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.
Showing posts with label NECC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NECC. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
The Other Side
There's a whole 'other' world at NECC, you know.
It's the world there just below the physical reality of the convention center. Some folks are tuned into it, others will have left the conference never having been aware of its existence.
It's the virtual world of NECC Unplugged.
Since Monday, there have been over 40 presentations in the Elluminate Live Room as well as through the virtual rooms and live feeds. They've covered various topics not readily available elsewhere at NECC such as a 'research 2.0' demo of Diigo, an intro to Sugar Lab's open source collaborative learning platform, a wiki roundtable with Adam Frey from Wikispaces, as well as hands-on sessions explaining how to actually USE social media of all sorts in a classroom setting.
I'll be spending this, the final day of NECC 2009, exploring the virtual side.
It's the world there just below the physical reality of the convention center. Some folks are tuned into it, others will have left the conference never having been aware of its existence.
It's the virtual world of NECC Unplugged.
Since Monday, there have been over 40 presentations in the Elluminate Live Room as well as through the virtual rooms and live feeds. They've covered various topics not readily available elsewhere at NECC such as a 'research 2.0' demo of Diigo, an intro to Sugar Lab's open source collaborative learning platform, a wiki roundtable with Adam Frey from Wikispaces, as well as hands-on sessions explaining how to actually USE social media of all sorts in a classroom setting.
I'll be spending this, the final day of NECC 2009, exploring the virtual side.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Closing Up Tuesday at NECC
Yawn.
That wasn't a bored yawn. That was an exhausted yawn.
More like: YAAWWWNNNN...
Day 3 of my Tour-du-NECC and I'm blogging from the remains of the student showcase area. Me and a security guard and a few straggling bloggers.
Before I forget, here are the Tweeple of the Day: first up is @JDPennington, a teacher from NJ; he's going 1:1 in the fall and wants to have all his Spanish students using Diigo. Next up is @dragonsinger57 who taught me the difference between 'vortices' and 'vertices'.
Most of the action this afternoon, at least here in the convention center, was over on the 140s wing and in the Bloggers' Cafe. ISTE came around Ustreaming from the cafe and they've uploaded that here. You may want to stop the video short lest toward the end, during the interview of some weird bearded blogger dude who goes by the name of TechPepperless or something like that, yr video card be disrupted; don't have any idea who that guy is, but man is he... blurry.
As for the showcase area, SETSIG hosted a workshop on Universal Design for Learning. In fact, I'm sitting in the wasteland of what only hours ago was that workshop space. The first step in Universal Design, after all, should be experiencing complete lack of it.
I have to say that today was really just overwhelming. At least I'm not the only one who looks overwhelmed. One of the greeters upstairs in the games area was joking that next year she's going to make her set-up less comfortable to chat in because she spent all day long talking and talking and talking to folks pouring through.
But those crowds are steadily streaming out of the convention center. Off into the chaos of Chinatown; leaving one hyper-experience for another.
And with that, I'm off for the day.
from NECC,
Shelly
That wasn't a bored yawn. That was an exhausted yawn.
More like: YAAWWWNNNN...
Day 3 of my Tour-du-NECC and I'm blogging from the remains of the student showcase area. Me and a security guard and a few straggling bloggers.
Before I forget, here are the Tweeple of the Day: first up is @JDPennington, a teacher from NJ; he's going 1:1 in the fall and wants to have all his Spanish students using Diigo. Next up is @dragonsinger57 who taught me the difference between 'vortices' and 'vertices'.
Most of the action this afternoon, at least here in the convention center, was over on the 140s wing and in the Bloggers' Cafe. ISTE came around Ustreaming from the cafe and they've uploaded that here. You may want to stop the video short lest toward the end, during the interview of some weird bearded blogger dude who goes by the name of TechPepperless or something like that, yr video card be disrupted; don't have any idea who that guy is, but man is he... blurry.
As for the showcase area, SETSIG hosted a workshop on Universal Design for Learning. In fact, I'm sitting in the wasteland of what only hours ago was that workshop space. The first step in Universal Design, after all, should be experiencing complete lack of it.
I have to say that today was really just overwhelming. At least I'm not the only one who looks overwhelmed. One of the greeters upstairs in the games area was joking that next year she's going to make her set-up less comfortable to chat in because she spent all day long talking and talking and talking to folks pouring through.
But those crowds are steadily streaming out of the convention center. Off into the chaos of Chinatown; leaving one hyper-experience for another.
And with that, I'm off for the day.
from NECC,
Shelly
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.
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.
Monday, June 29, 2009
2019
2019
That’s the year Scott McLeod says we’re without a paddle.
Here’s the equation from his NECC session this afternoon:
Looking at the exponential curve with regards to technology and personalization in education, McLeod predicts half of high school courses will be online by 2019.
Another way of thinking about it is like this: in ten years time, most of the basics of how we’ve thought about servicing education will be toast.
We'd be wise to review Dewey: "Communication is shared experience". And while we're at it, let's update Dewey: "Communication is shared experience is education. And immediate, global, connected shared experience is communication".
Ten years.
That’s the year Scott McLeod says we’re without a paddle.
Here’s the equation from his NECC session this afternoon:
K-12 education is facing disruptive innovation. It’s [called] personalized learning.
The existing educational model is not a given.
All of this is going to sneak up on educational organizations.
Looking at the exponential curve with regards to technology and personalization in education, McLeod predicts half of high school courses will be online by 2019.
Another way of thinking about it is like this: in ten years time, most of the basics of how we’ve thought about servicing education will be toast.
We'd be wise to review Dewey: "Communication is shared experience". And while we're at it, let's update Dewey: "Communication is shared experience is education. And immediate, global, connected shared experience is communication".
Ten years.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Faux Gladwell: The NECC 2009 Keynote Fail
Lot's of dissension on the Gladwell keynote at NECC. Here's a link to the RSS of the liveblog I posted during the speech.
My biggest beef with the presentation was that it was an ongoing string of generalities about famous people. Had absolutely nothing to do with teaching kids. And throughout, I felt like the whole thing just sounded canned.
Little did I or anyone else know that Mr. Gladwell just gave a 'strikingly' similar speech a few weeks ago: to the United Way.
The blogger at the Eagle Blog goes on to describe exactly how Mr. Gladwell related the history of Fleetwood Mac to the work of the United Way.
And guess what?
Looks like it was mostly the same speech he just gave to NECC.
I find this to be the ultimate in pandering. Given the opportunity to give a keynote to the biggest ed tech conference in the world, at least do us the honor of giving a unique speech.
At least something we can't already find on Google.
My biggest beef with the presentation was that it was an ongoing string of generalities about famous people. Had absolutely nothing to do with teaching kids. And throughout, I felt like the whole thing just sounded canned.
Little did I or anyone else know that Mr. Gladwell just gave a 'strikingly' similar speech a few weeks ago: to the United Way.
It is impressive to hear someone like Gladwell talk. He didn't use notes and he was able to recite facts and statistics from memory that always tends to blow my mind. In an effort to do something a little different last night he decided to give three lessons to be learned from the story of Fleetwood Mac. One of the hallmarks of a great speaker for me is their ability to entertain, to get their messages across and if they can surprise you at the same time then its a huge bonus! Gladwell delivered ... Fleetwood Mac as a topic for the United Way major donors!
The blogger at the Eagle Blog goes on to describe exactly how Mr. Gladwell related the history of Fleetwood Mac to the work of the United Way.
And guess what?
Looks like it was mostly the same speech he just gave to NECC.
I find this to be the ultimate in pandering. Given the opportunity to give a keynote to the biggest ed tech conference in the world, at least do us the honor of giving a unique speech.
At least something we can't already find on Google.
A Tale of Two Conferences
I am realizing very quickly that NECC is really two conferences.
In one conference, educators explain how they are pushing the boundaries of technology. Discussions take place. Thinking occurs.
In the other conference, corporations pitch their wares to the folks who make big money ed tech decisions. Deals take place. Sales occur.
In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing.
But it is a thing.
And it is something that I've got to be aware of as I blog the next few days.
In one conference, educators explain how they are pushing the boundaries of technology. Discussions take place. Thinking occurs.
In the other conference, corporations pitch their wares to the folks who make big money ed tech decisions. Deals take place. Sales occur.
In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing.
But it is a thing.
And it is something that I've got to be aware of as I blog the next few days.
A Very Delicate Procedure
I realize that I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants idealist.
I especially realize this as soon as I step onto the ledge overlooking the exhibitors' hall.
AT&T, Texas Instruments, and several other names which have surfed the choppy waters of modern American capitalism peer up from the floor as if to say: told ya' we'd still be here.
Nowhere at NECC is the tenacious balance between ideas and commerce so self-aware as on the exhibition floor.
This is where hundreds of companies will tell you that their product and/or proprietary method is what you need. This, when we all realize that what we need is true open source cloud computing.
What we need is simple and universal access via simple and universal devices.
Yeah, exactly buddy... I got one of them right here for a good price.
Alas, the exhibition floor.
This is where teachers getting paid morsels to prepare the intellects of future generations get to be eyed by sales reps from the world's biggest corporations.
Depending on your point of view, it's either the best of the future or the worst of the future. It's either testimony to innovation and collaboration between corporate and educational America, or it's a testament to that basic premise of business which will never change.
I somehow see it as precious. Delicate, perhaps.
In the same way that walking on the edge of a knife is a very delicate procedure.
***
I'm sitting downstairs outside the exhibition hall in a little secluded alcove. No one else is here. Just me and a handful of nicely proportioned modern leather chairs.
On the wall hang three art assemblages. They are three abacuses made of wood and old rubber balls. The sign says that they are the work of one Greg Hannan of Washington, D.C.
I sit here looking at the three pieces and I can't help but wonder. Who needed that original abacus more: the guy who ran out of fingers to count on or the guy who came up with a way to put that wood piled up in the backyard to some entrepreneurial use?
I especially realize this as soon as I step onto the ledge overlooking the exhibitors' hall.
AT&T, Texas Instruments, and several other names which have surfed the choppy waters of modern American capitalism peer up from the floor as if to say: told ya' we'd still be here.
Nowhere at NECC is the tenacious balance between ideas and commerce so self-aware as on the exhibition floor.
This is where hundreds of companies will tell you that their product and/or proprietary method is what you need. This, when we all realize that what we need is true open source cloud computing.
What we need is simple and universal access via simple and universal devices.
Yeah, exactly buddy... I got one of them right here for a good price.
Alas, the exhibition floor.
This is where teachers getting paid morsels to prepare the intellects of future generations get to be eyed by sales reps from the world's biggest corporations.
Depending on your point of view, it's either the best of the future or the worst of the future. It's either testimony to innovation and collaboration between corporate and educational America, or it's a testament to that basic premise of business which will never change.
I somehow see it as precious. Delicate, perhaps.
In the same way that walking on the edge of a knife is a very delicate procedure.
***
I'm sitting downstairs outside the exhibition hall in a little secluded alcove. No one else is here. Just me and a handful of nicely proportioned modern leather chairs.
On the wall hang three art assemblages. They are three abacuses made of wood and old rubber balls. The sign says that they are the work of one Greg Hannan of Washington, D.C.
I sit here looking at the three pieces and I can't help but wonder. Who needed that original abacus more: the guy who ran out of fingers to count on or the guy who came up with a way to put that wood piled up in the backyard to some entrepreneurial use?
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.
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.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
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
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
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Thrill of an Old Mac
I am getting ready for NECC 2009.
Just spent the evening finding a new battery for my old workhorse iBook G4. I've been everywhere with this computer and it's taken me everywhere else. Half of the keys are missing the letters (good thing I learned to type in grade school). Several keys stick (but I know which ones, so I feel sort of like Larry Bird must have felt on the old parquet of the Boston Garden). There's a deep gash in the corner where a piece of audio equipment fell on it. And the whole thing is covered in a strange grime that I like to refer to as a 'patina'.
But it's a hell of a computer.
I souped it up to the max RAM and stripped it of anything but the essentials. I like to think of it as the REAL netbook.
And it's a Power PC. The real deal. 1.2 GHz of pure pony car computing.
So when you see me at NECC, say hi. And tell my Mac that her new battery looks great.
Just spent the evening finding a new battery for my old workhorse iBook G4. I've been everywhere with this computer and it's taken me everywhere else. Half of the keys are missing the letters (good thing I learned to type in grade school). Several keys stick (but I know which ones, so I feel sort of like Larry Bird must have felt on the old parquet of the Boston Garden). There's a deep gash in the corner where a piece of audio equipment fell on it. And the whole thing is covered in a strange grime that I like to refer to as a 'patina'.
But it's a hell of a computer.
I souped it up to the max RAM and stripped it of anything but the essentials. I like to think of it as the REAL netbook.
And it's a Power PC. The real deal. 1.2 GHz of pure pony car computing.
So when you see me at NECC, say hi. And tell my Mac that her new battery looks great.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
NECC Unplugged
There was a Classroom 2.0 discussion yesterday afternoon about this year's virtual component of NECC. Looks like it's got great potential. Here's news from the NECC Unplugged wiki:
You can go to the wiki to find virtual presentations you'd like to follow as well as to sign up to deliver your own presentations.
Also variously referred to as "NECC 2.0," the NECC "Fringe" Festival, or the NECC "Unconference." NECC Unplugged is three days collaboratively created and scheduled by the participants, both on-site and virtual, held on-site in it's own "lounge" area and virtually in Elluminate.
You can go to the wiki to find virtual presentations you'd like to follow as well as to sign up to deliver your own presentations.
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