Breaking down the walls of the classroom and having students connect with the world is one of the powerful learning opportunities afforded by Web 2.0.

Fredericton native Brian Jones is taking his concern for the environment and for student learning to a whole new level in a couple of months when he embarks on a grand adventure – skiing to the North Pole!

Not only will Brian ski to the Pole, he wants to take you and your class along with him! The Ski For Green initiative has resources for students, teachers and other, as Brian teams with Science East to bring awareness to environmental issues and connect with young people.

You can read the CBC News story on the launch here.

tags: technology, education, whipple, skiforgreen, scienceeast

A little over a year ago Korean educator and edublogger Clay Burell and myself were playing around with a number of collaborative tools together online. It was interesting to connect with someone around the world, a full twelve hours away. From there both he and I have gone on to develop vibrant and connected personal learning networks.

A short while later Clay proposed an intriguing new project; use these collaborative tools (specifically wikis) to have young learners connect, write and collaborate. The idea was both simple and powerful. It became the 1001 Flat World Tales Project.

Year one of the project saw several elementary and high schools connect to share writing and feedback, including a small group here at Nashwaaksis Middle School in Fredericton. As the project went ahead both youth and adults became learners – about how to connect in a digital, global environment. It was great.

Planning is now underway for year two of the project, which will start later next month. With separate elementary, middle and high school projects, there is still room for schools who are interested, but you’ll have to act now!

I am particularly hoping to find one or two international schools to join the five North American schools. As the idea is to write creatively about your own culture (details are on the wiki), it would be great to have a more global view.

If you are interested, go to the wikispace, join up and add your name to the participating schools. Then email me to let me know you’re interested. Details will follow.

tags: technology, education, whipple, clay burell, 1001fwt

I can be guaranteed to get a reaction from students, colleagues or parents when I talk about learning in the new digital landscape. With ever-increasing connectivity and digital spaces, I have no doubt that going to a physical “school” on a daily basis for an education will be an option for many students. Virtual (and very real) spaces will allow students to join increasingly disparate learning communities, interacting with learners and learning leaders through digital connections.

As a 1:1 laptop school, many of our teachers have created virtual classrooms of varying degrees, mostly based on wikis, blogs and pods. The fact remained that the primary interaction between students and teachers continued to be daily direct interaction within the walls of the school.

That was true, until now.

Just before Christmas one of our Grade 8 students, Lauren, accompanied her parents as they moved temporarily to New Zealand, where her dad, an Engineering professor, was seconded to teach at a university in Christchurch. She will be there until the end of March.

With New Zealand schools out for summer vacation for most of that time, Lauren and her parents wanted her to remain enrolled and connected to her class at Nashwaaksis Middle. While certainly full of questions as to the logistics, her teachers committed themselves to the idea of “teaching” Lauren through the miles.

We’ve only just begun, but the results so far have been impressive. Armed with her own laptop with webcam, Lauren connects with her teachers on a daily basis, selecting her assignments off her teacher’s wikispaces – Chad Ball’s is here – and completing / returning her work on her own private space developed just for this purpose.

Her teachers have taken up the charge, and so have her classmates. Two classmates tape selected classes (Language Arts so far!) and post the podcasts on the wiki for Lauren to watch daily class activities – even if it is the next day!

More plans are in the works. We are hoping to have Lauren work in a group at some point, connecting directly with her group members to produce web-based content in an a yet-to-be identified project. She will also do her public speaking presentations through her webcam and we plan to start weekly video conferencing between Lauren and her classmates/teachers. We’ll connect last period in New Brunswick (mid-afternoon) and Lauren will be up at 6am the next day to connect synchronously. Should be a blast!

What are we learning? Mostly that the significance of geography as a barrier to connection and learning continues to decrease and that the real barrier in the 21st century is time – and time zones.

tags: technology, education, whipple

I am excited about tomorrow….and not just for ANOTHER dump of snow that most teachers and students hope will cancel school.

On Sunday noted edublogger Karl Fisch, who calls Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado home, finally made mention of a kewl new project involving two 9th grade honors Language Arts classes at AHS and Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind.

So….why am excited? Well, I have been invited to participate (thru Karl).  Over the next several weeks, I will have the opportunity to participate in a live blogging exercise with the two classes as they read and discuss AWNM in their classroom. They are actually going to let me join their class virtually, discussing Pink’s book in a whole new way.

Frankly, I feel kind of intimidated by the company, both invited and resident. The list of participants, including many noted edubloggers, school administrators and other creative minds, were pulled together by Karl. Tomorrow morning I am excited to be joined in the first session by my friend Sharon Peters from Montreal.

I read AWNM last summer, and am re-reading it now as I prepare for this opportunity. It is my recommended read for my staff this year.

Of course, we are all excited for that Friday in a couple of weeks when Mr. Pink himself joins the students as we become spectators to their discourse. This is VERY exciting and truly flattening. The lines between learner and teacher are extremely blurred here.

You can read more about this project on Karl’s blog.

tags: technology, education, A Whole New Mind, daniel pink, karl fisch, sharon peters, whipple

I am never sure just how to feel when we return to school in January.  The Christmas Break was much different for me this year – I hardly “worked’ at all.  I spent the break enjoying time with my wife, our kids, my new “wiki” (see previous post) and reading about trains and travel in Europe (my wife and I are looking at three weeks next summer).

Returning to school is always exciting.  It seems that the fall months are just a warmup.  Getting teachers and students up to speed, planning, etc.  Now the real fun starts.  We have five months of pretty much uniterrupted time to actually get some real learning done.  We have several collaborative projects seeded and a couple of others on the table.

Off to the races.  It will be over before we know it.

There is certainly no doubt that today’s youth are connected. Some of them even become “famous” through their well-know Internet blogs an video posts. But just how much can that fame be worth?

Some edubloggers have been discussing the idea of “social capital”, the premise that the connections you bring to an organization through digital networking can be of significant value. For instance, would someone like Jeff Utecht, Clay Burell or Karl Fisch, all well-known edubloggers, be of more value to a school just because of the connections they have developed with others?

Now comes word that maybe the social capital or digital fame can be worth marks. Maybe the difference between an A+ and a C can be measured by Technorati? One educator seems to think so.

As detailed in this CNN story, grades in Jamie Wilkinson’s class at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City are generated by a computer, based on traffic on student websites. Students can track grades in real time on the class blog. Wilkinson argues that these skills are of value in the new global economy.

“In a world where Facebook is valued at something like $16 billion, it makes sense to encourage students and faculty to study together — not just to explore how these new online systems work, or to sit around reading case studies, but to interact directly and play with these systems,” says Ted Byfield, associate chair of Parsons’ department of communication, design and technology. “This isn’t 16th-century German literature; you can’t have an expert from the field come in and teach. There’s no established body of knowledge. It’s all new.”

Certainly the ability to build a global learning / work network will be a valuable tool in the next few years. My concern lies in the methods students used to generate traffic. Global citizenship will require not just connectedness, but value to that connectedness. Students soon found that more traffic can be generated by questionable content that content of redeeming social value. What do they learn from this? Where do we start the discussions of digital citizenship when the biggest library is but a click away from the world’s largest arcade, the world’s largest “TV/movie/music” store and the world’s largest porn shop?

Hopefully they are getting the notion that the only way to build a solid and lasting network, or “famo” as they call it, is through consistent quality and challenging content.

A mighty challenge lies ahead.

tags: technology, education, parsons new school, whipple

My wife often tells me (usually when I have deserved a calling out) that “it’s not what I say, it’s how I say it”. I know it’s true.

Over on the new – and very active – Students 2.0 blog, quickly given the moniker “S2-oh”, Nicole Kim‘s “The Difference Between Teaching and Preaching” post has generated a lot of conversation surrounding the need for schools and teachers to offer students some respect and an opportunity to direct more of their own learning.

Preaching is what most teachers do today. We sit in classrooms for a certain amount of time listening to the “Teacher’s Bible of Study,” devouring information. Projects are limited to be viewed only by the class, and occasionally meet the hallway display.

She makes a plea for teachers to turn over some control of their classrooms, offering some democracy to make learning participatory.

If we were left to do what we wanted to do, “learners” who are mature enough will self-guide themselves to read the greatest plays ever written. If we are left alone with responsibilities, young adults will start taking them seriously.

While it is often difficult for us adults, who have been exposed to a much different story of education – a very traditional, teacher-centered classroom – it is necessary for us to start listening to our students. They are demanding, while not all as eloquently as Nicole, to build their own learning connections.

I had the pleasure of working for two years in a pilot 1-to-1 laptop environment that was hugely successful. However, it wasn’t the laptops that made the difference, but the environment we were able to create. 55 learners (students), 2 learning leaders (teachers), one BIG room, wireless technology, few filters, connectedness, no bells, community, all-day together, flexible (no?) schedule, project-based learning, no textbooks….I could go on…

In short, it wasn’t about the technology. It was about the vision, the ideas, the connectedness with each other and the information. It was amazing. I can’t wait to go back!

I don’t hold myself out as a great learning leader. In fact, I have much to learn about leading in a classroom. But I am a much better learner, and by daring to step outside the comfort zone of many, taking a chance, creating a “flatter” classroom, we were able to create a pretty darned good learning environment.

I don’t think it’s about what we say as teachers, it’s how we say it. As learning leaders, we have a pivotal role to play as we bring knowledge and focus to the learning enterprise. Students without leadership are unlikely to accomplish much. Experienced leaders sharing knowledge must happen in a classroom to some extent. The crucial balance is when and how to present information and how to involve students in that discovery in a way that treats them with respect as learning partners. In short, how to teach, and not preach.

I must say, it’s nice to hear such vibrant student voices offered in the edublogosphere. S2-oh has definitely earned a spot in my feedreader.

tags: technology, education, learning, students 2.0, whipple

Until now, the blogosphere – at least that part devoted to issues of education and technology – has been the domain of adults. We have held conversations, mostly valuable, about the shift from teaching to learning, how today’s learners are different, the need for them to make connections in their learning (with each other and the information), and the role of technology in that process.

But one thing has been missing from those conversations – the voice of young learners. Until now!

My friend from Seoul, Clay Burell, brings word this morning of a global collective of young edubloggers who will soon launch Students 2.0, conversations about learning from the youth perspective. This is exciting.

Check out this original, student-produced video, and keep watching the Students 2.0 badge at the top right. It all takes flight in a few days.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/gwQOyEwspKY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I hope you will all drop by when they launch, say hi, and start to include and engage them in quality conversations. I just have a feeling you’ll be impressed.

tags: technology, education, learning, students 2.0, whipple

As I have been working with teachers on trying to change the focus from teaching to learning, I have been trying to change the language I use to promote the point.

In conversations, I am trying to replace the word “teacher” with one of two terms, depending on the nature of the focus. In it’s place, I will use the term “learning leader” or “leading learner”. While the difference appears slight, simply reversing the words has great impact. The terms are not interchangeable, and their use depends on the context of the conversation.

When using the term “learning leader”, the noun is leader, with learning as a supporting adjective. The focus is on the leader part of the teacher’s job. As a pedagogical leader within the school, the teacher’s expertise in curricula, planning, design, preparation and assessment is critical to creating a dynamic and engaging learning environment. We need and expect teachers to be leaders. Most teachers are eager to accept this term.

On the other hand, the term “leading learner” is more complicated, the noun (and the focus) on being a learner, with the word leader serving as a descriptor. These teachers assume the identity as a learner within a community of learners, open to change and willing to switch between the traditional roles of student and teacher. They blur the lines between themselves and the students, offering to model 21st century learning at the risk of failure. This is a harder sell with educators, especially those who hold dear to traditional ideas about learning.

I believe how teachers accept the role as a leading learner is what sets great teachers apart from mere competent ones. They are part of a collective, collaborating with colleagues, “students” and others to establish a flexible, innovative and dynamic learning community.  I believe it speaks to their ability to help prepare a new generation of young people to work, play and learn in a 21st century global community.

Photo credit: “Learner-Learner Interaction”, Originally uploaded to Flickr by jrhode

tags: technology, education, learning, whipple