A month ago I had the privilege of presenting the “Telling the New Story:Live” with Darren, Clarence and Kathy at the IT Summit.
We’ve been meeting for 3 years talking about teaching and learning and how their classrooms are evolving. There story continues to inspire and encourage others in their making learning better for students.
Here’s 4 minutes of random video of some of my day at Edubloggercon. Nothing fancy here but a few moments of learning. You might get a sense of some of the passion and energy in this short clips. That’s more or less why I came. I came to hear stories, share a few and spend time together.
I’ve used the video annotations within youtube. You’ll have to view it on youtube to see them. I thought others could annotate but it may not be possible.
This podcast goes way back to 2006 when I first interviewed Darren, Clarence and Kathy. Since that time, I interviewed them last year as well have had the three of them talk to a couple of my classes and various other PD events.
Here are the links to the other podcasts in case you missed it:
I’m always thrilled to chat with these people as I think they represent so much of what good teaching and learning looks like. I’m excited to say that next week the three of them will unite for the first time in Winnipeg. Those will also be some great conversations
This is also my first crack at an enhanced podcast. If you view this in itunes, you’ll have the ability to skip ahead or easily access chapters.
The older concept that struck me in a new way is the fact that while many understand the significant shift in society that is just beginning, many see it as a fad, including educators. Shirky, interviewed by a TV producer about a possible guest appearance defends the producers claim that all this social media was a fad.
I was arguing that this isn’t the sort of thing society grows out of. It’s the sort of thing that society grows into. But I’m not sure she believed me, in part because she didn’t want to believe me, but also in part because I didn’t have the right story yet. And now I do.
I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.
Here’s something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here’s something four-year-olds know: Media that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. Because four year olds, the people who are soaking most deeply in the current environment, who won’t have to go through the trauma that I have to go through of trying to unlearn a childhood spent watching Gilligan’s Island, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing.
The shift is obviously more clearly demonstrated by our young people. Older generations continue to be more irritated by teens texting and gaming than they are interested in understanding that participation in social media is not a fad and it’s not all bad.
My brain is reeling with many concepts that include distribution of participation, one that suggests equality is not something that is required for social media to work. Many of these ideas fly in the face of today’s educational structures. We know that. What I like about Shirky’s approach as with any good writer is that stories are the key to the message. He builds the theory and depth out of the stories. We need to continue telling the new story. I’ve got my eyes and hears poised.
Image: Clay Shirky by Joi
http://flickr.com/photos/joi/1399862175/in/photostream/
As I show people the printed version, most seemed quite impressed; mostly with the quality of the print, the quantity of my work and the concept of being able to publish to a traditional, familiar format. It’s fairly novel (but it’s no novel) and could perhaps help those who aren’t engaged in digital learning to see the depth of work that is done via blogging. These people expressed that sentiment well.
I’m also wondering if producing your blog into a book might be good for those who don’t get the amount of learning, communicating, etc. that we get from working in these ways. For example, it would be great for administraotr’s, etc. that I work with to see this volume of print as a way of justifying the time that I spend learning on my blog. Online it is hard to see the volume that is produced, in a book, the learning is more “weighty” and easier to show. Clarence Fisher
Wow Dean, just recently a friend (Diane Cordell) was lamenting that her district would not accept her blog as time spent in professional development. I wonder if they would have denied it had she produced a book like this. WOW! Cathy Nelson
But as I peruse it’s contents, it’s strikingly obvious how it lacks power. Without the comments, hyperlinks, and multimedia, it’s just my thoughts and work. It clearly doesn’t capture my true learning. Blogging isn’t just about me. It’s about my learning, my network and resources. It’s about me being able to express ideas in a variety of ways, engage in conversations, and take me to all sorts of new places and spaces. Even without those aspects, how many people would read this if I published it a book? How about zero. Instead, I’ve had over 100,000 eyeballs look at my stuff. I realize eyeballs aren’t everything but still, how many people have published their dissertation and had that type of response? This print version cost me about $50 and misses so much. I could blog for free and include all that multimedia as well.
So here’s where it hits me even more clearly. If you are a teacher and have the ability to choose how your students will demonstrate their learning, why would you choose analog text over blogging? How can it compete? Is there even one reason that analog text is better than digital? I can’t think of one advantage other than access and while in some cases that may be important, for most schools and situations, it’s not. When you watch Michael Wesch’s first video, it’s clear how digital text changes everything. You haven’t seen it yet? That’s easy, I’ll just embed here: (By the way, if you’re reading the text version of this blog, you won’t be able to see this or click on the links or read the comments)
I had two interesting and challenging experiences the last couple of days. Experiences that cause me to consider my approach to supporting teachers and students.
I met with a small group of high school teachers who wanted to learn more about Web 2.0 and what they might be able to use in their classrooms. I was fully prepared to spend the day showing demos, and working through the technical issues of setting up a blog, wiki or whatever they wanted.What happened instead is we spent the first part of the morning grappling with the big questions of why. Why would we post students online? Why does it feel like asking us to change means that our current practice is all wrong? If this is so important, why aren’t we given time to explore and make change? To be clear, this group of teachers was not simply complaining or naysaying. They just wanted to be convinced and sure that investing time to use these tools would pay dividends. I’ve been telling teachers lately that if they have any hesitation, they shouldn’t bother to blog or use any tool because all it will do is add to the many “binders of guilt” that sit on the shelf labeled, “things I should really do”.I’m not sure that all these questions were answered but I know we moved forward on some. At lunch time, I fired up twitter and posed the question regarding posting online. Thanks to my network I received several key responses that I shared with the group after lunch.
Again, not that those responses solved the conundrum but it clearly demonstrated that an online presence or network is a powerful thing. So we continued on and continued to deal with some tough questions but after providing some time for teachers to muddle on their own, they left the day feeling like they had some direction or purpose in using the tools. We’re moving forward in a positive way.I thank them for challenging me.
Thursday, I met with all our school administrators and shared our vision and focused on the idea of shifted learning. I showed Did you Know, used some of Ewan’svideos and ideas that focus on a shift in learning and challenged them to consider how learning is changing. In general they are a great bunch of leaders who truly want to make shifts that are good for kids but like many of us, are looking for a recipe, which although we know doesn’t exist, still want one. I challenged them to consider how they might support teachers and after some good discussion, felt like we have set the ground work for the work that lies ahead. The following are the slides I used with my notes embedded underneath…feel free to use this in whatever way you wish.
One school administrator approached me after and asked, “What is it we’re really trying to do?”He talked about an angst he feels about what he sees most kids doing with technology. Useless text messaging with the person right beside them, nothing seems to be interesting to them, jaded attitudes towards violence, and so on; all valid points. He was careful to say he didn’t want to appear to be out of touch but was truly concerned with kids who use technology in meaningless ways. I tried to share my feelings about our duty to .I’m glad he approached and challenged me and the kind of dialogue I had in these two instances does help us move forward. I’ve taught too many workshops where everyone comes happy and excited to be there and leaves happy and excited but never carry on with the ideas and never implement anything. They like new stuff but don’t deeply consider what the true impact of change might be.
I was further encouraged by spending time with two of our superintendents. Both men have been in education for over 30 years and recalled some of the reasons they got into education in the first place. As children of the 1960’s they were excited about the ideas of Summerhill and believed deeply in personalized learning. Somehow the system they entered took things into a more traditional model and my presentation triggered memories of the hope of what a quality, meaningful education can look like.
These conversations are what will matter. Allowing people to tell their stories, share their resistance and consider the change that’s necessary. I’m pretty good at telling my story and perspectives but at times forget that others need to tell theirs as well. Chris Lehman has written lately about not forgetting the value of our teachers. Another great conversation ensues. Again, this is not anything profound but once again, reminded me of the importance of those conversations. Conversations about change that lead to implementation.
A year ago I spent four podcasts talking with Kathy, Clarence and Darren about their classrooms and the new story of teaching and learning. The model these three present continues to inspire teachers locally and internationally. So how have things changed in a year? The following 65 minutes answers those questions and has them look ahead to what their classrooms might look like in the future.
The idea of global citizenship is often a nebulous concept which gets bantered around the blogosphere but often lacks clarity or examples that truly define what it means. One of the best examples was this one from earlier this year.
Today while reading through my aggregator, I came across this story from Christian Long. (Christian is always a wealth of good stuff) So I quickly sent out an email to about 5 primary teachers in our division as an idea for their class. About 5 minutes later, Kathy emails me back:
Great idea, so great that we have already sent our cards.
No wonder Kathy has gained “rock star” status as a leader in developing global citizens. (she knows what I’m referring to). The opportunity for our students to connect and make a difference is unprecedented. Teachers who embrace this notion hardly discuss the issues of safety, danger of living in a global, digital world. It’s not that they don’t teach it, it just isn’t the focus anymore because the potential to make a difference is just too great.
On Monday evening, I’m going to be having a Skye call with my three of my favourite teachers and I think best examples of teacher’s developing global citizens: Kathy Cassidy, Clarence Fisher and Darren Kuropatwa. All three believe this to be a critical component of their classrooms and have many examples to share. I’ll be recording the conversation for a podcast.
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Today while reading through my aggregator, I came across 
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