administrators Sinanis and Sanfelippo, than by showing students how to brand their own schools?

These eight books are the first in Corwin’s ongoing Connected Educators Series. Several more are currently in production and scheduled for publication in early 2015.

For updates, author biographies and other valuable information, visit the Corwin Connected Educators Series website here.

You can order Any books in the Connected Educators Series here. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see next.

Read Full Post »

Does Tech Hold Back Educators?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Edcamp, Education, IWB's, Literacy, Observation, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on August 12, 2014| 35 Comments »

I just read a post by my friend, Tony Sinanis, #EdCamp: What’s The Point? Tony had an unconnected colleague attend an Edcamp. The colleague was most impressed with the ever-present passion. According to Tony’s friend:

This whole experience seems to be one of the best examples I have ever seen about the power and importance of self-directed learning…

The organic way this whole day unfolded blew me away…

All seemed to be going well in winning a convert to the connected side and then it came.

The only thing I am wondering about is the heavy emphasis on technology and sometimes I think the technology tool or tip became the focus as opposed to the conversation or overarching topic… is that always the way?

For too many educators the second statement wipes out all of the wonderment that the first statement brought to the table. It always comes down to the requirement of educators having a need to know or have some perspective on technology in today’s world. That however, is the very least we must prepare our children for. How can we prepare them for their future when so many educators have yet to learn about the needs of learning today in the present?

Let’s place two classrooms side by side and instruct each teacher to use collaborative learning to explore a given subject. One teacher will be limited to 20^th Century methodology, pair share or group work at their seats using chart paper, posters and the always-present overhead projector. The second teacher may use 21^st Century methodology and tools: Skype, Google hangout, Google Documents, Social Media, PowerPoint, and Prezi. Both classes will learn stuff, but which class will take with them presentation and collaboration skills that are career ready in a tech driven society?

Using that same two-classroom scenario let us teach a writing class on voice in writing. Again one class will do compositions and hand them in to the teacher to grade. Of course 20^th century methodology is fine. Peer editing should be employed. The second class will teach Blogging. Students will create blogs, comment on blogs and respond to comments on their own blogs. Again, which class is getting real world authentic experience in the 21^st Century? Which class will get a deeper understanding of voice, the class with an audience of one, or the class with an unlimited audience that interacts, comments critiques, criticizes and praises?

Too often educators view new methodology and tools with a 20^th century mindset. It is their own educational experience that is driving their teaching. A big problem is that we are no longer in that time period. Many educators are losing relevance. It is not something that we can point out without creating friction, and most people refrain from doing so for that reason. Educators like to be fair and let people learn for themselves when it comes to their colleagues. Of course students and parents assume that they are getting the biggest bang for their buck for an education that will provide a path to, at the very least, a safe and competent ability to make a living in a world that will be using technology that advances further even that which we are using today.

Teaching is not easy. It is a profession that requires educators to be relevant. Being relevant doesn’t come with age. Just the opposite occurs, and it requires work to keep up. Teaching is not a profession that enables one to stop learning after the degree is earned and the job is secured. Technology is moving us all too fast for anyone to sit back relying on old methods and tools. With a Masters degree in Educational technology I can assure you that not one piece of hardware, or software that I studied with and used so much to get that degree exists today.

The pedagogy should always be the focus of education discussions, but the technology will always continue to be the accelerant of the pedagogy. Educators no longer get to decide whether or not to use tech as a tool. If they are scared to learn about it, that creates a problem. Technology is not going away as many expect that mythological pendulum to swing back. Educators have been programmed to believe that, if one waits long enough, the worst things will eventually go away. Barring apocalyptic disaster, technology is here to stay and it is a tool for learning, as well as curation, collaboration, communication, and creation, which include many of the things that we need to teach Again, to better educate our kids, we need to first better educate their educators. Edcamps do just that, and most will be dominated by technology discussions, because that is the very discussion educators need to engage in to maintain relevance. As an educator if you are just standing still in your personal development, you are falling behind.

Read Full Post »

The Two Worlds of Education

Posted in #CEM, Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, Edcamp, Education, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter, unconference on August 5, 2014| 22 Comments »

Being connected as an educator offers a unique perspective. It is almost as if there are two different world’s in education, and a connected educator must travel within both. Technology in our computer-driven society has enabled collaboration to occur at a level and pace never before available in the 19^th and 20^th century versions of education. For the modern educators who have embraced the idea of connectedness, the world of education looks very different from it has been in previous centuries.

Regardless of technology, many educators express a curiosity about what it would be like to talk to and engage people from history. How often have we heard the expression “ I wish I could pick his/her brain for ten minutes”? The whole idea would be to collaborate with individuals who in some way have made a mark on history or education. We could all benefit from discussing and reflecting on the successes and failures of valued individuals who have proven their worth in their profession. That is what is done everyday in the connected world of education. It does not involve picking the brains of historical people, but those of education practitioners.

It is social media in the 21^st Century that has boosted collaboration to a scale never before experienced. It enables educators the ability to collaborate beyond their own borders and way beyond their local connections to a global reach. Such collaboration forces transparency. Pedagogy, methodology and policy are all topics of discussion amongst educators worldwide. Education is being analyzed and scrutinized under a huge magnifying glass with the results, blemishes and all, being shared globally.

The overall result is that educators are beginning to adopt that which shows promise in education and they are turning away from that which is not effective. The one sticking point however, to this entire picture of progressive education evolution, which I have just painted with words, is that not all educators are so connected.

I have had the good fortune to attend many education conferences worldwide. Some of the most sought-after speakers, keynoters, and authors at these conferences are connected educators. They are the thought leaders in education moving education from its past to its future.

The result of all of this is the separation of education into two different places, the world of connected educators, and the world of the disconnected. The best example of the difference would be in the group’s discussions. The discussions online with connected educators are very different in tone and content when compared to the discussions in most faculty rooms and department meetings. Ideas such as the flipped classroom or BYOD were discussions in the connected world long before the mainstream media began writing about them to alert the unconnected.

There is one irony of all of this two-worlds discussion that upsets me most. When I talk to many of the thought leaders in the connected world of education, who are still practicing educators, I ask a simple question. Are you recognized in your school or district for the value you bring to the connected community of educators? Most, if not all, tell me that their district has little or no idea of who they are or what they bring to the world of education. How is it possible that the value of these educators, and their contribution to education, are not recognized within their own unconnected education world?

It is that lack of appreciation or even a failure to validate an educator’s success that is costing us the brightest and best in education. We have long been losing our newest teachers at a rate of 50% in the first five years of service. Obvious fixes would include more support with effective mentorship programs, as well as a salary more in line with the requirements and demands of the job.

Now, because of the growing world of connected education, we are seeing educators at the top end being lured into the business side of education because they are being recognized as valuable assets to education. That recognition however is coming from private industry and not their own education leaders. The private sector is luring away many of the education thought leaders by doing in the connected world what the unconnected world fails to do, recognize, validate, and reward leadership and innovation. Complacency is not considered an asset in this new connected world of education.

In a world that is being driven by technology at an ever-increasing rate that has never before been experienced, educators cannot be standing still. If educators do stand still, they will rapidly fall behind and become irrelevant. It is not a question of being a good or bad educator at that point. One can have great skills, but without being relevant to the students, how is that educator to be effective? Gone are the days when all learning took place in the rows of the classroom. Self-directed learning is now a way of the world. Educators will be needed more than ever, but the 19^th and 20^th Century models of educators are not relevant in our latest century. There is a pressing need to get more educators to be connected, self-directed, reflective, inspired, and relevant. We also need administrators to include themselves in this shift. Administrators need to maintain relevance as well. The longer it takes for our two worlds of educators to merge into one, the longer it will take us to reform our own culture and the education system overall.

Read Full Post »

ISTE14 Impressions

Posted in Administrator, Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, Edcamp, Education, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on July 7, 2014| 15 Comments »

This year ISTE put on what appeared to me to be the biggest education extravaganza to date. The number of participants was said to be somewhere between 20 and 22 thousand educators. I never verified that number but based on the food lines it seemed likely to be true.

Of course there was apparently a huge number of connected educators in attendance. I say apparently, because in reality I don’t believe it was so many. Many connected educators volunteer to do sessions. Many are also bloggers. A natural gathering place for them to gather, interact, and network is at the Bloggers Café, or the PLN Lounge. Twitter has added a whole new dimension to these education conferences where educators connected to other educators through various Social Media can meet up face to face. This enables real-time collaboration with people who have had a virtual relationship with each other for a while. Even if there were a thousand connected educators meeting at the Bloggers Café all at once (and there weren’t), It would seem to those gathered that the entire conference was connected. Of course this ignores the 21,000 other educators who were not connected.

I guess my take away for this is that being connected networks you with more people to have a good time with, as well as extend collaboration, but a majority of educators have yet to discover this. One would think that would be a lure for more educators to connect, but of course the only people who recognize these benefits are those who are connected. I imagine most of the people reading this blog are connected as well, so I am probably and again spinning my wheels on this subject.

I found this year’s conference to be a bit overwhelming. To me it seemed that many of the events and some sessions were trying very hard to create an atmosphere that was experienced with smaller numbers from previous conferences. That intimacy however, was lost with the numbers of participants this year. There were some invitation only sessions, as well as paid sessions with smaller numbers that I did find more enjoyable, but again, I attend many conferences and do not view them through the eyes of a new attendee. I might be too critical here.

I loved the fact that connected educators were actively backchanneling sessions and events. Tweets were flying over the Twitterstream as the #ISTE2014 hashtag trended on Twitter. Photos were much more prevalent in tweets than in past years, because that process has been simplified. That picture process has both good and bad aspects attached to it. It is great to see the session engagement. The pictures from some of the social gatherings however, may paint a slightly distorted view of conferencing by educators. It may give an impression that the social events outweighed the collaboration and interaction. The social events were fun, but it was as much a part of networking as any of the conference.

The vendor floor was beyond huge this year. It was quite the carnival atmosphere at times. If anyone would benefit from collaboration at these conferences it would be the vendors. There is a great deal of redundancy in education products. I wish more vendors would take a pass on the bells and whistles of their product and talk more about pedagogy and how their products fit in, as well as how they don’t. That requires an educator’s perspective, and not every product designer seeks that out. Those that do seek that perspective however seem to attract me more than the others.

One vendor had a closed booth with dollar bills being blown around inside. People lined up for a chance to step inside to beat the airflow for the dollars. The attraction was obviously the lure to get folks in, but who paid attention to the product? There were some products that I will address in a subsequent post, which I rarely do. These products were exceptional and should be recognized.

As ISTE came to a close this year, my reflection was that bigger is not always better. I was also mystified by the choices in keynotes. If one was to judge by the tweets about the keynotes, one was somewhat of a miss, one was on the mark, and one left many wondering why it was a keynote at all. I must admit that I did not view the keynotes in the lecture hall, but on screens in the gathering places in the conference. I enjoy the keynotes better when I can openly comment and yell at the screen if I have to. It would seem that I was not alone in these endeavors.

It should be noted that ISTE this year did have people’s Twitter handles on their name tags, an innovation. Of course mine was messed up, but who am I to complain? Now I wish they would take another suggestion and do an unconference, or Edcamp segment in the middle of the conference. This would allow educators to further explore those subjects that they learned about in earlier more conventional sessions. It would also break up the “sit and get” mentality of a conference. It would take as little as an hours worth of sessions.

For as much as we hear that we need and want innovation in education, I would expect to see it first in Education conferences. They are hyped to be conferences led by the innovators in education, but there is little that changes in conferences from year to year. We are still sitting through lectures and presentations with limited audience engagement. We are not yet directing our learning, but attending sessions devised and approved a year in advance. I realize that change is hard and takes time, but our society is demanding that we as educators do it more readily and now. We need to change in order stay relevant. How does an irrelevant education system prepare kids for their future?