As the course has unfolded this semester, there has been a recurring theme. I’ve seen the theme echoed throughout the web in practically every environment where educators hang out. The theme revolves around “professional development” and how teachers need more, better, and more relevant professional development. I’ve purposely let this subject hang fire for the last few weeks to see if anybody would make the connection. So far, it hasn’t come out as clearly as I would have liked, altho several people have tap-danced around the edges.

The idea is that teachers seem to believe that professional development is something that’s done to them. “If we could only get the district …” and “When they finally get around to teaching us …” and “They give us the software/hardware/whatever and then don’t train us how to use it …”

In “Welcome to your world,” I explained the model of professional development. What do you want to know right now? What’s keeping you from learning about it?

The tools of Web 2.0 put amazing resources at your fingertips. Wikipedia is a good start for an overview and often has follow on links. Google will give you perhaps more than you want to know, and then, once you’ve done your homework (hint, hint, for all you Classroom 2.0 people), you can start looking for people who are experts in that field. Twitter’s great for general callouts. Facebook is a good place to look for expertise.

With all this information available to you, then, why is it that “professional development” is something that waits for “District” to hold a workshop?

Posted in Education, Technology, culture | 14 Comments »

Clay Burrell tagged me on his blog, Beyond School. The thing was apparently started by Paul C. at quoteflections. According to the established protocols for such things, here are the rules

• Select and briefly review one teen novel, classic or modern, which is a sure antidote to the daze of high school.
• Title your post Meme: High School Daze to Praise.
• Include an image with your post.
• Tag four blogger colleagues.

I’ve reviewed some of the other contributions to the meme to get a better feel for where this is going. My problem with it lies in the phrase “teen novel.” What the heck is a teen novel?? Most of the contributions I’ve seen involve a teen as protagonist, and they’ve all been interesting - kinda. Some of them I’ve read myself. Some of them, I think I’d like to read, and frankly, a couple of them, no. Thanks, but no.

The primary qualification is “a sure antidote to the daze of high school.” I need to be able to assign it to a high school kid. Clay’s suggestion of Lolita has garnered a lot of attention for a lot of good reasons. I’ve seen Ender’s Game in the list, and I’ve seen a lot of titles that — um — not so much.

One of my problems with this is that it’s been 38 years since I graduated from high school and while I remember the books I read on my own, I don’t remember the ones I was assigned. Seems to me there was Ivanhoe, and Moby Dick. Yawn. What I remember was a long string of Dostoevsky, Heinlein, LeGuin, and what seemed like a doorstop by Frank Herbert entitled Dune.

Dune is the story of Paul Atriedes who is thrown into the bubbling stew of court politics, war, and culture. The book is filled with vivid imagery, unforgettable (often repulsive) characters, and scenes of often violent action set against a sweeping religious and philosophical backdrop. This is a seminal work in modern science fiction and I think every bit as important as the work of Verne and Wells in the genre.

I probably should add a disclaimer. I’m a science fiction fan, author, and general geek. I can read other kinds of stories - but sci-fi is my home. It’s the genre that few “literary” people respect and this is often doubly true in education. In spite of that, sci-fi (or speculative fiction, to use the current politically correct term) gives us an opportunity to examine issues that are too close to us — too personal — to be seen. By placing the behavior or characteristic in an alien context of outer space or far future, we can gain perspective on ideas which might otherwise be unapproachable. (No, Frank Gorshin’s performance in Star Trek is not a good example.)

Along those lines, please note that this book is one of the few from my personal collection that has survived the many moves, transfers, and prunings of my collection. This volume has been with me since I purchased it in a small shop on Congress Street in Portland, Maine, in the summer of 1966 — my own high school years. The cover above is a scan of my own copy and notice the price. This particular suggestion is offered up from personal experience and perhaps without consideration of the universe of possibly better alternatives.

All I can say is, “It worked for me.”

Tag! You’re it!

I know this meme comes out of education, but I’m going to tag some people who have a different take on literature:

• Tee Morris - author of Morevi: the Chronicles of Rafe and Askana.
• Philippa Ballantine - New Zealand author of Weaver’s Web and Chasing the Bard
• Mur Lafferty - blogger, podcaster, creator of the Heaven series and Playing for Keeps.
• Christianna Ellis - author of Nina Kimberly the Merciless (currently available at Podiobooks.com and NinaKimberly.com - soon to be available in a dead tree version in the Summer of 2009) and Space Casey.

Update (4/19): I wanted to be clear that I’m not including these people in order to promote them or their works. I want to open the discussion up and introduce the idea that teachers need to stop talking to teachers all the time. Not that it’s a bad thing, but when you’re looking for authentic educational resources, don’t talk to teachers. Talk to the people who are engaged in that particular field. You want authentic experience with language and literature? Talk to an author. You want to know what a plant biologist does? Talk to a tree surgeon. You want math? Talk to a physicist. Or an astronomer.

There’s an old chestnut that goes something like, “The teacher opens the door, but the student must go through alone.” The Web 2.0 corollary for education is, “The web opens the door, but the teacher must go through it to learn.”

Thanks to Mur, Tee, Pip and the author-to-be-named Christianna for playing along.

Posted in General, culture | 4 Comments »

Speaking of the Great White Northern Thinkers, here’s a two-fer day in my ‘gator. Rick Schwier has this tremendous post about the greatness of universities.

A small reflection on the greatness of universities
Universities are one of only a few institutions that have endured over centuries. Universities exist for the dual purpose of creating and sharing knowledge. In the service of these goals, we don’t always get it right, and universities sometimes lose their way. And yes, there are some pretty cheap knock-offs calling themselves universities today that don’t deserve the label. But in the larger scheme of things, universities flourish because they are places where learning and truth are the only things that are held sacred. We can–and should–ask anything, risk anything in the service of learning and discovering truth.

As we think about Education, I think it’s important that we keep in mind that there’s not some monolithic ideal of education but rather a continuum. Rick reminds me of this.

Posted in Education, culture | 5 Comments »

There’s some new memes floating about that are related to our thinking about culture and technology. This is one of them.

on social network sharecropping
I think it’s important to own your own land. It’s important to publish content in a way that you, and only you, can control. I think it’s important to be able to decide what you publish, how you publish, and what can be done with that. Even if you’re not publishing content in the traditional sense, the data generated by your activities has meaning. Google mines your subscriptions in Google Reader, as well as your searches. Flickr tracks whose photos you fave, and where you comment.

D’arcy Norman is another of those great Canadian thinkers who is really helping to drive thinking about technology, education, and culture. There’s a whole raft of them north of the border and I keep thinking it must be something in the water up there.

Go check this one out and see what you think.

Posted in Technology, culture | 4 Comments »

Here’s an interesting link to a Konrad Glogowski post about creating a learning space. I’m tempted to apply myself, but I really don’t need another project.

And by way of a tweet this morning I found Software for Starving Students. We REALLY need to be looking at these tools to augment strapped school budgets.

Posted in Education, Technology, culture | 9 Comments »

We’ve been talking about the purposes of Education.

Check out this YouTube video

Posted in Education, culture | 6 Comments »

If you didn’t see this come through Stephen’s feed, you are missing out on some very interesting ideas that are very relevant.

Emerging technologies for learning: volume 3 (2008) Emerging technologies for learning: volume 3 (2008): article summaries

Posted in Education, Technology, culture | 3 Comments »

Between Classroom 2.0, Fireside Learning, and here, there’s been a building sense of “do I really believe this stuff?” Apparently I’m not the only one.

Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy » Letting Go
And I think there is something big here for me. After reading this article, it wasn’t that I was surprised. I felt guilty. Really guilty. As a professor of edtech and media, i have the opportunity to effect hundreds of preservice and practicing teachers. I have typically focused on helping improve technological competency, media literacy and instructional practice with these individuals. This seems OK, doesn’t it?

Alec is referencing an article by Robert Cringley and you can find the link in the post. This is an interesting follow on to “Why Teach?”

Posted in Education, culture | 7 Comments »

When I threw this idea up, I confess I was not thinking about the idea of “Why teach?” from the perspective of why do YOU teach, but “Why does anybody teach?” This question grows out of the idea that teaching and learning are so far apart — so tangentially related — that the activity of teaching seems almost a waste of time.

I base this on the notion that most learning happens outside of the influence of The Teacher. I maintain that The Teacher might have some small influence on the larger orbits of the people they teach, but that, by and large, the most of what any Teacher’s students learn had nothing to do with the intended consequences that the teacher desired.

This isn’t to say that learners don’t use teachers. Just not THE Teacher.

And given that, why teach?

Posted in Education, culture | 9 Comments »

One of the things I wanted to do with my “View of 21st Century Learners” video was to encourage people to add their own views from their own perspectives.

I’ve offered extra credit to the class, but since others follow this blog, I thought I’d challenge each of you …

> create a video of what *you* do to learn. (don’t say you don’t learn because if you’re breathing, you’re learning.)

> use the sentence “I am a 21st Century Learner” somewhere in there

> have a picture of yourself.

What I’m trying to do is get people to realize that “21st century learners” are not just the kids in school, but all of us. The same tools that give us the ability to attend an online course and to learn from a specific teacher in a specific context give us the ability to learn practically anything from a rich variety of sources.

Even how to use the resources to learn how to use the resources.

Recursion is such a powerful concept, don’t you think?

Posted in Education, Technology, culture | 3 Comments »