My favorite line in the article, "Although the details have yet to be revealed..." is reason to be concerned by all parties interested and invested in educational reform.
I re-read through the Obama-Biden campaign plan for education (linked in the EdWeek article) which provides a clear direction for change and investment in teaching and learning, but alas, provides no clear sign of how the mission will be accomplished. It is not clear in this age of high stakes assessments if we will be shifting away from the current focus on rewarding those who preform well on standardized measures/instruments.
The EdWeek article itself mentions the new administrations desire to place more computers in schools, which is clearly not the solution, as any reader of Seymour Papert can attest. Linking broadband access to competitiveness is also shy of the mark especially as pundits and technocrats still seem to be putting the cart (money) before the horse (teacher). It's not just about the Internet It seems the medium is still being confused with its message. The Web is only as useful as the minds accessing it. Technology writers and pundits are still confusing information with data. While the Web fills up exponentially with lots of new content daily, it's only data until somebody uses it for a specific purpose.
Obama, bless him, used technology and the Internet to market himself better than his competition. People took his marketing data and converted it into information that informed their vote one way or the other. The critical role technology played for the president-elect was based on his teams' understanding of media literacy, i.e., knowing how to use the tools and the data and to get into peoples' heads and wallets and getting them to act. Perhaps the question is, can we teach educators this same bag of tricks? And if so, how much time and money is he willing to put into it?
STEM is the Word As far as one can see, most calls for grant proposals in education are related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Naturally, one can teach reading and writing as an embedded component of this focus. However, finding qualified educators to support this effort is clearly the larger issue. The cost to recruit, educate, and train talented, motivated people in this endeavor is still the $64 billion dollar question.
What I would Like To See To borrow liberally from James Gee, teachers need to be rewarded for innovating themselves, for bringing new tools into play in meaningful ways. The problem is, somewhere between 1960 and 2009, teaching became de-professionalized. Many school districts across the globe allowed textbooks, tests, politicians, and schools of education to supervise teachers, create curricula for them, in ways that take away teachers' professional responsibilities to build their own curriculum and to think strategically about how learning works in their classroom, school, and community.
The Learning Environment as a Passion Community What if teachers learn along with their kids and focus on modeling learning? One can learn a lot from an expert. However, you can often learn even more doing it yourself and/or with somebody else. Learning communities, communities of interest, or as Gee refers to them, passion communities, engage in this collaborative learning style of mentorship. In such a community you get to watch other people learn and you get to try it yourself, and one is able to give and received meaningful feedback. There's no reason we can't put teachers in this domain.
Sexy Time Adopting this type of learning environment stance will lead to us to making teaching a more sexy job. Most schools I see and work with are not cool. And what teacher or student wants to spend time and effort in conventional learning environments? If we are going to invest billions in our infrastructure, let's create spaces that are cool, inviting, where one can experience life/learning in different physical spaces, with different types of tools, working side by side, solving real problems.
I expect such a shift will start in colleges and eventually trickle down to the primary schools (because if students aren't getting this treatment in college, they certainly won't be getting in high schools and primary schools, which, for the most part, model themselves as small colleges).
The challenge of technology education and change is here. I'm happy to see the new administration starting the conversation. I believe it's up to us to make it a reality.
I've just posted a recording from the Blended Learning Conference session I did on audio feeback models. This is the first episode that I've posted since March! I knew it was a while and I'm not unduely concerned as the podcasting project that drove the previous 60 episodes or so is long finished, however it did surprise me. My intention has been to keep the podcasts coming, but without the need to adhere to the schedule that I had established during the project - about one every two weeks. The lesson here, for me, is: unless you keep to a schedule of some sort, and plan ahead, it's not really going to happen. It should also be noted that I am publishing several other podcasts including a personal one on walking the Pennine Way, one for the pilot I am running at work, and I am contributing to the Podcasting for Pedagogic Purposes podcast too (ie I'm not being idle!). My first love is the LTA podcast however, so I think I will reinvigorate this and plan to do 1 every two weeks from September onwards. We'll see. The latest episode is a bit of a disappointment in that it is mostly a recording of me spouting on about audio feedback (some great ideas, honest), though the last 10 minutes do capture other people's ideas. I hope these are audible enough.
If you haven't taken a look at the PPP wiki here's the link: http://podcastingforpp.pbwiki.com/ This special interest group has taken up quite a lot of my spare capacity (joke) recently and is a very interesting initiative in my view. The main challenge faced by the SIG is its sustainability as the initial HEA Pathfinder pump priming runs out. My main response to this dilema came in two sessions I ran at the third SIG meeting: one that discussed Communities of Practice and Hub and Spoke models that kicked off the day with Alan Hilliard from the Uni of Herts and then a session called '100 Great Ideas for Educational Podcasting - the book!" For me a SIG is a group with a shared special interest (well that is more or less the words from SIG in a slighly different order). But it's important to spell it out because I believe that for the SIG to be sustainable it needs to recognise its capacity in the numbers of people who have expressed their interest - about 140 who have made some commitment to PPP so far and about 70 who turned up to SIG3. Well if you just take the 70 who turned up to the one hour session I ran in the afternoon that's 70 hours worth of work - how much would that cost? All those people generated several ideas each for the book. Well over 100 ideas and, perhaps most importantly, an understanding amongst all who took part that educational podcasting can be so much more than idea number 1 (podcasting lectures). Indeed, I said that that idea was too old hat to submit, so we'll see what we have got. I've been carrying the slips of paper around in my rucksack all week and have not dared to open them given my other commitments. But I can't wait! If I hadn't felt the urge to share this with you I'd be hammering away at the keys getting ready for the next stage in the process which will be network review (like peer review, but involving the whole SIG network through a wiki). In the meantime there's a lot of reading and typing to be done. So how does the book relate to sustainability of the SIG? Well, despite the promo for the event, this book won't just be written in one hour. This is going to take ongoing engagement from all contributors over the next few months. So I think we can bridge from this funded start on into the future. We have another Steering Group meeting coming up in early July. I guess we'll be reviewing ideas for next steps there. One of the next steps will be a stall at ALT-C in September. I would like to think we can drum up a lot of ideas for the stall that will make it a high profile centre of gravity at the conference. I see podcasting as being very active educationally and I think it will be great to be able to demonstrate that to all ALT-ers. I keep saying 'flash mob' and 'bar camp' in the steering group meetings and I think others see it this way too. Podcasting does seem to attract its share of mavericks, or at least people who think outside of the box. Very exciting...
Apple have announced iPhone U - I suppose it had to happen. All of a sudden we see the potential to make the shift from delivering knowledge to engaging with it socially. (Strange, this article does still talk about getting class presentations on your device... oh well). They're running a Duke type initiative with students being handed iPhones and iTouches.
Losing ownership of your podcast recording is a topic that I don't think I have particularly thought about. This came up twice yesterday in the Podcasting for Pedagogic Purposes event. Andy Ramsden reminded me than some lecturers draw upon evidence from their own research in progress and therefore may be constrained in using that evidence publicly. The second mention was from an interesting presentation by Stephen Gomez from the University of the west of England. In fact he made several points that I have not come across before - he mentions that once a podcast is distributed the author loses control over the media - it can be share and proliferated without their knowledge. In the spirit of open content I see this as a non-issue, but I recognise that this is very important to some people. He made an interesting analogy relating to tracking: when he asked his students who had used his podcasts many more hands went up than the system tracking records showed. He took this to mean that some students were downloading the podcast files and distributing them to the friends, just as in a lecture some students will ask for 5 copies of the lecture notes so they can share them out with their friends. (My, perhaps cynical, assumption was that the students said they had listened because they didn't want to be pulled up for not listening). He has developed a system now that streams his chunked media objects and allows users to create playlists within the web-based tool, and if I remember correctly, they can comment on and rate the media too (a la YouTube) - but the media objects are streamed and not downloadable. I wrote my Masters dissertation on digital media learning objects so I really like the idea of these short bits of 'content' (and I think this can be quite varied in his own teaching). I like the idea of the rating and commenting too. I would love to see an example of his web app being populated by students - in our student generated media work the idea of the collective knowledge pool is never far away and this web app might facilitate such an approach. As I say, I don't get the concern over closed content though, so I would go with downloadable and take away content.
I attended this meeting in Chester organised by the University of Chester with the University of Hertfordshire and funded by the HEA. In December 06 myself and a number of other people tried something similar, so it will be interesting to see if the funding helps or hinders this attempt to establish a UK FE/HE podcasting network and Special Interest Group. The good news was that several faces from our aborted attempt turned up for this and it was good to see them and other familiar faces. There was a big turn out and I gather there was further interest. I still believe a UK network can be really useful. Podcasting is odd: there's a little but significant technology hurdle and a wide landcape beyond that to experiment with new learning tools. However, the hurdle always seems to obscure the wide landscape so most people struggle to imagine what can be done beyond recording the lecture. I was reminded of this again today, yet there was a healthy number of people (tagged 'experts' bizarrely for the day) who had started to explore the landscape. Robin Johnson of Manc Met proposed such a network could generate case studies and I totally agree. The activity results in usable products and provides a good opportunity for learning together. The things that inspire 'the novices' at SHU are case studies or the models I post to our pilot site. Such things really clarify what exists beyond the hurdle (I'm loathed to call it a barrier - it is usually quite possible for people to get over it once they have an exigency to do so). I ended up speaking so much yesterday. I hate this, it's my worst trait, but a lot of the comments and questions I heard really didn't seem useful so I found myself suggesting things that hopefully will help people avoid some of the pit falls that I have dealt with over the last few years as noted in this blog. Again, I had moments of self-doubt and courage when the 'experts' break out group were asked to feed back. It was so obviously an opportunity to demonstrate how podcasting can be used to facilitate conversation (rather than to just deliver knowledge), so I jumped up and did one of my spontaneous 'let's make a podcast' workshop exercises. This is a useful model for any classroom where the presence of the recorder promotes an intense and focussed summary of learning. The expert group ironically had been the only group of the four not to have made a summary recording of their break out in the break out session itself. Hopefully I demonstrated some of the main points: podcasting works best when multiple voices are involved (I ran round the room seeking out the expert group members to comment on the headline points), it is accessible (recorder was ready and primed in my bag), it focusses the minds of those taking part (the experts were surprising calm and ready to take part when put on the spot because the discussion had been prepared in the break out, easy and accessible (just press the red button!), short (it only needs to be short because the detail was better captured on a flip chart and the learning happens in the minds of those present and taking part not in the delivered information), etc, etc. Otherwise the rest of the day was either weirder or more normal (whatever your perspective). there were a couple of good presentations including one by an academic who is chunking his teaching into streamed media objects. I must find out more as this resonates with an approach called Audio Notes I developed with a colleague in Engineering a couple of years ago - but this is much more sophisticated. I hate discussions that get caught up on the semantics and when someone said, "Shouldn't we agree on what we mean by podcasting?" my heart sank. But they were dead right. Podcasting is just a technology. Why would we want a network to discuss a technology? So why was it of interest to people here, and what did they think 'podcasting' meant? There was one (very good) presentation on audio feedback by Derek France - but audio feedback is not podcasting in the full sense, ie including the subscription method of distribution, serialisation, etc. But because audio as a learning media is new to many people 'podcasting' is often used to describe anything involving digital audio. There was a surprising amount of talk about video too, so digital video is encompassed in that catch all word for many people too. That's OK, but when you need to discuss the technology and/or the pedagogy there needs to be a shared understanding. Educational podcasting (Podcasting for a Pedagogic Purpose?) is too complex an area to allow for misconception through imprecision. It was suggested a steering group produce some terms of reference. It was good to meet Alan Carr (Mid-Cheshire College and Dark Horse Radio) as I have subscribed to his music podcast for some time. I've also heard him on One Minute Howto discussing how to avoid death by Powerpoint - one of my own hobby horses. And his blog features pictures of Anthony Gormley's Crosby Beach artwork - a favourite topic of mine. The student voice is so important to understanding the potential of digital media and podcasting. We need to understand who 'owns' this and who wants it, and whether 'it' means subscription, monologues, making the stuff, etc, etc. I hope the group manages to involve students in its thinking - and this may require HEA money. I do mean 'involve', not just 'ask'. (On the otherhand, I also have an idea that I don't think I've blogged in depth yet, that Educational Podcasting needn't be seen as belonging to technologists, students, the future, or anything in particular in order for education to become interested in it. If it has an educational use, then Education must shape it to suit our aspirations (if not needs) and learn to call it its own. We must quickly connect podcasting to the progressive pedagogies we understand. In other words, it doesn't matter whether the students use it or not - does it provide a valid channel for what we shouild be doing in Education? I think the idea of a network that carries out joint research is useful - What models can we devise? How do they integrate into the curriculum? How does the curriculum change because of this? What models work? etc The next event is at the University of Hertfordshire in April. I think we're going to get a chance to determine the agenda through a wiki, but I hope it is mostly going to be about working together to devise case studies and models and to peer review them perhaps. If each person turns up with a recording of a conversation with a student from their place this group could in one fell swoop generate more data on the student perception of podcasting than has been done so far. With 40 people attending this group can achieve a lot quickly - collaborative case study (or scenario, or model) generation looks good too. Andy Ramsden, now at Bath, was Twittering this on his mobile - I just had too much to say. I'd like to see his Twitter feed but can't find it. And Graham McElearn at Sheffield suggested doing an ALT workshop together - I think that would be really useful.
Here's an interesting post (http://edtechatouille.blogspot.com/2008/02/lecture-capture-for-masses-with.html) about lecture casting with Camptasia Relay from Technsmith. I use Camptasia for screencasting so it's interesting to hear how they're developing it. I'll have to take a look at this as soon as it becomes available, not of course because I am at all interested in lecture casting, but because I am interested in usability that allows anyone to capture and post little learning moments. This sounds cute but it fits in potentially with some of my ongoing bandwagons - user production, and small scale media interventions rather than didactic, passive media spouting. One comment at the beginning of the post echoes something that I've mentioned here before - the ability to control the speed of playback. I do a fair amount of research interviews and playing them back at 1.5 speed can be just as effective as slowly playing them back. In Windows Media Player this can be done by selecting Now Playing > Show Enhancments.
If there's one artist who I can always turn to for inspiration, it would be Thelonious Monk. Everytime I listen to his tunes, I find new pieces, parts, twists, transitive and intrasitive verbs, infractions, derelictions, all in all -- pure genius.
I don't know where I found this, but I wanted to share two pages from his journal:
While this advice was initially penned for musicians, I think it pertains to any person who creates (i.e., you -- reading this post!).
Monk's advice is not merely self-help pablum -- it's about teamwork, about playing together, about cooperation, collaboration, about getting your groove on. Dig?
Words of advice for your new year: "Whatever you think can't be done, somebody will come along + do it." In other words, you are full of great ideas, of creative genius -- don't wait around and keep all of that goodness to yourself -- share the wealth! Dig? But do it on your time -- you are in charge of you.
I’m reading a Christmas present book at the moment: The Creative Habit by Choreographer Twyla Tharp. Tonight’s chapter was entitled Scratching and it discussed how we go about finding the ideas that propel our creative endeavors. Twyla talked about her reading habits and how books often spark firewoks. It got me thinking about my own [...]
I have written a piece for the ALT Newsletter entitled ARG @ ALT-C x PPP SIG available at: http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/e_article001230547.cfm?x=b11,0,w It describes how I ran an alternate reality game at this year's ALT-C conference to engage delegates in the Podcasting for Pedagogic Purposes SIG.
Angela Maiers tweeted this news story from EdWeek, Obama Links Ed Tech to Economic Growth, which caught my eye this morning.
Obama, bless him, used technology and the Internet to market himself better than his competition. People took his marketing data and converted it into information that informed their vote one way or the other. The critical role technology played for the president-elect was based on his teams' understanding of media literacy, i.e., knowing how to use the tools and the data and to get into peoples' heads and wallets and getting them to act. Perhaps the question is, can we teach educators this same bag of tricks? And if so, how much time and money is he willing to put into it?
Sexy Time
