As my first school-based work of the new year, I get to begin on a special initiative.  The principal of King’s College in Warrnambool, Victoria has organised a multi-tiered approach that’s very exciting to be a part of.  First, I will spend the day working with both the whole staff and then two separate smaller groups focused on more beginning and more advanced technology using educators.  What’s we hope will make this day really useful, however, is what comes after:  several staff members will join the 5 Day workshop series I run at Independent Schools Victoria and all Year 7 students this year will get an iPad to support their personal learning.

After a King’s College variation of my It’s Broken (So Let’s Fix it!) presentation, the two smaller sessions will target CEQ•ALL and The Edge-ucators Way.

CEQ•ALL

• CEQ•ALL Overview
• Research Rationale
• Profiles (pdf)
• Rubric (pdf)

The Edge-ucators Way Strategies

• Next Era Ed Overview (pdf)
• The Edge-ucators Way
• Look to Learn
• ClassPortal
• WebQuests

The following section moves through an extensive list of some of the main aspects that make digital learning different – and better – from what we might be used to. You may be very familiar with some of the items that follow and less so with others so the purpose here is to give us all a common foundation upon which to later draw.  Please use the comments link to add your thoughts and anything I’ve missed.

Richer Resources

The first identifiable benefit of digital learning comes from digitization itself. When media shifted from analog to digital – from movie reels and cassette tapes, books and posters, worksheets to Web sites – the very resources for learning were transformed. Like many, I was slow to pick up on the significance of this digitization. Until I experienced the World Wide Web. Even in its earliest incarnation of straight hypertext and static images, I “got” that combined with the delivery platform of the Web, digital resources opened a new era for humankind. This is no overstatement. Comparable to the Gutenberg press, the Web has continued this “flattening of the hierarchy,” putting in the hands of everyone what was once available only to the elite. An early example was the Web Museum, posted by Nicolas Pioch in 1994, which shared Wikipedia-like information and images celebrating the greats from art history. Now anyone with an interest could survey art through the ages from any Net-connected computer. Led by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, we have gone from a postcard-sized scan of the artwork to gain the ability to zoom into the finest of brushstrokes without losing clarity. I’ve used the visual arts as a case study to demonstrate a Gutenberg-like transformation in access from the few to the many. As previously mentioned, one principle benefit of digital learning is disintermediation, the ability of learners to connect directly with what they want. Those of us with any years behind them, can recall having to pay for a tape or transcript of an interview heard on public radio where now these and more appear free of charge via podcasts in digital audio & video splendor. From interactive Flash learning objects for primary students to online simulations and games for middle schoolers and even bridging senior students to courses and lectures at the world’s finest universities, a clear vision, appropriate for 2020, of what our students can achieve must include how access to such a wealth of resources change upgrade our expectations.

Customization & Personalization

We have already observed one key element of the Digital Era seen through the lens of the Ford Motor Company. In Henry Ford’s day, decreasing the time and cost of production enabled the “common man” to join the motoring world. Now that the world is full of cars, Ford.com empowers people to design and “build” something uniquely their own. In the same way, one of the key elements the digital learning enables is the personalization and customization of not only learning resources, but also the very experience of learning itself. In the first instance, by the time you read this, specialized search engines will be embedded in online learning systems that modify results and resources based upon individual profiles. Previous searches, reading levels and expressed interests will factor into a refined list of resources tailored to the learner.

Cognitive Tutors

More significant are the current early attempts to customize the learning experience itself. One example in this area are the cognitive tutors and interactive skill-building software that goes far beyond early software based on “Drill and Kill” for right answers. If we recall Bloom’s research showing the positive impact of one-to-one tutoring from teachers, it’s not surprising that programs could be written that emulate the best of a teacher’s ongoing modifications based on a student’s ability. A second instance of digital technology’s ability to personalize classroom learning can be demonstrated by the service offered by Wireless Generation, a company that provides a reading program for schools. Students’ performance on one day is processed overnight so the next day teachers are delivered instructional activities targeted to address specific learning gaps. More will be explored in the last section on Smart Digital Environments, but for the purpose of the current topic, it’s clear that personalizing and differentiating learning is a core benefit available to us in the next era of school-based learning.

Engagement and Interactivity

Related to, but different from, the personalizing power of technology is its interactivity and how this increases user engagement. Little needs to be said about the contrast between passively sitting in class versus controling an experience that provides immediate feedback and leads to new options and decisions. Any hands-on, active learning that challenges students is preferable to passivity. Thanks to Web 2.0, many such experiences are available through a Web browser.  An early example familiar to everyone is Google Maps. Where once we had to wait for a new map to download everyone time we zoomed in, because Google Maps are built in AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML – extensible mark-up language), additional views of the same map are loaded with the first view so that as we move and drag, the preloaded content is immediately available. Many Web sites take advantage of AJAX and Flash so that the Web is now a place to actually do work whether that means is to compose text, edit a video or use tools like Hans Rosling’s Gapminder to depict and interpret data. With such powerful tools available to every digital learner, our vision of what they can achieve needs updating from worksheets and recall to include new productions and knowledge construction or the tools remain only intriguing play things.

100% Classroom Participation

In a similar way, 1:1 digital access also affords 100% participation, because one person’s contribution does not prevent another’s as it does in such common activities as classroom discussions. Synchronous participation of every student is possible when discussions are online. Many of today’s educators can already testify to the benefit of giving everyone a voice, not only the usual handful of willing or lovingly nudged contributors. Digital participation also provides alternative modes of expression because responses can be verbal, written or figurative. Finally, online participation alters one of the most precious commodities in education: time. A five minute digital discussion means five minutes of everyone thinking and formulating responses as opposed to the round robin attempts to get as many voices heard as possible.

Collaboration

One complaint historically made against “computers” is that they isolate people.  I suspect this charge can be dismissed now that, literally, everyone and their grandmother is part of a social networking site. This human-to-human connection enabled by the technology also benefits digital learning. In the last example, we saw a classroom discussion blossom from just a few raised hands to 100% participation. But the benefits continue!  Not only does everyone have a voice, but these voices can communicate, challenge and confer with others at the very same time when collaboration software is used. A range of intriguing Web-based collaborative platforms allow students to build knowledge in real time. Rather than a cacophony of calling out that a teacher must frantically manage if anyone is to be truly heard, online collaboration improves when individuals lend their voice to a shared space. I see this change from the teacher-led to the student-empowered discussion along the lines of change from film to digital cameras. When each photograph consumed film and had to be developed, we attempted to limit how many photos a child took – remember all the blurry, finger-obscured images shot through windows of moving cars? But now with digital cameras, we’ve flipped completely. Take as many photos as you like, because capturing even one great candid adds to the gallery of family classics. In the same way, moderating precious classroom time so as not to waste a limited resource changes overnight to encouraging enthusiastic online chatter with the goal of finding a few epiphanies and insights. These then get shared back to the group as examples of a captured cognitive “Eureka!”

Digital Archives

This line of benefits related to online discussion, naturally leads to another. In addition to facilitating 100% participation, the content of the discussion doesn’t evaporate into the ether, but becomes part of a digital archive that can be revisited, extended and deepened. Forum software, blogs and wikis are simple ways that such discussions can be posted online. Although this facility is as old as the Web, what changes in the Digital Era is that once all students have 1:1 access, such discussions can become the norm, which means that thoughtful responses, extended wait times, threaded discussions and deeper understandings also become the norm.

Global Publication

If we expand the notion of posting one’s thoughts and the power of online collaboration, we encounter yet another benefit of digital learning: global publication. Once students use online tools to share their insights there’s nothing preventing those thoughts from joining a wider community of learners. Young students, led by enthusiastic, child-centered primary school teachers, currently enjoy using a growing range of friendly Web 2.0 applications to publish such things as Voicethreads, Glogs and Vodcasts. Tools such as these seem to appear daily so exactly what they are and do is less important than the fact that very young students already enjoy something very few previous generations of students had ever experienced: producing work for an authentic audience. This is the huge difference between “doing homework” that a teacher will “mark” and knowing that your creations will be viewed by a range of real people. A child is more powerfully motivated to clearly express, execute and polish something if they know it can be viewed and commented on by a grandparent or other students. In this way, the classroom walls dissolve so that students – from the beginning of their formal education – don’t suffer the artificiality of learning in an isolated box.

Online Learning Communities

Combining collaboration and publication naturally evolves into communities of online learners – something that has breathed new life into leading educators’ careers. Used to working in the isolation of a classroom, many teachers have discovered a new world of fellow-travelers in online learning communities. The experience often starts by joining an email list or starting a personal blog or wiki. The interactions then tend to expand to a personal learning network of sympathetic souls who willingly share their obstacles and insights. The vitality that these teachers exude is contagious and a gift to our profession. Mentored by these, students can also enjoy this feeling of connectedness – a feeling that we will see also increases intrinsic motivation.

“Serving the Net”

But motivation for what? As we will see in the section on pedagogy, contributing to something beyond your self leads to feelings of “authentic happiness.”  So the wise educator will leverage technologies’ global publishing capability and channel students’ efforts toward pursuing a meaningful goal. This is beautifully captured in a phrase from Al Rogers, one of the seminal figures facilitating global classroom learning. Al said that he didn’t want students to just “Surf the Net,” but to Serve the Net. I believe this is epitomized in the work of a teacher at Immaculata High School in Somerville, New Jersey. Quoting from the Child Slave Labor News Web site:

 “… the senior U.S. History II Honors class, taught by Miss Joann Fantina, publishes numerous newsletters throughout the year covering many aspects of child slave labor. A new group of students takes over the project each year as the previous class graduates. It is a common interest among the students and is continued enthusiastically year after year.”

Visiting the Web site immediately conveys that this is a pursuit of passion, a public service, not an exercise in Web publishing. Currently 32 student writings are listed with 10? three additional years’ worth in the archive. Although much more could be done to leverage the Web’s power, the Child Slave Labor News is compelling in its effectiveness and simplicity. No teacher could be intimidated by CSLN as it is essentially a posting of essays like those any class of students could write. Child Slave Labor News demonstrates the power of a good idea shared and developed over the years. Proof of this statement is realized by searching for the term “child slave labor.”  Regardless of the search engine used, Miss Fantina and her students’ work comes up first on the list of results. Forget international Non-Governmental Organizations or university research centers. No, a passionate teacher and a bunch of teenagers are the global “Go To” place for seeing what’s posted on the topic of child slave labor. Imagine how these students feel. This is a great touchstone for the kind of authentic learning all students can experience when they make significant contributions to the global learning community. More ideas and examples on “Serving the Net” are provided in the New Routines section.

Crowdsourcing

Traditional research and essay writing are excellent skills to master and will continue as part of the next era in education. This said, a new way to gather information has emerged with the Web. When someone benefits from the accumulated contributions of (often anonymous) others, the process is referred to as “crowdsourcing.”  Examples range from massive collections like Wikipedia, The Gutenberg Project (e-Texts) and Gracenote (the database that magically supplies song titles when you import a music CD). A more recent permutation has accelerated the process. Like any new tech trend, Twitter has attracted media attention, adoration and derision. Love it or dismiss it, what can’t be ignored is that key figures with legions of “Followers” enjoy a new source of collective intelligence. When they have a question or seek input, these leaders can rely on instantaneous contributions. One such leader is David Pogue, a technology writer for the New York Times who provides an endless supply of good-natured reviews and insights. An example related to crowdsourcing was posted back in September of 2009, entitled, “Got a Burning Question? Ask the Net,” in which he says he could rely…

“on Twitter for all my obscure-question-answering needs. Often I’d ask for help on some tweaky Photoshop filter setting or a detail of some 1950′s Broadway show–and sure enough, someone or other would always know the answer.” [1]

Now it’s common for everyone from individual bloggers to international media conglomerates to track Twitter feeds to get the scoop on what’s happening from the real-time source of natural disasters, people’s rebellions and celebrity sightings. Pogue goes on to celebrate a more recent application called Aardvark (vark.com) where a more sophisticated approach facilitates connecting ordinary people who have questions with those who can answer them. Clearly crowdsourcing will continue to offers benefits that enhance digital learning and should inform a vision of students as sophisticated participants in the knowledge building process.

Software that Gets Smarter

If work done online creates a digital archive and individuals actively participate in sourcing and construction of knowledge, then leveraging the “data trails” our online activities generate is also a core benefit of digital learning. In addition to the deliberate data that individuals post online, the growing trove of data that accumulates through a user’s online interactions is the next benefit of digital learning. Google’s early accomplishments in this area are akin to Henry Ford’s first moving assembly line. Just as in the earlier industrial era, manufacturers already took advantage of interchangeable parts to enable mass production, but it was Ford’s idea to animate the task by bringing it to a ready line of workers that revolutionized the industry and our world. Similarly, technology companies in our era knew that the data being passively generated by online users held secrets, it wasn’t until Google applied its algorithms that the data could be assembled into meaningful information. Like the preceding benefits mentioned where digital learning provides a more personalized experience, this aspect of data trails is the underlying mechanism that will drive even greater benefits.

Some have referred to this aspect of data mining as “Web services,” “Web 3.0,” “The Semantic Web” and “The Internet of Things.”  The essence of these related concepts, and what powers Google’s success, is that the entire system continues to “get smarter” without human intervention. Web services are applications of machine-to-machine interactions that enable a new iteration of the Web that goes beyond Web 2.0’s capabilities so that appliances on the Internet share information in ways that create new knowledge – all without active human management. To make this abstraction a little more concrete consider how a Google search improves its results through use: as millions of people enter particular keywords, click on certain sites listed, spend time at some sites and interact with a few, the ranking of sites changes over time. Anyone who has spent time using the Google search engine since 2000 has witnessed these improvements.

The Internet of Things

Taking the concept further, we can see how our geographic location becomes a “machine-to-machine” variable: when we search Google Maps from our phones, the engine doesn’t look for every café in the world, but assumes we’re after one in the local area: without any input on our parts, the phone has prompted an “advanced search” and contributed data about our location. This experience is an inkling of what’s in store with the “Internet of Things” that many see in our near future. Just as we had computers in homes, schools and businesses that we then joined by the Internet, we also have a huge array of “computers” in our home electronics, personal devices, cars, “loyalty cards” and home appliances that can also be interconnected to enable object-to-object communications. A simple, only slightly sci-fi, scenario might be that your refrigerator notices you’re low on milk, your car recognizes your location at the grocery store, your loyalty card “sees” that your preferred brand is on sale and your phone suggests you pick up a carton of “Light White” – how were you to know the kids are in the midst of a cookies and milk binge while you’re out on an errand?

Consider the applications for education once learners’ digital trails combine with this “Semantic Web” where “sense” is made from data. Two very general possibilities emerge immediately. First, as already suggested, as students undertake more of their learning online, Smart Digital Environments will “get to know them” as learners. This includes offering resources and experiences increasingly tuned to a student’s abilities, prior knowledge and past successes. This has already been mentioned in the context of cognitive tutors, but in the timespan of a child’s school years, this capability for such systems to “get smarter through use” will become the norm. A second set of applications – and one that will truly alter the teachers’ responsibilities – involves taking over some of the more menial logistical tasks. Much of the time consumed in schools is focused on logistics, not learning: taking attendance, checking homework, marking assignments, compiling grades, communicating student performance to parents, classroom management techniques that keep everyone doing the same thing at the same time…  Gone. Really. What’s more, these largely computational tasks are more likely to be error-free when automated. A more complete exploration of the possibilities follows in the last section of this book on Smart Digital Environments, but for the purpose of setting a renewed vision of “2020” learning – I think we can see some of the potential digital learning makes available to school’s next era.

G’Day all, here are some highlights from 2011

2011 has been an especially busy and productive year here at TomMarch.com. I thought I’d take the opportunity that the holidays present to reflect on some of the highpoints and even look ahead a little to 2012.

In-Person

I’ve had the good fortune to be able to keynote several of the main technology and education conferences in Australia this past year including in Adelaide (CEGSA), Melbourne (ICTEV), Sydney(CEFPI), Brisbane (QSITE) and Perth (WASLA & WASTAA). If you have not been able to attend one of these excellent events and are interested, the crew at the Sydney Exhbition Centre did a great job at capturing my keynote at the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI).

Other in-person work included the ongoing series of workshops I’ve been leading at the Independent Schools Victoria since 2005, the Studies of Asia & ICT workshops Lindy Stirling and I lead across Victoria and the various schools where I’ve spent time this year in QLD, NSW, TAS and VIC. I hope to cross paths with some of you former participants during 2012 sessions.

IP

It’s nice to report that 2011 was a great year for Intellectual Property with the fruition of a long-term effort to license Web-and-Flow templates to the Victorian Department of Education for use in the Ultranet. The eLearning team at the DEECD in Victoria have done a great job blending the two environments and I hope that the effort contributes to student learning and teacher effectiveness in the years to come. Similarly, the most popular link on my site, the ThesisBuilder was also licensed to a private university in the US to support its students ability to quickly formulate a persuasive thesis and essay outline.

Consulting

Through much of 2010 and all of 2011 I’d been working with the team at Sungard Higher Education to prepare Sungard’s K-12 products for the Australian and global markets. I enjoyed working as an analyst on international curricula and data metrics & reporting for this environment which is suited to large K-12 organisations that seek continuous systemic improvements.

As this contract has concluded, I am interested in consulting with other large educational software providers to help shape their products to support integration of authentic student learning and data analysis that leads to improvements in achievement. Please contact me if you have such an opportunity.

Best tools & environments

Every year I find that a new tool, platform or environment has come along that becomes core to the work that I do. 2011 was no different. Here are three that have taken their place with WordPress, Diigo, Skype, Evernote and YouTube as things I wouldn’t want to live without.

Netvibes – Since Pageflakes got a little too flakey last year, I decided to shift my RSS / widget platform to Netvibes. I introduce Netvibes to participants in any workshop longer than one day and invariably find that once people “get” the benefits of a customised stream of rich feeds and embeds, their use of online resources is never the same. Netvibes gives teachers and students easy access to podcasts, TubeChop clips, Web 2.0 embeds and realtime news feeds on any topic of interest.

ClassBubbles – Described by creator Dan O’Brien as, “an on-line tool used to deliver collaborative learning using the best functionality from blogs, wikis, webquests and Twitter,” ClassBubbles fills in an important missing piece in the 1:1 digital learning classroom. I see ClassBubbles as a tool that allows students to use their own devices in a productive way and for teachers to shift from leader to orchestrator. It’s a perfect platform for WebQuests but also a range of uses. I plan to use it to support and certify students’ and teachers’ ICT skills in the coming years.

Eduplanet – Created by Jeff Colosimo, Eduplanet is a professional social learning platform that is heading in a new and useful direction. Eduplanet combines a very slick social learning environment with rich proprietary content, structured around specific “Institutes” featuring educational leaders such as Bena Kallick and Art Costa. Jeff has been very good about giving me sandbox access to see how I might use Eduplanet to support colleagues in ICTs and student-managed learning. Watch this space!

Writing

I’m presently sitting with 240 pages of a draft of my Next Era Ed book (pdf overview) that I hope to have circulating to publishers early in 2012. The book aligns with what’s been my focus for many years: shifting schools away from the 20th Century’s mechanistic mass production approach to one that can accommodate individual’s joy of learning. In short, Next Era Ed clearly establishes where our schools are “broken” and offers a comprehensive, evidence-based model to begin the fix.

Homefront

Who would have thought it possible so many years ago when I started ozline.com and wrote about our lovely eldest son, that he would now be graduating from Year 12 and getting ready for university. This has been a miracle that many of you will have already experienced, but this is our first time. Here’s a lovely shot from the Farewell Dinner.

Past Newsletters: November 08, October 08, January 09, February 09, April 09 , August 09, September 09, November 09

Jacquie Bourne has arranged for a two-day workshop for 18 of her colleagues at Launceston Church Grammar School.  Although it’s near the end of the school year and everyone is likely to be a little groggy, it’s also a great chance to reinvigorate an area of study with rich online resources and authentic personal learning.  So let’s get to it!

Please begin by using the comments link on this post to introduce yourself: share your name, teaching areas, current use of technology and at least one goal for these two days.

This can be brief, but it starts the ball rolling.

After adding your comment, you might like to download a digital copy of the handout packet for this 2 Day Workshop.

Activity 1: Great examples from previous Workshops

To get a sense of what we will be creating over the next two days, please explore the work created by participants in previous sessions.  Try to notice the features, strategies and benefits gained from such a learning platform.

• Literature, Teacher Professional Learning
• Year 9 Class Portal for Civics and Citizenship
• Mrs Williames Year 5 Blog
• Mr Bates’s Online Space
• iDesign
• Thinking Tools 4 Me
• International Studies
• Jasmine
• Carolyn C
• Maffra Indo
• Wild’s Epic Nihongo Blog!
• Mr Barlow’s Blog

Works in Progress

Brainstorm what you noticed using a shared Stixy board (try working in pairs or threes and then adding your shared responses)

Activity 2: Discussion on 1:1

Year 9 & 10 students and teachers each have tablet computers for over a year.  How does that change teaching and learning?  Please add your personal thoughts to this shared writing space.  Do you want to consider Tom’s take on the 4 essential requirements for successful 1:1 learning?

Activity 3: Creating Your Smart Online Space

• Get a WordPress Blog (Tom’s Sample blog)
• Change the theme
• Make a Post
• Embed YouTube (remember &rel=0)?
• Try TubeChop.com (see the Tubechop Update tutorial)
• Get Firefox for extensions like the video downloader?
• Embed all kinds of media in WordPress (maps, images, documents or polls?)

Fine-tuning your Blog

• Comment Settings
• Siderbar widgets
• Various How-to Videos from WordPress
• Add as a link to your Sidebar (video) or Add a link (page)

Activity 4 – Integrated Emerging Technologies and Pedagogies

Tom’s pedagogy presentation (download .mov 16 mb)

Look to Learn : : Learn to Look

Online Samples

• Which is the Real China? (taggalaxy)
• Nuclear Giving (PSA)
• Chris Jordan (Visual Arts)
• There’s Data in them ther Kids (political cartoon)
• The Global Rich List (interactive site)
• Miniature Earth (video analogy)
• VisionShift: Whose Future? (1994 Internet promo)
• “I Can” (TEDx)

How-To

• Look to Learn – overview
• Look to Learn Web site
• Look to Learn Sample Prompts
• Thinking Routines from the Visible Thinking team at Harvard

Task: Create 2 – 4 Look to Learn Activities for your students

Enrich your site with content and rich media

Web 2.0 Tools

• Download the Web 2 Tools Overview handout
• Copy and Paste the Tools Panel into a page for your site
• Choose from different Web 2 icons

RSS Feeds

• RSS in Plain English (Common Craft)
• Tom’s Strategies and Podcasts, YouTube Channels, etc.
• Tutorial: Add a Netvibes Feed
• Tutorial: Add a Link

Other Media

• iTunes - Embed a podcast with a player
• Add Flickr images through Creative Commons Advanced Search
• TED / YouTube Channels & TED site content by Tags
• Add the Tools Panel for your site (and use these icons to edit it for yourself?)
• Use Dropbox for online file storage (podcasts)

Manage your Rich Media Links

• (Social Bookmarking explained by Common Craft)
• Diigo Social Bookmarks: get the toolbar, login and start bookmarking!
• Consider joining or pinching from the Look to Learn Diigo Group

The ClassPortal Twist

• Child Slave Labor News (see also “Slavery Footprint“)
• PodKids Australia
• Possible Topics?
• Brainstorm your passions
• Contribute to Wikipedia? - Simple English Wikipedia on China vs. regular China page

References:

• What is a ClassPortal? (versus a Great Class Blog)
• Chapter 1

For Ideas

• Change.org: Social Network For Social Activism
• OXFAM – Reshaping our World – Poverty Maps (+ Complete Story Library from OXFAM)
• Idea Index from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge
• The Girl who Silenced the U.N. for Five Minutes
• End Homelessness
• 10 Revolutionary Acts of Courage by Ordinary People
• 50 Items That Should Change the World

C E Q • A LL / Seek all!

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

• Overview / Rationale
• Profiles (pdf)
• Rubric (pdf)

Resources for Creating Your Smart Online Space

• Go to Tom’s full workshop site
• Next Era Ed Overview (pdf) and Recorded Keynote
• Great Tutorials from WordPress.com or WordPress Lessons

One thing I may gloss over too frequently, I will focus more attention on with this audience.  Here’s a list of the predictable outcomes embedded in my Edge-ucators Way and CEQ•ALL approaches.

Those who know my work are aware that these bullet lists derive from Self-Determination Theory, Cultures of Thinking, Habits of Mind, Flow Theory, Grit and Authentic Happiness.

All of which get integrated through the new Classroom Routines of the Edge-ucators Way and the Seld-managed Learning Process of CEQ•LL

Look to Learn : : Learn to Look

Online Samples

• Which is the Real China? (taggalaxy)
• Nuclear Giving (PSA)
• Chris Jordan (Visual Arts)
• There’s Data in them ther Kids (political cartoon)
• The Global Rich List (interactive site)
• Miniature Earth (video analogy)
• VisionShift: Whose Future? (1994 Internet promo)
• “I Can” (TEDx)

How-To

• Look to Learn – overview
• Look to Learn Web site
• Look to Learn Sample Prompts
• Thinking Routines from the Visible Thinking team at Harvard

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

• Overview / Rationale
• Profiles (pdf)
• Rubric (pdf)

Resources for Creating Your Smart Online Space

• Complete 2 Day Workshop Handouts
• Get a WordPress Blog
• Change the theme
• Make a Post
• Embed YouTube (remember &rel=0)
• Try TubeChop.com
• Get Firefox for extensions like the video downloader?
• Embed all kinds of media in WordPress (maps, images, documents or polls?)
• A practice post with embeds
• Download the Web 2 Tools Overview handout
• Copy and Paste the Tools Panel into a page for your site
• Choose from different Web 2 icons
• Go to Tom’s full workshop site

Please begin by using the comments link on this post to share your personal learning goals for this workshop.
I have the pleasure of facilitating another 2 Day workshop for the Studies of Asia group at the Victorian department of education. Lindy Stirling, State Advisor, Studies of Asia (see the Studies of Asia Wiki) and local educators have organised this session in the Hume region.

After adding your comment, you might like to download the handouts for this 2 Day Workshop.
Studies of Asia Links

• Studies of Asia wiki
• Units of Work - from Studies of Asia Wiki
• BRIDGE
• Asia Education Curriculum
• Asia Education Student Activities

Web sites Created by Hume Region Participants

• Mamiko S
• Helen B
• Mirna G
• Shane W
• Ellen S
• Nina A
• Louise T
• Narelle S
• Bree C
• Ayako M
• Natalie R
• Keiko S
• Rhys S
• Jacinta W
• Christa R
• Matt D
• Chloe H
• Felicity B

Activity 1: Great examples from previous Studies of Asia Workshops

To get a sense of what we will be creating over the next two days, please explore the work created by participants in previous sessions.  Try to notice the features, strategies and benefits gained from such a learning platform.

• Jasmine
• Carolyn C
• Jenny B
• Prep T Rocks!
• Maffra Indo
• Wild’s Epic Nihongo Blog!
• Japanese Culture
• Asian Literacy @ L.P.S Blog – Great PD WebQuest on Asian Cultures

Brainstorm what you noticed using a shared Stixy board

Activity 2: Creating Your Smart Online Space

• Get a WordPress Blog (Tom’s Sample blog)
• Change the theme
• Make a Post
• Embed YouTube (remember &rel=0)?
• Try TubeChop.com (see the Tubechop Update tutorial)
• Get Firefox for extensions like the video downloader?
• Embed all kinds of media in WordPress (maps, images, documents or polls?)

Fine-tuning your Blog

• Comment Settings
• Siderbar widgets
• Various How-to Videos from WordPress
• Add as a link to your Sidebar (video) or Add a link (page)

Activity 3: Look to Learn : : Learn to Look

Resources

• Look to Learn – overview
• Look to Learn Web site
• Look to Learn Sample Prompts
• Thinking Routines overview
• Thinking Routines from the Visible Thinking team at Harvard
• Article on Making Thinking Visible by David Perkins

Online Samples

• Which is the Real China?
• Nuclear Giving
• Chris Jordan
• There’s Data in them ther Kids (cartoon)
• The Global Rich List (interactive site)

• Miniature Earth
• VisionShift: Whose Future?
• “I Can”

Looking with Images

Learning in a Digital Age & discussion

Day 2 – Personalising Your Learning to Personalise Student Learning

Paths to Personal Success

Path 1: Create 3 – 5 Look to Learn Activities for your students

• Export / Import to begin new blog?
• Copy / Paste this Post into your blog?
• WordPress Lessons

Path 2: Web 2 Tools

• Download the Web 2 Tools Overview handout and paste in the Tools Panel for your site.
• Tutorial: Add a New Page

Path 3: Enrich your site with content and rich media

RSS Feeds

• Netvibes – Lindy’s Cambodia Resources
• RSS in Plain English (Common Craft)
• Tutorial: Add a Link
• Tom’s Strategies and Studies of Asia Resources
• Tutorial: Add a Netvibes Feed

Other Media

• iTunes - Embed a podcast with a player
• Add Flickr images through Creative Commons Advanced Search
• TED / YouTube Channels
• Add the Tools Panel for your site (and use these icons to edit it for yourself?)
• Use Dropbox for online file storage (podcasts)

Path 4: Manage your Rich Media Links

• (Social Bookmarking explained by Common Craft)
• Diigo Social Bookmarks: get the toolbar, login and start bookmarking!
• Consider joining or pinching from the Look to Learn Diigo Group
• Lindy’s Diigo Studies of Asia Group: Join this Group.

Path 5: Create a ClassPortal

References:

• What is a ClassPortal?
• Chapter 1
• Why ClassPortals?

For Ideas & Inspiration

• OXFAM – Reshaping our World – Poverty Maps
• Idea Index from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge
• The Girl who Silenced the U.N. for Five Minutes
• Online Fundraising Efforts at Razoo
• 50 Items That Should Change the World
• Contribute to Wikipedia? – Simple English Wikipedia on China vs.  regular China page

Path 6: Create Specific Learning Activities

• Examples from Tom’s Six Paths to China

Path 7: CEQ•ALL – Student-managed Learning

• Pedagogies slides (download and play)
• CEQ•ALL Rubric (pdf)
• CEQ•ALL Rationale article
• CEQ•ALL Profiles (pdf)

Feedback

Important – please complete this form (made with jotform)

I’ve found that there are two main phases to creating and participating in WebQuests.  First there is the whole immersion and information-gathering phase.  Interest is excited and the problem becomes clear so we prepare and soak up lots of new information and perspectives on some specific aspects of the issue.  Although this can sometimes feel challenging because of all the information available, generally, this first phase is an one of engaged and enthusiastic pursuit – there’s lots to learn so we get on with it.

The second phase is different.  It’s a phase we don’t often get to in our Assembly line method of schooling.  It’s the sticky part after information is acquired.  What’s to be done with it?  Do we hold it temporarily, say for an exam, and then left it go or do we want to keep at least parts of it and add it to what might be called our “knowledge.”  You’ve heard of this process many times and with a range of terminology.  Classically, it’s Piaget’s shift from assimilation to accommodation.  Others have referred to it as “construction of meaning.” It’s the “Ah-Ha!” insight that sometimes follows the “Huh?” of cognitive dissonance.  It’s the painful shift from short to long-term memory.  Bloom’s taxonomy and the information literacy processes that embody it might see it as “Synthesis,”  the putting together after of something new from the pieces derived by careful Analysis.  I have come to refer to it as the “transformation of new information into new understanding.”

The problem with this second phase is twofold:  it’s hard work and it’s idiosyncratic. The hard work is because this task is very cognitively demanding – it hurts our heads and often feels like we’re treading water, not sure if we will learn to swim or sink into confusion.  The second problem is the idiosyncratic part – if the process of “making sense” from complex new information is unique to each individual (can you imagine it being any different?), then how do we “teach” it to a big group of students, a classroom of them, for instance?  Wouldn’t it require time?  A lot of one-on-one Socratic mentoring?  How can this work with typical teacher-directed learning when the bell’s about to ring, the semester end and kids are lining up to accept their diplomas?  So it’s no wonder that 80% of WebQuests leave this pesky transformation bit off – but thus aren’t WebQuests. It also why I get a little ranty at Info Lit processes that neatly label a stage “Synthesis” as if giving it a name makes it happen (I like to refer to that tact as the “Insert Magic Here” approach).  

So today’s challenge comes with a rare opportunity – working with a small group of teachers who have already spent two days (Day 1 and Day 2) gathering online resources and brainstorming perspectives on an appropriately complex and rich topic.  Today we will see if we can design for each topic a process that guides a group of students toward the light, to accommodation, construction of meaning, Eureka! and Ah-Ha.  One trick we have up our sleeves is that the best Group Transformation processes flow naturally from the acquisition of new information that has preceded it.  Just like a teacher working with a group of students in a WebQuest, I will be working with a group of teachers facing the same Task: given what I have learned, how do I shape it into a new understanding, representing Knowledge I didn’t have before.  The first requirement for this task is met: we have the time.  The second follows with what I hope is Socratic coaching and online resources to inspire possible solutions.

Please go to the Workshop site to re-read this article and access online support through further readings, examples and tools.

<soapbox>

Clearly we can’t simply drop even the best psychological models and digital technologies into our schools and expect profound improvement. Efforts over the past decades have tried, but if we look through the literature and Web sites, where are all these new schools whose enthusiastic students are busy taking on the world?  With the way everything “goes viral” nowadays, wouldn’t we all be copying these incredible successes? If we were a knowledge-building entity, education would be learning about what really works and continuously improving.

We can be, we just need a new understanding, a new awareness.  An “Ah-Ha!” Harkening back to Piaget, let’s go through the process: the fact that “technology + assembly line learning ≠ desired improvements” create cognitive dissonance.  Something doesn’t make sense based upon our current understanding.  Instead of ignoring the dissonance, we could get more deeply into the problem, to explore the gray areas, to immerse ourselves in what may feel like chaos, but once encouraged, our human instinct to learn kicks in and we seek to make cognitive connections between the limits of our understanding and the possibility of assimilating new information and thus broadening our understanding, building knowledge.  The “Ah-Ha” came for me when I acknowledged the transformative power of mass production and the moving assembly line and how it has shaped society, including education.  We didn’t consciously ask for this transformation, but once it began, nothing could stop it.  The “Ah-Ha” insight clicked in when I realized what this century’s equivalent of mass production and the assembly line is.  It’s data – from digitized information, to mass customization, to digital footprints and profiling, to smart algorithms that just get smarter through our use. Just as Henry Ford said, we asked for a faster horse, but when the affordable automobile came along, we hopped aboard and never looked back.  Those who lament the unintended negative consequences the automobile has had on society and the environment may envision similar downsides to the next revolution through Data mining, but it can’t be stopped.  Is anyone asking for poorer search results, less engaging entertainment or losing touch with friends?  Just as factories can accost humanity whether in 19^th Century England, 20^th Century American or 21^st Century China, our digital technologies will have their victims while the wider culture embraces what digital data makes available.  I’d like to suggest that the victims are not the few horrible cases where Facebook is used by predators to stalk and lure the innocent and naïve.  Although blared across the media and clearly tragic, the real victims will number in the millions.  And as the world has suffered from the impact of the automobile, another, more analogous revolution, more pertinent to Education and technology’s impact on humanity, is the television.  In some ways TVs were the next revolutionizing product after the car to come off the assembly line.  Like digital technologies, they also provided a platform for entertainment and socializing that was completely different from what went before.  I find it amazing that people will complain about the remote possibility of a child falling prey to Internet-facilitated abduction, but not monitor a child’s access to hours of gaming, chat or surfing.  I saw a chilling example recently in a doctor’s office waiting room.  A young mother waited with a new-born in a stroller while her toddler danced around the chairs, magazine racks, other patients.  This young thing was not being a nuisance, but being a child, seeking something to do.  My complaint is not that the mother didn’t reign-in this free spirit, but that never once did the mother look up from her iPhone and Facebook.  This is what I think people don’t get and makes me harp on and on.  The media loves a good hysteria, but ignores drugs to the masses.

As educators we are in the Humanity business. We can not disconnect from the wider technological and social transformations swelling over the globe.  We don’t have that power.  Just as we couldn’t provide a scalable alternative to the Assembly line school.  What we’ve done is try to humanize this artificial construct as much as we can.  We are better at this in the early years when the system is less artificial – when students aren’t shifted down the conveyor of content areas to the ring of a bell and shuttled off to the next stage, the next classroom and year level.

So while we have no power to stop – and really wouldn’t want to – the next revolution based on digitalized data mining, at this early stage of the transformation, we can have a greater impact than we will be able to once the model and patterns are fully functional and implemented.  Reflect on how difficult it is to even tweak the current model to consider block schedules, inter-disciplinary studies, cross-age learning or team teaching?  Once the dust settles, it will be just as impossible to modify the next model of schooling.  Unless we get involved now, in this early and dynamic, sometimes stressful and chaotic transitionary period, software companies, textbook publishers, teachers unions, politicians, and hardware manufacturers will create “solutions” and they will all target the largest customers, the largest educational systems, those that, because of their size, still embrace and are founded upon “one-size-fits-all” and minimizing risk and failure.  In other words, 20^th Century thinking.

As educators, in the humanity business, our challenge is to use the best tools and approaches currently available to effect the changes that we can – what happens in our classrooms and our schools.  This requires taking risks, choosing to do what’s right as opposed to choosing what’s easy or doesn’t create friction to the assembly line.  Let’s not support the myths that “School is Learning,” that “Curriculum is Knowledge,” that “Results are more important than Wisdom.”  Our mass production schools will not be the same by the time our Kindy students graduate Year 12.  Right now, during this little window between eras, we can influence whether “not the same” means “better” or “worse.”

</soapbox>

The Edge-ucators Way

• Why it’s needed – overview
• Look to Learn
• ClassPortal
• WebQuests & WQ 2.0

Look to Learn

Samples

• Miniature Earth
• VisionShift: Whose Future?
• “I Can”
• Nuclear Giving
• There’s Data in them ther Kids (cartoon)
• The Global Rich List (interactive site)

Resources

• Look to Learn – overview
• Look to Learn Web site
• Look to Learn Sample Prompts
• Thinking Routines overview
• Thinking Routines from the Visible Thinking team at Harvard

Interaction: Comment on this Post: how could you use / support Look to Learns?

ClassPortals

References:

• What is a ClassPortal?
• Chapter 1
• Why ClassPortals?

For Ideas & Inspiration

• OXFAM – Reshaping our World – Poverty Maps
• Idea Index from the Buckminster Fuller Challenge
• The Girl who Silenced the U.N. for Five Minutes
• Online Fundraising Efforts at Razoo
• 50 Items That Should Change the World

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics you think would make good ClassPortals

WebQuests

WebQuests by Tom

• Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?
• Tuskegee Tragedy
• CroolZone – School Safety WebQuest
• Does the Tiger Eat her Cubs?

Resources

• Detailed Process for Drafting a WebQuest (doc)
• Tom’s Current WebQuest 2.0 Process (pdf)
• Use the article above and the Designing a WebQuest 2.0 (doc) and the links below as a guide.
• Freedom Fighter or Terrorist Group Scaffold Sheet (you can modify)

Articles

• Tom’s Educational Leadership article: The Learning Power of WebQuests
• Tom’s longer version: What WebQuests Are (Really).
• Bernie weighing in on “Real WebQuests”

Interaction: Brainstorm Topics / Big Questions for possible WebQuests (Group 1 & Group 2)

Self-managed Learning Framework for students

C E Q • A LL / Seek all!

• Overview / Rationale
• Profiles (pdf)
• Rubric (pdf)

Interaction: ClassBubbles to share your thoughts (use key: nexteraed)

Activity: Creating Your Smart Online Space

• Complete 2 Day Workshop Handouts
• Get a WordPress Blog
• Change the theme
• Make a Post
• Embed YouTube (remember &rel=0)
• Try TubeChop.com
• Get Firefox for extensions like the video downloader?
• Embed all kinds of media in WordPress (maps, images, documents or polls?)
• A practice post with embeds

Activity – Web 2 Tools

• Download the Web 2 Tools Overview handout
• Copy and Paste the Tools Panel into a page for your site
• Choose from different Web 2 icons
• Go to Tom’s full workshop site