Global education, diversity and multi-cultural appreciation are ideas that I believe are essential for our student's success. I also believe as educators we need to model this for them.  So when I used this tool to see where the folks that I follow reside, it was a little embarrassing.

A little North American centric ya think? While this tool only allows a sampling of 100 of your followers, (I currently follow about 700) it's likely a pretty reasonable indicator of who's got my attention.  Ewan's concerned about this as well. He blames time zones and short attention spans and he's got a point. Christian Long argues:

And perhaps — no matter how much Friedman and well-intentioned educators may want — the world defaults to hyper-local (scaled accordingly) rather than global when it comes to conversation over time.

While that offers some explanation I can't quite take myself off the hook. Add to the fact that a number of those outside North American are ex-pats I have to hang my head in shame. Clarence Fisher is doing wonderful things to help his students experience a global education all the way from northern Manitoba. He requires his student to have a diverse global network of students to learn with. 

So to appease my guilt and practice what I preach, I need to do some different things. By the end of the year, I'm going to find 50 new followers from outside North America. I may even look for random people as it could improve my creativity. I'm going to find 10 new bloggers from overseas and 5 new flickr contacts.  Okay, maybe there's more to do but that's a start. What about you? Happy with who you're learning with? Feel a need to expand? Have any tips or suggestions? Speak now and leave some great recommendations for new global blogs to follow.

Update: I should add the Jennifer Wagner wrote a very similar post last month which I did read and perhaps by osmosis, I've pretty much covered the same ground. I'd like to say "great minds…" but I'm not in that category. Go read Jen's post too.

Data can be extremely useful and yet our obsession with it is leading to some really weird and potentially damaging decisions in all areas of life.

Parents are just bad at risk assessment,” said Christie Barnes, a mother of four and the author of “The Paranoid Parents Guide.” “We are constantly overestimating rare dangers while underestimating common ones.” Nytimes.com

The one that continues to haunt me is the very scary Internet predator. I've written about it often enough but what I want to address here is the way in which data has be used carelessly and unethically to promote fear and sell products.

“One in five children is now approached by online predators." This statistic has been quoted numerous times by media and other agencies to paint a very inaccurate picture of life online. From the Skeptical Inquirer

This alarming statistic is commonly cited in news stories about prevalence of Internet predators, but the factoid is simply wrong. The “one in five statistic” can be traced back to a 2001 Department of Justice study issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“The Youth Internet Safety Survey”) that asked 1,501 American teens between 10 and 17 about their online experiences. Anyone bothering to actually read the report will find a very different picture. Among the study’s conclusions: “Almost one in five (19 percent) . . . received an unwanted sexual solicitation in the past year.” (A “sexual solicitation” is defined as a “request to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk or give personal sexual information that were unwanted or, whether wanted or not, made by an adult.” Using this definition, one teen asking another teen if her or she is a virgin—or got lucky with a recent date—could be considered “sexual solicitation.”) Not a single one of the reported solicitations led to any actual sexual contact or assault. Furthermore, almost half of the “sexual solicitations” came not from “predators” or adults but from other teens—in many cases the equivalent of teen flirting. When the study examined the type of Internet “solicitation” parents are most concerned about (e.g., someone who asked to meet the teen somewhere, called the teen on the telephone, or sent gifts), the number drops from “one in five” to just 3 percent.

So that figure gets blatantly tossed around and pretty soon it becomes part of the culture. The "one in five" stat is used more than you can imagine. Using volatile terms like "sexual solicitation" and then jumping to "predator" is a sneaky and unethical. It reminds me of lawyers who might use a phrase or question that is inadmissible but once it's out there, it's in the mind of the jurors. I've been noticing some questioning of that belief but it doesn't help when governments back organizations who perpetuate a myth. While preparing for a recent symposium on digital citizenship I came across this site sponsored by the government of Canada and several high profile communication companies. They've nicely packaged this for teachers and while there likely is some decent content on there I get more than a little irritated when I see this about the risks of social networking:

Sexual offenders target social networking sites where kids are encouraged to create online diaries and connect with new people.

Really? (doing my best Seth Meyers imitation) What happens when a well meaning teacher or parent looks for help and curriculum to help students in their digital endeavours? They quickly develop paranoia and fear in themselves and potentially their students and children. 

I'm not nearly as diligent about research and data mining as I could be, but it's obvious that we continue to need filters and the ability and desire to ask the right questions to undercover the truth. Even when we do this, there will still be debate and interpretation of that data but in this case, there's not much to debate. Believing that online interactions put you in danger of sexual offenders is shameful abuse of data. We need to stop relying on others to interpret data and respond and eliminate unfounded fears that many are using to suppress learning.

I recently watched Clay Shirky's newest TED talk based on his book, Cognitive Surplus. The concept of cognitive surplus simply means that in the last century the amount of free we've had has increased and that in the last decade, we've been able to use that surplus not only to consume media but to create it.

Shirky talks about a project called Ushahidi which is a mashup of user generated map which allows people to submit data and information on various events.

Ushahidi, which means "testimony" in Swahili, is a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi's roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phone. This initial deployment of Ushahidi had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for us realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be use by others around the world.

Shirky then discusses LOLcats which are as about as far from Ushadidi as you can imagine. They may be funny but they represent the silliness and triviality that exists all over the web. As Shirky suggests, many people wonder if we can bypass the silly and get to the serious. The answer is no. Anytime we want people to create and be social, we will always get both.  

First off, the word silly here is often used interchangeably with stupid. I'll define either as: less than serious, trivial or perhaps even immature. 

Let's have a look at a few examples where Shirky's premise seems to be bang on.

It's hard to think about twitter and not think of it in some ways as stupid or silly. I've done an entire presentation around this concept. If you're an educator and been using twitter for a while, this isn't a big revelation to you but to many this point needs to continue to be made. 

Twitter is full of stupid and silly but it has also saved lives. Twitter is about presence. It's about right now. I've personally seen humanity from the mundane to the fascinating, from literally laugh out loud to near tears. It's about being human and being social.

Forums have been around for as long as we've had the web. Forums run the gambit from sports, knitting, politics, and even lolcats. Generally forums are spaces to ask questions, get answers and have conversations, post documents and the like. Everyone once in a while compassion, caring and kindness become the order of the day. On Reddit, a young man's mother dies and asks if someone might be able to fix a photo of himself and his mother. The response was overwhelming as strangers lent a hand to fix the image. 

For many, youtube is a place to post silly videos. With the billions of videos posted, there's more than a few that would be in that category. But videos like Eric Whitacre's virtual choir represent beauty, creativity and collaboration using technology that until only a few years ago was not available to the masses. The opportunity to create and share opens the door to beauty and wonder.

Blogs have often been seen as nothing more than a cheap and easy way for anyone to publish. That's very true. You can find blogs written by cats, blogs where intimate details of life is shared, that definitely should not! But at the same time, you find blogs written by people with cancer, who tell their story and allow others to experience the pain and share the sorrow that comes with dying. 

Life is serious. Life is also a wee bit silly. It's hard to have one without the other. Social media is simply mirroring life. Media itself has always done this. For us to try and wish the silly away is futile and in many ways ignores what it means to be human. This media creation is so new, so powerful and is being explored in all kinds of interesting ways. So before you dismiss the things you see online as silly or stupid, consider that these creations are part of our evolution of thought and process that can, and has led to some amazing, amazing things.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bahkubean/549310317/

One of the current buzz words in the world of educational technology is “personalized learning” I’ve used it often and while it’s been used prior to the influx of technology in schools, the internet is making it more of a reality and possibility than ever before. If indeed we believe in the value of a personalized learning experience then I think we also need to consider what personalized assessment and evaluation might look like as well.

Trying to define or actualize the concept of personalized learning in schools is still a little fuzzy. Here are a few examples that I think exemplify personalized learning

Will Richardson shares the story of a high school Spanish teacher who decided his students would learn Spanish in the context of their passions or interests. For one student that meant finding a Spanish fashion designer and blogger to connect with and simply begin by reading her blog and leaving comments. Not only was this highly motivating for the student but as a bonus, the designer ended up  asking the student to help her learn English.

Chris Harbeck,  a middle school Math teacher uses something he calls “unprojects” where students demonstrate understanding in Mathematics. Chris talks about students in charge of their learning.

I’ve tried to do similar things working with pre-service teachers at the college level. Students are asked to design their own project that tie into the big themes of the course. Once they get over they get over the initial shock that I won’t be telling them what to do precisely, we begin to negotiate their projects with the intent of making it useful and meaningful. It’s not surprising that for these students, who have been part of a system that rarely acknowledged their interests, they have a difficult time accepting this freedom and choice.

One area that seems a bit behind this trend is in the area of assessment and evaluation. Too often we run into huge snags as we try and implement any type of newer pedagogy and then use traditional evaluation strategies. Quite often they are incompatible. In keeping with the spirit of personalized learning should we not consider personalized assessment? Just like personal learning, this is not easy or straightforward. Simple solutions are not apparent. However a couple of things are worth considering.

Given you may have certain outcomes and expectations, those need to be part of the learning. To attain that, students and teachers need to negotiate the content, the process and the product of the learning. The key is built in feedback loops. Whether it comes from you, their peers or outsiders, the learning needs to be done in such a way that there is lots of opportunity to revise, edit and refine. Putting this work online seems like a no-brainer in facilitating that.

A second, more interesting idea is to allow students to determine some of the weighting in regards to grades. The course I’m teaching at the moment has 3 assessments. One student was brave enough to ask me if she could have some say in these assessments. I’ve done this in the past but for some reason did not include that this term. We decided together that instead of the arbitrary grading allotments to each assessment, they would be able to, within a given range, place more emphasis on one assessment that they felt reflected their energy and time. I’m so glad the student suggested that.  Another classmate responded to the idea this way,

I have grown up in a system, that NEVER worked that way [allowing for choice], … I am so brainwashed into thinking that this is the way it is, and it can’t be changed. Just like I feel as though having a voice in assessment makes me feel empowered, which in turn will have a big influence on the way I do assessment as a future teacher.

Giving students choice in both their learning and assessment seems to be the right thing to do. I can hear some folks already saying, “yeah but what about the tests?” I don’t know the answer totally but I do know we can’t ask students to move to personal learning and then have us as their teachers own the assessment.

Do you have some ideas or examples around personalizing assessment? I would love to hear them.

CBC Spark, devoted a good part of a recent episode to this very idea. You’d do well to listen and subscribe to this thought provoking podcast.

The story of Daemon Fairless building a bike demonstrates the idea that the culture of sharing is becoming really important to many of us. Although Daemon’s interaction at first was distant, he was simply culling information and resources, he wanted to do more, to reach and say thank you. When he wasn’t able to do so, (listen to the segment to find out why) it bothered him. He made a connection and naturally wanted to deepen it. We’re born to share.

The story of Eva Markvoort is a wonderfully sad story about sharing, dying and connection. As she chronicles her life and death with Cystic Fibrosis, you can’t help but be connected to her. Never before have we been able to witness first hand the experiences of strangers and yet develop these oddly deep connections. Outside of the  scripted world of broadcast media, we now share intimate moments with the world in its raw, unfiltered form. Yes, many of us have experienced this first hand with friends and relatives and while certainly this is not a pleasant thing to deal with, it is part of being human and being able to sympathize, empathize, hurt and mourn is part of who we are. I believe those people who followed Eva’s journey are better prepared to deal with it when the time comes.

Finally an amazing story of collaboration and creativity. Eric Whitacre, a composer and conductor creates a virtual choir. The stories people share about how much they love to sing, how they, in some cases are able to join a real choir but are so grateful to be able to share their passion represents in perhaps the purest way what the web is for.

From a personal standpoint, I could list story after story about the power of these connections that go way beyond, “thanks for the great link on twitter” or “I really enjoyed your blog”. If you’re not careful, this stuff gets real personal real fast and that scares many people.

I suppose there are many that look at these emotional stories and say, “I’ve got enough connections without finding any online”. That may or may not be true but I certainly wouldn’t want them to dismiss the power of these connections. Perhaps one or more of these stories can be used to help others understand and see how deep they run.

The technology is now a prothesis of ourselves. Be it a webcam, a microphone or even the written word, technology is becoming a seamless conduit to connecting with others.

Cross posted on the Tech Learning Blog

The whole idea of community and creating community in our classrooms has been a very important theme in both my current class as well as the work I do in Prairie South.  In reading Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky references the book Bowling Alone a few times so I figured I should buy it. Essentially the book deals with the decline of community in America and examines things like civic involvement, religious affiliation, and formal and informal groups. In essence, since the mid sixties, the social capital of Americans (I see Canada as having similar experiences) has declined quite dramatically. For many reasons, we are choosing to spend less time in community and more time as individuals, thus the title Bowling Alone.

I read the first part of the book as I flew to Portland for ITSC. I had the opportunity to spend time with Tim Lauer and his family. They live in a very nice neighborhood and Portland in general has some wonderful neighborhoods. As I spoke about our current endeavor to build a new house I discussed our challenge to avoid building a “garagehouse”. In many of our neighbourhoods lots are only 50 feet and thus people wanting a two car garage end up building homes that look like this.

In contrast, Portland would not allow this type of home because it’s not “neighbour friendly”. I believe there is also a bylaw in place to prevent that from happening. Instead this is the type of community they envision:

Front Porch Party by fensterbme

Cross posted on the TechLearning Blog

Since its inception in 2006, it's been interesting to see the presentations evolve. The decision last year to go to a more "TED-like" format was a good one in my opinion as it  addresses the amount of content in the conference but also gets presenters to get to the point. Twenty minutes is long enough in any context but on the web it's particularly daunting to keep folks interested.

There have been a number of delivery models and to be sure, and a clear winning style has not been established. However, there are a few concepts that seem to work, at least for me.

While it's hard to separate content from design, here are a few presentations that use some techniques that I think make them very viewable. I've taken one from each year, with the exception of 2006.

2009 Around the World with Skype by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. Silvia does a number of things which makes for a compelling presentation. She's clear on the onset about what she will be talking about. It's frustrating to watch 5 minutes of a 20 minute presentation trying to guess what it's about and what will be shared. Silvia let's you know early on exactly what she'll be discussing. She uses her own images. You can spend a lot of time searching flickr for the perfect image. Her use of her personal avatar figure likely took a long time to shoot all the images but in the end helps her create a great introduction. She uses video to show examples.  Live examples not only illustrates her concept more richly but anytime you can include students in action adds an emotional connection to the ideas.

2008 Film School for Video Podcasters by Matthew Needleman. Matthew obviously possess some storytelling skills and given his topic, you'd expect that. Matthew uses a story, a 1940's detective theme to weave in his ideas. A clever twist but one that's not used superfluously but as a meaningful way to share his ideas. He does a great job of chunking ideas. There are clear breaks and transitions. Easy to review.

2007 Online Professional Development by Jeff Utecht. While this was before the 20 minute time limit, Jeff still has a well designed presentation. It may not be possible in every presentation but Jeff models what he means by have some very informal, natural conversations that truly illustrate his point. Like Silvia, he shows you exactly what it looks like.

2006 Wiki While You Work by Mark Wagner. This was again before the current time limits but Mark really explored the ideas of what an online presentation could be. He made it personal. Simply by recording his presentation from his home office, talking with his friends and wife, it invited you in, to want to learn more. I applaud Mark for being being a pioneer in the online presentation.

2006 Derailing Education: Taking Side Trips for Learning by David Warlick. Having the first Keynote for year one, must have been both pressure packed as well as the feeling of a new frontier. Like Mark, but even more so, David invited us in to his home and town to explore. David carefully used his physical space to make clear connections to his ideas. While it was largely theoretical, the use of that space and helped to forge his ideas into something that I still reflect on today.

I'd invite you to watch these if only to examine them from a presentation perspective. These may not have been your favorites or even the best but I think they do offer some techniques and delivery models that work. Creating a presentation that's worth watching is hard work and nothing any of us were trained in given the fact that the genre has only existed for a few years. 

Now it's your turn. Do you have a favorite K12 Online or other presentation that you think has a unique delivery model?

Cross posted at TechLearning.

This facebook/twitter posting by Chris Lehmann got my attention.

It's hard to argue with that statement and it raises some interesting questions and implications. It reminded me this cartoon by Hugh MacLeod (warning, Hugh as an affection for the f-bomb)

It's powerful statement warning about our ability to connect and yet wallow in shallowness and fluff. While I concur with Chris's concern I also think it's important to explore the nature and purpose of audience.

Placing a clustr map on your blog or receiving a comment from someone on the other side of the world is pretty amazing. Often in very contrived ways, teachers find these connections for their students and generally get the "ooohs" and "awwwws" for while. As Chris suggests this novelty fades. But I would argue the word "audience" has a number of connotations and uses. Understanding and leveraging them thoughtfully is the key.

Audience as Eyeballs

This is about pure numbers. Views on a youtube video, reads on a blog, traffic on a website. These tell students that others are watching.  That's important. Just as it's important when fans show up at a basketball game. It says what you do matters. What it doesn't say necessarily, is that what you are doing is any good.  You can put a video on youtube of yourself clipping your toenails and get 5,000 views. It says very little about quality and lasting value. In the end, the views are nice but won't lead to much more than a little recognition.

Audience as Teachers

This is when the audience suddenly participates rather than just views. Comments on a blog, emails, video responses are prime interactions. You have the opportunity to grow and get better. Fostering this type of relationship with your audience might be contrived as two classrooms decide to spend a little time on each other's space but even if it is, we know the power of peer review and assessment for learning. When students have to thoughtfully provide feedback and critique, both parties benefit. Even random, one off comments are useful and offer students new perspectives not otherwise available from their teachers and or classmates. Students will indeed have powerful things to say and share as they craft their messages and products under the tutelage of many teachers.

Audience as Co-Learners

When students now see themselves as teachers to others we have truly harnessed the power of the audience. This isn't about novelty anymore but authentic exchange between interested learners. It doesn't matter if it's only one person but the idea that your work or ideas not only matter but are important in the development of others learning.  A little anonymity and distance seems to be a good thing in some cases. It's less about personalities and more about learning.

The question that we need to ask is can this occur in our classrooms without seeking an audience from the outside? I suggest it's possible but not as likely. Great teachers may be able to make this happen under certain conditions but the reason we love the internet is it's ability to personalize, customize and connect our learning to world. To suggest that room itself has all it needs to learn and grow is simply false. Limiting learning to the walls of classroom ignores a possibility that's too great to pass up. Good work needs to be shared.

Our students deserve not only an audience who would watch what they do but one that would actively participate in their learning.

One final point. Given that I would estimate fewer than 25% of our students even have a chance to find an audience via their schools, I hesitate to be too critical of teachers who only offer an audience of eyeballs. I would hate for that to be the ultimate goal, however, as Chris states, this novelty will wear off. Audience for the sake of audience is fleeting. Audience for the sake of learning is lasting.

Our district uses its front page to post success stories from our 40 schools. These range from academic achievements to athletic accomplishments of school teams. Schools post the stories to their own Website and submit them to me to post to the district page where generally there is more traffic. This one was sent to me earlier in the week.

Tanner Spencer from Craik, SK, attended team Canada's World Junior top 35 camp in Orlando, Florida from October 5th to October 15th.  Tanner is the youngest Saskatchewan player ever chosen to go.  The majority of the team was from BC, Ontario, and Quebec.  One player was chosen from the Maritimes, one from Manitoba, one from Saskatchewan and two from Alberta.  Tanner started pitching the first game in Orlando, started the fourth game and closed the last game.  He gave up no earned runs on six innings pitched.  Congratulations Tanner.

As soon as I read it I realize they had violated our district policy which states we will never publish a photo of a student with a full name. I also realized in that moment how absurd that policy is.

As we explore the idea of a digital footprint and identity we must consider that at some point we want to our students to own their work and accomplishments and showcase them to a variety of audiences. If I'm Tanner or Tanner's parents I want as many people as possible to know of his accomplishments. I immediately sent out my concerns about our policy to our school technology representatives and one of the school leaders, Angus Mcintosh, responded this way:

It is in Tanner's very best interest, at this point,  that everybody knows is name. He will have offers for scholarships to Major U.S Colleges and Universities and already has a collection of business cards from Major League scouts. The more people that know about him, the more  choices and opportunities it will create for him. People "knowing" Tanners name started somewhere, and the word has spread that there is a very good young pitcher living in Craik and playing ball in Moose Jaw. He has many doors open for him to choose from.

But for every Tanner Spencer, there is the opposite. There are children with  unfortunate backgrounds that need protection in terms of privacy. We know that and will always respect that. But I also think (hope?) they are as rare as Tanner.

And here's the point that is critical.

And then there is the rest. There are kids with special talents that few people know about. What about them? I would bet our schools are full of kids like Tanner but their talent is in Art, or Drama, or Math, or Writing etc. Most kids probably don't even know where their talent is! But if they did, would they be able to open the doors like Tanner has? How does a superior math student get "recruited" to a University? Can a dance student get into the National Ballet if nobody knows what they have accomplished? At some point everyone needs to "sell themselves" in a job interview, or a business proposal, or even a meeting with the bank manager for your first mortgage.   If we can show kids that their accomplishments are to be proud of, and that the accomplishments are not anonymous, we can teach self confidence, and true self esteem.

While this confidence and self esteem can be and should be established offline even more so that online, we do a huge disservice to our students when in efforts to protect them we inadvertently rob them of the opportunity to be recognized.

I get pretty zealous over stuff like this and perhaps I've missed something here. If I have please share.

Claire Thompson left this comment on a recent post pointing to Jan Smith’s classroom blog and the disclaimer that sits on the left sidebar of her blog. This is a huge issue for many teachers considering posting work online. Not only are the worried about controlling content and concerned about how others will view the quality of the work.

Typically classroom bulletin boards are dedicated to finished, edited, polished work. Most classrooms do not want to draw attention to the mistakes or efforts of their students. They are comfortable with sharing the best products but would rather hide the process. While that may be a generalization, I would argue that it’s fairly accurate.

I’ve struggled myself when it comes to helping others recognize spaces dedicated to practice and at the same time finding places to set aside work that has been created, revised and reworked. Blogs in general often get a bad name from the public because by their very nature they aren’t intended to be definitive spaces, but rather conversation starters. But of what makes blogs what they are, is the ability to elicit comments. Ideally this should include critique and feedback to enable further learning. This is where most classroom and school relate blogs fail. They do not either have enough feedback from a variety of perspectives that includes both peer and outside responses or the feedback lacks depth and specifics. Creating a culture that encourages openeness and respectful, helpful critique is challenging and requires skillful teachers determined to build this meaningful community of learners.

By the looks of things Jan Smith is trying.

I’d love a response to any or all of these questions:

What have you done or seen that helps people understand how you’re using your online learning space?

What have you done to support your students in providing critique and meaningful feedback for each other?

How have you been able to bring in outside voices to give feedback for your students?

Reposted on the TechLearning blog

I’m always amazed at how excited people become when they find they don’t have to accept the default settings of a product. Default settings in many cases provide a starting point but they often become a hindrance as users become more sophisticated or desire to use take more control. I’m more amazed at how many people never even think they options.

Here are a few examples:

The default browser of every Windows computer is Internet Explorer. It works will for basic web surfing but as many know has some huge disadvantages when compared to a browser like FireFox which offers a far greater degree of customization. When people discover the power of extensions, they never go back to IE. Yet over half of all computer users stick with IE, mostly because either they don’t know another option exists, or they don’t see why they would switch. They are oblivious to any options or ideas that they can have more control over their experience.

Have you ever been in a meeting and someone opens up a laptop, logs on and everywhere in the room has to hear the Windows chime theme while the person scrambles to turn the volume down? How does that sound do anything to add to the experience of computing? They likely have no idea that you can disable that sound. They just live with it. Grant it, it’s a pretty minor issue but it’s also an easy fix.

Here’s a personal pet peeve. My wife on occasion gets to control the remote. When she does, she refuses to change the settings to “Subscribed Channels”. Instead she leaves it on the default setting of “All Channels” and scrolls through a bunch of channels we don’t get. I squirm impatiently in my chair and make a few comments but she refuses to change it. Maybe she just needs more practice. Unfortunately, that won’t happen. I realize in this case she’s doing it just to drive me nuts but I wonder how many others leave that setting as is and move through a number of channels they can’t watch anyway.

Last week I was working with a class of students who are all using SmartPhones and we talked about successes and frustrations in using their phones. It was evident that those most frustrated were the ones who failed to change many of the settings to meet their needs. Those who had understood how to customize the phone were much more satisfied users. They truly owned their phones. I told them to start thinking like hackers. I asked them to think of their devices in terms of what it should be able to do rather than only what it does. The hacking mentality strives to “own the devices” not let the device own them.

I hadn’t heard this story for a while but it made me think of the idea of default settings again,

A young woman was preparing a ham for a family dinner. She proceeded to cut the end off the ham prior to baking. Her husband asked why she did that, she said, “Mother always did and her ham was always very tasty”. The husband, thinking that seemed odd, went into the other room where his mother-in-law sat and asked her why she cut the end off the ham. She said her mother did and it was always very tasty. Trying to solve this mystery, the husband called the grandmother on the phone to find out once and for all why she cut the end off the ham. The grandmother answered, “My roaster was too small to fit the entire ham”.

The story has a number of variations but you get the idea. There’s a lot of things we do and have no idea why and never consider to ask if there’s a better way.

I’m sure you make a number of connections here to our schools and learning institutions. There are hundreds of default settings that we simply accept either because we don’t consider the alternatives or we think it’s too much to change. That may be a valid response in some cases but as I told the students with the SmartPhones, starting to think like a hacker opens up more opportunities for customization. When we continue to blindly accept the default settings without asking, “can we do better?” we fail to recognize our ability to customize.  While I know this mantra may not work and be applicable in every situation it seems to me we CAN do better.

I leave you with this quote.

Now go turn off the Windows startup chime or buy a Mac.

In the 2000 United States Open at Pebble Beach, Tiger Woods stood on the 18th tee in the second round and had just hit his tee shot into the Pacific Ocean. The TV cameras showed a disgusted Woods slam his club to the ground and reach out his hand to caddie Steve Williams to request another ball. Woods then proceeded to hit a perfect and went on to win the tournament and broke a scoring record in the process. What you didn’t know was because of a number of circumstances, that was the last ball in Woods’ bag. If he had hit that ball into the water, he would have been disqualified. Knowing the inside scoop adds intrigue and context to already exciting event.

With the opening of baseball season just around the corner I was thinking back to one of my favorite shows as a child, Inside Baseball. As much as I loved to watch the games themselves, I was fascinated by the stories and that took me inside the locker room and practice field to learn more about my heroes. Hearing Rod Carew talk about how he stole home four times in one year, having Bruce Sutter show how he threw a split fingered fastball all helped to make the game more interesting and meaningful. The more I knew about the players, the more I appreciated their on field accomplishments.

Today, DVD’s usually offer bonus sections on the “making of” the movie. We have many more opportunities to see process and get insights of artists and storytellers we previously only could imagine. While much of the magic and mystery may be gone, it certainly helps us better understand the finished product.

So what’s this got to do with learning and technology?

I”m currently teaching first year university students and require them to blog. There are many benefits for having them blog but I’ve found it to be one of the greatest ways I’ve been able to get into the thinking and process of my their learning. Asking them to describe their learning and thought process provides me with insight not only to appreciate their efforts but to inform my instruction and decide on what further supports I can provide to take them to the next level. This technology remains a powerful way for learners to reflect and share their thinking on a variety of endeavors. As much as teachers and schools say that process is as important as product, this often is more lip service than practice. Process takes time and talking about learning can be tiresome. The transparency of blogs make this a shared experience that no doubt can provide all students a greater opportunity to learn from each other. The advent of blogs in schools often is deployed as a way to bring technology into schools. That’s the wrong reason. I recently read this quote on Doug Johnson’s blog:

At a conference last week, Mark Weston from Dell computing stated that asking the question, “Does technology improve student learning?” is the wrong question. The question should be, “Does technology support the practices that improve student learning?”

That is a better question. In this case, a student blog can support the practices of feedback loops and student reflection not to mention the ability to connect with those outside the classroom that may be able to provide deeper and more valuable feedback than the teacher or classmates. While the final products our students create are important, getting the inside scoop and allowing places for us to explore ideas often provides a direct view not easily replicated in other ways. Having a place to explain in greater detail how a concept was formed or a product was developed in many cases is the more interesting part.

As professionals, it becomes a space to test out theories, share successes and failures and build relationships. Inside learning.

As we continue to see many join the publishing world, our role is not only to learn how to filter out the noise but to teach our students to be transparent in meaningful ways. Using blogs and other spaces to provide insights of deep, thoughtful reflection moves away from simply playing with the technology but truly uses it to support the practices that improve student learning.

amberblow, dougjohnson