As we mark the beginning days of 2009, it’s strange to think that we keep talking about new “21st Century” literacy skills of the future, yet we are already almost 10% of our way into the century?   How are our schools shifting to meet the challenge of preparing our kids for their now!!

Some of you be familiar with the original version of the “Did You Know / Shift Happens” presentation, first created by Karl Fisch at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado…after all, it must have been viewed by over 50 million people or so…or, as the young people say, it’s gone viral!!

Well, the latest updated version 3.0 is now out, with a funky new style and updated stats…check it out…

The question is, what does this remarkable shift mean for us as learning leaders?  Just what do our kids need to know to be global citizens in a digital, connected and information-rich global community?  How should this frame what we do every day in our classrooms?  Is your classroom getting flatter?

Just some food for thought.

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning, karl fisch

Just before Christmas our staff were involved in a school-based professional development day based on the PLC Model of the Dufours.  As a primer to the team time spent sharing strategies and developing common assessments, we spent a couple of hours discussing how our story of school might change to better serve our students.

Anyone who is even remotely involved in education knows about curriculum and how it has driven what teachers do and how they do it for many, many years.  The predominant “sit and get” style of content driven “teaching” remains entrenched in many (most?) classrooms and schools who continue to be focused on standardized testing.  While we remain relatively free of the high-stakes testing and it’s implications for schools and communities here in Canada, most teachers still spend a great deal of time preparing students for “the test”.

Of course, this model of education is all powered by the curriculum engine.  Locked in gear and ever-present, these (usually thick) documents are often held in such reverence by teachers, administrators and school board / department types that to challenge their value is like questioning the truth offered within the biblical narrative itself.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not against a curriculum road map that guides teachers in their quest to provide an exciting and engaging learning environment for their students. It’s when that document stands so thick and all consuming with detail that it serves as nothing more than to handcuff innovation and engagement that I begin to falter in my belief in it’s value.

Over the past couple of years I have had the opportunity to share, converse and reflect upon ideas from many individuals and information sources within my own Personal Learning Network (PLN). During our time together, I challenged our staff to continually ask themselves three broad, yet critical, questions as they plan, deliver and assess their teaching and learning in 2009.

1.    How is what they do everyday preparing students to live, play and learn in a world where information is becoming increasingly networked, digital and ubiquitous?  How are they providing opportunities for students to develop the information literacy skills of locating, assessing, harvesting, connecting, synthesizing, mashing and communicating knowledge from and in a collage of media.

2.    In a world that is increasingly built on collaboration and connection, how are we providing opportunities for our learners (teachers and students) to develop and manage their own Personal Learning Networks.

3.    In an age where everything, including ourselves, is increasingly public, what are we doing to prepare our young people to develop and manage their own digital footprint.  Just how are we helping them to learn to be “googleable”.

These three questions formed the basis for much discussion and, I hope, some great conversations over the course of 2009.

Do you have other questions to suggest?

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

Image Title: “Footprints in Sand“, uploaded to flickr by me.

Our journey as educators committed to shifting the narrative of learning in the 21st century is sometimes frustrating and frighteningly slow.  Rest assured, movement is happening.  Conversations are happening.  There are some very exciting ideas, examples and models developing.

As I sit here and watch the clock move towards the end of the year here in the western hemisphere, I just wanted to pass along my best wishes to all my colleagues and friends here in New Brunswick, across North America and around the world for a happy, connected and wonderful story of learning in the new year.

I look forward to connecting with you all in 2009.

Right off the bat, a caveat.  I have known New Brunswick Education Minister Kelly Lamrock for many years.  While I certainly don’t count him amongst my closest buddies, we are casual, first-name friends.  Being in a smallish capital city affords me the opportunity to connect with Kelly occasionally.  After the Liberals replaced the former Conservative government – who had started developing a 1:1 initiative for grades 7-12 – a couple of years ago I was happy when Kelly was announced as the man in charge of leading the education portfolio within government.

Since then, I have been enthused by many of the initiatives brought forth by Kelly and his colleagues.  I may not have always agreed with his decisions – and we are still waiting to hear about the future of the 1:1 computing program – he has managed to inspire great conversations about the future of education within our province.  Today, Kelly was named by the Daily Gleaner – our local newspaper – as the New Brunswick newsmaker of the year for 2008.   I would like to add my support to this nod.

Kelly has done much in two years to start conversations in many areas.  Like most people, he has been caught up in the fascination of comparing the standardized student assessments with those of other jurisdictions and a few other conversations in which I don’t care to engage, but he has also gone where few politicians have dared (or been capable of) to tread.  Unlike many of his colleagues and predecessors, Kelly gets it.  He understands that the world has shifted, and that our schools are no longer serving our societies in general.

In a separate story today, we are now looking at changes to our high school programs.  Kelly is looking at ways to shift the story from fact-based, teacher centered schooling to student-centered, meaningful and citizenship connected learning.

“I don’t think our system reflects what they need, which is the ability to find something they love to do and keep learning through experience.”

“I want to get some people together and say, ‘Look, take a look at the high school credit system,’ ” he said. “How can we start to change the way students learn in high school so that they are not sitting in a seat learning facts in these little silos, but they are doing things that matter to them?”

This are brave words indeed.  There are few organizations that are as entrenched and inflexible as the school system, and many players are entrenched in their practices and traditional stories of teaching and learning.

I was particularly enthused by the focus on citizenship education.

…(students) should understand current events in government and understand international relations and something about how other countries impact their lives. Volunteerism should be part of every high school experience.”

Kelly gets it, but he also lives it.  All the speak is fine, but he also has made it a point to connect with teachers and students in their schools.  One day a couple of weeks ago I wandered into our fieldhouse (gym) after school.  I was only half surprised – and very pleased – to see Kelly there, coaching the Grade six boys baseketball team.  As an engaged parent and Minister, he walks the walk.

Kudos and congratulations on the recognition.  The future of schools and learning in our province – like many jurisdictions – has a long way to go to meet the needs of our communities and expectations of our digitally-connected students, but it’s good to know that – unlike many jurisdictions – we have someone with vision, a global, digitally-connected citizen with at least one foot firmly in the 21st century, leading the conversations and the shift.

What is particularly exciting is that, in this time of economic uncertainty, conversations about the future of education have captured the imagination of our province.

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning, lamrock

The network is so incredibly powerful.  Not only do I depend on twitter, blogs and conversations for my own personal learning, it also provides me with opportunities to leverage these personal contacts for student projects.

On the heels of an in initial french-second language pilot project between students at Nashwaaksis Middle School and the American School of Bombay last year, we moved ahead with a more involved project this year.  While the overall core idea of the project remained the same – students would share stories of life in their hometowns using their second language – the demands would increase.

Last year, students shared with text and pictures on a wiki.  This year, they have to add a video component to their presentations.  Last year, students procured pictures and video from whereever they could, mainly from the web.  This year, all content is required to have copyright clearance, and 75% of all video/images must be original productions by students.  So far, it’s a hit!

As we moved into the Christmas break, most students were able to complete their introduction videos.  Keep in mind that while sharing information about themselves is important, the primary objective is to have students use their emerging French language skills to communicate in a variety of forms.  After Christmas, the project will move to students researching, connecting and communicating information about the culture of their communities.

The students, led by two amazing teachers in Andrea and Heather, are motivated and mature in their approach.  They are excited even now for their upcoming video-conference in March when they get to meet.

Now the neat part.  I showed this project to two French language teachers at another school that I was assigned this year.  They immediately loved the idea and wanted to do their own project.  However, that require a school to work with.  That’s where my network worked so efficiently.

I knew that Vietnam was a former French colony.  I also was familiar with Adrienne Michetti from Twitter.  Adrienne is a Canadian who is working at the United Nations International School in Hanoi.  I messaged her, looking for help connecting with French teachers at her school.  A week later, we had all signed on, a plan was in place, and off we went.  The project is modeled on the success of the project with ASB, and they are about a month behind on their timetable.  This will allow us to use the other project to work out the kinks, while this project – with teachers newer to the global scene – benefit from the experience.

At Nashwaaksis Middle, global collaborative projects are part of what we do.  At Albert Street Middle, this has a huge profile, with other teachers inquiring as to how they too can connect globally for learning.  Another school caught in the web, thanks to the network.

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

Continuing on with the conversations about the virtues and perils of free web tools from the cloud versus DIY or paid services, of course, there is always Google and their Google Docs tools.

The Google docs model, of course, is the future.  In a very few years, all our software and personal content will no longer reside on our hard drives, but will be stored remotely on the web machine.  They’ll be able to be shared and accessed with ease by any number of users.

Google’s blogging platform, Blogger, is the best known of all the blogging services.  It does offer free blogs for everyone, including educators / learners.  It does have the “Next Blog” link, which does cause some concern for educators, but that can be quickly removed with a simple insert of 3 short lines of html code.  Believe me, I know next to nothing about coding, but have managed to master this exercise.

However, the real gem for educators is the ever-popular Google Docs.  These on-line tools feature word processors, spreadsheets, presentation tools, forms (surveys, data, etc) and Google Pages (simply editable web pages). Frankly, I am beginning to think that – given Google’s relatively stable status – this is a suite that we need to start exploring and exploiting for learning.

In fact, some teachers already are well on the way.  Google has released their new Google Docs for Educators page, where they share some of the best ideas on how Google Docs can be used to support collaboration and sharing for learning. Some of these ideas rock, especially how some have used the tools to develop and manage student projects!

Can they fly in your class?

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

Photo Credit: Google Docs Paper Airplane, uploaded to Flickr on April 1, 2008 by colin_n, Creative Commons Licensed

Like most others fans of web tools in education, I have enjoyed the fact that most of these tools have been provided for free.  The price is certainly right – or is it?

As noted by many, free is not a sustainable economic model.  These tools require support in terms of technology, ideas and people.  Many are funded by investors hoping to strike it rich with the next Facebook, others are supported by dedicated individuals who are holding things together on a shoestring.  Sylvia Martinez had a great post on picking the web 2.0 winners over on her Generation Yes blog recently.

The trouble is, we have had such a trip on the free web highway that we buck when we are asked to start paying tolls.  We saw this again this week when Edublogs users – including myself – began to see Google Ads showing up on their blogs.  Up to this point, Edublogs had promoted itself as an ad-free, education – friendly platform.

My network was all a twitter this week with many complaining about Edublogs’ move.  Most were upset that their screen real estate was now shared with Google ads, while other cried foul about the loss of storage space and features.  While I would love to continue to get free service, I also realize that if we (I) want Edublogs to provide a healthy blog alternative to Google’s Blogger then someone had to pay for it, and that someone would be users.

There are other alternatives.  Classblogmeister and the new 21 Classes both offer free, educationally focused blog platforms, but in the long term can we really expect them to support the demand of the emerging edublogging hoard?  Frankly, and with all due respect to the fine people involved in both these endeavours, I thnk we will get what we pay for.

Which brings me back to Edublogs.  Granted, there have been some service interruptions in the past year.  They’ve moved from small time to a larger service with very limited visible sources of revenue.  The question is, if they were able to do this all with limited resources, what kind of service can they provide with our (users) support?  I am willing and interested in finding out.

I know that for many teachers, we are simply out there doing what we do on our own.  Certainly few schools would be willing to ante up the ~US$50 a year supporter fee (which includes 5GB file storage and many feature upgrades), leaving teachers to foot the bill.  This is, unfortunately, the reality of an educational environment that has yet to embrace the power of the web for learning on a widespread level.

That leaves teachers to foot the bill on their own.  Many of them already spend hundreds of dollars a year to buy materials for their classrooms. Should this become an extra, expected burden?

In my current position, my blog is more of a professional investment, an on-line portfolio of sorts, that I am convinced is of enough value that I have become an Edublogs supporter.   They have earned my initial investment and a year from now, I’ll be able to reevaluate the value of the fee. Until then I’ll be proud to put my money where my mouth – and my blog – is.

Let’s keep the blog lights burning.

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning, edublogs

Photo credit: Lamps, uploaded to Flickr July 2008 by Jeff Whipple.

Last week’s titterversation with Chris Lehmann and Karl Fisch about the benefits of using free web-based tools (commonly known as “the cloud”) vs hosting your own brought up some interesting internal conversations as the week went on.  While most schools – including mine – have embraced free services like Blogger, Edublogs, Wikispaces and Wetpaint, we need to be aware that using these tools should not be without some degree of angst.

Chris, on the other hand, proposes that schools should be putting their resources into digital inftrastructure and hosting these tools themselves.  He says that as these unsustainable tools come and go, so goes with it the legacy and student-produced content.

It’s hard to argue with his reasoning.  I don’t pretend to know the business plan for any of the companies behind these tools – although I assume they must be making money somehow – and sometimes worry that we have many eggs in one or two baskets.  I assume these rickety cauldrons will only become more leaky as the current economic pressures continue to increase.  I mean, if Wikispaces went down, our school would be hard-pressed to retool on a different platform.

Unfortunately, relying on these free tools is often our only recourse.  While the idea of developing and supporting our own tools has much merit, human and technology resources (or a lack thereof) have IS departments reluctant to take on yet another burden.

So, where does that leave us?  For now, we remain dependent on the wealth and generosity of others.  Much thanks to all these companies for doing the best you can to provide us with resources, especially those companies who have expressly provided products they regularly charge for to K-12 education for FREE!!!

In the long term, I think we all (including senior administrators, politicians, IS leaders, etc) need to be forming a plan for the day when we can realistically provide these resources to ourselves.  After all, FREE is not a suatainable business model.

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

Photo credit: Theresistancearmy.com/blog; Uploaded to Flickr on June 1, 2006 by veganstraightedge, Creative Commons licensed.

Part of the power of the network is that we can ask – and receive – help when we need it.  Was given this link by my supervisor yesterday.  Seems Joseph Williams at Sunset Vista Elementary is looking for help in connecting his students to photographs around the globe to use in their picture stories.  His students had watched this video and saw power in the message, and want to try making their own.

Powerful stuff.

He posted this plea on his wiki, and I though I would pass it along.

My class was very interested in the way these videos were made. They want to share their own writing with pictures of words. We can not take enough pictures ourselves. If you have access to a digital camera or cell phone camera we would appreciate it if you would contribute a few pictures.

Now, how can this help you? We share. All of the pictures are going to be put on flickr and shared under a Creative Commons License with the tag: 09picturestories You can search for them and use them for your own non-commercial stories.

How you can help

Take pictures of words, numbers or letters.
Tell other people about this that you think may be interested. Get more people involved. The more pictures we have, the more words we’ll have for stories.

How you can share

3 Easy Ways to Share
1. Email me the pictures*: jdwilliams33 {@} gmail.com (just remove the spaces and {} signs)

2. Upload them to your flickr account and tag them: 09picturestories

Can you help Joseph and his students?

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

My dad taught for 35 years.  Once a year he had an opportunity to meet with other teachers from around the province to network and share, but there really wasn’t any focus on professional development or collaboration.

Things are changing.  For the past four summers I have been fortunate to attend the Lausanne Laptop Institute, a conference for current or prospective 1:1 educators (as well as a few other events in between).  I remember my first experience at LI – hesitant, uncertain, constantly measuring what we do against what I was seeing.  It was where I first heard David Warlick.  It really was the start down a new path towards becoming a 21st century learner.

Since then, I have realized the power of connecting and networking.  I go to conferences for many reasons; but the primary focus is on learning through conversations and developing professional relationships that I can leverage later for student collaborative learning projects.  Two years ago I left Memphis pumped and phoned my boss from Chicago on the way home.  I told him I would not return alone; that more teachers needed and deserved this experience. He agreed.  Last year we had 8 teachers attend.

Next summer we’re back – this time 14 strong – with a new mission.  Nashwaaksis Middle School has been selected as the School Spotlight Award winner for LI2009.  As such, our staff will host a series of 13 workshops / sessions where we will share our on-going story of transforming from teaching to learning, where student’s connecting and creating is the centerpiece of what we do.

I just booked the plane tickets for our staff.  We were going to wait til after Christmas and thought we would have to drive the three hours to Bangor, Maine to get cheap flights, but Air Canada‘s current seat sale forced our hand.  It’s now done, booked, invoiced and non-refundable. There’s no turning back.  Our staff are pumped!

I would love to see you in Memphis too!

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning, laptopinstitute, laptop09