We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birth of a new world is at hand.

Thomas Paine, February 14, 1776

In reflecting over today's version of EduBloggerCon, I'm struck by how important informal learning is to the educational experience of people - regardless of age, race, and socioeconomic status. Strange that it took an EduBloggerCon to help me see it.


Nonetheless, today's didactic experience - for me - was a very good one (and it wasn't because of the "sessions"). Rather, the experiences during which I learned most involved spur-of-the-moment conversations with a number of different people on a wide variety of topics. Today, because of the formal gathering provided by the EduBloggerCon unconference, I was able to engage in meaningful conversations (for which I was extremely grateful) with a number of people, including: Michelle Baldwin, Jon Becker, Liz Davis, Vicki Davis, Kelly Dumont, Scott Floyd, Wesley Fryer, Steve Hargadon, David Jakes, Karen Janowski, Kevin Jarrett, Doug Johnson, Lee Kolbert, Julie Lindsay, Angela Maiers, Scott Merrick, Sylvia Martinez, Scot McCleod, Beth Still, Henry Thiele, Lisa Thumann, Maggie Tsai, Jeff Utecht, Joyce Valenza, Mark Wagner, David Warlick, Paul Wood, and many others.

Because of these informal learning “sessions,” I learned a lot. Were they “conversations”? Yes. But there was more to it than that. These were conversations of intense meaning because the people involved effectively served as resources uncommon to the typical day. Clearly these conversations were better than merely “shooting the breeze” because the topics discussed had particular value to those engaged. Furthermore, while similar “conversations” take place on a daily basis online (among people with similar interests but with different cultural backgrounds), because today’s conversations were held in a seemingly traditional face-to-face setting, the emotions and passions felt by conversation participants were easily conveyed.

Which brings me to my questions:

• What will it take to provide our students daily with the kind of meaningfully rich learning experiences that typically result from informal learning?
• Can a formally constructed informal learning environment be recreated with more than sporadic frequency?
• How might we structure the learning environment in our schools to allow for more informal learning while teaching concepts assessed by federally imposed standardized tests?

In other words:

• Why can’t we make informal learning an integral part of the formal learning process?

Once we do that, the learning revolution that so many crave will become a reality, essentially marking the birth of a new world of learning for students and teachers alike.


Update: I apologize for seemingly dehumanizing the events of EduBloggerCon in this post. I wouldn't normally do so but I'm really trying to wrap my head around what it is about today's landscape that is essential to the learning processes of our students. Frankly, I see even clearer how little our students need us to feed them with information. They can get that for themselves, thank you.

Rather, students need teachers to give them what the Internet can't: love, empathy, and a physical person in the room that genuinely cares for their needs.

Original image source: Flickr user WOScholar.

Step back and slowly walk away from your social networks - cause it'll be nothin' but NECC for the next five days. Don't worry: Your regularly scheduled networked learning will return to its normal state on July 2.

Thank you for your patience.

Seth Godin:

Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending the old thing, instead of working to take advantage of the new thing.

Not that there's anything wrong with Singer sewing machines, or boring our students, or even teaching to the test. It's just that I think our patrons deserve better pedagogy, more support, and now.

Onward and upward.

I sent this in an email to my doctoral committee today. I'm getting excited.

Executive Summary:

I’m moving forward with my dissertation and would love your input/feedback. I hope to study professional development and how it impacts teacher practice. In working further with Dr. Bentley (my Chair), I have narrowed my focus to the following research questions:

• What are the characteristics of teacher professional development programs that encourage teacher use of technology within communities of practice?
• What are the characteristics of teachers that utilize social software in the classroom?
• What impact do open professional development environments have on teacher utilization of social software in the classroom?

Thanks for your help,

Darren


---


Additional Detail:


Therefore, a major component of this study will be several professional development classes that are offered this Fall in the Canyons School District:


Furthermore, because the treatment for this study will be to conduct professional development in an open environment, a brief understanding of that concept might be helpful. Similar in concept to open education efforts and even open source software, open professional development has the following characteristics (see my original description here – as this is a concept that is just emerging):

• Free of charge to participants.
• Open Enrollment - All that desire are welcome to participate.
• Combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet.
• Built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint.
• Not limited to the course we've named OpenPD. Thus more of a movement - like Open Education - than a particular class.

In further researching the characteristics of open PD environments, I would also compare and contrast a number of PD efforts that fall within the realm of being open. For example:

• OpenPD – This is a series of PD classes that I taught wherein teachers were invited to participate, regardless of their geographic location.
  http://openpd.wikispaces.com/
• K12 Online – This is a free conference wherein teachers can participate with others, receiving a level of professional development and tailored to individual teacher needs.
  http://k12onlineconference.org/
• Connectivism & Connective Knowledge – This online course has also been termed a “Massive Open Online Course,” has been used as a form of professional development by many teachers.
  http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/

What are your thoughts, how well do you think these methods will answer my questions, and what suggestions do you have regarding these efforts?

What do you think? Have I got a leg to stand on?

When a new school district is built, then entire departments must be created anew. When entire departments are created anew, then entire teams must be hired. Once entire teams are hired, then entire teams need to go through some sort of introductory "training" to ensure that everybody on those teams is on the same page, working toward the same end (and I'm not just talking retirement here).

So... after hiring an entire ed-tech team (we're almost there) to join an entire newly hired IT department because we've been building this new school district... we'll be conducting our introductory ed-tech "training" in a just few weeks (the week of July 13, actually).

In preparation for such a task, I've invited folks to share.


Needless to say, the responses I've received in answer to my query have been extremely helpful. Here's the list (a pretty decent selection, if I do say so myself):

Video:

Via Corrie Bergeron:

Via Beth Still:


Print:

• Confronting the Challenges of Participative Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, by the MacArthur Foundation (via Robin Ellis)
• The Steep Unlearning Curve, by Will Richardson (via Darrel Branson)
• Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?, by Karl Fisch (via Josh Allen)
• Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, by the MacArthur Foundation (via Deb Hanson)
• People remember 10%, 20%...Oh Really? by Will Thalheimer (via jadekaz)
• The Mentor's Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships, by Lois Zachary (via Michelle Bourgeois)
• Caution: Falling Rocks, by David Jakes (via Kelly Dumont)
• The Future of Learning Manifesto, by Christian Long (via Glenn Moses with thanks to Scot McCleod for hosting the pdf)
• Different Strokes for Different Folks: A Critique of Learning Styles, by Steven A. Stahl (via Chris Craft)
• Framing Constructivism in Practice as the Negotiation of Dilemmas: An Analysis of the Conceptual, Pedagogical, Cultural, and Political Challenges Facing Teachers, by Mark Windschitl (via Cory Little)

Don't be shy. Feel free to throw your suggestions in the comments...

George Siemens:

Facebook and Twitter are recording enormous increases in amount of time spent on their sites by visitors. Twitter records an increase of over 3700% (year over year). Understanding which sites are increasing is use is only part of the discussion. I’d like to know what we are doing less. My email use is still the same as last year. I still read the same number of RSS feeds. I can’t think of anything I’ve dropped from my online habits. I’m still at a “net add” stage. Guess that will have to change soon…

My gut feeling is that many of us are still at the "net add" stage. Translation: Many of us are at the "offline subtract" stage, as well.

Is that good?

Gary Stager:

Glenn Moses:

I'm just sayin'. Still.

In this week's Tech Learning post, I decided to follow Dean Shareski's lead and include my first attempt at mashing an inspirational quote with a selection of stock photography since Dan Meyer offered his constructive push-back against the practice in April. For the most part, I find myself agreeing with Dan's arguments and have had to seriously reflect on the message I've tried to send and the manner in which I should send it.


Which brings me to my question. Given that I want the medium to be a 1024 x 768 still image:

• How might I now better tell the story?
  

Personally, I think that the quote is the story. However, combining the correct image with the quote brings added depth to the story and how it might be perceived. To illustrate, in this example the picture serves to bridge the gap between what many might perceive as a traditional media center (with books, call numbers, and signs pointing the way) and the kind of library portrayed in the text (a sort of social gathering place). Furthermore, the small sign in the picture - edited by me - additionally and almost subconsciously promotes a message that I would include in the text: that learning is social.

No good?

Sources:

• Quotation: Carolyn Foote, punctuation altered.
• Original Image: Flickr user sylvar.

Classroom 2.0 LIVE Workshops are two-day hands-on workshops that focus on the use of Web 2.0 in education. They are intended to be much like the Web itself: free, open, engaging, participative, and highly collaborative.

The workshops are also designed to be highly practical, and beginners are especially invited and encouraged to attend — in fact, if you are a beginner, you are the reason we are holding these workshops! We promise you will have a lot of fun as you learn about these important technologies. Each workshop is a blend of presentations, facilitated discussions, and hands-on creation, with lots of time for "drilling down" by getting individual help and instruction.

• Who: YOU!
• When: August 10-11, 2009
• Where: Jordan High School (95 E Beetdigger Dr., Sandy, UT)
• Cost: Free

View the agenda (and sign up to present) here.
Sign up to attend here (sign up for Classroom 2.0 while you're at it).

For additional information, please visit http://workshops.classroom20.com/.

Here's a quick run-down snapshot of the team we have been developing to serve the technology needs of the Canyon School District.

Canyons School District:

• Formed because of the division of the Jordan School District, near Salt Lake City, Utah
  
• Consists of 29 elementary, 8 middle, 4 high, and number of special schools
• Approximately 33,000 students, 1,700 teachers
  

The CSD Department of Information Technology (click each of these images to enlarge)*:


A clean copy of the org chart for you to hang on your wall:


The Technology Services Team:


Technical Support (Classified, break-fix):

• Serve as level 1 technical support in the schools. Will be the first point of contact for break-fix technical support issues.
• One Technical Support Specialist per high school, housed in the schools.
• One roaming Secondary Technical Support Team Lead to serve as a coach and a mentor to other support personnel, provide consistency throughout the secondary schools, and to help individual schools where necessary.
  
• One Technical Support Specialist shared among every two middle schools, housed in the schools.
• A team of Technical Support Specialists to service the elementary schools (geek squad approach), at a ratio of just over one Specialist to four schools (including the Elementary Technical Support Team Lead). We anticipate using smart devices to push out job requests to the Support Specialist physically closest to the issues at hand.
  

Help Desk (Classified, change management):

• Serve in the critical bridging role between the Service and Deployment teams.
• Will provide some level 1 technical support to district office personnel.
  
• Will continue to support the same systems that are currently maintained by the Jordan School District Information Systems Department (and then some). At this point, the number of systems currently sits at 55, with new systems seemingly being added weekly.

Educational Technology Services (Certificated, curriculum technology):

• Will inherently provide some level 1 technical support but will focus primarily on assisting teachers and students to utilize technology to teach and to learn. Each member of this team will also provide teacher professional development as it relates to their specific realm.
  
• One Educational Technology Consultant per every secondary school to teach half time, and help teachers with technology the other half.
• Six Educational Technology Specialists to provide ed tech support to elementary teachers at a current ratio of roughly one Specialist per every five schools (with another six Specialists being deferred as future hires = final ratio of roughly 1:2).
• One Extended Technology Specialist (with one deferred) to assist teachers and students with technology in special learning environments (i.e. special education).
• Four Media Technology Specialists to work with on-site Media Assistants in maintaining the Media Centers (collection development, Big 6, etc.) in our elementary schools at a ratio of roughly one Specialist per every 7 schools (with another two Specialist positions being deferred as future hires = final ratio of roughly 1:5).
  
• In the end, the coveted "Social Media Specialist" position has been merged with the "Distance Learning Specialist" position to form the Media Technology and Distance Learning Team Lead. After all, shouldn't every librarian/media coordinator/specialist be a "Social Media Specialist" in today's landscape? I certainly think so. Our students are using social media to learn without us. Why shouldn't we, as educators, be expected to understand what they're experiencing in order to best help them use such technologies effectively? This person will also work to coordinate many facets within of our district's Ed Net/Concurrent Enrollment programs.
  

It is our sincere hope that the organization we've created will be able to provide the kind of technology support experience that the teachers and students in our schools clearly deserve. Furthermore, I greatly appreciate the confidence, trust, and support that has been given to our department by the Canyons School District administration and Board of Education.

Questions, comments, suggestions? I'd love to hear what you have to say!

* TBD = To be determined or hired before August 2009.
* Deferred = Currently budgeted for but not to be hired in the immediate future.

I was scolded today by one of the Media Specialists in my old district for having "too much technology" and "not enough library" in the description of the Media Technology Specialist positions that we opened today.

Yup.

That's exactly what I was talking about when I worried about bringing aboard all of our current media coordinators. Sorry, but at this point, some librarians still don't understand that:

Baby steps, one teacher at a time, and with lots and lots of love.