Drape's Takes

EduBloggerWorld (EBW) is dying.

With Ning's announcement several weeks ago that they would be moving toward a pricing structure that doesn't provide free services to networks with more than 150 members, we're not sure how we won't be forced to close the doors and gently nudge EBW's members to another network. What's worse, it feels like it's the network that's really tying all of EBW's 1,600+ members together, given such a wide distribution of varying national representation. I would estimate that less than 5% of EBW's members have ever met face to face.

As a result, I'm doubtful that large pockets of members will shift spaces together and sadly suspect that closing the doors to EBW will mean the end of many meaningful relationships forged on the site. Sure, there's Twitter, Facebook, Classroom 2.0, and the blogosphere itself, but the membership of EBW seems to occupy a niche of international flavor not openly expressed, emphasized, nor embraced in other spaces.

Honestly, I'm torn by many things related to this turn of events. First, I'm frustrated by Ning, Pearson, and the commercialization of education. One walk through the vendor floor at any major conference and you can tell that education now means big bucks. If we truly believe that education is for the benefit of greater society, then why don't more companies give more for our future? I think Wikispaces, for example, has set a very good example along these lines - as Ning once did. But Ning's sell-out to Pearson frustrates and saddens me, all at the same time.

A second area of trouble for me in this regard is that of focus. While my job now consumes much of my time and requires me to focus sharply on the needs of teachers and students in my District (and rightly so), I still feel strongly that the key to our future success depends greatly on how much we're willing and how well we're able to help and work with others outside our immediate sphere. Honestly, I think the answer to the question I posed during Richard's ISTE keynote (shared below) is a resounding "YES!"


If those of us living in favorable circumstances don't take the time to make the effort to help those less fortunate, then how can we say, at the end of the day, that the sum of our efforts has been a success?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we might save EBW or your predictions on what will happen to the communities formed in the network after its demise.

When Alan November taught his ISTE audience about empathy, making a strong case for its placement at the top of the list of critical 21st Century skills, he helped me understand why it's still still difficult to persuade so many in education that the global, technologically-driven approach to learning really can be the better way. At this moment in time, I'm no longer convinced that it’s the technology alone that so many fear. Sure, technology can be intimidating in and of itself; but quite often, I think that it's what people might find on the other side of that technology that likely seems so scary. When technology means communication and collaboration with others outside of our comfortable sphere, then barriers of security quite naturally arise.

Nevertheless, these aren't new fears, far from it. In fact, these are the same feelings of fright and apprehension we've been fighting as a planet for millennia.

With the push in recent decades toward an increased use of technology in education, scholars have been busy researching and documenting its successes and failures, as well as the factors inhibiting technology’s use as a pedagogical tool. Peggy A. Ertmer, for example, has done substantial work in this area. Following Brickner’s (1995) lead, Ertmer has described barriers to technology integration in schools as being either first- or second-order. This is important.

Thus, first-order barriers to technology integration are described as being extrinsic to teachers and include lack of access to computers and software, insufficient time to plan instruction, and inadequate technical and administrative support. In contrast, second-order barriers are intrinsic to teachers and include beliefs about teaching, beliefs about computers, established classroom practices, and unwillingness to change. While many first-order barriers may be eliminated by securing additional resources and providing computer-skills training, confronting second-order barriers requires challenging one's belief systems and the institutionalized routines of one's practice. Thus, in terms of technology integration, this may require reformulating basic school culture notions regarding what constitutes content and content coverage, what comprises learning and engaged time, and even, what behaviors define “teaching”. (Ertmer, 1999, p. 48; see also Ertmer, 2005)

At this point in the evolution of our field, I think there are many teachers for which technology has become integral to nearly every aspect of their job. However, for those still striving to integrate – or worse, for those still hesitant resistant to integrate – I think that an additional second-order barrier lies in the cultural differences that exist between teachers on opposite ends of any collaboration that might take place.

"What will I find on the other side? What if they're different? Can they be trusted? I think I'm scared. Why should I care?"

Furthermore, until collaboration is a behavior naturally included in every educator’s definition of teaching, then many of the contemporary promotions of technology in education will continue to be little more than spit in the wind.

To illustrate, take Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay as perfect examples. I remember reading about their first Flat Classroom Project together back in 2006. In that and subsequent Flat Classroom Projects, students from different countries and backgrounds work together to research, discuss, and envision the education and society of the future, basing hypotheses on trends outlined in each year’s Horizon Report (click here to see K12 edition of the report for this year). Because the students and teachers that participate in these projects come from different countries – Bangladesh, Australia, Austria, China, and the United States in 2006 – strong cultural differences become evident as they learn to collaborate and work together to create successful products. As a result, these projects can be exhilarating, to be sure; nevertheless, they can also be challenging as the meshing of cultures is rarely easily accomplished.

In surveying the sessions that were offered at this year’s ISTE conference, it becomes clear that collaboration and global participation has been a common theme. Every ISTE keynote focused on the importance of global collaboration and working together as equal partners to solve the problems that plague our world. As teachers from the East collaborate with students from the West, each brings to the table the sum of their life experiences – culminating in an exciting cornucopia of religious, ethnic, and lifestyle differences.


My experiences at ISTE this year taught me that technology now serves as a critical thread that ties many of us together in learning. That, to me, is exciting, fascinating, and scary: all at the same time. I’m happy to see so many embrace the diversity that can and will exist in our field – and hopeful that others more apprehensive will learn to overcome their fears in realization that the global, technologically-driven approach to learning really can be the better way.

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Original image source: Flickr user bench_30.

References:

• Brickner, D. (1995). The effects of first and second order barriers to change on the degree and nature of computer usage of secondary mathematics teachers: A case study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
• Ertmer, P. (1999). Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 47-61.
• Ertmer, P. (2005). Teacher pedagogical beliefs: the final frontier in our quest for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(4), 25-39.

I think Alan November's message is the most important of any that were delivered at this year's ISTE conference. Primarily, if we're going to teach teachers and students to use the Internet, then we should be teaching them to understand the perspectives of others. The idea that empathy is the most vital skill of the 21st Century is very powerful. Nevertheless, I don't think it's limited to only here and now.

Hasn't our society starved for citizens that understand and care for one another? Haven't we strove for the most civil of populations? Isn't empathy the first step in achieving such a goal?

What's changed, however, is the geographical distribution of our society. In times past, social capital was established among those in our immediate proximity: local meant house, village, and state. Today's local, nevertheless, is yesterday's global. I think that this is exactly what Jean Claude Richard was trying to teach in his opening keynote. In spite of his difficulties in presenting to a 5,000 person audience, Richard's thesis was that the only way we're going to solve all of the problems we face on this planet, will be to work together as a race: the human race.

To that critical thought, I join with Alan November in emphasizing to teachers and curriculum leaders world-wide that we should all be more focused on globalizing the curriculum. I fear thar failure to do so will translate into drastically negative consequences for this and future generations.

While Chris Lehmann was delivering his lunch-time keynote to participants in the ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp, his computer froze and I'm pretty sure I'm the one to blame.

Just before his address, I recommended to him that he break from the standard a little and come down off the stand to be closer to his audience. Chris kindly followed my advice. His computer - probably a Mac running Windows or something like that - didn't like the new arrangement and so it froze on a slide entitled "Humility." No kidding. Being the caliber of presenter that Chris is, he handled the presenter's-worst-nightmare very well, complete with rag-tag tap dance and all. But I'm not really writing this post to apologize nor to extend Chris a well-deserved pat on the back. Instead, I'm writing about trust.

Trust is an amazing thing; built often by reputation, sometimes out of love, earned instantly on sporadic occasions and on others just over a lifetime. Trust is created by proving oneself: An earned confidence on the part of others, marked by belief in ability, certainty of potential, and reliance on capacity. Trust can be very hard to come by.


The reason I recommended to Chris that he break from the traditional organization of the room is that, having just experienced Jeff Pointek's keynote in the same room, I'd solidified further in my mind how difficult it can be to lecture the modern conference attendee. ("Attendee," of course, because "participant" doesn't really describe those consuming a lecture, now does it.) In watching the audience react to Jeff's hits and misses as he'd led us through his tale, I'd learned even better how difficult it can be to earn an audience's trust. And it's not just the laptops. It's that those laptops are now connected to a network and how - more than ever before - the modern presenter battles not only to earn the trust of an audience, but for the attention of that audience, as well.

Have you ever tried to earn a person's trust without knowing that they're even listening? Have you ever tried to do it knowing that they're not?

Therefore, just as we're taught as pre-service teachers, I think immediate audience proximity is increasingly becoming a necessity for presenters asked to lecture the networked generation. What do you do when even your most difficult students begin to stray off task? You move in closer, showing that you care, doing your best to earn the respect and trust you've come to deserve.


To be sure, I certainly don't know everything there is to know about this complex game we call education. As a result, I appreciate very much the opportunity I had to participate in this experience - and for Chris' perfectly-timed words on the essential requirement we all have to be humble in the service we give to others. I'm grateful to have (had? :-) the trust of such a capable teacher in Chris, and the humble manner in which he so passionately leads those in and out of his school.

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Images source: Flickr user Katie Morrow.

Filtering, access, collaboration, care, trust, responsibility, noise, connect, social capital, communities of practice, iPads all around, hyperconnectivity, the six degrees of Bacon, #edchat, reputation, highly intelligent kids, policy, purpose, and politics: I think ISTE 2010 began very well.

Having attended the first-ever ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp, I was impressed with their lineup while torn by the unfortunate scheduling conflict with EduBloggerCon. In truth, the jumps I made during the day from LBC to EBC to LBC to EBC were fascinating because both events were structured very differently, both had quality people contributing to the atmosphere, and each was unique in its strengths.

To delineate, the Leadership Bootcamp taught me a number of things. First, I'm still comfortable with the relatively liberal filtering policies we put in place in our District. We put forth an adequate effort in maintaining CIPA requirements while also giving teachers and students the freedom to access social sites potentially helpful to their curriculum. Second, we've become an incredibly difficult society to teach - at least when teaching means lecture, and as students, well, we're networked. More on that to come. Third, the Leadership Bootcamp was successful in teaching me that an increase in cost doesn't always translate into an increase in learning. While the learning that took place at LBC was certainly top-rate (and traditional in its approach, to be sure), such an environment had no corner on the market of effectiveness.

Fashioned after the "un-conference" model, EduBloggerCon on the other hand, was free to all participants and informal in its approach. Session Conversation topics and facilitators were selected at the beginning of the event, and no participants were paid for their services. Learning was the focus, and provided by the community for the community - all in the form of conversation, untainted by the sight of sages on stages. In jumping back and forth between LBC and EBC, it was clear that conversation is an incredibly powerful method of learning, capable of rapid customization but also often prone to easy derailment. More than once, conversations began with a clear objective in mind, but were quickly shifted toward topics originally unintended.

Through the conversations I was privileged to experience during EduBloggerCon, I also learned many things. Primarily, it was solidified in my mind that there exists an important role in many classrooms for the iPad. In spite of hearing cautionary voices to the contrary, I think that if a teacher's central goals include increasing a student's love for reading, then the iPad is a more sound investment than laptops or netbooks. The more I use the iPad, the more I'm attracted to its interface, and oddly, the more I find myself addicted to consuming its content. In contrast, I've never felt similarly compelled to read PDFs on my laptop and doubt our students ever have, either. Strange, I know (and probably even unhealthy).

All in all, I'm grateful to have been able to participate in the ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp and EduBloggerCon, and would recommend both events in the future to any teacher hoping to learn how to improve their practice.

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Image source: David Warlick.

Right on the heels of my last post, Larry Cuban explains why teachers must be aggressive in their learning habits. Because education is a complex process (rather than a complicated process), those hoping to succeed under such circumstances must be willing to adapt.

At the minimum, know that working in a complex system means adapting to changes, dealing with conflicts, and constant learning. These are natural, not aberrations. Know further that reform designs borrowed from complicated systems and imposed from the top in complex systems will hardly make a dent in the daily work of those whose job is convert policy into action.

I know of few things more complex than teaching a child to learn.

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Image source: Flickr user fdecomite.

I came across this jewel the other day, reminiscent of Carl Glickman and (surprisingly) straight out of 1997.

Teachers need an attitude that is fearless in the use of technology, encourages them to take risks, and inspires them to become lifelong learners.

How have you seen teacher attitudes change since 1997? Do you know teachers that are fearless in their use of technology or is school out for the summer?


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Image source: Flickr user Magnus.

Quotation source:

• National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. (1997). Technology and the new professional teacher: Preparing for the 21st century classroom.
  

I remember when life was easy.

Seven to three. June, July, and August… aaaaaahhhh. Interacting with the kids - day in and day out - and no matter how bad it was one day, the kids would always return the next.


But then again, no matter how great it went one day, the kids would always come back the next (expecting bigger, better, and now!).

No, life as a teacher certainly wasn’t all bliss. I remember the inter-departmental politics, training bodily functions to react to the rhythm of school bells, scrimping from paycheck to paycheck, and trying to reach those kids that cared for neither me nor themselves. I remember parents that were never satisfied, apples that didn’t fall too far from the tree, and frustrations with the expectation that I was to serve as the surrogate parent of my students.


I also remember how great other members of our school and district community seemed to have it.

I mean, really.

Wasn’t it true that:

• Principals had the cushiest job in the world! No bells, no classes, no problem!
• District personnel were the definition of "out of touch." Clearly, they neither understood what life is like in the schools nor did they really care!
• Without question, the easiest job in all of public education was definitely that of the District administrator. Ivory tower, dictates from on high, and wow were they ever clue-less!
• Life would be easy if I could only get a gig. like. that!
  

Welllllllll. No.


Four years ago this week, I accepted a position as a district-level technology specialist. Last year, I jumped in to administration.

I now serve as the Director of Technology Services in the Canyons School District, and it’s been a much more difficult job than I ever could have imagined. Every day is non-stop, issues thrown my way are almost always complex, and there honestly is no seven-to-three, June, July or August. (For that matter, summer is our busiest time of the year!) I wake up in the middle of the night only to worry about some member of my staff; and until now, I never fully understood just how much every member of my team – for better or for worse – truly represents me as they interact with others.

Yes, being an administrator has taught me patience and humility (of all things), the importance of team, and the value of hard work, loyalty, trust, and experience. It's also taught me that where much is given, much is required. Ultimately, it's taught me about myself, my weaknesses, and ofttimes has pushed me near the edge of my limits.

Oh, how I dread those limits.

I’m so thankful for the opportunity I’ve been given to serve the students, teachers, and administrators in our District. I'm thankful for how much I've been able to learn and to grow; and when I say that I’m grateful for the trust, patience, loyalty, and hard work that those on my staff have demonstrated, I mean it.

I mean, really.

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Image source: Flickr user Lady-bug.

In spite of Wordle being so overplayed, I think it's still useful for occasionally getting a quick visual on what seems to be currently occupying the thoughts of those who write. For example, here's a quick Wordle built from the U.S. National Educational Technology Plan.

First, it's nice to see "learning" so prominent in the plan.

Now, take out a few of the words you'd most likely expect in an ed-tech plan and you're left with the heart of the matter:


Certainly a different conversation than we ever heard ten years ago.