shifting sands on copyright…

I had the opportunity to have dinner this evening with Deneen Frazier Bowen – in town to kick off our district’s opening day PD – and Bryan Facey, our district’s Technology Supervisor. Of course, with the three of us at the table the conversation centered around what we all saw as the challenges and opportunities for learning with the digital generation.

The conversation eventually came around to the digital natives perceptions of copyright and intellectual property. Of course, today’s young people have a very different view of ownership when it comes to digital information, particularly web-based information. At the risk of generalizing, digital natives see anything web-based as “free” – of both cost and ownership. The lines for what is sharable and available for their personal use is far more blurry than our understandings.

Deneen made a couple of interesting points; the role that mashups are playing in blurring the lines between existing and new information and how kids voices are not being heard in the conversations that are redefining these understandings. What we see as cheating they may see as collaboration; and the only way to reach a common understanding on these issues is through conversations that include them.

Now I am not suggesting that we need to reign in the natives and their use of digital media, but I do think it is important that they at least be given an understanding that just because something is easy and free to use, there are still issues of ownership.

Our conversation reminded me of something that David Warlick suggested during his keynote at L&L21C2 a couple of weeks ago. His suggestion – that we highlight ideas of intellectual property by having our kids copyright and label their own digital productions. By having students recognize that they hold ownership to their own works, they will begin to recognize that all digital content has ownership attached – ownership that needs to be respected and acknowledged.

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Photo credit: copyright cushion; Originally uploaded by openDemocracy to flickr.com; creative commons licence

Cranking it up…

While most other jurisdictions, especially in our neighbors to the south, have been back at school for a couple of weeks now, this week marks the first week for most teachers in New Brunswick as we prepare for the return of students next week.

As part of that process, teachers have time to work in their classrooms preparing, but also have opportunities for professional development at both the school and district level. Tomorrow, our district will be hosting our 700 plus teachers in our traditional PD day.

What is not so traditional, however, is the message. Primarily due to the impact of the two Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century Conference’s in March and August – and David Warlick‘s message in particular – there has been a tremendous shift in the focus of this day. For the first time ever, the district opening week PD day will be focused specifically on technology and it’s role in providing new opportunities to shift our ideas of what it means to be a learner in the 21st century.

The keynote should be particularly powerful. Deneen Frazier Bowen is an accomplished actress and educator with a powerful message – “The Natives are Restless” – of how our students are feeling left out of their own future and how traditional views of education don’t serve our youth. Her creative and unique way of delivering the message only adds to the impact.

Afterwards, a number of learning leaders with a bent for technology from our district will lead to a variety of breakout workshops, sharing their knowledge and experiences with the vast majority who are only beginning to recognize the challenges / opportunities and build their own visions.

And lest I lead you to believe that our district is unique, Thursday our neighboring district will be hosting their day, with none other than Alan November, one of the world’s foremost brains on educational technology, keynoting their day.

Shift happens…

Technorati Tags: frazier bowen, alan november, whipple

Why are we chopping off their limbs?

This mornings newspaper brings yet another story of a school administration trying to steer student behavior through regulation, as yet another local high school moves to ban cell phones and mp3 players completely on school premises.

Now I don’t pretend to have all – or even any – of the answers to the challenges created by the changing face of information within our schools and communities, but simply creating a blanket ban on new information technologies is akin to trying to regulate common sense. It won’t work!

Then comes David Warlick’s enlightened post where he speaks to the increased conversations that are just beginning to take place.

Now they are returning to school, which is almost entirely about limits. We contain them in classrooms. We contain them with schedules. We contain their access to each other — “No talking!” We contain content inside the covers of textbooks and the walls of libraries, and when we give them access to the Internet, it is so highly filtered that even teachers are frustrated by the valuable content and applications that are blocked.

Our youth – and yes, even us in ever increasing numbers – are connected to and through the information. They don’t see the technology as anything special – in fact they don’t see the technology at all! – they are simply using these technologies as a portal to conversations – conversations that lead to learning.

What is the real message that we send our students through these attempts at regulation? What we are telling them is that the very conversations that they hold so dear – their IMs, texting, social networking – are less than important and are inherently negative. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, through these conversations our young people are developing true 21st century information literacy skills, the skills of working, negotiating and producing collaboratively.

We need to stop looking at ways to contain our students, but set them free to explore, to learn. In the end, isn’t this the ultimate goal of education.

Until then, as David says, attempts to contain student behavior by chopping off their invisible digital limbs will fail.  In fact, not only will trying to stop the leaking fail, it’s the wrong approach if we want vibrant, student-centered, 21st century learning communities.

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L&L21C – Day 2

It’s nice to sleep in my own bed at one of the conferences.  After a wonderful meal and even more wonderful conversations with David Warlick, Sharon Peters and Vince Jansen from LEARN Quebec, Tim Discipio from ePals, Mary-Jo MacRae from our DOE and several other teachers, I was pretty wiped after day one of the Literacy and Learning in the 21st century conference here in Fredericton.

We’re off this morning…I’m excited to hear David talk about Video games and then I’ll be delivering a session entitled “10 (not-so) Secrets About Wikis“…it’s the same session I delevered to a packed house last month at Laptop Institute in Memphis to nice reviews…so it’ll be fun to deliver it to a more familiar audience…

tags: literacyandlearning2, warlick, whipple, technology, education

L21C II – David’s Keynote

— live blogged — ongoing update

Opening with a made in New Brunswick version of Karl Fisch’s “Did You Know“…

David’s son Martin’s is celebrating his birthday today…he had us all wish Martin a happy birthday…in both English and French…

The old story about education is that the old (current?) classroom was perfectly designed…for an industrial world

Types of leaders: Master leader; Creative Leader, Leader who can tell a Compelling New Story

We are spending too much time teaching kids how to use paper…we need to tech kids how to use light…digital information is fundamentally different…we need to prepare our kids for this new information…

We need to be paying a lot of experince to our kids…they will invent the future…

Idea # 1:  We are preparing our kids for a future we cannot clearly describe…

Idea # 2:  We are preparing kids for a rich information experience – a different kind of student that has a far richer experience that our classes provide…

Where do kids learn??  They learn through being connected, sharing…

What are the basic skills that we hope our kids will learn/know in this information landscape?

Idea # 3: Preparing Our Kids for a New Information Landscape

Ideas add together to start talk about Classrooms as Learning Engines 

  • engage in conversations…
  • students need to learn to teach themselves
  • come to understand their information experience
  • redefine literacy and integrate it

Not just about skills….it’s about habits

Students need to develop a healthy learning lifestyle

tags: literacyandlearning2, warlick, whipple, technology, education

L&L21C II Underway!

The second Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century conference is underway here in Fredericton.  I picked David Warlick up at the airport this morning…he’s just getting set to deliver his opening day keynote….

This is so exciting for our teachers…the word of David’s appearance in March quickly spread…and the buzz is wonderful….more to come!

tags: literacyandlearning2, warlick, whipple

Writing in 3-D

I’m not very good a sitting around feeling unproductive so I was fortunate to land some work with our Department of Education this summer.  Lately I’ve been doing a bit of writing preparing some resource pages for a new Innovative Learning Fund that teachers can access (that’s a whole other post!) 

One of the things I’ve been thinking about – prompted by something Will Richardson threw out in Memphis – is how the fundamental structure of reading and writing is changing. 

While my generation grew up reading in a linear fashion (words, lines, pages in sequence) this generation is now learning to read in a much more complex environment.  Networked information often contains links to other sections or documents, interrupting the continuity of the written text.  Sometimes images, audio or video are embedded.  This results in multiple layers that allow readers to jump back and forth, up and down through many layers.   

Our kids seem comfortable with this.  I wonder if most teachers are?  As I prepared the documentation, meant to be shared in an on-line environment, I debated as to the best format that would be the least threatening to teachers.   

But this leads to another question.  How do we teach kids to write in a multi-dimensional environment?  What are the new rules of grammar?  How do we teach students to reference their materials – is a simple hyperlink enough?   

As we prepare our young people for their future, we need to be focusing students as producers of digital information, composed of multiple media and designed to be shared in a networked, open and digital environment. 

As Will said…are we teaching kids to write with hyperlinks?

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Power on the Air…

I must admit that I was kind of worried as I boarded the flight from Toronto to Winnipeg this afternoon.  My laptop battery was getting low – only 25 minutes on the indicator, a 2 ½ hour flight ahead and at least that much work.  I was already late and had some presentations to prepare for my assistant supervisor and myself for the meeting with our umpiring crew tomorrow morning and the coaches and managers of the teams tomorrow afternoon. 

As I sat down I was pleasantly surprised. Not only had the wonderful Air Canada agent in Fredericton placed me in an exit row seat – I had some extra leg and laptop room – but there, on the seat back ahead of me, was an AC plug.  How could I have hit this jackpot!  I had heard that this was on its way but hadn’t been witness to this yet. This Air Canada Airbus A320M was a treat. 

On top of all this…that wonderful agent had one more surprise for me.  As the food cart came around and everyone was digging in their pockets – the attendant informed me that mine had already been take care of…:)

Way to go Air Canada.  

BTW….there was even a USB port.  Can on-board connectivity be that far behind?  Who knows… maybe it’s here!

Technorati tags: air canada,  education, technology, whipple

Kudos to Air Canada…again.

I don’t seem to be having much luck with flights lately.  After missing three flights and arriving in Atlanta eight hours late for NECC in June, here I sit at Fredericton Airport, again delayed.  This time my flight to Montreal for a connection to Winnipeg is delayed for three hours.

Last time it was mechanical problems, this time weather.  Seems the severe thunderstorms in Montreal this morning caused the flight from Montreal to remain on the ground for a while, backing up the system all around.

However, just like last time, the friendly and efficient agents at Air Canada saved that day.  Quickly assessing the situation and, knowing I was supposed to be in Winnipeg for a 6pm meeting with my umpiring crew, they rerouted me through Toronto for an alternate connection to Winnipeg.

There are two positives out of this…

  • this connection will get me in at 7:30 pm (I have sent word that I’ll arrive at the hotel by 8 for the meeting)…by using the power of the connectedness of the airline industry, the AC agent was able to peruse many options to get me there the quickest
  • I am stuck in Fredericton, not in Montreal.  You see, our local airport has FREE wifi access, part of the open Fred-e-Zone municipal wireless system.  Much better than having a long layover in a larger airport where wireless isn’t so free.

When will the rest of the world catch up and realize that broadband access in large cities should be viewed as basic infrastructure like streets, sidewalks and streetlights?

Technorati tags: fred-e-zone, fredericton,  education, technology, whipple

Teaching an old dog…

My wife continues to amaze me.  When we met several years ago I would not have defined her as a luddite, but she certainly wasn’t playing on a digital field.  Slowly, but surely, she has immigrated over the digital divide and, last year, she purchased her very own MacBook, which she treasures immensely.

A case in point.  Last night I was packing to get ready to head to Winnipeg, where I’ll spend the next week as the Umpire-in-Chief of the Canadian U-14 Girls Softball Championships.  Like most men (sorry if I offend some of the more capable types) I don’t worry a whole lot about clothes, especially when it comes to ironing and folding.  I was busy trying to stuff my clothes together and using my own unique method of folding shirts, which infuriates my wife.

Suddenly she said…”can I show you how to do that right?”…figuring it would take longer that I wanted to spend but not wanting to ittitate her I, of course, said “sure”…

Grabbing the shirt I had she laid it flat and, in two swift moves, folded the shirt – correctly!  I was flabbergasted.  It was like I had been let in on some secret that only mambers of the more beautiful gender were supposed to know.  Was this something that only mothers taught their daughters?  Some secret right of initiation to womanhood?

I quickly caught on (folding will never be the same!), but then came the crucial moment.  I joked to my wife that she was lucky her mom taught her all that stuff….she laughed.  Perplexed, I asked why….she said she hadn’t learned that from her mom.  In fact, she had found this only recently…on the Internet!

She quickly showed me one day how, frustrated at the lack of efficiency in her own efforts, she googled “folding clothes”. The second or third item linked to a video on YouTube with Chines subtitles that showed this quick and precise method.

In this case, my wife’s “teacher” was an unknown Chinese woman (who probably didn’t even speak English)  who, through the connection of the Internet, offered her experience to someone half a world away.  My wife, using the asynchronous beauty of the web, was able to “teach herself”.

Isn’t this a model for the new flat world?

Technorati tags: youtube, education, technology, learningwhipple