My current teaching contract commenced in 2004 and soon afterward social media, for me, sky rocketed. A short time later, most of my communicative life moved into what very few people at the time knew as “the cloud”. Facebook was still locked to the universities and Yahoo! was still a huge stock option for many people. I left a district that provided me a laptop with administrative rights and didn’t filter online sites. I came to a district whose Electronic Users Policy included not putting a flash drive anywhere near their computers.

Honestly, in the last five years the resistance I’ve seen from my district, at different times, has been really difficult on many levels. But it’s changing. While my current administrator has publicly said he’s a relative luddite, he’s open to our visions. In the meantime, some of my colleagues are starting to come around asking “how’s this work?” in terms of technology. Some of them were open to tech earlier but things were (a lot more) clunkier than they are now.

Early this October, my admin told me a local junior high school was doing “interesting stuff with computers”… and he wanted me to visit the school with him. We were off for two weeks and the next time I saw him he told me he was setting up a tour and also a few other things were in the works. I was intrigued. He added that he wanted to send a group of us to a Virtual Schools Symposium in Indianapolis.

Friday morning my administrator, assistant principal, a math teacher, and I headed over to Willis Junior High School in Chandler, AZ where we met with Jeff Delp, the school’s administrator. Jeff started a district pilot program on blended (some call it hybrid) learning in the junior high school by randomly selecting 105 honors students and four teachers (one each from Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies) at a traditional junior high school. The school decided to start with blended rather than a full virtual program, in part, due to the younger age of the students. A blended program offers stronger communicative connections between students and instructors and more guidance in general. Next year an application process will be put in place due to the wildly positive response to the pilot. Jeff has students who “want into the program but has none who’ve attempted to opt out”, and home Internet access isn’t a prerequisite. On the accessibility concern his philosophy and mine mesh; if students need more time online they can visit libraries, come to campus earlier, stay after, etc… In the Chandler District, for example, most high schools are linked to a city library that is an extension of the campus that includes a full computer lab and other workstations within the building. Not to mention several computer labs exist (depending on the site) and student stations in some teacher classrooms.

Jeff stressed that touring other school’s successful programs was essential when developing this pilot. For us, this may include a future trip to Vail School District in Tucson, AZ that seems to be ahead of the game with technology, including wifi-enabled school buses. Professional Development is the key to Willis’ program, which includes understanding that administration and faculty who successfully navigate these programs need to understand an entirely different skill set that comprises of highly collaboration, student generated creations, and evaluation programs. When building his program, Jeff toured schools in both Chicago and New York City.

Teachers must have more freedoms. This includes opening Twitter and blogging in the schools. Blogging and twittering for the Willis team is now unblocked and YouTube is unblocked for all adult logins district wide (not for students yet). Jeff who, tweets as @azjd, uses the #edchat hashtag to continue building dialogue and learning from administrators nationally who are further along in this journey. An aside: Two years ago my own blog was filtered after my using it as a my classroom webspace for four years. In a post I used the euphemism that “so and so must be on crack to believe “… whatever it was I was discussing. It was obviously a euphemism for “crazy” but now it was blocked for “drug promotion”. Shortly after the district’s rule of thumb was that anything that was a blog was automatically blocked.

Jeff encourages his teachers to stretch their ideas and learn about technologies that may confuse them, but he also reminds them that we don’t do technology in the classroom for technologies sake. Sometimes the best lesson doesn’t include any technology (and recently our district computers were off line for an entire school day – no one died & learning continued).

This year Willis uses Edmodo coupled with Google Apps for its pilot; while the district limits Google Apps to only Calendar and Docs, we both hope that other apps will be added as the program develops into next school year. The district is also moving to a new domain name on July 1st and it would be ideal to build Google Apps around that domain name. We’ll see. The district recently approved BrainHoney as their LMS and Pearson’s on board so there may be some shifts away from a purely open source model for the 2012-2013 school year. Jeff also discussed his partnership with Gangplank owner Derek Neighbors who has been in my own social business circles through Gangplank in one way or another for years. The partnerships we Chandler educators are building with local collaborative Chandler technology consortiums are arguably essential as some models of 21st century learning move out of the classrooms and into the apprenticeship and internship areas.

While the Chandler District is behind the curve in terms of technology implementation with our 21st century students, Dr Camille Casteel’s, our district’s superintendent, main concern is student safety. Dr Casteel wants what is best for students and in our case we need to be able to show how we want to use whatever technology, why we cannot do whatever it is without it, and then how we’re going to keep the students safe. The potential for eventually broadening Willis program into the high schools is exciting, as part of the student safety concern is the age of the students. Today’s pilot is with junior high students and tomorrow’s application may be with high schoolers. (Their age seems to be the predominant reason the Google mail App is not currently being used.)

CC image posted on Flickr by Devon Christopher Adams

Part of Jeff’s philosophy that he emphasizes with his teachers is the Flipped Classroom model. I realize I’ve used this model for years by promoting content consumption outside the classroom while focusing class time on the creation and synthesis of key curricular concepts. This concept is not new. It’s called homework, but now traditional approaches to homework and how students are consuming it has shifted and become a lot more interesting. For example, if Susie has grasped a certain math concept, she can move onto the next one while Billy may still be working on the former concept. Willis teachers use screencasts and take Cornell notes on their needs before applying that learning in class.

One nice example Jeff Delp mentioned is trying to increase access to YouTube (perhaps through a school YouTube channel) so, in class, students and the teacher can better individualize learning where one group may review a certain video while another group views a different video. It is not feasible to have the teacher show 10+ different videos throughout the class for different small groups but if the students had access to do so, they’d arguably learn more effectively.

Our high schools have always struggled with textbook management and most of the schools in this district do not have a bookstore (we have a bookstore manager but we are responsible for disseminating, collecting and recording our own books). This is a hassle. I can’t wait until virtual textbooks at our level works smoothly; we’ll save so much money and time (our textbooks now do have an online component, but we still purchase paper copies). Part of what Jeff said when we discussed Google Docs and online text(e)books was that he can use funds that once purchased thousands of reams of paper on more netbooks for the classrooms.

Jeff took us on a tour of a Language Arts class in a computer lab. The students were reviewing their content through the online textbook and working on reading responses in Google Docs. While I’ve used Google Docs for collaboration for probably close to six years now, one thing that I liked that his LA teacher did was to give the prompt/response directions/questions to the student via a viewable Google doc. Then they made a copy and wrote into it before sharing it back to the teacher. No more paper. While I’ve done that before, it was never for work completed IN CLASS due to the fact that I could not be sure every student had access to the document. While Jeff did mention the use of mobile devices on campus (and his campus is wireless) and high schoolers tend to have even more wireless mobile access, not everyone does.

CC image “Netbook Shelf” posted on Flickr by Enokson.

We also visited with the Social Studies class who had groups of 2-4 students around the room collaborating around HP Mini netbooks. He chose netbooks because battery life lasted the entire school day and they’re relatively cheap. This year Edmodo is the LMS of choice, in part, because of the approachability and Facebook like interface which is familiar to so many. Other technologies Jeff and his team use with the students include Twitter, Glogster, and Poll Everywhere, and while none of them are new novelties to me and my (tech) colleagues, it is a relief to see Web 2.0 being better embraced and unlocked by our district’s powers that be.

I’m relieved in many ways that this program has emerged and while I don’t know the background or what it took to get this far, people like Jeff Delp and his visions at Willis Junior High School are what we need to bring our district forward… for the sake of the kids.

Ok, ladies & gentlemen, drum roll please!

You can now a Google Document and/or Google Document Folder with a Google Group. When you do, every member of that group is now shared to that Google Doc file/folder. I teach high school using Google Docs and have 100+ students in Google Groups. I use to have to keep a separate mailing list and batch email people to files I needed them to be able able to collaborate. (I realize if you just want them to see the a single file, a weblink is quick and dirty, but I want them to collaborate!)

Now, it’s no more! Now I can click on a file and add the Google Group address, and presto! 100+ kids just read and edited a proposal by a classmate! Wow.

Now, in theory, let’s take it one step further. We should also be able to Group share folders. Even though I’ve not tried it yet, I wonder if we can Group share a folder and if you then want it collaborated to the entire Group (think peer editing or building course rubrics with student input), you can just dump the file into that folder. Now for each class, I can have a Google Doc folder and then two sub folders. One called “View” and one called “Collaborate”. Google’s like a fine wine.

(CC) image posted by Ray Weitzenberg on Flickr.

At the high school, we wanted to find a way to have the students keep their resources from year to year so they can build their own resource aggregation. Discussions of Diigo emerged and we realized we could use Diigo to build their repository. Below is just one example of a set of annotations my students completed and if you look at the time stamp this single page from a Gmail archive is just a few hours worth of discussions and annotations online in various websites. Check out http://bit.ly/diigoit for my resources, and if you have anymore resources I should include there, let me know!

“Within the decade, it will either become the norm to teach this course (high school Algebra I) in middle school or we’ll have finally woken up to the fact that there’s no reason to give algebra weight over statistics and IT in high school for non-math majors (and they will have all taken it in middle school anyway).”
– Shelley Blake-Plock

Originally Published by The Daily Riff 12/19/10

21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020

by Shelley Blake-Plock

Last night I read and posted the clip on ’21 Things That Became Obsolete in the Last Decade’. Well, just for kicks, I put together my own list of ’21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020′.

1. Desks
The 21st century does not fit neatly into rows. Neither should your students. Allow the network-based concepts of flow, collaboration, and dynamism help you rearrange your room for authentic 21st century learning.

2. Language Labs
Foreign language acquisition is only a smartphone away. Get rid of those clunky desktops and monitors and do something fun with that room.

3. Computers
Ok, so this is a trick answer. More precisely this one should read: ‘Our concept of what a computer is’. Because computing is going mobile and over the next decade we’re going to see the full fury of individualized computing via handhelds come to the fore. Can’t wait.

4. Homework
The 21st century is a 24/7 environment. And the next decade is going to see the traditional temporal boundaries between home and school disappear. And despite whatever Secretary Duncan might say, we don’t need kids to ‘go to school’ more; we need them to ‘learn’ more. And this will be done 24/7 and on the move (see #3).

5. The Role of Standardized Tests in College Admissions
The AP Exam is on its last legs. The SAT isn’t far behind. Over the next ten years, we will see Digital Portfolios replace test scores as the #1 factor in college admissions.

6. Differentiated Instruction as the Sign of a Distinguished Teacher
The 21st century is customizable. In ten years, the teacher who hasn’t yet figured out how to use tech to personalize learning will be the teacher out of a job. Differentiation won’t make you ‘distinguished’; it’ll just be a natural part of your work.

7. Fear of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the greatest democratizing force in the world right now. If you are afraid of letting your students peruse it, it’s time you get over yourself.

8. Paperbacks
Books were nice. In ten years’ time, all reading will be via digital means. And yes, I know, you like the ‘feel’ of paper. Well, in ten years’ time you’ll hardly tell the difference as ‘paper’ itself becomes digitized.

9. Attendance Offices
Bio scans. ‘Nuff said.

10. Lockers
A coat-check, maybe.

11. IT Departments
Ok, so this is another trick answer. More subtly put: IT Departments as we currently know them. Cloud computing and a decade’s worth of increased wifi and satellite access will make some of the traditional roles of IT — software, security, and connectivity — a thing of the past. What will IT professionals do with all their free time? Innovate. Look to tech departments to instigate real change in the function of schools over the next twenty years.

12. Centralized Institutions
School buildings are going to become ‘homebases’ of learning, not the institutions where all learning happens. Buildings will get smaller and greener, student and teacher schedules will change to allow less people on campus at any one time, and more teachers and students will be going out into their communities to engage in experiential learning.

13. Organization of Educational Services by Grade
Education over the next ten years will become more individualized, leaving the bulk of grade-based learning in the past. Students will form peer groups by interest and these interest groups will petition for specialized learning. The structure of K-12 will be fundamentally altered.

14. Education School Classes that Fail to Integrate Social Technology
This is actually one that could occur over the next five years. Education Schools have to realize that if they are to remain relevant, they are going to have to demand that 21st century tech integration be modeled by the very professors who are supposed to be preparing our teachers.

(Ed. Note: Check out Plock’s 2010 nomination for best blog post: “Why Teachers Should Blog“)

15. Paid/Outsourced Professional Development
No one knows your school as well as you. With the power of a PLN in their backpockets, teachers will rise up to replace peripatetic professional development gurus as the source of schoolwide prof dev programs. This is already happening.

16. Current Curricular Norms
There is no reason why every student needs to take however many credits in the same course of study as every other student. The root of curricular change will be the shift in middle schools to a role as foundational content providers and high schools as places for specialized learning.

17. Parent-Teacher Conference Night
Ongoing parent-teacher relations in virtual reality will make parent-teacher conference nights seem quaint. Over the next ten years, parents and teachers will become closer than ever as a result of virtual communication opportunities. And parents will drive schools to become ever more tech integrated.

18. Typical Cafeteria Food
Nutrition information + handhelds + cost comparison = the end of $3.00 bowls of microwaved mac and cheese. At least, I so hope so.

19. Outsourced Graphic Design and Webmastering
You need a website/brochure/promo/etc.? Well, for goodness sake just let your kids do it. By the end of the decade — in the best of schools — they will be.

20. High School Algebra
Within the decade, it will either become the norm to teach this course in middle school or we’ll have finally woken up to the fact that there’s no reason to give algebra weight over statistics and IT in high school for non-math majors (and they will have all taken it in middle school anyway).

21. Paper
In ten years’ time, schools will decrease their paper consumption by no less than 90%. And the printing industry and the copier industry and the paper industry itself will either adjust or perish.

###
Editor’s Note: A “classic” from the Teach Paperless blog and previously published. Shelley Blake-Plock is a self-described “artist and teacher . . . an everyday instigator for progressive art, organization, and education. In addition to his work teaching high school Latin and Art History, Shelly is a member of both the experimental Red Room Collective and Baltimore’s High Zero Foundation . . .” It will be interesting to see how his predictions fare over the next few years . . .

###

Originally posted by The Daily Riff December 10, 2010

Crude & Awkward: Educational Forms & Teacher 2.0

In a recent panel I chaired at National Council of Teachers of English entitled LEARNING LITERATE LIVES: 21ST CENTURY LITERACY SKILLS BEYOND INDIVIDUAL TECHNOLOGIES with Shelley Rodrigo, Chad Sansing, and William Kist, the discussion revolved around grass roots educational reform in terms of trying to move beyond the catch phrase “21st century learning” towards what that REALLY means. In November 2008, during Marc Prensky’s keynote from NCTE in San Antonio, he discussed how the taxonomies must shift from the nouns of Bloom’s 1956 model towards a “verbed” model where CREATING is shifted to the top. This same concept, for me, applies to technology tools. Educators want to take these shiny tech tools and try to shove them into the tired, regurgitated pedagogical paradigms. But that’s not effective. We can’t just grab the most recent cool Web 2.0 app and use it in our classes for the sake of using it. It doesn’t work, no matter how hard we’ve tried.

I’ll admit it; I’ve done it. I’ve said “let’s do this project” and “here’s the tool!” The kids groan, and I groan later… the reason I groan is because suddenly this cool shiny tool does NOT work! We use to love utterli.com and used it for maybe a year in a half until, during one project, it just died. I contacted the Utterli people who ignored me. I checked their Twitter feed that looked dead. My kids complained. They emailed me and each other, over and over. Nothing I could. I moved away from Utterli (if you find anything that can replace Utterli, tell me). I then tried another awesome tool I loved one called Xtimeline.com. Guess what? It worked very well until I asked 100 students to use it during the same week! It died. Same deal. Next up, Capzles.com. Some things worked very well but then we found bugs. The “CEO” would answer emails and sounded great. This lasted a week. After that, he stopped responding to my (very respectful) questions/emails. This is what happens.

Teacher 2.0

So what do we do? We need to stop giving them these tools. Yes, I think I said that. Let’s start with the notion of US. Who are we? Who must we be? This blog is called Teacher 2.0 because we need a pedagogical reboot. Most of us are our own tech support, our own pedagogical experts, and our own content area authorities. By wearing all three hats, this becomes more difficult for us. Beyond teaching we, often, are required to teach to the test, chair committees, sponsor clubs, etc… And all of this beyond actually teaching.

cc image posted on Wikipedia by Punya Mishra on February 15, 2009

I call us Teacher 2.0. Not all of us, but the ones who “get it” and really try to become the center of the above diagram. Those of us in these discussions and care about our kids. It’s frustrating to be Teacher 2.0 because we have several challenges: 1) our IT department hates us because we’re the squeaky wheel who wants to get to websites that we hear work well but they filter them because they over filter and have unfounded fears of CIPA, 2) our class building colleagues who roll their eyes when we talk tech (like the teacher down the hall who wants to install a cell phone blocker in his classroom for his students!), or 3) our admin who don’t understand the technology updates because they’ve focused so long on either the pedagogical perspective or (god forbid) the management perspective of running a school. It’s hard to be a teacher in this world, and, too often, one of three things happens: 1) they give up and revert to Teacher 1.0, 2) they give up on teaching k-12 and shift to college/university (less filters, less big brother evals), or 3) they quit teaching all together. The last one is terrible because we lose some of our greatest teachers in our public schools every single day. Henry Giroux, critical and pedagogy theorist, in response to how teachers are currently being portrayed (read: lambasted) in the media and corporate American, argues that “Once eager public servants [teachers] in the fight for equality and justice, teachers are now forced to play with a severe handicap, as if assembled on a field blindfolded and gagged” (October 5, 2010). I have no idea why we placate the negativity thrust upon us. Is it through a mutual fear? We fear what education has become. The powers that be fear that eventually we teachers won’t continue our placated subservience towards the corporatized, politicized educational fruitcake system.

As I wrote that last bit I was about to make a caveat about not trying to sound conspiratorial and negative, but then I’d be sugar coating our current system. I won’t do that. What I will do is shift to a definition of today’s Student 2.0.

Student 2.0

A gap has emerged between the way teachers think and the way students think. The difference between the way we, the native immigrants work, and the way the digital natives learn are vast: they work at twitch speed (how fast their fingers move on cell phones or gaming joysticks), they randomly access information instead of linearily, they parallel process data, they read graphics first, and they are just truly more connected. People toss around terms for various generations. Don Tapscott calls current undergrads, high schoolers, and middle schoolers NetGen (TK) while Marc Prensky calls them digital natives (many people find this term problematic, and typically that focuses on class-based situations); I suggest the students a few years older than my own child in elementary and younger are now the iGeneration (or iGen, if you must). What makes these kids iGen is not knowledge or capabilities but it is attitude and comfort level. While GenX educators (and even those of us on the cutting edge of Teacher 2.0) tend to keep a foot in the past (like the people who print emails and edit research work by printing it and writing on the paper), don’t necessarily instinctively go to the internet first, don’t naturally share their public profiles, make assumptions that real life happens offline, and believe our pedagogical practices are effective, while our students are metaphoric rockets; they go at hide speed, they’re volatile, they’re headed places unknown, they need good programming and good payload, they may require mid course corrections, and they have an enormous potential payoff. Teacher 2.0 is scared, Teacher 1.0 ignores this shift, the administration sweeps this under the carpet, the test makers just want to make their money, and the politicians wants to filter education funds elsewhere.

Together we all need to realize student 2.0 are those who want to consume and create in the digital age.

cc image created and posted on Flickr by Devon Christopher Adams on November 17, 2010

Crude & Awkward

In closing, some technology tools last a few years while others last only a few months. Educators need to be aware that these tools disappear too quickly for us to really engage with them pedagogically. This scares teachers. Email has been considered for “old people” as far back as late 2007. What’s next to go? Our capabilities, mindsets, and activities need to change because technology evolves daily.

Teacher 1.0 and way too many of our IT departments and administrators make excuses that we don’t use the technology because:

We don’t have time.
It produces poor work.
Where’s the evidence it works?
We don’t have computers.
It doesn’t help students pass the test.
Kids will cheat.

Kids will cheat. Why do today’s teachers generalize this notion of using technology to cheat? This is profound because today’s students need to learn HOW to find knowledge and information rather than worrying about how they find that knowledge. Student 2.0 are not just using technology differently, they are reshaping their entire lives with technology. Students have online ways of communicating, sharing, buying/selling, exchanging, learning, meeting, gaming, coordinating, evaluations, collecting, creating, evolving, searching, analyzing, reporting, programming, etc…. Today’s student is a different beast than their predecessors: US, Generation X (for the most part) teachers. We, as teachers, formerly used our own personal, younger experiences to relate to our students, but this generation is different. We can’t do that now. What do we do? How do we reform education? We don’t need educational reform, we need new educational forms. And with these discussions, I hope we find them.

Here I’ll borrow William Kist’s silent film metaphor. The silent film format was cutting edge and brand new a century ago; no one knew what the next step was and no one knew where this all was headed. Those filmmakers were rudimentary, they were “crude and awkward”. Flash forward a hundred years and we have 3D television technology for our living rooms and watch film leap out at us from 15 story movie screens. Sure educational reform may take 100 years but I’m ready to start now. This is grass roots; Teacher 2.0 like you and me are the pioneers, and, I don’t know about you, but I am ok being called crude and awkward.

So here I am at my 4th NCTE. Been a member since 1999 (think Nashville), but didn’t begin really attending until San Antonio when we really began to try to wrap our brains around 21st Century learning and Student 2.0. Then it was my colleague Ian and me, sharing a room, meeting some awesome people, and listening to Marc Prensky talk about his “digital natives” notion. Now two years later I’ve presented a few times and will again in a couple of hours. Last time I rode to coattails, this time I chaired the panel. We work with some awesome people here.

cc image posted on Flickr by Trey Ratcliff.

As I began to prep for today I wanted to really get beyond the idea of forcing the shiny tech tool into a shriveled pedagogical paradigm (most of that discussion will take place on my Google site at: bit.ly/verbingthenouns. The more I read, wrote, and thought about how teachers today need to learn to teach to students today, the more I realized most of us probably don’t even know how to do it – and those are the good ones. By that I mean, those of us who care, aren’t sure how to do it and have been discussing it heavily for two years. Other teachers don’t understand there’s an issue at all. And for me that’s an issue.

For my students independent reading project this quarter, they had to make a video that showcased one of the books from a short reading list that included Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. This group wanted to turn their’s in two weeks early. Here it is.

Here’s a video turned on to me from a colleague in LA. It showcases a partnership between APPLE and students at Paradise Valley Unified School District with how today’s students use mobile devices, like iPod touches, to better enhance their learning and education. Something I try to do daily in my own high school classes.

2010 AASA iTouch Workshop

PV USD provides the video to educators through their iTunesU subscription & Arizona’s IDEAL eLearning Platform. I hope you try similar projects with your classes and children!

Consider the information in the video above. What is the purpose behind the video? If we define the video in terms of the rhetorical situation, there’s certain analysis that is evident albeit if I then explain to you that it’s an advertisement for a paper book, how does that change your consideration for the above video?

Comments?

This past weekend I was accepted to speak both days at the Arizona English Teacher’s Association, which occurs in central Arizona each fall. Shelley Rodrigo and I had decided we’d present on Embracing the Chaos of Web 2.0, but I also had some other ideas. Sometimes I find there are certain technologies I’ve used for so long (in Web 2.0, this is like months) that I take then for granted. I decided to discuss the use of Google Docs in collaborative peer writing and editing and creating a paperless classroom. I wasn’t sure how that would go over, albeit the people who came to see this session were wildly engaged and some were returning to entire school to implement my ideas. Pretty cool. As for the Creative Chaos presentation, at the last minute, Shelley could not attend so I asked my colleague from Scottsdale Community College, Lisa Young, to join me. She and I discussed various scenarios of how students technologies seemingly interrupt learning in the classroom, and how teachers can embrace these technologies (i.e., mobile phones, iPods, etc…) to enhance learning in the classroom.

The coolest part of the conference though was seeing PJ Haarsma, author of The Softwire Series, again. He and I have presented together a few other times, and I’ve written about my work with him HERE and HERE before. This time he brought fellow author, Frank Beddor, with him to Arizona. Frank’s primary, current work is The Looking Glass Wars. He, as I’ve written here, posited the What If Alice Liddell really did come from Wonderland and was in fact the last remain heir to the Hart throne, after her wicked Aunt Red (think Queen of Hearts) had her family slaughtered. This narrative became the The Looking Glass Wars series and the Hatter M comic series.

Jim Blasingame, board president of Kids Need to Read and ASU professor, invited several people to his home the evening of conference, including yours truly. PJ and Frank are those rare breed of author who truly cares to engage children in reading and finding innovative ways to excite children about reading. Moreover, they are just nice guys.