STSD Curriculum & Technology Update

Regular updates and musings on curriculum and technology in the Salisbury Township School District in Allentown, PA.

More on the $100 Laptop - One Laptop Per Child

Can The $100 Laptop Change The World?

The article is a bit lengthy, but it provides some interesting information on how this will all work—and it’s only 6 months or so away from being rolled out in major scale. The thing that I find most interesting is that its focus is on third-world countries. With all we’ve been reading about in terms of a global society, how will the success (which is still in question) of this project impact the world, but more specifically our country. Will their use of the laptop as a conduit to information give them an advantage (and quite possibly a serious advantage) over our students? Are we Americans missing the boat which is about to set sail? My biggest question: What is being done to provide teachers and students in these countries with the know-how for utilizing these sheets beyond what laptops tend to be used for in our country—electronic worksheets. It all seems like a very cool experiment - so stay tuned.

“By focusing on tools of exploration and expression—rather than instruction—in an environment that emphasizes collaboration, sharing, and critique, we think the laptop will become the agency for engaging children in constructing knowledge—to ‘learn learning.’ ”

$100 Laptop

The $100 Laptop Project has been in the news recently. I’ve often wondered what the implications of this program will be for our education system in America. If the program is a success, will children in other countries (since that is what the program is focusing on) have a greater advantage in this “flat world” we presently live in? Will we be behind? Will it matter?

Flat World, Flat Web, Flat Schools Webinar

David Warlick: Flat World, Flat Web, Flat Schools Webinar is, in many ways, a test of the times. On November 15, 2006, participants blogging as they multi-tasked: participating in Skype conversations, webinar sidebars, emails, and watching the webinar.  David Warlick believes “the future is not what it used to be...it is certainly not your father’s future anymore.” Warlick advocates retooling our classrooms into learning spaces that effectively prepare our children for a future of unlimited possibilities.  “Our culture has rapidly evolved into one more technological, entrepreneurial and global.” The challenge to schools requires us to embrace a new vision that prepares students for a workplace that may not have yet evolved.  Let’s take a look at what Warlick believes is the new learning landscape.

What follows is my webinar blogging:

* The world is flattening as the informational landscape transforms without the knowledge of most Americans
* Outsourcing, off-shoring, globalization: we live and work in a world that is learning to cooperate with ordered in, made in, parts by, shipped to: and we are looking at global economies that collaborate and cooperate not compete; in today’s economy our job is about finding a place in the global economy, where we are in a niche market
* we need to change our thinking: instead of asking why outsourcing ask what do my students need to know to be a part of the global economy; what kind of learning experience do they need to become part of the chain of supply
* we are being surpassed by countries I cannot locate on a globe or pronounce if I could find them; “sitting still in a time of change is like going backwards”
* information has changed; more networked, more digital, and more information is overwhelming; virtual audience agrees; educationally, these three elements have changed what literacy means, and that connects to what it means to be a reader, including proving evidentiary supports for information which exceed decoding and moves understanding to a range of skills in employing information in an information storm
* sound, images, videos, text: which combination of ideas best express information?
* to manage information, use Technorati = the google of bloggers; Technorati takes a photograph of us; recording conversations of ourselves; thumbnail of peaks of use
* wikis, blogs, discussion boards--social networking of information sources are the changing shape of information; it’s not a competition between traditional textual information, just a decision of whether your classroom is flat or not.
* no longer important to TEACH the facts; they are out there and the kids know how to find the facts; our job is to teach how to draw conclusions, make money from the information, evaluate the information, use the information in their future, but not TEACH the information
* we need more innovative technologists; read Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class; we’ve left Industrial Age and moved into the Creative Age, which is how people make money today; what we will gain in jobs in the next decade will be creative jobs; read The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler; from Randy: http://concordia.csp.edu/BookoftheYear/
* in the information landscape, learning has changed, and gravity won’t work in a flat classroom; owners of the content [e.g. ]http://www.youtube.com] will make the money; the company that can grow and gain an audience will survive; the content is increasingly coming from us, so the company that will make it is the company who will grow in the new informational landscape; the classrooms that will work will go with the new landscape
* video games are a learning engine, if the games are good; you can’t move to level 2 or 3 if you don’t learn something; what is it about video games that intrigue students, so let’s take a look at gaming to get the techniques.

I believe students are amazingly flexible, and they learn best when they enjoy how they are learning.  Sometimes, as educators, we forget this simple basic.  In the sidebar I mentioned earlier, the discussion was lively, robust, exciting, and fast-paced.  Many discussion strands emerged, but one question still remains with me.  Warlick was talking about the role of teaching v. learning, and how teachers need to rethink teaching facts when facts--information retrieval--are at students’ fingertips via IM, Internet, gmail....So the haunting question, paraphrased [since the presentation is still not archived, nor the sidebar discussion] is this: are we still asking students to memorize the capitols of states when that information is online.  No question mark: the issue is rhetorical--and symbolic.  The question we need to ponder as educators: are our classrooms flat?  What do you think?

Related Warlick Blogs:
Flat Classrooms
Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century

The New Face of Learning

The power of technology derives from the people using it.  The new face of learning calls into question a rethinking of learning spaces that cross traditional boundaries. Students collaborate and build networks with the new basics. When was the last time you created a mobile podcast or tracked the blogosphere with your cell phone? Do you check your gmail daily? Which RSS web feed do you use? Checked out newer browsers - Firefox, Opera (mobile and device versions too), or Safari - which offer RSS support? Used online bookmarkers to aggregate and access all your website favorites? VODcast or semablogged lately? Created web tags? Have a mobile home? Chances are your students do, and that’s part of the problem. WE teach and THEY learn differently. Whether we like it or not, these cool tools are part of the expanding new literacy and we need to teach in the 21st century, moving toward the new basics.

Will Richardson asks, “What happens to time-worn concepts of classrooms and teaching when we can now go online and learn anything, anywhere, anytime?” He embeds his answer inside his question: “time-worn concepts.” Worn is not an essentially negative concept (think antiques, age-added value), but in the sub-text of this discussion, Richardson beg us to rethink as educators our own time-worn concepts and methodologies. And we resist, frequently with the full support of a district’s “block and bust” handbook. A district’s philosophy exists for sound, protective reasons, with the students’ health and safety foremost. But - and that conjunction is a huge separator between what is and what could be - we need to forge sustainable ways to implement technology, and we could begin by using the tools students carry in their pockets.

Last year in Denver at the T + L2 Conference, Hall Davidson, in his keynote address, Media for Motivated Minds, implored administrators and encouraged educators to shift the education paradigm to teach the way students learn best: with the devices they carry in pockets and purses. DEN Network Specialist Steve Dembo‘s webinar, Teaching with the Technology Tools of the New Generation, explored then-emerging ways a simple camera phone with Internet access can become a valid educational tool. Can a district implement a policy that enables students to learn with their own “textbooks”? Some already have.
Randy asks truly provocative questions: How will this shift impact our district? Our students? Us? Our district already feels the impact as we move forward proactively to implement a five-year district-wide Technology Plan. One of our most immediate challenges for the high school is the preparation for Pennsylvania’s Classrooms of the Future grant, a process requiring extensive in-service training for teachers with the grant technology, as well as developing technology integration in existing curricula. Pennsylvania has already begun the process of requiring NETS standards in all curricula. Most of our students know more about technology than we, as educators, know or use. That imbalance often intimidates us. Why not harness that skill base and learn from our students. For students not included in the most students category, Pennsylvania’s grant initiative levels the playing field, giving all students equal access to online learning. Is this concept not a moral imperative. Now we come to us, the educators - the aha moment of truth. We have the largest distance to bridge if we continue to teach in the 21st century. So, my question is, How do we begin?

Simply, I think. The first step is a self-inventory. Without asking where the technology will come from, or how you will budge me out of any computer lab (just ask and I’ll share or give it up), or without collapsing into the my-subject-can’t-integrate-technology response, just ask yourself Will Richardson’s question. Keep asking it until you are comfortable with a self-assessment: does my classroom methodology have just one time-worn approach that I can upgrade? Then ask yourself how technology could help your update. Think of it (if you’re female) as a wardrobe update: what can I add to change the look of my outfits? What new accessory could really update my look? Then ask someone for help. When I think of the long list of people who have helped me in my journey toward computer literacy, I realize that the list began with two students: Eric Gratz and Melanie Rutkowski. Debbie Green, former SHS technologist, helped me create my first two websites and Matt Meron, ‘06, created my current website. Michele Cotugno found my message board and uploaded my website for years, often several times a day. Now I am an independent learner, and I can do it myself, online directly. Chris Smith (scroll link to Our Focus - High Definition Authentic Learning) wears a halo you can see if you look closely; he survived all my help-me sessions and earned a much-deserved promotion. Tom Smith continues the family tradition and helps me as I move into new ground. Recently, I have even been helping faculty, and isn’t that the way it should be. There’s a lot of help out there; you just need to ask.

The second step is to take the leap and try it. Forget failure, or view it the way I do: a learning opportunity. I have never really learned from my successes in the same way I learn from things that didn’t work. Finally, realize that our students are amazingly generous human beings with a huge capacity to support our initiatives. I tell them when I am leaping into the unknown, the unfamiliar, and I ask them to come along and help me in the process. Somewhere in your classes you have real technology experts and you can ask them to help. They even teach well. Last year, Dan Lebo taught his Honors English class video editing and the finer points of Google Earth. Zack Creveling linked last year’s IP presentations on his website. The year before, Dan Lischner was my go-to technologist. This year, I am amazed by the number of students in each of my classes who are tech savvy; I use them as support networks in lab classes and they are wonderful resources. Take a simple step. Make a beginning.

David Warlick asks the question, What should a classroom look like in the Year 2015? I’d rather ask all of us what our classrooms will look like in the next five years?

Did You Know?

Definitely worth watching.

Karl Fisch’s Did You Know?

Karl Fisch’s What If

Karl Fisch’s 2020 Vision

Jennifer Dorman’s Adaptation [with permission of Karl Fisch] of Did You Know?

Definitely Worth Visiting.

The Fischbowl