• When: Thursday, 17 May, 2012
• Time: 4.30pm – 6.30pm
• Where: Immanuel College Function Centre, 24 Morphett Road, Novar Gardens

The Edge-ucators Way is a comprehensive model that whole schools can use to effectively integrate technology for classroom learning. But more than a set of strategies and techniques, the Edge-ucators Way is a pedagogically-sound, evidence-based framework to achieve what’s been missing from technology-enhanced learning: technology’s power to transform the education of our children from calendar-based topics that are “covered” to inquiries where students discover meaning in a spirit that honours the personal joy of learning. With the right mixture of emerging technologies and pedagogies, we can realise such an outcome. In fact, we must if schools are to make the transition from the 20th Century’s Industrial Model of Schooling to the 21st Century’s Digital Era. Why? Because personal learning works better and feels great. Isn’t this what we want for our schools? For our children? For ourselves?

Teachers and students need new routines that support advanced learning and take advantage of both the 1:1 and collaborative nature of digital learning. Three such routines comprise the Edge-ucators Way: Look-to-Learn Activities, ClassPortals and WebQuests. In addition much of traditional teaching focuses on classroom management techniques based on a one-to-many instructional model. When students work independently via 1:1 devices, they must take control of their own learning or fall victim to distractions and amusements. Without a framework for self-managed learning students are “left to their own devices.” The fact that students’ learning situation is already 1:1 outside of school should motivate us to provide a framework to support and scaffold student autonomy and self-directed learning.

You’re invited to consider whether the Edge-ucators Way resonates with your calling as a teacher and if it does to join in this re-imagining of our profession. In this new era, there is no one way to do things, and the new model we create will benefit from all of our contributions. What piece will you add to the Next Era of Education?

Masterclass: Building Next Era Ed

• When: Friday, May 18, 2012
• Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm

Premise: When students have 1:1 access to rich digital resources, the technology can disrupts the traditional one-to-many teaching or render it less effective. For a 1:1 approach to be successful, four critical aspects must be addressed. Leaving any one of them out undermines the entire effort.

1. Rich Digital Learning Spaces: The classroom is the traditional location for learning in a school. When students have personal digital devices, they similarly need a place to meet to engage in meaningful learning experiences. A school must provide a secure online space that supports rich media and intuitive publishing and collaboration. Without Rich Digital Learning Spaces students cannot meet and work as a class.
2. New Routines for Cutting Edge-ucators: The common routines of “chalk and talk”, group projects, research and discussions are all either undermined or under-utilise technology. Teachers and students need new routines that support advanced learning and take advantage of both the 1:1 and collaborative nature of digital learning. Without New Routines teachers will under utilise technology’s potential for powerful learning.
3. An Empowered Vision of Curriculum: A Board of Studies Syllabus or an Australian Curriculum provides the framework for teaching practice and learning outcomes. When teachers are the source of the information, they do their best to anticipate and modify their instruction to suit their students. When students have 1:1 access to learning, how do we know what they have learned? How do we help them progress? An empowered vision of curriculum provides multiple pathways through content, skills and understandings and presents learning in the disciplines as a continuum where students can achieve at their own pace and fulfil their potential across a matrix of competencies. Without an empowered Vision, students will be left with a one-size-fits-all Curriculum.
4. A Framework for Self-managed Learning: Much of traditional teaching focuses on classroom management. Orchestrating more than 20 students to move in the same direction requires considerable skill. When students work independently via 1:1 devices, they must take control of their own learning or fall victim to distractions and amusements. The fact that students’ learning scenario is already 1:1 outside of school should motivate schools to provide a framework to support and scaffold student autonomy and self-directed learning. Without a framework for Self-managed learning students are “left to their own devices.”

Here are the links:

• Connected Test-Taking
• Pupils face classroom mobile phone ban

The real question is whether we are working to prop-up Assembly Lines Schools or support individual student learning.  For me the answer is found in today’s date: 19?? or 2012? Nothing more needs to be said.

I have also combed through recent Look to Learn posts I’ve made that show examples of Conformity and Rebellion.  They are linked below.  Individually, many are great.  Taken collectively, the sparks are amazing and rich!

• ABC – PM Agenda with BIll Shorten – “Toeing the Party Line.”
• HemLoft – a young man builds an amazing bush retreat for an alternative lifestyle.
• A Man Who “Gave Up Money.”
• Caine’s Arcade – a boy builds his own arcade out of cardboard boxes and human spirit
• DVD Pirate for the Troops - an old man illegally pirates 300,000 videos to support soldiers overseas
• “Victory” – Two girls survive Syrian bombing that kills family members
• Stunt Cyclist in Melbourne
• Tibetan Protester in India – self immolation as “protest” and “terrorism.”

Take a look and add your comments about specific examples in space provided below.

Background

When I first heard about Tumblr, I had little interest because I thought, “why do I need a more limited version of WordPress (of which I am a long time fan and user)?  Read this as “slow to get” emerging technologies or cautious in frittering away my and other educators’ limited time.  I’m hardly a “bandwagon” figure in the Ed Tech arena and am often a voice in the wilderness or ICT Cassandra sitting in my little Australian corner of the world (see The New WWW – Whatever, Whenever, Wherever).  But when I see a new tool or platform make teachers’ jobs easier and their students’ learning better – I can get pretty vociferous.  And now I “get” Tumblr – so WATCH OUT!

To get started use the detailed Tumblr Tutorial, but read on to see why this is so great.

A bit of background in case you’re even slower than me.  In a New York Times article Tumblr’s “media evangelist,” Mark Coatney, describes it as “a space in between Twitter and Facebook”  because it promotes minimal-click uploading and sharing of images, videos, audio clips and quotes in addition to Twitter’s short text bursts.  Like Twitter, Tumblr users also “Follow” other “tumblrs” which appear in the familiar “follow quilt” of icons in a member’s sidebar.  Like Facebook, Tumblr also promotes social networking.  Neither of these are a really big deal to me.  Here’s what is: Perhaps fear of missing out on “the next big thing” – and Tumblr’s popularity with the sought-after youth market – has prompted many media giants to post all or some of their content on their own Tumblr accounts. Big Media seems to go through split personality swings of protecting their content and joining in the Web sharing fun: at present, many major media players who publish significant images on their main “All Rights Reserved” Web sites also have Tumblr sites that share the same images.  At present this list includes Reuters, Time / Life, Newsweek, Aljazeera, The Guardian, PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio and The New Yorker (see the more extensive list below).  Why this is important to us – developers of learning?  In a word, “Reblog.”  When you are logged in to Tumblr and view content from another Tumblr site, all you have to do to transfer the content of the post to your site is click the “Reblog” icon in the top right corner (as seen on this screen grab from the Time Magazine Tumblr site).  This immediately opens your Tumblr dashboard, embeds the content, links back to the original source and enables you to add further text.  For me this means a Looking Prompt in order to turn plain old engaging rich media into a creative thinking activity that can shift the entire culture of a classroom, school and student’s life of learning.   To make this process even easier, I have created a Look to Learn Tumblr site as well as the Sample Prompts page from which you can copy / paste / edit some Thinking Routines straight into your reblog. While copying prompts or visiting the Look to Learn Tumblr site for posts to reblog, also explore the “Follow Quilt” for content providers you might be interested in.  The benefit of following is that each time you go to your Tumblr site, you’re welcomed with the latest content from those you follow.  At the first instance, it makes sense to follow the Look to Learn Tumblr site because it shares everything I’ve considered valuable from those I follow and to which I’ve appended an appropriate prompt.  This way, a steady stream of potential activities arrives directly to you for use in your classroom and that you can share with colleagues in your school and professional online network.  This is a perfect example of how – in the Digital Era – we can work smarter and simultaneously help students become smarter.

In summary, every so often a new tool comes along that positively changes how we can “work the Web for education.”  Before that tool we could do the work, but it took a few clicks too many to really make it part of our daily lives.  Tumblr is such a tool because with it we now have one platform that easily sources content, posts it and enables sharing and community.  Previously, this required email or RSS feeds, a blog and a social network.  For the keen among us, working across these three platforms was no barrier because we knew the real challenges we faced before even they existed when we had to scan images, write in HTML and disseminate through email lists.  What’s great about Tumblr is that it erases the obstacles so that all every teacher can not only participate, but create!

What about WordPress?

The incredible wealth of great content and the ease with which you can both discover and create new posts may make some consider switching to Tumblr as the preferred platform.  For me, no.  There’s a lot more I like to do with a Web space (see ClassPortals and WebQuests to name 2), but the advantages offered by Tumblr have prompted me to switch to it as the medium for the main Look to Learn Web site.  In just the past week I’ve increased my creation of new “L2L”s tenfold so the decision was easy.  I look forward to sharing this approach with participants in upcoming workshops.

Tumblr Archives (all of which allow Reblogging)

The list below are my favorite “Big Media” content providers with Tumblr accounts.  This means that every one of them allows – even encourages you – to embed their content in your own Tumblr stream.  Amazing how quickly things can change from “All Rights Reserved” to “Reblog.”

For Content on Current Events & What’s Buzzing Virally

The first link for each site goes to the account’s “archive” page that lets you see a thumbnail of their recent posts.  This way you can tell if you find the content valuable.  If you do, go to the “stream” and “Follow” the site once you are logged-in to your own Tumblr account.

• Reuters (stream)
• Time Magazine’s LightBox (stream)
• Time Magazine (stream)
• Newsweek (stream)
• Life Magazine (stream)
• The Week (stream)
• Aljazeera (stream)
• Los Angeles Times (stream)
• The Atlantic (stream)
• The Atlantic In Focus (stream)
• The Huffington Post (stream)
• The Guardian (UK) (stream)
• YAHOO News (stream)
• CNBC (stream)
• PBS NewsHour (stream)
• National Public Radio (NPR) (stream)
• The Daily What (stream)

For Fun

• The Rolling Stone (stream)
• The Daily (stream)
• PhotoJ’s Contact Sheet (stream)
• The LivelyMorgue (New York Times Photo Store) (stream)
• The New Yorker Magazine (stream)
• Sad Stuff on the Street
• Awesome People Hanging Out Together
• Dear Photograph

We’ll chat about how Pinterest figures in shortly.

As always, let me know what you think.

Here are some links you might find interesting

• Web 2 Tools Panel
• TED Talks
• Khan Academy

Sugata Mitra, a professor at Newcastle University and MIT, began his “Hole in a Wall” experiments many years ago. This clip shows the computers placed as “holes in the wall” where children accessed them without any supervision or instruction and then he goes on to describe another experiment where Tamil speaking 12 year old children were challenged to teach themselves biotechnology in English.

See-Think-Wonder

• What’s one significant thing you noticed?
• What does it make you think about?
• What does this make you wonder about yourself or the world?

What’s prompted this post is that I’m getting ready for a new series of workshops and wanted to see how the .com version might handle Pinterest embeds.  Those who use this version, know that embeds can be limited because nasty coding can be injected that could harm the shared hosting and servers.  But the WordPress team has been great about keeping up with the dominant trends in Web 2.0 and creates shortcodes that convert the embed into WordPress-friendly content.  All the major video sites work this way as do Google Maps.

So imagine my delight when seeking new rich media for Look to Learn posts that I learned WordPress.com already accepts Pinterest embeds:

Look to Learn

Imagine this fellows drawing board were an iPad – how might this be symbolic for our “All Fit to One’s Size” digital culture?

We now live in era when self-motivated students with digital devices can learn more on their own than in many schools. Society has changed around us, undermining cultures focused on standardised outcomes and the myth of uniform excellence.  In other words, a culture like “school.”  The world surrounding education has moved from a “one-size-fits-all” mentality to one where digital customisation enables a world “all-fit-to-one’s-size”.  Although education has tried many reforms in the past thirty years, all have been based on fixing a model designed for 20th Century realities that no longer exist.  It’s time to understand exactly where the old model is broken and to decide what’s needed for a new design.  Next Era Ed provides a comprehensive approach that allows all staff to support outstanding student achievement through a shared culture of inquiry, self-initiative and continuous improvement.  Find out how you can get started today!

Materials

• Recorded Keynote
• Workshop handouts
• Essential Digital Skills for Edge-ucators Checklist
• Web 2 Tools (pdf with descriptors and Web Panel)

The Edge-ucators Way Strategies

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

CEQ•ALL

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

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