Open Letter to Open Networks

I sent this out a few days ago, hoping people would find it useful.  Feel free to use, adapt, talk about, trash, whatever.  It'd be nice to get something like this together and send it en mass, with the collective power of all our PLN's behind us.  That would be pretty hard to ignore.  Please comment if you find necessary.

17 July 2010
Open Letter to Network Policy Power Brokers,

Congratulations!  You have the opportunity to be a change agent.  You have the chance to be at the forefront of all that is new and path-breaking in education.  What is this chance you ask?  You have the chance to link our students to people and knowledge from around the globe.

We believe strongly that filtering is indeed an important aspect to responsible technology leadership.  We recognize the risks open networks pose to schools.  We want our kids to have constructive experiences.  We want our kids to be safe. However we do believe that this safety must be balanced with the wealth of learning that can be fostered through social networks.

We write you this letter as a member of a network, 348 people strong and growing (My own network as of July 17, 2010).  People we connect with have followers too.  We are large and focused on revolutionizing the learning opportunities of our kids.  This network has not only made us better teachers, but it has galvanized a society of other change agents around the globe.  We learn and act in real time, from anywhere.  We learn from people we’ve never met.  We share our own thoughts with a confidence and polish unprecedented in our academic careers.  Anyone can join, usually for free.  The platforms?  Twitter.  Wordpress.  Wikispaces.  Animoto.  Youtube.  Skype.  Facebook.  The list goes on and on.

The problem?  I can’t access these services, and a multitude of other social networking applications, from my school.  More importantly?  Neither can my students.  Most of my students don’t have access to the Internet at home.  They cannot enjoy the same learning network I have built over the past year.  Those that do do not have the support from people they do trust, teachers, to help them understand how to use these tools responsibly.  Imagine if they could utilize these devices and receive the guidance and care we all provide them in other arenas!

We write you to begin a thoughtful conversation about changing filtering policies in our schools.  This is something we can change if we put our minds together.  It will cost us nothing, but the benefits will pay off in droves.

Please consider participating with us on this crucial matter.  We can’t do it without you!

Best wishes from us all,

A society of committed and networked and concerned educators.

Crowd Sourced Tech Plan

Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/coffeemick/3393399278/in/

With all this talk about collaboration, I've wondered what if we had a chance to create our own school? What would it look like?

I've been thinking through a learning vision with some friends at a new school. Here were my initial thoughts. I would love comments and suggestions. I haven't seen much actual "crowd sourcing" of these ideas, and I think it would be of constructive use for our edtech society.

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The technology vision demonstrates an innovative approach to learning, and serves as a catalyst for a world class education for all students who attend.

We will recognize diversity of learning, and use universal design principles to ensure maximum fulfillment of individual capacity and beyond.

We commit to equitable use and training, all students should have just opportunities.

We consider 1:1, because it makes sense in a student centered international school.

We use Open Source because it saves cost.

We commit to an Open Network, so our students can connect through social networks (filtering out the really bad, but teaching teachers how to teach their kids to be responsible). Teacher on/off switch admin privs.

We use technology because it helps learning be socially relevant, and that impact be shared globally.

We commit to a secure network, but we don't confuse security with paranoia.

We ensure a robust network because our students deserve media rich applications and the ability to upload their creations.

We use global networks to support IB, because we believe the missions of IB can only be supported if our students actually interact with the world authentically. A network can lead them to inquire, care, be compassionate and to act.

We use Web 2.0 and social networking tools to support our PYP curriculum. Our students construct knowledge and act while acquiring concepts, knowledge, skills, and attitudes by constructing meaning of their world.

We use networks to foster the education of adults, connecting adults to the classes we offer as well as services offered from the St. Louis community that help them reach their own potential.

We believe in students and families having ubiquitous access to the internet. We consider making the network available in the home.

We have a tech use policy that’s appropriate to conditions in school community.

We have a low student-tech ratio (not just computers) because we believe students will do more profound things if they are able to customize their own learning or produce things that demonstrate their learning.

We have a sophisticated funding vision because we believe learning is too important to be impacted by fluctuations in the economy.

Funding vision for technology also includes humans...(one IT in each building, and a tech director/instructional design coordinator)

We do not use the words "TECH INTEGRATION", but rather learning design to reflect our innovative style of facilitating understanding, knowledge and action.

We believe that access should be seamless and ubiquitious. We want an ecosystem of deep thought, creation and sharing to permeate the building.

Professional learning community, not tech led pd. Teachers need to have the resources to take ownership over their own learning.

We believe in assessment for learning as much as assessment of learning.

Lease to buy with insurance. This will keep costs low while not locking us into older machines.

We could create a Classroom endowment fund that would generate the money necessary for yearly innovation purchases. We seek innovative sources of funding.

We could seek the support of tech angel investors from the social entrepreneurial realm that would upfront cost for innovative programs.

We believe expectations and procedures should be taught up front, Tech bootcamp (for teachers and students), but also recognize a lot of learning happens from mistakes.

Balance between creation and observation/analysis.

Research based decisions, action research for teachers.

We believe our kids should have access to workshops (green screens, video editing, digital photography, storytelling, etc.)

We recognize that good tech compliments and deepens real life and real relationships with people and knowledge.

Wifi is possible.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/07/13/texas-district-to-extend-wireless-into-low-income-neighborhood.aspx

And wifi must also exist to meet parent goals.

Unlocked network. Teachers have the right to unlock specific websites if necessary, or at least have accounts that have finer access privileges than kids.

Technology planning committee should also be global, and should include non tech folks.

Mini grants spur on teacher innovation, and are a layer on top of an already empowered teacher community.

We think a 1:1 student to passionate expert ratio is as important as a 1:1 student to computer ratio.

Thanks for reading, I would appreciate any comments/improvements.

Can we bring Ed-Grad into the 20th century please?

Things are worse than they seem when you are frustrated

Things are worse than they seem when you are frustrated

Things are worse than they seem when you are frustrated

Things are worse than they seem when you are frustrated

Things are worse than they seem when you are frustrated

Yes.  I did type that sentence five times (no copy and paste for me).  That catharsis helps me remind myself that it's probably not as bad as it seems.  I need to remind myself that there is always something that can be squeezed from the worse of experiences.  I also need to remind myself that I genuinely respect my teachers, for their hard work, for their insightful feedback, and for having much more expertise than I may ever have.

But grad school isn't doing it for me.  Sometimes I feel like it is 100 years old...

Of course I've learned some invaluable things; things that I wouldn't have learned if I was not enrolled in a grad program.  But I've learned some nasty habits this semester.  First, I've become a worse student than I ever was in High School (and I was a bad student in High School).  I don't turn work in on time, and although I spend a lot of time to make something of quality when I do (10 hours on a lesson plan wooo!), I tend to procrastinate in ways I never did before.  I'm just not too motivated to do things.

I don't blame my teachers, I blame the entire blasphemy of an institution we call higher ed.  I'm sure there are some programs that offer the same kind of real time learning, project based thinking, impactive discussion and challenge that I yearn for.

Although I'm not motivated by graduate school, I can say that I've been driven by learning online.  I can say that I feel more challenged by y'all (My PLN and fellow ISTE goers) than I do by my classes.  I can say I have more of a drive to learn through twitter, diigo, pixton, jing, skype, etc. than I do on blackboard or by typing papers.  I can also say that I've used more of both the theory and practical knowledge I've gleaned from PLN than I have from my classes.

Lastly, and most importantly, I've written 57 pages on my blog in the almost one year since I started (double spaced, 12 pt font, 1" margins as outlined by APA guidelines).   My master's thesis is less than 40 pages, and there are a whole bunch of tables and graphs scattered throughout.  I've tweeted 616 times, connecting with people most of whom I've never met around the globe.

That disparity is amazing.  Things need to change for the better, or there is no way we are going to meet the need of 21st century learners.  I wonder what it would be like if I could encourage my professors to join my PLN?  Imagine what our relationship would be if we had the kind of access to each other I have with members of my PLN?  How might both are learning be different?

Are there any other folks with different/inspiring experiences?  Are there folks out there who are creating sort of "open universities" for new teachers who need help becoming both better teachers in the traditional sense and in the revolutionary sense?

Image courtesy of James Delaney via flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimdelaney/387951541/

We’re a Society, not an EdTech Community

I have been reading Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus this week.  I haven't read a book that has occupied my mind as much as this one has since reading Dan Pinker's Drive earlier this year.  I recommend the book for anyone interested in using the social web to connect learners globally.

I'll post more in coming days about the book, but I want to focus on a shift I support within the edtech community.

We stop thinking of it as a community.

Don't get me wrong, communities are important, but they can be easily ignored by people outside the community.  This is usually because the focus of a community is the participants or their environment, not anything outside of its collectively defined boundaries.  As Shirky states in the book (and in the Ted Talk below), communities are self-supporting entities where all members involved work to contribute back to the community.  Sometimes, this is clearly effective and appropriate.  However, I don't think anyone in Edtech is looking to only affect change within the Edtech community.  What we are doing is not a hobby.  From what I heard from everyone at ISTE our goals are much more ambitious than just being a support group.

So I purpose we shift our thinking a little bit.

Instead of focusing on the communal value (illustrated by LOLcats at time 10:45 in the TED video below) of our PLNs, we admit that we have civic responsibility (represented by ushahidi at 11:25) within society as a whole.  We don't just want to transform our own lives, we seek to revolutionize the entire social system, making it better for everyone involved.

It's harder to ignore a movement that has that sort of scope, and it behooves us to begin recognizing that our own little edtech community is pretty small in the grander scheme of things.  Each of us at ISTE represented a small percentage of the entire faculty of our schools or districts (me and my colleague were a whopping 3%).  Many conference attendees look at the majority of non-techies with disdain for their reluctance to "integrate".  This isn't very civically responsible of us, and I believe it to be an impediment to what we're trying to do in schools.

That's ok when we have a community focus, but I believe we hunger for a broader purview.  In Shirky's words, we don't have communal responsibility anymore, we have civic responsibility.  And when we think of ourselves as a society that includes all involved in learning, not just as a community of members who use tech, we can capitalize on the strength of our colleagues, not focus on what we perceive to be weaknesses.

When we start moving beyond just seeing tech as the use of something with an on/off switch, and start seeing it as a focus on innovative techniques to improve, deepen, or make learning more socially impactive, we're thinking of ourselves as a society.

And when we start giving back to society as a whole, society as a whole will find that what we've done is pretty darn hard to ignore.

Check out the video:

Fight the dollar and centaur with linux!

Here is a quick graphic response to Mario's weapons of choice from Sunday's opening at ISTE.  I used free and open source graphic editing application The Gimp to create this image.  I was concerned that the "weapons" used to fight the obstacles edtech faces were all proprietary tools or closed knowledge.

We tell our students to collaborate with others, yet we miss the opportunity to model such collaboration by using tools that were created by groups of people whose main interest is equity, collaboration, and openness.  Instead, we have them use products of companies who try to squash such collaboration.  I think we can do better by using tools that are freely available and community built.

Please distribute widely.  And please feel free to edit, remix, mashup, print, share, etc.!

I couldn't find any good creative commons images to fit the bill of the dollar and centaur.  Anyone with drawing skills like to create one and collaborate on a better finished product?  Let me know @mrsenorhill on twitter.

ISTE Post #5: Connectivity and Gratitude

While I've been fairly overwhelmed by iste this year, yesterday justified my coming here.

I met with a folks in the bloggers cafe yesterday, some I knew online, some I met for the first time.

There was the math teacher who wants to save the world, the community organizer who wants to connect student learning nationally, the latin teacher from Baltimore who wants to push broadband equity, and the 4th/5th grade science teacher from Las Vegas who might be one of the most inspiring teachers I've ever met.

Twitter catalyzed all these conversations, which although they took place in person, will continue online.  The power of networking has always been a concept to me.  But after a few hours of connecting at iste, it is very real.

I look forward to speaking to more in the future, thanks for bringing me into the fold.

ISTE Post #4

Went to a panel discussion about district filtering policies, general consensus is that it is our responsibility as schools to teach students appropriate use of the social (and anti-social web).

Good thoughts about how we shouldn't being using tech to teach students responsibility they should be learning in the real world.

I'm curious to see the correlation between students using the web constructively and teachers who create environments that are super engaging and immersive.

In my own experience, the students I had the least constructive relationships with and the ones who felt the least immersed in the project were the ones who were most likely to go off task and use the Internet in deconstructive ways.

This has become a barometer to me, showing how effective of a learning environment I am creating for my kids. I can then start group and individual conversations that teach me how to improve either my scaffolding of necessary skills or the overall design of the project.

Disengaging learning experiences free up students to do other things. They've always done this in the past, but know their behavior is more public.

Any other similar experiences?

ISTE Post #3: Sponge

Good dinner, local beer, time with family, and a tour through some of the neighborhoods surrounding Denver made for a pleasant first evening at ISTE.  I'm a historian by training, so the old and dilapidated spaces fascinate me.  I want to walk around in the daylight tomorrow with a camera, but I'm not sure I'll have enough time.

I'd like to expand on a thought I tweeted during tonight's keynote, in response to the more constructive segments of the backchannel.  I'm always the sort of person to squeeze everything out of a situation, whether or not that situation was positive or negative.  I hope to do the same with tonight's talk.

What would it look like if we asked every one of our students to give us the 5 most pressing issues they see in their neighborhood, then connected them with students in other countries to compare and contrast these issues?  I'd bet we'd find a lot of the same themes that pop up when I ask my kids: violence/safety, health, leisure, education/future outlook, and aesthetic of neighborhood.

I don't think it would be too much of a stretch for us to create curriculums (or "peri-curriculum" activities according to keynote presenter Jean-Francois Rischard) that address these problems in a multi-disciplinary way.  Students could create an "action plan", i.e. the curriculum, that would include historical, scientific, political, economic, artistic, architectural, and mathematical elements.  These subjects would all be intertwined and directed towards a measurable outcome, i.e. a decline in violence, the renovation of a local building, a garden, etc.  Not only would this be engaging to students, it would be student-led.  The under 13 population in my neighborhood would be leading the way.

I'm reading Clay Shirky's cognitive surplus right now, so the whole idea of the global aggregate is on my mind.  While each group of students would be acting locally, the aggregate of these changes could come to address these issues globally.  Since a lot of these issues would be similar, the sum total of these projects could be remarkable.  I look forward to researching some of the organizations Rischard mentioned in his talk, and I'm going to reach out to some of the flat-classroom folks in coming weeks. I'll also start reaching out to my students through google voice and facebook to determine what project we can undertake next year.

Is there anyone else interested in pursuing this idea, at least intellectually, tomorrow?

Image courtesy of Johnny Vulkan via flickr:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyvulkan/632384118/

ISTE Post #2

I finally made it to ISTE this afternoon, after a day of travel disappointments.  Of course, because all of Colorado is swarming with conference goers, I had some wonderful conversations.

I'm now sitting here in the Blogger's cafe, not sure what to do.  The cultural expectations of this space escape me.  Perhaps staring into a computer screen makes me a bit reclusive.

Two thoughts so far:

1. Last year, Shelly @teachpaperless described "two conferences" happening simultaneously in D.C.  After sitting through twenty minutes of the opening ceremony, it appears he was on to something.
2. I might be reading into something that isn't there, but the "weapons" used to fight the "monsters" standing in the way of edtech evolution were mighty proprietary.  A top sentiment is that teachers make new ways of learning happen, not tools.  Fighting closed networks and minimal district funds for new resources with an amazon kindle and an ipod touch seem a bit disingenuous to me.   Am I being obtuse?

ISTE Post #1: Equity

A recurring theme in my random conversations on the way to Denver today was equity. How can we ensure that all students get a fair share of pie?

So much about ISTE is the future of education. Does the future of education not include provisions for EVERY student to access the learning opportunities available to students in wealthy districts? How can we possibly create an educational system that is fair to all (not the same as equal), if some of our students are using skype and google wave everyday, while others struggle to get a desk for every student?

Big question: Do many of the higher level conversations going on around ISTE even apply to us? I've often thought that while techies at independent, private, or suburban schools are clamoring for the future of learning, we're still catching our school environments up to what was cutting edge a decade ago. As my fellow Southwest passanger @edtech_maven stated, we should be able to be visionary too, and we must if we are going to remain relevant. With all the things successful schools districts have in place that we aren't even close to accomplishing, I sometimes feel like I need an IEP at meetings like this. 90 minutes of school culture remediation, 90 minutes of broadband, 120 minutes of social/developmental support, etc.

The common ground we found today was that being a teacher or tech director in a poor district is not an excuse for not providing the tools, the training, the content, or the pedagogy to our kids. We discussed free and open source software in depth, as well as the role of the school to use the technologies that the family networks that support our kids already have to empower parents. The fact that I now have 35 linux computers, 4 mp3 players, and two video cameras in my room, all essentially recycled from other people's gadget collection and now used in the classroom everyday speaks to what schools like mine should be attempting.

At the end of the day, since we all believe that tech allows students to do things we wouldn't have dreamed possible even a decade ago, equitable distribution of hardware, software, and most importantly expertise and creativity is necessary to our promise of free and appropriate public education to all.

I would love to continue to talk to folks at ISTE about this subject. While it's essential we as the edtech community look vertically towards the next innovation in learning, let's make sure to look horizontally at who's benefiting from these innovations as well.

It's off to bed now so I can try to find a ride to Denver tomorrow morning. Who would have thought it would be illegal to sell or rent a car on Sundays in the state of Colorado?

If you know anyone in Lakewood, let me know.

Image courtesy of Ollie Crafoord via flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lollaping/2851496513/