Escape from IDEO on Vimeo.

Here is a video developed at IDEO imagining “a future shaped by electric power dependency – where schoolyard play offsets the cost of fossil fuel and kids take an active part in their powering their world.” What I found most disheartening is not the kids taking an active part of powering their world–that would be kind of cool, actually. What I found most disturbing is the depiction of the classroom of the future. Clearly, a dystopian future is one where students still sit at neatly aligned desks listening to lectures and taking notes. Pedaling to power your laptop is one thing. Sitting at a desk listening to a sage on the stage, frack!

Oh, IDEO! I was hoping you might have a brighter future envisioned for us. Luckily, the good people responsible for designing our future ask that we tune in next week when they will offer us a shinier vision. Let’s hope so. And let us hope that the classroom of tomorrow looks nothing like the classroom of today.

Stay tuned!

First, I want to thank the editors at the New York Times Magazine for featuring an article that focuses on teacher education (Elizabeth Green’s “Can good teaching be learned?” 7 March 2010). Since most of us attended school at one time or another, teaching and teacher education are always hot-button topics in which most people have an opinion. This opinion is often based on what one researcher dubbed an apprenticeship of observation, that is, we think we understand teaching because we have watched it happen to us and others for many years.

The truth is, effective teaching is a complex art that requires the practitioner to be part subject matter expert, part psychologist, part instructional designer, part expert communicator, and part performance artist. While teaching and wisdom do seem to come more naturally to some than others, what is important to consider is that good teaching ultimately happens by design. The trouble is this design sense is often implicit in teachers. Many good teachers know how to effectively work with their students without being able to describe what it is that they are actually doing. This is turn sheds light on the trouble with many teacher education and staff development programs: teachers are not educated explicitly to be designers.

Thinking and acting like a designer involves more than the ability to teach students to work with graphing calculators. It requires an awareness of one’s belief systems, an awareness of the classroom culture, the social norms and subject matter norms. It involves an awareness of how instructional sequences impact learning and an awareness of the instructional tasks necessary that can lead to the transfer of knowledge and understanding on the part of students. It requires an understanding of assessment and the various ways one can assess student learning. Finally, it requires an understanding of the ways in which people learn.

Ultimately, Lemov’s taxonomy may be quite useful. From a design perspective, the taxonomy should not be considered a set of recipes for success, but instead they may be thought of as a way to help teachers select and apply the most substantive and useful procedural knowledge for specific tasks in their own learning ecologies. From a neuroscience perspective, it is important to consider that the taxonomy in and of itself can only be of limited use. Research has shown that the brain is good at interpreting information, not simply memorizing it. What might work best with such a taxonomy is an iterative cycle of learning, application experiences, and reflection repeated over an extended period of time to enhance long-term memory processes as well as the potential deepening of the practitioner’s understanding of how effective teaching and learning can be designed.

Teacher education will always present us with numerous challenges. Yet, it is important to remember how important this education process is. Teachers are the marrow of our society. They are responsible for inspiring and guiding learners and families that in turn act, guide, and inspire generation after generation. The more research and attention we can bring to this topic, the more we as a civilization will gain.

Reference:
Green, E. (2010, March 7). Can good teaching be learned? New York Times Magazine, pp 30-37, 44-46. Retieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html

Image:

http://csessums.tumblr.com/post/308197313/school-greenbelt-marylan

This is article is written in response to Trent Batson’s essay As We May Learn: Revisiting Bush in Campus Technology.

Batson argues:

“We lack a coherent and comprehensive way to study media and learning that would help us make wise enterprise decisions instead of the constant lurching we’ve sponsored during those 20 years. Where to turn for this new knowledge and wisdom?”

My contention is that this is both near-sighted and patently untrue. Batson himself, a former professor at a large university, clearly suffers from what many at large and small higher education institutions suffer from: individualism. Given the comforts of tenure and the lack of sociality and intra-college mingling that can be documented in one institution after another, it’s hard to see what is going on in college classrooms much less know who is using what digital media to enhance teaching and learning or to what end.

Batson asks:

“But where is the field of media and learning that encompasses all this scattered inquiry?”

In my college and many others like it, it is in the educational technology department. One that is often parked in a remote region of an education college or psychology department. One that you would easily overlook given the culture of  individualism that dominates the institutions. (Perhaps this isolationism and individualism is a leadership and policy issue which should be re-examined by those at a much higher pay grade. Yet, I digress.)

While I agree educators and college professors need to spend more time reflecting on how we, as practitioners, conduct the collegiate enterprise, the chances of this happening are slim on a large, continuous scale. And while this may sound at first like a bad thing, I have come to realize that this is actually a wonderful thing. Let me tell you why.

This thing that we call a call a college education is about to implode. And it will happen in our lifetime. I have heard this over the past decade within the halls of academia, in journal articles, editorials, and blog posts. But now I am hearing it from the students themselves. They see that to succeed in life and develop the requisite knowledge and skills to support a nimble civilization , they do not require university professors. And I could not agree with them more.

As an educational technology professor in a higher education institution, I see it as my job to train and educate the next generations of teachers to make inquiry and participatory intelligence the norm thereby rendering the ivory towers useless (or at least rendering them into wonderful Smithsonian-like museums showcasing relics and antiquities of “what used to be”).

Sure colleges can still offer researchers a place to conduct studies of the hard and soft sciences, but it will no longer be a knowledge accreditation agency or a ticket to future success. We will have all that we need at our fingertips and at the touch of a screen. Teachers in secondary institutions will be equipped and available to model the skills necessary for practical and creative living. At least, that’s my goal and the goal of many educators I know and practice with.

Several months ago, James Gee came to my college and shared an insight with us. He remarked that in the future, colleges of education would become obsolete. That instead, those of us that specialize in pedagogy, androgogy, and technological pedagogical content knowledge, would serve the other colleges and departments on campus by teaching these professors how to create robust, engaging, and media savvy learning environments. This would serve both the hard and soft scientists, educators, and students well by deepening each subject matter experts’ ability to serve up the skills and knowledge necessary for students to become the best, brightest, and most creative stewards on the planet. Not a bad vision.

So while “media and learning” could serve as a new department or enterprise, as Batson suggests, it could instead become a part of every subject area’s enterprise. How’s that for a solution: Let’s work ourselves out of our jobs.

Remember, it was not that long ago that universities employed a Dean of Electricity.

Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2530/4110558590_6596cbe4f6.jpg

Recently I was thinking about ways to connect my classroom to the larger world outside our door. I noticed each morning on my way to work, a beautiful space in my building that was not being used for anything. Long corridors of empty wall space. Aha! A perfect space for an art show.

I created an assignment for my integrating new digital media into the curriculum course as a way of getting students to use social/participatory media to share, communicate, create, organize, collaborate, and network focusing on a specific project/problem: creating, organizing, advertising,and managing, a showing of art that they themselves create (see assignment for details).

But there's a catch: once I introduce this lesson to the class, they are not permitted to talk about it in the classroom physically. They must use social media tools to support the planning, communication, coordination, and co-production of the show. Sound like fun?

The is art show is part project part celebration, and part teachable moment. Photography and poetry provide ways for us to see things differently, with fresh eyes and an enlightened awareness. Teachers play an important part in helping others see the world through new and different lens' to take advantage of the creative energy we share [see flow]. Community projects like an artshow require the use of many important participatory skills. Such project-based learning permits a classroom to act and learn through experience, placing ownership of the learning in the participants hands. Event planning, organization and communication will take place outside of the formal class environment using social media [Twitter/Facebook/Blogs].

This art show is a pro-social initiative designed to connect learning, schools, students, teachers, administrators, family, community, peers, and friends with and through digital media. In addition, utilizing digital, participatory media allows us to connect our learning and experience with others interested in participating in similar initiatives.

Come on and rock this party! Your thoughts and comments are encouraged.

img: http://6.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_komzzf3dpc1qzpnf0o1_500.jpg; http://www.designspongeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/thomas-mary-harris-7

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic License.

http://www.csessums.com/2010/01/action-art-show/ 

Recently I was reflecting on the skills we want our kids to possess as they enter adulthood and participate actively as g/local citizens. Here are two major skill sets defined by Henry Jenkins, et al., and Tony Wagner:

Jenkins, et al. (2006) 21st Century Skills (pdf)

• Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving


• Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery


• Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes


• Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content


• Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.


• Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities


• Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal


• Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources


• Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities


• Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information


• Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

Tony Wagner’s seven survival skills

• Critical thinking and problem solving


• Collaboration and leading by influence


• Agility and adaptability


• Initiative and entrepreneurial-ism


• Effective oral and written communication


• Accessing and analyzing information


• Curiosity and imagination

As I look over these lists, I noticed one important skill was missing: empathy.

Empathy can be defined as “a sense of shared experience, including emotional and physical feelings, with someone or something other than oneself.” This is an important skill to posses as it permits us to work toward understanding perspectives and points of view different from our own. Empathy is an important social and emotional skill that requires us to practice listening, another important skill that can be easily overlooked as well. Empathy is also a function of cognitive maturity; that is, the ability to take another’s point of view requires a certain degree of cognitive complexity. In this sense, perhaps empathy falls under discernment wherein we learn how to detect feelings, ideas, sensations with our senses.

In look back over distance education literature, Holmberg (1996) noted what he called “the empathy approach.” Through empathy Holmberg suggests that “feelings of personal relations between student and teacher promote motivation, study pleasure and effectiveness” (Holmberg, 1996, p. 489). Such relations Holmberg insists involve a personal style of presentation by the teacher that engages students emotionally, asking them to share their personal reactions, views and experiences. Similarly, in Daniel Goleman’s (1995) work on emotional intelligence, empathy is defined as a critical facet of social awareness and a key component to an overall feeling of success in life.

In light of such examinations, I feel that we should consider including empathy in our list of 21st century skills as a distinct category. Goleman’s (1995) research suggests that empathy is positively related to intrinsic motivation and effective problem-solving. The need for empathy is increasingly important in the workplace where teamwork and social competencies are a critical factor in success. Similarly, globalization, and the challenges associated with intercultural relationships, make empathy a important managerial competence.

References:

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Holmberg, B. (1996). On the potential of distance education in the Age of Information Technology. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 2(6): 484-491.

Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, Robison, A. J., & Weigel, M. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Retrieved from http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E

Wagner, T. (2009). The global achievement gap : why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need–and what we can do about it. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/51/106509125_d686615fff_o.jpg

In preparation for my undergraduate course, Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum, I have been sifting through hundreds of bookmarks in my Delicious account. I have started a document containing 150+ resources/links, many of which will serve as assigned readings and starting points for students. This collection of resources is divided into 12 categories that include social media, learning with technology, adolescence, social networks, tactics, strategy, failure, critical thinking, games, social action, lifehacks, and other teaching and learning resources. The list will grow and change over the coming weeks; nevertheless, I felt compelled to share what I have so far.

Feedback is encouraged.

image: http://tusb.stanford.edu/Computers%20and%20Lecture.jpg

This slide deck is being used for an overview discussion for my Spring 2010 course on integrating technology into the secondary curriculum. The audience is a collection of undergraduate students who are minoring in education. This presentation is used to provide a visual narrative for discussing the many concepts associated with teaching and learning in the 21st century.

Here is the course’s week one agenda for those interested.

Barry Bachenheimer, a student here in our online EdD program in Educational Technology, asked me to share my thoughts on the question, How has technology and/or media affected a change in the way you learned in the last year? for a conference he is working on.

Interestingly enough, I am working on developing course called Instructional Computing 2 for our department. And there are so many ways to think about designing a course, so I decided to try something different.

Since June 2008 I began tagging my favorite Tweets from my Twitter network. Twitter has a tool that will allow you to do this, i.e., marking a tweet as a favorite. For me Twitter is a learning network, a place where I can follow the shared thoughts of hundreds of local, national, and international teachers, scholars, movers, and shakers.

I started sifting through the two hundred or so favorited tweets. Some tweets were to weblinks, some were simply thoughtful reflections. As I sorted through them I noticed specific patterns emerging related to topics I wanted to cover in my class, like social and participatory media, identity, change, innovation, life on the screen, trust, safety, opportunity gaps, relationships, sharing, communication, collaboration, social action, civic engagement, and the future.

This process of using Twitter and my learning network (i.e., social media) has allowed me to develop a comprehensive course that embodies the collective intelligence of hundreds of brilliant people. In this sense, social media has clearly impacted the way I think about course content and course design. I can learn from experts, share in their thinking and discoveries, and engage them with follow up questions and comments. This is a large shift in the way I develop course content. I used to begin designing a course based on what I know. Now I start with what others know and and work my way from the edges to the center.

Pretty neat, huh?

image: http://ny-image1.etsy.com/il_430xN.29721697.jpg

Even though my father worked on computers when 8K was the size of a refrigerator, he is not much for jargon. In conversation recently, I dropped the word "wiki" into a sentence. He then asked, "What's a wiki?"

My first reaction was, "Oh lawd, I've forgotten that I live in this techie bubble! I need to remember to speak in plain English."

While I am aware of many resources that speak of "user generated content," I am wanting to approach this definition from a more concrete base. At the risk of over simplification, here's what I've come up with so far. Let me know what you think and/or how I might improve upon this working definition.

Web 1.0 = me
Web 2.0 = me + you

Web 1.0 = read
Web 2.0 = read + write

Web 1.0 = connecting ideas
Web 2.0 = connecting ideas + connecting people

Web 1.0 = search
Web 2.0 = recommendations of friends/others

Web 1.0 = find
Web 2.0 = share

Web 1.0 = techies rule
Web 2.0 = everybody rules

Image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/75/177926979_9bd2709608.jpg

Where is My Mind?

This experiment suggests that many people do not process the myriad of information coming through their eyes. Consequently, many people experience a form of change blindness, i.e., we often miss large changes to our visual world from one view to the next. As such, we are often unable to see large changes that would appear to be patently obvious to somebody who knows the changes are going to happen.

In this experiment, 75 percent of the participants do not notice the change in the person behind the counter. So what might this finding suggest? What separates those who do notice the change from those who do not? Individual differences? Coincidence?

So much depends on where our mind is focused and the ways we choose to participate in the world. This experiment is a helpful illustration of perceptual blindness and the slippery slope that is memory. Clearly we all share a limited capacity for attention that limits the amount of information processed at any given moment. If we do not see something, consequently, it will not exist in our mind.

Fostering Change

This illustration is also important to consider when examining what is involved in getting others to see things differently, i.e., change their ways of seeing. Whatever a change agent's cause — global warming, ending risky financial speculation, reforming pay to reward performance, corporate culture change, or innovation in an established institution — confronting change blindness is essential. Rosabeth Moss Kanter offers a set of tactics that have been found to be helpful in getting people to move from a state of denial to a state of acceptance and change. These tools include:

Start with the facts -- Change advocates must make sure the evidence they marshall is beyond reproach, which often means gathering appropriate evidence from multiple sources.

Consider the alternatives -- Change advocates must know the other side as well as their own. They must confront, not deny, alternative explanations and respond with compelling arguments, sometimes incorporating grains of truth in skeptics' positions.

Show where the change will lead -- Facts are only a starting point. Significant change rests on beliefs. Change advocates must identify long-term benefits that will be valuable to the shared values held by many (i.e., the stakeholders).

Pressure and repetition -- When pressure for change is in deniers' faces every day, they often succumb.

Getting people to see what is in front of their eyes is challenging for educators and change agents alike. Clearly, much of what passes for existence is uncertain. As such, we are often comforted by keeping things the way they are. Doing nothing different or nothing at all is easy. Everyone has silent veto power. Change blindness is always in play and in every aspect of our awareness, judgment and politics exists. For educators and change agents, leadership is key. 

Three-takeaways

To successfully confront change and change blindness (in this case, think of change blindness as a form of resistance), consider the following strategies:

Collaborate -- working with others in a collegial and supportive manner can help orgainze, facts and counter arguments.

Communicate -- in working with others to foster a new vision, communication is vital to insure show where the changes will lead.

Learn how to learn together -- learning, uncovering the facts, moving in positive and appropriate directions works best when it is done within a culture that tolerates diversity, collaboration, failure, and learning from all of these combined experiences.

While what I offer here is nothing new, per se, I believe it's important to reflect on both the barriers to change and the conditions which can foster positive growth and development. The contexts in which change blindness occurs may be unique depending on your situation, but the ways to address change, denial, and resistance, remain relatively consistent and are always relevant.