Maybe this isn't about PowerPoint...

A reader responds concerning yesterday's critiques of Bowen's 'Teach Naked' philosophy:

I don't think the "teaching naked" idea is completely devoid of merit. It's extreme, yes, but it starts to get at a fundamental transformation of school, even though it's coming from a different place than most tech advocates would prefer.

Since technology now lets us relocate some of what happens in classrooms in space and time, I continue to be fascinated by the idea that everything that happens in a meatspace classroom should be something that can only happen there (or as close to it as we can come). The availability of f2f social interaction is the defining attribute of the meatspace classroom, and only a true ideologue would deny that ubiquitous technology can and does interfere with that at times.

Anyone who is seeking to increase the engagement level for f2f interactions should be supported, even if some of their notions about technology are misguided. We should be working with people like Bowen to show how using technology to shape, share, and take that critical f2f social interaction to someplace new and different that changes the game in compelling ways.

If we can't make that case for him, or we really can't acknowledge the primacy and value of f2f interactions in classrooms, then we should leave the guy alone.

I think this is a great response.

However, I disagree with one major point in it.

I would make the argument that f2f is not in fact always the best (either in 'primacy' or 'value') that we get in education.

There are plenty of times when I was a student talking to an instructor either in class or during office hours (and I'm sure I'm not alone in this) that I felt like I could have better expressed my point and gotten more bang out of my educational buck if I'd been able to -- in the moment -- work out my ideas in text online, in images and videos and multimedia, and in shared collaborative situations in coordination with an online discussion with the prof, rather than just flounder in the physical presence of someone considerably smarter than me.

Likewise, I'd argue that, as a teacher, I've had 'critically' better professional development experiences online via Twitter, Cover it Live, Ustream, and Elluminate than I've ever had f2f with a facilitator who comes in and meets with the faculty once and then disappears.

So, no, I don't think f2f is necessary.

But -- and here's the catch -- online is not necessarily any better.

It's really a matter of what you do with the time you have.

(Yes, I'm quoting Gandalf... I'm sure you have your 'things' as well).

Online and social tech enhanced learning is only as good as the teacher and the quality of the interaction; likewise f2f learning is only as good as the teacher and the quality of the interaction.

My argument against Bowen is that he seems to put the priority of learning on his students having a personal discussion with 'him'. It's about them watching 'his' lectures and PowerPoints before coming to class; it's about them paying attention and taking part in 'his' discussion on 'his' terms during class.

I'm more than willing to facilitate my students' ability to learn in real-time from people and sources beyond my classroom walls. That's a major distinction between 20th and 21st century learning and teaching.

Around the Horn: July 13, 2009

It's a good day to wander through the education neighborhoods of the blogosphere.

Nash lays out the blueprint for bringing tech and innovation into the olde schoolhouse. And he makes one of the best points I've heard in ages:

A school can have instructional innovation and local administrative support and still fail with regard to technological innovation.

Yes. It takes fearlessness and experimentation. Otherwise it's just the digital version of 'more of the same'.

Ira, meanwhile, steps to the plate over at change.org for a week of blogging. His first post has to do with the 'origins of failure':

If we want a different result, it is the system – not the students, not the teachers – not even really the management – which must change. These groups, after all, are just humans, humans responding to the system they are forced to survive in.

The educational system, and all the structures created to support that system – the buildings, furniture, time schedules, tests – are the problem.

And finally, McLeod's preso from NECC is finally online. Scott looks at ed leadership in the 21st century from an exponentialist point of view. Scary stuff.

You Can Stop Partying: It Ain't 1999

I think some folks are still partying like it's 1999.

I remember that night distinctly. My wife and I were living in Boston. For the big night of celebration and potential chaos (for the kids in the readership, there was this little thing called Y2K...) we decided to go down to the Public Garden to the main party.

Only there wasn't much of a party there.

Turns out that no one bothered to tell the assembled crowd that the fireworks and music were happening across town. So there we all are -- several thousand folks in a field -- all staring up at the sky at midnight. And nothing happens.

I feel like that field must have been full of folks in education. Because when those fireworks failed to go off, they just figured to themselves: "Huh. Guess we'll just keep doing this 20th century thing."

***

Went back today and read a post Alec Couros wrote on the Open Thinking blog back in March 2008. In the post, Couros takes a look at a statement by Bob Cringely of PBS:

There is a technology war coming. Actually it is already here but most of us haven’t yet notice. It is a war not about technology but because of technology, a war over how we as a culture embrace technology. It is a war that threatens venerable institutions and, to a certain extent, threatens what many people think of as their very way of life.... The younger technical generations are so empowered they are impatient and ready to jettison institutions most of the rest of us tend to think of as essential, central, even immortal. They are ready to dump our schools.

Couros thinks about the way we're approaching technology and about the ways we're applying it to education and wonders aloud:

But what if you know it is just a band-aid? What if you know deep down that schools need to change drastically or cease to exist at all before there will ever be any significant change? What if you feel you are just prolonging the inevitable, and simply giving temporary life to a model that is clearly in its death throes?

The fact of the matter is: this is the 21st Century. And the 'traditional' way of teaching that is indeed in its "death throes" is really just emblematic of what's happening to all the 20th century ways of thinking from the Cold War mentality to hyper-capitalism.

But this is not something new.

Those 'traditional' ways -- meaning the pedagogy and not the content -- really only go back to the end of the 19th century. Those 'traditional' ways only came in to being by destroying the 'traditional' ways that came before them.

And that's happened time and time again throughout our history going at least all the way back to Aristotle deciding to set up his school differently that Plato's before him.

Content is a different issue. As a Latin teacher, I can attest to my conviction that we need to teach students history, and grammar, and rhetoric, and mathematics, and music, and the arts and all of the 'traditional' disciplines. Even more important to me are the 'themes' of civilization: the concepts of comedy and tragedy, hope and despair, freedom and sacrifice. Either way, the means by which we teach and the meaning of the value of what we teach are and must be made to answer to the needs of our current society and not some generalized and nostalgic concept of what society is.

The 20th century is over. It is finished.

Long live the 21st century. Someday it too will be over. And the educators of the 22nd century will throw out all of those outdated and nostalgic pedagogical traditions of the 21st while holding on to the great themes that go back to the dawn of time.

And so may it be forever.

Thoughts on Last Night's Paperless Classroom Presentation at JHU

Some really interesting responses from the audience last night. One question was about fear.

I say: Fear is as Fear does.

Years ago, when we first started the process of becoming a 1:1 computing school, there was a lot of fear about MySpace. We heard about the threats of online predators, credit-card thieves, and harassment. Years on down the road we look at MySpace and what is it? A glorified mall. It's got record shops, a video arcade, and places for teenagers to hang out. And the whole thing is run by an enormous corporation.

It's a mall.

I remember as a kid watching TV and seeing those news reports of the occasional mall kidnapping. Scary stuff. But did that really make anyone stop going to the mall? Maybe what it did was make some people become more aware of what their kids were doing at the mall. Just like those rare cases of perverts on MySpace made people aware.

Funny way to become aware of your kids. But, fear is as fear does.

The admins here have always been supportive of relatively open Internet access here at school, yet they remain wary of social networking. Maybe it has to do with the word 'social'. That word has certain connotations in a high school. Maybe we should change it from 'social networking' to 'networked society'. Because that's what's really going on from Facebook to Twitter and beyond.

This isn't kids' stuff.

The Obama campaign waged the most unlikely successful political battle in American history using Facebook as a virtual headquarters. If the man who is elected president trusts his staff to use social networking for professional purposes, why in the heck can't principals and supers across this country -- in schools both public and private -- trust their staffs to use social networking for professional purposes?

This isn't kids' stuff.

But fear is as fear does.

Last night, no less than a dozen people came up to me after the presentation and told me that they previously had opened Twitter accounts, but then didn't know what to do with them and so they just sort of ignored them; now, however, they were going to hop right back on and see what it could do. I stopped by Twitter last night before going to bed, and eight of them had already logged in to follow my feed. One was already using her feed to broadcast Autism info into the Tweet-o-sphere.

Reader Knaus stopped by during our presentation last night via Twitter. His Tweet said it all: Twitter is the best Professional Development you will ever have. By the end of a very short session on blogs, Tweets, RSS, and Web 2.0, many of those in the audience were in agreement with him.

I spend all my time in front of high school kids. So, when I get up in front of a room of adults, I often feel weird -- my attempts at humor are usually the first thing to bomb! But I saw a lot of faces come to life last night. It's that same glow of sudden understanding I see in kids when they finally understand the importance of the fourth principle part of a verb or when they realize the connection between 16th century sculpture and its ancient antecedents. It's the reason we are educators.

Rhetoric...? Moi?

A reader writes:

I appreciate the points made and understand that the rhetoric helps describe a sense of urgency...

In reality, as in most complex issues, people are spread along a continuum, not stacked at two ends. An old truth in social psychology is that the more I put you in an opposite group, the less I will be able to convince you. Many people, myself included, are skeptical about technology in education/training because so many people (corporate CEOs, so-called learning advocates, and yes, school teachers) mistake the means for the goal. Or make, for example, use Web 2.0 the goal, and not education itself. Yes, use the tools, but not at the expense of both real education and achievement.

So, be careful not to throw the ones who will use the tools cautiously, even skeptically, in the same group with the ones who are just plain pigheaded.

Thank you for your comment. Most of the folks who follow this blog regularly have probably figured out by now that I can be a bit less-than-discreet when arguing a point. So I absolutely depend upon the true eloquence that comes from the comments you all post here.

I think we all tend to jumble up, however, what exactly we mean when we talk about means, ends, and goals.

My feeling about education is that learning 'how to think' is more important than learning 'what to think (or think about)'. Therefore, learning is really about learning how to learn. Within this view, and given the context of the present and future prospects of the Digital Age, I do see integration with the immediate global network offered and maintained by Internet technology to be an absolutely necessary part of learning today. What I'm getting at is that I don't really see anymore the distinctions between the means and the ends. Rather the means offers a plethora of ends -- Twitter is the perfect example... a Post-Structuralist's dream.

And I am hesitant to define the meaning of a 'real education'.

If it wasn't that long ago that the medium became the message, then I'd say that the thrust of digital technology on society and the catch-up job in education actually demonstrates a situation now where the medium and the mediator are in a sympathetic relationship.

The Digital Age is something to be lived in, not just something to be talked about. So, thanks again to all readers for comments and ideas and talk. Makes it not so lonely out on this cliff.