High Techpectations

Why Change?

Just had a conversation with a rural GA super and his tech director for a project I'm working on. They are modernizing teaching and learning in their district because they clearly understand that they have to change in order to meet the needs of their students and to prepare them for life in this increasingly complex world. Their teachers are on board with this, and are embracing the opportunities and tools that they can access. 

It's refreshing to meet people who get this, and it's occurred to me that there are districts out there who don't feel this pressure. If you don't feel pressure to change, if everything has always worked and your students are generally successful, why adapt and move forward with modernizing your institution? I think this is the crux of the problem i see in my travels and conversations... the problem is that here in the US, we have widely disperate attempts to move forward with updating teaching and learning. We're aren't experiencing the same conditions that maybe drive change. And, maybe administrators aren't getting out of their districts enough to learn from each other and to realize that they are falling behind. 

 

The privilege I have in my work right now is learning through visits and conversations with a wide variety of people working in the education field, and it's so fascinating to me the wide range of initiatives and work that are taking place in our schools and beyond. How do we "map this space" as my friend Betsy Corcoran of EdSurge would say? How can we present a fuller picture of the projects and possibilities that are happening forward thinking school districts? 

 

Just a few thoughts for today... 

Illinois, Do You Know?

Wonderful to see how the Shift Happens videos have morphed over the years.  Kudos to Scott McLeod and others who have contributed to the various versions.  Also, I'm thinking that we need a version like this in Illinois.  When are our state leaders going to get it? 

For those of my friends who aren't in the field of education, especially those with children,  please take time to watch this. The video touches on many ideas that drive the work that I, along with many others, do. Pass this along to your school leaders, and start asking what your district is doing to evolve in the 21st century. If your child's school is remarkably similar to what you experienced as a student, my guess is that difficult conversations need to happen. 

This is not about competition entirely... for me, this is about preparing our students sufficiently enough so that they participate in civic life and have choices in order to live their lives fully.

 

What Truths Do You Hold to be Self-Evident About Education?

Chris Lehmann: The Great American Teach-In: Listening to Students.

Sam Chaltain: What's Your Declaration of Education?.

What truths do you hold to be self-evident about education? Please join me and many other education stakeholders in exploring the state of US education during the Great American Teach-In (http://declarationofeducation.com/), scheduled to take place on May 10th. 

During this event, we will be examining what it means to be educated in the 21st century and formulating solutions to improve education. I believe that in order to do this thoughtfully, we must look within ourselves to identify and articulate our fundamental beliefs about the purpose of education. Participants will be encouraged to draft their own Declarations of Education in some format and to share these ideas with the world. 

The following questions were developed to help participants reflect and over the next few weeks, I think I'll tackle these in blog posts here in preparation for writing my own Declaration. I see this as sort of an cathartic exercise similar to NPR's This I Believe series. I hope you'll think about these as well and take the time to create your own vision of education.

1. When and where do I learn best?

2. What does an ideal learning environment look like?

3. How closely do our current places of learning resemble our ideal learning environment?

4. What barriers to learning/growth exist within our current environments?

5. What will we do to make our current learning environments more perfect places to work and learn?

I also am thinking about how to involve my own kids, ages 8 and 12, as I think they have opinions on this matter. I'd like to help them better articulate their feelings about school, and to think metacognitively about their learning in order to advocate for themselves. 

Let's change the current tone with education and focus on what works, what needs to change, and how we can do it together. 

Looking for Mobile Learning Leaders to Add to My PLN

The following informal survey is designed to promote networking around mobile learning and is open to anyone... organizations, admins, teachers, researchers, etc.

As the new project director for a yet-to-be-announced mobile learning initative,  I'm personally interested learning from those who are dealing with mobile devices for learning from a planning and deployment perspective. I'm specifically looking to add more school administrators who are directing mobile learning initiatives to my personal learning network, and I thought I'd create a list of such individuals on Twitter to faciliate networking.

Please add to yourelf to this list, if you are so inclined, and retweet!

The form can be accessed here: http://tinyurl.com/mobilePLNsurvey

The resulting directory is available here: http://tinyurl.com/mobilePLN