"What models of education?"

I was just reading this great piece by Audrey Watters in her great blog, Hack Education.

She is discussing the wrongness of the predictions she made for Educational Technology for 2012, and blames her failure on having used inaccurate models for education. We seem to have, she argues, better models for things like weather patterns or political polling.

I loved this quote:

What models are we building for education (and why)?  Who are the experts we trust in ed-tech and why? What are their interests in making predictions or even -- and I am implicated here too -- in identifying trends? 

What models, indeed.

Isn't It Time?

from http://www.inquisitr.com/224324/lung-cancer-risk-lowered-by-aspirin-use-in-women-study-finds/

I have been reading this article on MindShift this morning.

In no way do I disagree with what this article is saying.

But this is the part, I wanted to start a discussion about. Isn't it time we moved beyond the basics of this conversation.

For example, in another domain of experience, we already know that aspirin (and other medications) work, so there is no longer any need for articles, books, professional development sessions, etc. promoting the use of medication.

Computer based educational technology has been in use in schools for over 30 years. I believe strongly that it is time to move beyond the "gee-whiz" and "tools-based" and "case study" approach to the use of technology, and to start developing real distinctions that would allow learners to benefit.

What are your thoughts?

Is There an Uncanny Valley in Education?

Many of you are probably familiar with the notion of the "Uncanny Valley."

from http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/the-uncanny-valley

The term was originally coined by Japanese roboticist Mashahiro Mori, who was very interested in the emotional responses of humans to robots and other humanoid devices. It helps explain, among other things, while the various Tom Hanks characters in The Polar Express can seem so darned creepy.

from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/movies/24kehr.html?_r=0

Reading it made me think that perhaps we also experience an uncanny valley when we think of schools. It seems as though the further we try to move from a one-room schoolhouse setting, the more uncanny we feel. By the way, I do not believe that it matters if the one-room schoolhouse is the Amish one pictured here, or a more modern version filled with laptops and other technologies.

In my view, we are teaching in a one-room schoolhouse if the traditional patterns of knowledge acquisition (teacher as sole owner/curator of knowledge) and sharing are intact. When I read over the various blogs and other edtech news sources that I peruse each day, I find that the most popular articles are those that match this model. The much less traditional initiatives are less so.

Mori talked about several ways that this valley can be crossed. Here, he discusses eyeglasses. When Mori says "prosthetic hands," read "new education initiatives."

To illustrate the principle, consider eyeglasses. Eyeglasses do not resemble real eyeballs, but one could say that their design has created a charming pair of new eyes. So we should follow the same principle in designing prosthetic hands. In doing so, instead of pitiful looking realistic hands, stylish ones would likely become fashionable.

This is an idea I will be investigating more in the future.

Dan Meyer and Developing Patient Problem Solving

I just saw this video (thanks to O'Reilly Radar). It features a math teacher, Dan Meyer, talking about how to interrupt the impatient problem solving fostered by textbooks and developing patient problem solving in his (and our) students.




The talk is amazing. I especially appreciated his take on using media and social media to create powerful learning opportunities.

And check out Dan's blog.

Cool Science Classroom

The Scientist recently reported about a high school science teacher who is doing incredible things with Web 2.0 tools, especially blogs and podcasts, with her biology students.

Check  out the article here.
Check out this science teacher's work here.

Newsrooms and Classrooms

I heard an interesting story on NPR's On the Media today

The theme of this week's show was the physical newsroom, and the particular story dealt with two responses to changes in the newsroom.

One part that was very interesting talked about technology, especially computers, has changed the soundscape of the newsroom. Once noisy, with the clacking of typewriters and phones and other equipment, they are now eerily silent. In fact, some newsrooms pump in "pink noise" to add sound where there is none and where there used to be lots.

I tried to think about how classrooms would/do sound differently as technology becomes more and more integrated. What old sounds will be gone? What new sounds (and new conversations) will take their place?

Take a listen.

What if it's true?

A recent article in eSchoolNews discusses the top searches performed by students in about 20,000 U.S. schools. These schools use a search engine called Net Trekker to catalog their students' web search queries.

According to the article, here are the top 15 searches being performed by students in these schools:

1. Games
2. Dogs
3. Animals
4. Civil War
5. George Washington
6. Holocaust
7. Abraham Lincoln
8. Multiplication
9. Math Games
10. Weather
11. Frogs
12. Fractions
13. Planets
14. Sharks
15. Plants

The question, for me, is: "what if this is true?" I can't help but notice that these students are not searched for pornography or YouTube videos or any of the other things that people are so worried that students will do when let loose on the internet.

I also recognize that this report is probably no where near scientific, but I think the results are more than a little compelling. Maybe, those of us who want to "protect" our students should pay closer attention to how they are actually using the Internet, and less time wrapping them in intellectual bubble wrap?

Two Million Minutes

Here is the trailer for a film called "Two Million Minutes."

From the makers:

Regardless of nationality, as soon as a student completes the eighth grade -- they have just Two Million Minutes to prepare for college and ultimately a career.

This important documentary examines how students in India and China are being better prepared than American students to compete in a flattening world.

Constructivism with Pete Seeger

This weekend I heard Pete Seeger interviewed on Bob Edwards Weekend (thanks to the folks at PRI and XM Radio).

During the interview, Seeger mentioned two anecdotes that were all about education (at least to me).

1. He talked about Woody Guthrie and the composition of "This Land is Your Land." He said that the song never ended up on the radio. It ended up being shared by teachers in schools with their students and within about 15 years, a whole generation of Americans knew the song "as if it was always there somehow."

I assume the story is true. It is, at least, plausible. I found it eye-opening for the vision it has of teachers.

2. Seeger talked about Participation. Here's what he said:

"Participation is the salvation of the human race. Participate in games, fun, storytelling. And when you are grown up, participate in education. Learn to ask questions. The most important thing in the world is to learn how to ask questions. Next, most important thing is to learn how to give a report (of what you've read or learned)... And, you learn how to work with other people."

(You can listen to the whole interview here).

Imagine, how that could be translated in your classroom, in your schools, in your communities, in your families, in your company.

One from many or Many from many?

Scott McLeod recently published an interesting set of diagrams on his Dangerously Irrelevant blog (which is incredibly worth reading, by the way). He uses them to tell a story.






The story he wants to tell is about what seems to most effectively contribute to a creative economy.

I certainly agree with him, but saw them as telling another story as well. I saw them as depicting the ends of a spectrum of the relationships between teachers and students in a classroom. Does a teacher shape everything into "one right answer" or does he/she allow possibility to arise from these relationships in the classroom.

This dilemma is a very real one for me right now. The school year so far has been about living out the question: "What happens when students get to use their own voice?"

In most cases, my experience is that of a profound thing of beauty. The kinds of things that make teaching (and life) worth while.

I thank Scott for giving diagrammatic representation to my experience.

A Study on Blogging

Jeff Felix, a superintendent for a California school district, has completed a study on the use of blogging with K-12 students. Here is a summary (from Jeff) of his findings:

The study on teachers in the United States who are using blogging as an instructional practice has finally been completed. The study shows that teachers perceive a significant increase in student learning through motivation for assignments and through deeper thought processes. Students seem to enjoy the connectiveness of their work to other subjects and to each other. This collaboration encourages a deeper relationship with their peers and with the teacher.

Jeff has generously made the full study, as well as a shorter paper available on his blog. I celebrate and appreciate it work and commend it to all of us committed to opening up new possibilities for our students using Web 2.0 tools.

Breaking the Model

I have been interested in investigating the places where learning happens (and this usually involves technology in some way) that goes beyond our traditional model of education (teachers in classrooms, homework, etc.).

Here's some things to report --

Will Richardson posted this piece on his blog about ways that he and his wife are trying to extend their children's education:

Every Tuesday afternoon for about an hour, my wife’s office turns into a classroom where my kids are making wikis, learning about searching, and creating stories around whatever their interest is. And they’re being shown some ways in which technology can be used to connect, as in the picture above. (Click on it to see a more viewable size.) A couple of weeks ago, Steve Hargadon made a guest appearance using Skype to help them identify what they might want to work on in terms of projects. And there are plans to invite other people in to speak to them and help guide their work. (Let me know if you want to volunteer!) Real people, real work, real audiences.

Then, in response or inspiration, Neil Winton shares about his son's experience teaching and learning the computer programming language Scratch:

If ever you wanted proof that we can find learning everywhere and from everyone, tonight was it. The earth was flattening before my eyes as Andrew talked a group of kids in America through an introduction to programming. I need to think more fully about the implications of what I was watching, and I think I need someone like Will himself to give these thoughts some shape and direction. The implications of being able to find what you want to know from someone who is willing to share… even if they are not present… turns our traditional model of education on its head… and even more so when you realise that the person with the knowledge you require might be the person you thought you ought to be teaching!

What happens when more and more of us "play" with these kinds of ideas?

What if....

Here is a quote from an interview with Harvard's Harvey Cox on the NPR show, Speaking of Faith.

I have a hunch that congregational life is going to move in a more conversational direction — study groups and, I might say, a less kind of pulpit-centered audience format into a way in which people can sort through their concerns and their doubts and their aspirations for other people. Periodically, any religious tradition does have to go through this kind of waiting, this period of expectation and openness and hope for new, new ways of expressing faith.

Now, imagine that the works congregational and pulpit and religious are replaced by education terms. It might read like this:

I have a hunch that school life is going to move in a more conversational direction — study groups and, I might say, a less kind of teacher-centered audience format into a way in which people can sort through their concerns and their doubts and their aspirations for other people. Periodically, any educational tradition does have to go through this kind of waiting, this period of expectation and openness and hope for new, new ways of expressing reform.

A Powerful Video

Thanks to a fellow teacher, I was able to watch (and be moved by) this video. It is called "Education 2.0." Here is what the author says:

Education used to be about transfer of information from teacher to student. Now there is too much information available in the world. Much of this information is being used by people trying to sell us something: an idea, a product, a political agenda, a way of seeing our entire country.

New Hampton School's Junior Urban Adventure attempts to turn around this notion of one-way education in the same way that Web 2.0 is changing the way we think about the web. Students will learn to ask questions, make meaning from the glut of information available to them and engage, upload and maybe even start to solve some of the world's problems.

More than a thousand words

We can talk about the world getting smaller, but here's a video from Google that shows how email goes across the world.
P.S. It would make a great class project for something.

Does this ring a bell? Stuff from Edutopia

Two things really hit me as I was reading through the recent issue of Edutopia.

The first was an editorial discussing the opportunity this editor sees in what's happening in education. He is responding to this summer's National Educational Computing Conference (NECC).

The educational community is filled with innovative thinkers, but sometimes you have to look at the margins to find them. Or just go upstairs.

While the sprawling show hummed below, some of the nation's best edubloggers were popping in and out of the Bloggers Cafe, on Level Two of the World Congress Center. It was a beehive, with dozens of bloggers rapidly exchanging ideas, and even having a few laughs.

Many of the nation's top edubloggers were there: David Warlick, Vicki Davis, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beech, Will Richardson (full disclosure: he's on our advisory board), David Jakes, Joyce Valenza -- too many to mention, really. Most arrived a day early to take part in an edubloggers' "unconference," where many met face-to-face for the first time. And nearly all agreed that the greatest energy and excitement of NECC came from the Bloggers Cafe, and the multiuser Skype conversations during sessions.To many, the main event became a sideshow.

Said Richardson, "That model of someone standing on a stage talking for an hour paled as compared to just having a conversation. The whole experience has challenged my thinking a great deal." Editor's Note: Edubloggers Innovate | Edutopia

Now, imagine that Richardson was talking about us and our students in our classrooms and read the quote again:

"That model of someone standing on a stage talking for an hour paled as compared to just having a conversation."

Later in the issue, there was an article that talked about an innovative program in rural Alaska, where students grade levels were disbanded and students worked on an individualized program to complete the district's 1000 standards.

Even as globalization and media propel our culture -- and our classrooms -- toward modes of production that are bigger, faster, and more alike, Chugach has refocused on an approach to education that is smaller, personalized, and variably paced. As Douglas Penn, the districtwide principal, explains, "Our kids graduate when they're ready. We're not pumping them out the door with Ds on their diplomas." Northern Lights: These Schools Literally Leave No Child Behind | Edutopia

So, here is one answer to the "opportunity" of our current situation in education.
What's yours?
What's mine?

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