The Kids are Alright (so give 'em the stage)

No limit on the number of keynote suggestions you can make for the ISTE 2010 keynote, so I made another one. One I've been mulling over in the days since I first heard about the way ISTE was crowdsourcing part of the selection process this year.

Here's the proposal in a nutshell:

'The Kids are Alright (so give 'em the stage)'

Unless you are 15 years old in 2010, you have no idea what it's like to be 15 years old in 2010.

One of the most frustrating things about the education profession is the scant amount of time we spend listening to the ideas and reflections of the students we teach when it comes to the realities of what it feels like to be taught and to learn. We can talk amongst ourselves all we like about 'leadership' and 'educational tools' and 'best practices', but over and over again it's the voice of the students themselves -- the ones with the biggest stake in the debate -- that goes missing from the discussion.

So let's do something different with this keynote: Let's hear from the kids. Let's hear from the real experts: the students. Let's hear from kids who have no nostalgia for an analogue past. Let's hear from the idealists. Let's hear from the ones whose career and profession don't depend on scoring a keynote.

The kids are alright. Let's give 'em the stage.

Reflecting on what it is that I do everyday and what so many of you do everyday, I can't think of a better opportunity to really use the ISTE stage for something worthwhile than to hand it over to the students.

So often at these conferences, I feel like we talk about kids like they are mice in a lab.

Well, I say we shake up the conference scene and let the mice sing.

If you are with me on this, go ahead and vote here on ISTE's site.

22nd Century Skills: The Value of Visionary Thinking

Created a keynote idea for ISTE 2010: 22nd Century Skills: The Value of Visionary Thinking.

Here's the blurb:

We have already produced babies who will live on into the 22nd century. Rather than rehash and re-construe the arguments and mistakes of the past, we should take a moment to think about what their future holds. From neuro-networks and nanotechnology to the implications of the ways in which we use education to address environmental, aesthetic, economic, cultural, and social change; the 22nd century will be the result of the decisions that we make today. And for those children born today and for their children born tomorrow who will live into the 22nd century, nothing is more important than that we go beyond the outmoded hierarchies and expectations of yesterday and yield knew ideas in this transformational early digital age.

ISTE is running this as a sort of keynote competition this year, so if you dig this idea and would like to see a keynote about the 'real' future of education ('real' as in "we have no idea where this crazy train is gonna drop us off..."), please vote for my entry.

And while you are at it, create your own entry; you all have some fantastic ideas, it would be great to see you all shake up ISTE a bit! Let's flood them with truly out-of-compartment thinking.

NECC 2009: My Conclusion

Somebody bring me my horse.

It's time for this ed tech pilgrim to get up and ride.

Twenty-five posts in three-and-a-half days. Twenty-three pages of text. Over eight-thousand-two-hundred words.

And that doesn't count my live-blogging account of the Gladwell Mac keynote. That alone would add another three pages.

That's a lot of blogging.

Hopefully at least some of it was useful to someone. It certainly was useful to me to do it. Talk about a learning experience. Thinking, writing, posting, disagreeing with yourself.

And then the endless Tweets. Tweets about what? Places and sessions that now only exist in our memories and in our media.

There's meaning in there somewhere. I'll leave that to the real writers to work out. I bet Samuel Beckett would have been a hell of a Twitterer.

As for me, I've come to realize over the last few days that I was made for blogging; it gives me stamina; it defines and distills my thinking. It also challenges me because I am a total obsessive freak and what I blog often explains to me what I think.

That gets me in trouble occasionally.

It also makes me realize: I was made for these times.

***

Thank you to ISTE and ISTEConnects for making this possible. Thank you to the organizers and presenters. Thanks to the real media who put up with me drinking their coffee. Thanks to my fellow bloggers and to all of the folks I met both in real life and in sessions online.

Most of all, thanks to the teachers and students who are the reason all of this happens.

Thank you to my wife MJ for covering for me (and putting up with me).

I've got three elementary schoolers at home and I feel like more than anything I was blogging for them. And they're gonna have a laugh someday when they look back and see how old fashioned we all were.

Thank you Ro, Abe, and Johanna.

Daddy's coming home.

ISTEvision: Digital Stories from Teachers and Students

One part of the virtual NECC has been ISTEvision.

My favorite aspect of the site is the section devoted to digital stories by real teachers and real students.

From the story of a rural Idaho classroom which has connected to a classroom in New Zealand to teacher statements about their commitment to bringing authentic educational uses of technology into their classrooms, this series of videos -- from the amateur to the glossy -- is testament to the dedication of teachers and students to meeting the demands of the 21st century.

NECC 2009: The Oxford Debate

It is too early for Michael Jackson.

Unfortunately that’s been the music-of-choice throughout the conference. Bearable two nights ago. Grating this morning.

But I digress.

It’s 8:26AM and the convention center ballroom is just about full. This morning’s event is an ‘Oxford Style Debate’ on the topic: Are brick and mortar schools detrimental to the future of education.

The event begins with news about today’s ‘international competitiveness in education’ event over at the Press Club. And an ISTE volunteer just reminded the guy sitting next to me about the ISTE-led march down to Capitol Hill later in the morning. About 500 members are scheduled to meet with reps on the hill to advocate for ed tech. Looks like the big goal is for increased funding for classroom technology. Lot’s of policy stuff. Will keep you posted (in the most obviously least wonky of ways).

Lot’s of talk about ‘Digital Citizenship’ this morning. This has to do with the new NETS-A standards. According to ISTE, it’s about students learning how to use technological communication in safe, responsible, and appropriate ways.

Fair enough, though ‘appropriate’ wouldn’t make my list. If we teachers had been using tech ‘appropriately’ -- that is, according to the rules of the technology and the tech traditions in our schools -- we’d never be at the point we are now. ‘Appropriate’ is not one of the ingredients in Innovation.

***

The leadership of ISTE is now glowing hagiographic re: integration of ISTE goals and etc around the world. Celebrating the admins, mentors, and teachers who have been working hard in ed tech. Also celebrating the ‘corporate relationships’ that make this possible.

That’s exactly the thing that gives me pause. I completely understand that the folks down there on the convention floor are paying the rent for the rest of us to meet here at the Washington Convention Center. But, in what they’ve actually presented downstairs, I see a lot of maneuvering room for a non-profit to step in and actually handle a lot of what they are doing.

Consider Netbooks. You could pay $400 for a new book. Or have a non-profit that strips and retrofits old Mac iBooks for $200. I’ll tell you this: my souped up iBook G4 totally rocks the Acer netbooks I bought for my sons.

The non-profit sector has to be part of the equation.

***

Now, we’re on to the 2009 Awards Presentation.

Strange, strange atmosphere in the ballroom. The lights have gone down and we’re watching what was described as a ‘multimedia presentation’. Actually, it’s a flashy PowerPoint. At least they didn’t use ‘Thriller’ as their background music.

I say it’s strange because no one is actually receiving an award (physically). Rather, we are all sitting in rows watching this fancy automated PowerPoint on three big screens. I’m sitting in the front row, so I can look back into the crowd and what I see is not unlike rows upon rows of ninth graders watching a video describing photosynthesis.

Minutes pass.

Suddenly all the award winners magically appear on the side stage. Wow. Nice to see them. Though I would have preferred the award winners to have flown in on wires in a blaze of pyrotechnics and fog. Maybe it’s just all the Michael Jackson getting to me.

One way or the other, congratulations to the award winners for your hard work, and I was certainly relieved to see you in human form rather than just on the screen. (Hey ISTE, next year let’s get some video going on in that ‘multimedia’; it’d be a nice touch).

***

Oxford Debate

Finally. This is the main event. Horn and Stager vs. Jupp and Lemke. The sledgehammer wielding demo dream team vs. the touchy-feely old-fashioned ‘human’ types.

First up is Michael Horn, co-author of ‘Disrupting Class’. First thing I notice is that he is using notecards. I think notecards are detrimental to the future of education. His argument is that bricks-and-mortar schools don’t meet the variety of needs of students. He’s in favor of online-learning. Whatever that means. Because he doesn’t explain.

This is my beef: we still haven’t defined what ‘online learning’ is. I’ve looked at two major companies running online courses recently and what I’ve seen is that their version of ‘online learning’ is a rebuild of ‘textbook learning’. How is that any different than what we’ve got? Horn talks a lot about how bricks-and-mortar schools ‘confine’ students -- well, so do textbooks. And online courses can just as easily fall into the ‘textbook mentality’.

Next up is Brad Jupp from Colorado. He’s talking about bringing technology into the schools as opposed to closing down schools and sending kids into technology. “Schools are the vessles of the wishes of our democracy”. He’s got me. Talking about schools as the community centers where we can meet face-to-face and learn. They are anchors of democracy and they are the places where peers form important bonds.

Jupp describes the school building in sacred terms as the ‘house of learning’. It’s a powerful icon, not easily replaced by a computer screen.

Next up is Gary Stager from the Constructivist Consortium. His opening salvo is about the silliness in using technology to meet NCLB goals. Stager rips on the state of most online learning, comparing it to mailorder correspondence classes. He’s getting applause and laughs. Stager talks about quality online learning “mirroring” quality classroom learning. Getting beyond the bells and whistles. And then a slam on whiteboards!

Gary, despite his rather bombastic styule, is presenting a much more nuanced view of online learning. I see his role on his side of the debate as to redefine what we’re talking about in terms of ‘online learning’. He’s arguing that brick-and-mortar schools as they exist are detrimental, but that to be meaningful, online learning has to get beyond the status quo.

On the other side is Cheryl Lemke. She immediately plays against the dualism presupposed in the debate question itself: “It’s not black and white. It’s not one or the other. It’s a combination.” She’s playing to the same themes as Jupp: We don’t need to get rid of schools. We need to redefine how schools relate to their communities. But she stresses the recent research demonstrating that hybrid-learning being the most successful. And, when it comes down to it, that’s what really makes sense. Our kids have physical AND virtual lives. And we need to educate them for BOTH.

Marshall Thompson, a high school student from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda takes the first rebuttal on behalf of the tear-‘em-down team. Argues about the ‘limits’ of classrooms. Talks about ‘international’ living. “Why am I limited to get together to learn with those around me?”

But then he undermines his point via an anecdote. He tells us that he has lived around the world and saw devastation left in Sri Lanka by the Tsunami. Well, isn’t the point that he was ‘there’ in a physical space? He didn’t just get the images on YouTube. His argument actually is more about getting beyond the school walls and getting out into the world; he’s bypassed online learning altogether.

Rebutting on behalf of school buildings is Erik Bakke from West Springfield High School in Springfield, VA. Rushes into the ‘how’ and ‘with whom’ argument. Argues that connection to the local community is a good thing. Stresses the importance of groups and teams to learning. Hmm. I’d argue that anyone with a PLN would argue that ‘groups’ and ‘teams’ aren’t limited to the folks you share a room with. One thing that really does come through in his rebuttal, however is a sense of pride in one’s school. Can you have the same sort of ‘pride’ in an online class?

We’re up to the summaries.

Stager’s up. Slams teachers for not being about to understand student culture. Slams clickers and whiteboards and traditional classroom mentality. Raises hoots, eyebrows, and the rhetoric of the dialogue saying: “The blame lies in the bankruptcy of our imaginations”.

Lemke gets the last word: “It’s time for us to remember that we don’t want our fathers’ schools; we want our children’s schools.” She presents a compelling argument for engagement with the local AND global communities.

***

The final result? Well, at the start of the debate, 37% of audience members said bricks-and-mortar schools WERE detrimental, 64% WERE NOT detrimental. By the end of the debate, 26% said bricks-and-mortar schools WERE detrimental, and 74% said they WERE NOT.

Go figure, looks like teachers actually like their classrooms.

Cue the Michael Jackson.

How Am I Doing?

To start, here are your Tweeple of the day: @teacherman79 and @nashworld.

Second thing, so I've been doing this NECC thing now for two days. I've seen grown men dressed as data-storage and I've watched dedicated educators make hand-made Tech Anarchist garb. I've been screamed at by the cast of the new PBS Electric Company 2.0 and I've been cursed at by various well-meaning Australians. I've learned how to avoid coffee and food lines and I've become an expert at sneaking into closed sessions. I've managed to get my principal to start a Twitter account and I've managed to lose a party of VR gamers in ChinaTown (not my intention).

So I'd like to know, in terms of my blog posts and Tweets: how am I doing?

Don't hold back. I'm sure I will have gotten harsher criticism from my students, and I expect nothing less from my readers.

Just remember: this ain't Ed Week. They're pros. I'm just a loose cannon with a souped-up iBook G4.

All I've tried to do is mind-send my thoughts, observations, hyperboles, confessions, and occasional provocations out there to all of you whether you are at NECC or at rest comfy in your own homes.

I hope this is working.

And for the record, I fully realize that I am not a journalist... but that doesn't stop me from scoffing up their pastries in the press room.

Thanks again ISTE Connects for the chance to cover the conference. Tomorrow I turn up the heat.

Relics of the Past

I am sitting in a hallway on the third floor of the Washington Convention Center. I'm at the 30th annual meeting of the NECC along with a few thousand of my best friends.

The opening salvo -- the orientation presentation -- actually became an SRO affair, adding yet one more acronym to this NECC/ISTE ed tech mélange.

In this long hallway there's an exhibition I took in over a few spare minutes. It's a collection of old computers and techware; everything from a sweet old Apple SE to a how-to guide for managing a Windows NE server to an Atari 400 that my own kids would still just about die for.

The not-to-discreet title of the exhibit is: Relics of the Past.

It's funny because I was thinking of exactly this sort of thing on the way into town today. But not in terms of old hardware.

I was thinking in terms of the relics of an old way of thinking. An old way of going about business. An old way of thinking about and using technology.

It's that old top-down approach. That us vs. them approach.

It's been around from time in memorial, but to some degree, I think we really have bowed to it in recent years in ways not seen since the time of the British Empire. And before that, Rome.

And look where it's gotten us: financial crisis, housing collapse, a completely whacked-out environment, continuous war, and a degradation of the entire concept of what education should be all about.

And folks are sick of it.

So they are taking things into their own hands.

Here in the US, we hired this guy to be president much on this notion that what we desperately needed was CHANGE. Even bankers and car company execs are admitting that we need CHANGE. Not to mention the scientists telling us we need CHANGE to deal with climate CHANGE.

And, though undervalued and crucially underestimated, we've got teachers and students saying we need CHANGE. They're dying to kick the vestiges of the past to the proverbial curb (but more responsibly being willing to stuff 'em into the recycling bin of history).

The old top-down methods of management and the us vs. them philosophy of fear have only helped to lead our public school system -- particularly in the most vital yet vulnerable areas of our country -- into failure. We've got school districts that look like failed states. We've got kids in teachers' classrooms for only a limited amount of time, and yet we watch as teachers are forced to waste weeks of learning time teaching kids how to take bubble tests. We tell kids that they aren't intelligent because they can't regurgitate information.

It's all about failure.

But this time, it's the old system that has failed.

Here in the excitement of NECC -- a conference whose most intrinsic qualities are its exuberance and audacity -- we need to push the final remnants of that way of thinking out the door.

Scratch that.

Don't push it out the door. Just put it in one of those display cases with the other relics of the past.

NECC 2009

Thanks to a press pass award from ISTE, I'll be reporting and blogging live from NECC 2009 over the next few days.

Look for TeachPaperless.com to be your best (or at least your most obsessive) resource for information coming out of the conference. And please give your feedback and tell me where you want my eyes and ears to be.

Here's a link to the official conference site.

Next post will be from DC.

- Shelly

ISTE is taking it to the Hill

ISTE is taking it to the Hill:

ISTE is taking advantage of NECC being in the nation's capital by providing you with the opportunity to go to the Hill and share your ideas and success stories with your Senators and Congressional Members.

And, in preparation, they have just launched their Twitter Advocacy Group:

To get involved and see what people are posting you need to follow us at http://twitter.com/isteadvocacy and then follow the group.

I'll be following all of this action next week and will be updating this blog many times daily and live-blogging via Cover it Live. Follow my Tweets via @TeachPaperless for the most recent info.

TeachPaperless: from June 28th to July 1st -- Live from NECC 2009

Looks like I'm headed to DC!

From June 28th to July 1st, I'll be blogging from the NECC 2009 conference thanks to a press pass award from ISTE.

A special thank you to ISTE Connects & the readers following the guest blogs at ISTE for giving me this opportunity.

Congratulations also to the other bloggers receiving a press pass: Beth Still and Neil Stephenson. See you in DC.

Discussion on Students and Internet Blocking at ISTE Connects

The discussion at ISTE Connects concerning Students and Internet Blocking has been remarkable.

In the past week, we've had discussion between teachers and admins on all sides of the debate, IT and tech workers whose job description entails doing the actual blocking, and even executives from the filtering industry.

I'd like to thank the folks at ISTE for giving me the opportunity to guest blog on their site; this has opened up a wonderful conversation.