Networking has always been a part of the human experience.  As we work and play, part of what ensures and measures our success is the extent to which we are able to develop a strong and vibrant learning network – and aren’t all networks (work, play, social) about learning?

At last week’s Laptop Institute noted edublogger Will Richardson questioned the educators in attendance if they were teaching MySpace.  I think many of them – especially the administrators in attendance – were a bit taken aback by Will’s challenge.  After all, most schools (including, evidently, the host Lausanne – Will couldn’t access MySpace during his presentation) are blocking My Space and other social networking sites.  Even my own school district – which I have the impression to be more open than most – has recently taken the initiative to filter social networking sites (even though the kids know how to easily get past the filters).

Will, like myself, is an edublogger (we blog about education). This has proven to be the most important single initiative I have taken as a life-long learner in the field of education.  I blog for two reasons;

• it allows me to reflect in a concrete manner – writing my ideas and thoughts down (even if the only dot on my ClustrMap was mine) is a tremendously powerful learning tool.
• blogging has helped me to build a personal learning network.  The many interactions and conversations I have had with other individuals (both bloggers and non-bloggers) has stimulated tremendous personal growth in terms of developing a personal vision and practical skills/understandings that help me do my job as a learning leader in the 21st century.

Let’s get back to networking.  What are kids doing when they connect through My Space, Piczo and Facebook?  Why, they are networking, of course!  They are learning how to connect, negotiate construct and communicate in a 21st century digital world.  So, why are we blocking social networking when it will be the basis for much of our students work and play in the coming years. 

Why aren’t we teaching them the skills involved in networking instead.  Create learning communities where everyone learns the skills of living in the age when the lines between what is “real” and what is “cyber” become increasingly blurred.  Simply put, instead of blocking social networking sites, we need to use these tools to teach our kids about what it means to be a citizen in the digital age.

In addition, as learning leaders, educators need to model this learning.  There is nothing that a 21st century teacher could do that would have more value for them personally than to read/write on the new web.  Building their own personal learning network – whether it’s using blogs or Facebook groups – will allow teachers to begin to understand the potential of these new learning environments.

Oh…and why not share this with your students while you are at it.  Model what it means to be a 21st century learner.  Your students will “get it!”

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Tuesday afternoon and the Laptop Institute is almost over. As the last sessions begin to wrap up I have to once again note just what a gem this conference has become.

While the great sessions and learning that is going on here is wonderful, the best part about LI is the imtimate nature of the event. With a little over 500 people, you actually get to see many of the same people in sessions, over lunch, in the vendor area, etc.

I led two workshops today. The first, on global, collaborative on-line projects was well-received. We talked a bit about the basics of why, how and where to do these projects and then tried to play matchmaker a bit… I could see at least several projects being germinated within the closing discussions, many based on ideas we shared in the session. The 25 or so participants seemed to have a positive face as they left.

The second, on wikis, surprised me in respect to demand. Fifteen minutes before the session people started coming in to the classroom, designed for 25 students or so. By session start time the room was full with over 60 people spilling into the hallways. It was certainly a great motivation that fueled me. Over the 90 minutes we managed to get anyone who had brought their laptop set up on a wiki and I shared many of wiki tips and tricks in my 10 (not-so) Secrets About Wikis presentation. The feedback and energy was tremendous, and I have been talking to people about wikis for the past hour as the conversations continued outside the presentation. It was worth the trip just for that!

Later tonite we get to relax a bit and enjoy Beale Street (although I probably won’t get to see the Redbirds play!)…and look forward (hopefully!) to next year. If you have a 1:1 program or are even thinking about it…this is a must do!

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I am completely speechless…Ian Jukes is reviewing the history and future of the web…the ideas and numbers are staggering…the participatory web has shown up almost overnight.  Thinking of the last five years, and the exponential nature of change, what are the changes that are coming in the next five years?

Better yet, what does this mean for education?  Very shortly, the barrier will NOT be access…rather it will be us and our limited understanding and vision.   If our work and play has/will change so much, how do we start moving the machine?  How difficult will it be to move our school communities into the future?

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– live blogging –

Teaching in the New Digital landscape

Ian Jukes

KIds are born into digital world…speak DFL (Digital First Language)…adults speak DSL (Digital second language)…we come from another country …like all immigrants we retain some of the old country traditions and understandings…

Kids have digital minds…we don’t yet fully understand complex processes…but our kids are different…

When we are born only 15% of brain wiring is in place…critical initial functions…old assumption is that by age of 3 we all had fixed intelligence and processing power…assumed to be the same for all brains…

But with major scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, old assumptions are being thrownout…old idea that brain is highly adaptive…and that brain cells are continually being replenished and is being reorganized by input and experiences we have and the intensity and length of input…we can actually regrow neurons…IQ can rise depending on stimulation…”neoroplasticity”…the brian is plastic and creating new thinking patterns…but it requires intensive, sustained and progressively challenging stimulation…

e.g. watching television actually reprograms the brain…

several hours a day/seven days a week = video games

fMRI – new technology that has hi-res images of brain functions…research shows that generational chnages in how we process information is dramatically different how kids take in, process and store the same information…visual cortex is 15% larger in kids…eye processes and interprets 60,000 times faster than text…brain is designed for visual processes…30% visual of nerve cells vs 8% touch..

Eyes of digital natives work differently than digital immigrants…”Golden Mean”…digital immigrants scan in a z-formation…natives scan sides… they ill unconciously ignore bottom and right side of pages…could this have an impact on learning to reading …immigrants like blank text on white…natives prefer red/green texts easier to read…

digital natives = wired for multimedia = 87% of kids are not text-based learnersvisual-kinesthetic learners but are visual or visual/kinesthetic learners…but majority of assessment is still text /paper based…

can digital bombardement have an impact on way they think and view the world? we are beginning to see an accelerated gap with very young kids…digital kids 2.0…incredible changes taking place on the inside…they view and respond to the world very differently…begins to explain the fundamantal diffrerence between those kids and us…

Guess the question here is not changing understandings because we can all understand this stuff, but the real challenge is changing day to day practice…battling the traditional

Four things need to happen in classroom…

1. New content must be connected immediately…meaningful…short-term memory…difference between rote learning and meaningful learning

2. Previous knowledge and experience will dererime what, where, if they learn…most school work doesn’t interest students…learning must be personal & relevant

3. Learners must be given repeated and differentiated learning opportunities…we learn by practice/exposure in different experiences and over time…

4. Students need to be provided with consistent feedback and repeatedly reinforced…reinforcement looks like…”I really like the way you have done this…good notes…here’s a suggestion…if you box this here you can make it stand out”…kids won’t learn unless they have positive reinforcement first…

How does this happen? Qualitative/formative assessments…test scores were the same for kids tested…but then later gave the same kids the same exam…less than 15% recall on traditional teaching…but no-traditional taught students had over 70% retention after the year…

“Velcro learning” – memorizing facts for test…only supplies one side of piece of velcro…connections must be made for long-term learning to stick…

We are increasingly using standardized tests to increasingly measure non-standardized brains…they only have short attention spans for old ways of learning and teaching…we as educators don’t understand how truly different our digital natives are…today’s students are not who we were trained to teach or our schools were designed to serve..if we can’t see this and change, “who here has the learning problem?”

Our emphasis must be on more than just content recall…to create more than just school-smart people…this shift is so fundamental that the gap is so wide that we can go back to the way things were when we were kids…digital divide…

As adults, we need to have a 21st century cultural awareness and need to have and use the very same 21st century skills we tell our students they need to have…

What can we do?…cartoon strip ZITS…play video games…blog…MMPORPG…second life…become a thumbster…if you don;’t know what these are…you have defined yourself as a DI and that you are part of the digital divide…

This is not limited to a certain geographic or socio-economic section…world wide…

Respect their world, honour their world…we will set them free! If we want to leverage their abilities, we have to be able to go inside their world.

Are kids in your classroom because they have to be there or because they want to be there? If we want to unfold their full genius…their future not our past…we need to create a bridge between their world and our world…

This asks teachers to fundamentally challenge their core belief systems as educators…hard to change…stepping back and totally reconsidering everything we believe about education…we don’t have to throw out everything… “you can’t leap a canyon in two bounds…you either leap it in the first bound or you’re going down” -Tom Peters…what can we do to make the leap…small steps…one small change at a time…

committed sardine website / techsaavy group…resources available…

recommended reading

Ted McCain – “Teaching for Tomorrow” – Corwin Press

Will Richardson – “Blogs, wikis and podcasts”

– end –

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Jeff Utecht’s post today about the growth of networks and technology in pretty much every facet of our commerce and leisure was interesting. Perhaps those of us who grow with the changes everyday don’t see them and it takes someone who is away for a bit to see just how things have changed – kind of like grandparents sho don’t see their grandkids for a while. I have to wonder though, with Jeff being based in Shanghai for the past bit, just why this would be such a drastic change. Maybe I am mistaken, but I guess I would have expected this to be not a new experience for him.

There is perhaps no better testament to the changing nature of information than the transportation industry. You can shop, evaluate and book pretty much all your travels needs from anywhere, anytime.

As I sit here halfway through a six-hour layover at Chicago’s O’Hare International, it is amazing how critical the digitization and networking of information is to the operations of a large, modern airport. Hustle and bustle, screens changing, connections being missed and rebooked with decisions being made on the fly based on the latest information. My flight from Toronto was held 30 minutes after a later flight was cancelled and the airline wanted to try and catch a few more customers who had connections here in Chicago. This was played against the needs of existing customers who also had connections. They seemed to know just how long was the optimum time to hold the plane to catch the greatest number of following passengers without causing disruption to the current bookings and on-going flights.

I can’t even begin to imagine the networks and information United Airlines staff used to make the decision to push-back, but I am sure everything, inclusing the weather forecast, was included. The ability of individuals in the decision-making chain to access, assess and communicate their knowledge into the decision must have been som ething unheard of even ten years ago.

But, as I sit here working on Tuesday’s workshop at Laptop Institute in Memphis, I was witness to something I had never seen before at an airport. This plane, All-Nippon Airway’s Flight 011 from O’Hare to Tokyo-Narita, pushed back from the gate and waited while the ground crew did their usual checks and cut the cords. But then it waited, while two men, one a Japanese man in a suit (presumably an ANA gate agent) and a ground crew member, stood near the front of the plane.

As if on cue, the two men bowed towards the front of the plane just as the giant started to move. Then, as the plane continued to move past them towards the airfield, they stood and waved, almost excitedly, together to each and every window. Unfortunately, I was busy digging for my camera.

In this day and age when too many of us are busy trying to get ahead, this old-fashioned gesture towards the people in the plane was kind of refreshing. In all our rush to manage information better, maybe a simple wave can communicate best.

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