So Will Richardson and I are going to run a session together at the EdubloggerCon… it grows out of conversations we’ve had together, but also out of a lot of the conversations going on around the blogs lately about trying to really define what is and what should be going on in the world of edu-tech these days:

Getting Our Blogs in a Row: Crafting a Compelling, Cogent Message for Change…ok…terrible title, I know. But is there anyone interested in taking an hour to discuss the creation of a short list of talking points regarding the uses of the Read/Write Web in education? What key points should we be making? What key points CAN we be making? To whom should we be making them? What questions do we need to have answers for? How can we best package all of that? I know this sounds like the beginnings of a marketing campaign, but it might be worth a try…or not. Maybe we can start a wiki to dump ideas in beforehand? Will Richardson and Chris Lehmann.

(Incidentally, I think this dovetails nicely with the other session I’ll be running: Administration and School 2.0 – What changes do we need to make structurally in our schools to achieve this dream?)

But I’ll play my hand a bit here and say this — The message for change is that the technology must be supported and enhanced by a progressive pedagogy. It’s not enough to give laptops or tell kids about del.icio.us. We have to construct schools — not just classrooms — where inquiry-driven, project-based learning is the standard and the tools then serve that mission. We need to understand that ICT allows us to research, create, collaborate and communicate like never before, and that changes things, because the ease with which all people can now be both consumer and producer of information must affect change in our schools.

It’s funny, but when I go out and talk about SLA, the fact that we’re a 1:1 laptop school is often the last thing I remember to talk about. I always remember, because I get to a point where I talk about how we enable the learning we do, but the progressive, constructivist / connectivist ideas come first. These ideas aren’t new, we just finally have the tools to actually do it.

O.k. — so what’s my concise message?
The new technology tools at our disposal allow us to fundamentally alter our schools that we can build inquiry-driven, project-based schools that foster a student-centered, collaborative environments that extend far beyond the physical walls of the school.

Come to the session, help create the full message, debate our ideas and otherwise just say hello.

From Ms. Cofino comes a fantastic blog entry about her experience using Understanding by Design to work with teachers to do technology infusion. It speaks to the heart of what I’ve always said about technology integration / new literacy… it must go hand in hand with a clearly defined pedagogical practice. The kind of process that Ms. Cofino describes in her writing is exactly the kind of process that allows for deep understanding, both for students and teachers.

Full disclosure: UbD is the curriculum tool we use at SLA to do our planning, and one of the things we’ve identified as something we want to do better next year is using it as a collaboration tool more. This blog entry is a perfect example of how to do it, and it’s one we’ll be reading together as a faculty.

The Perfect Match: Technology Integration and Understanding by Design by Ms. Cofino.

[Update: Be sure to read one of our student's letter to Ms. Wu, posted on SLA's site.]

I received this email from Steve Hargadon the other morning dealing with the quickly becoming infamous NY Times article on how some schools are abandoning 1:1:

Mark Brumley sent me this link this morning:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html?_r=3&…

My first thoughts are:

1. Just because you are using laptops instead of desktops wouldn’t necessarily change the fact that most educational computing is not transformative in any way. I’m very interested in hearing from those who know more than I do about 1:1 laptop programs, since I would imagine that pedagogy, not technology, is the key to success in these programs.

2. This reminds me of the recent study on educational software. Again, if computing just mimics the current teaching methodologies, how could you expect a change?

3. I think there is some good, common sense buried in this mess. Until you have teachers who are prepared to really integrate the technology into what they do, using a tool like Moodle, or the collaborative tools of Web 2.0, handing out a lot of laptops is probably exactly the wrong thing to do, and will result in exactly what the article describes.

In my to-read-more-carefully pile is an article that I think really relates to the current use of technology in schools: http://stager.org/articles/acecshark2006.html

I sent these notes to some online friends for discussion, and Andy Carvin said that he is right now blogging about this for his PBS Learning.now blog (http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/).

Thoughts?

So here was my reply…

Steve,

Great points, and I was thinking MUCH the same thing as I walked around SLA today and saw kids using their laptops in powerful, collaborative ways. It does require a paradigm shift, tons of planning and then, it also requires an understanding that it’s still not a panacea. Will already wrote about how we’ve struggled with the issue of iChatting this year, finally getting to the point where we walk a balance that is occasionally messy, but in the words of our esteemed colleague, Brian Crosby, learning is messy.

But also, too many folks have this thought that if we just hand the kids laptops, presto learning happens. You need a web-based learning environment that acts as a virtual center of the community, that gives the kids something to anchor the learning that happens, you need courses that teach kids how to use the laptops to further their learning, not just how to use them, and you need a vision of education that is progressive and project-based so that the kids can use them as research, communication and creation tools.

And yeah, I just described SLA.

… And that was a few days ago… and I want bullet it out because it bears elaboration:

• You need a vision of education that is progressive and project-based so that the kids can use [ANY NEW TOOLS] as research, communication and creation tools. It doesn’t just happen. It does require a ton of planning, mid-course correction and reflection. And it does need to be centered around a new way of thinking.
• There is no panacea. It requires understanding that it does create new problems. You have to imagine as many of them as you can, you have to mitigate as many of them as you can, and then you have to accept that some of the new problems will be things you have to deal with and create policies and procedures for. (And then there are the problems you don’t anticipate.
• You need to center the learning. Laptops are lovely. They are nifty. Schools need a web-based learning platform that serves as the virtual center of the learning that happens. Without scienceleadership.org, our laptop project would be about 1/10th as effective. The internet is vast and what we don’t want is lots of surface level information transaction with little depth and little understanding. A well-thought through web-portal that serves as a place for the students to start and return to is a big technological piece to that puzzle. (Good, thoughtful planning is the pedagogical piece to that as well.)
• And just in case it’s not explicit — planning and vision needs to be supported by tons of professional development time. Some of it needs to be tools-based, but just as much of it needs to be pedagogy-based. It matters that, in every class at SLA, we talk about writing the same way… we talk about learning the same way… and that only happens when there’s the time for a group of teachers have the time to think and plan and learn together.

That’s the start… there’s more, but that’d be my opening salvo in response to the NY Times article.

As much as I am an advocate for new technologies, I often find myself very skeptical of how games and gaming can transform education. Therefore, I almost feel it is my duty to write about those times when I’m really surprised and blown away by how a game could be used to really enhance something going on in the classroom.

Yesterday, I saw something in my Version Tracker feed that looked interesting. So I plunked down my $20, and bought Peacemaker: The Game. It’s a simulation game where you have to become either the leader of the Israeli government or the Palestinian government and work toward a two-state peace. (Yes, this game does make some assumptions about the best solution is for the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, but they are upfront about those assumptions.

I just finished my second time playing the game on the easiest setting… and WOW, it’s tough. It is a delicate balance of diplomacy, and it does require a) some knowledge of the history of this scenario and b) some really thoughtful decision making. And yes, I could see students playing this game from both sides (I’ve only played one side so far) as part of a unit on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I think students would gain a better understanding of how fragile that part of the world is, and how difficult the road to peace has been.

I still maintain my skepticism about how far we can push this, and certainly, I would want Peacemaker to be part of a larger unit where students did the hard work of researching the issues facing the Middle East, challenging themselves to come up with solutions, etc… but I could see how playing this game could a) inform the about the difficult path to peace and b) help them to see beyond their own perspective to see how multi-faceted this problem is.

David Warlick is asking some great questions about how we should teach "computer applications." In other words, how do we expect the kids to learn how to do all this stuff?

I actually think that this is one of the things that really sets SLA apart… I think we’ve come up with a really powerful way of working as a team of teachers to ensure that students learn the tech skills that will help them succeed as students. The students learn them in the context of their classwork, while being taught by a master technology teacher.

We stream English, History and Science so that the kids take those courses as a cohort. In 9th grade, we also include their elective rotation which includes a semester-long tech integration class. That’s taught by a tech teacher (Marcie) who works with the subject area teachers to look for places to integrate and teach the tech skills — many of which are application-based — through the content of the “academic” classes. This allows the teachers to use the tech without having to be experts themselves, it allows us to really teach the tech skills without worrying about the balance of content v. tech-skills, and it gives the kids the chance to really see how these tech skills are transformative.

But I’ll take it one step further. We have to be careful about teaching applications, because applications change. Let’s teach tech literacy, and teach kids to do graphic manipulation where Photoshop is a tool, not an end… we need to teach kids to use these tools, yes, but we need to make sure the kids understand that the specific tool is merely a means to an end, and merely one means to that end.

This also has the benefit of making sure that the kids don’t just get a hap-hazard grouping of skills, based on the teachers they have. The faculty can sit down and identify the skills we think the kids will need, and then Marcie is able to work with each teaching team of Science, English and History and figure out where and when to teach what. It can get messy, and there are some things that Marcie teaches outside of a specific "academic" project, but on the whole, we’re able to really show students how these tools — application, Web 2.0 and otherwise — really can change the way they think about school, schoolwork and themselves.

While my brain still hammers around some of the other societal / culture issues around School 2.0, I thought I’d make an attempt at tackling a more concrete piece of the puzzle — the Web Portal.

I am convinced that one of the keys to building School 2.0 is a robust web portal that creates the virtual center of the community online. As much as Google is creating incredible apps, and as much as we can have a few dozen external tools that power our kids’ learning, I think that they / we need a home-based around which we can build and strengthen a community. As one of our students said to Steve Hargadon, "If we had gotten the laptops, but not had the web-site and Moodle, it wouldn’t have changed that much about the way we learn."

At Beacon, the school forums and teacher/student we created gave everyone a reason to check back to the site often. But with the advent of all the Web 2.0 tools, there’s no way I’m going to write the next generation tool we need. I’m not that good a programmer, and that’s not exactly my role anymore.

Here’s a quick critique of the three tools we’ve got installed as potentially major pieces of our core web portal:
1) Moodle — Amazing at what it does. It’s an incredible piece of course management software that gives us our core infrastructure. By creating an online environment for every class, it really serves as the focus of our community. Moodle’s limitations are what it doesn’t it. It doesn’t play outside the "walled garden" very well. It’s blogging functionality is less than stellar, and while my little hack to allow parents to see homework assignments is passable, I wish that there was an easier way to create limited parental access. In the end, Moodle is a fantastic walled-garden course system, but for better or for worse, that’s what it is. (I’m told the newer versions are starting to rock, but we’ll see…)

2) Elgg — Pretty easy to set up and run. Solid multi-user blogging / social networking program. Great for creating an individual-driven, educational networking, but it falls down as a school-driven system because you can’t easily set up classes, nor can teachers easily create course-based RSS feeds. Passable, but really individual-based, not great for a community where at least part of the community is top-down defined — say, as in a course schedule.

3) Drupal — I started poking around in Drupal tonight. Wow. I started playing and turning on various features, and I can see its power. Blogging, podcasting, unbelievably customizable, scalable. I got the sense there wasn’t much I wouldn’t be able to do with it, as long as I could figure it out or be willing to build it into the program. And that was the problem — IF I could figure it out. I’m pretty good at this stuff. I’ve been doing systems administration and computer programming for over twenty years now. (Yee gods.) And I was intimidated by Drupal’s administration. I know if I had a few dozen hours, I could probably figure Drupal out and configure it to do about 80% of what I want it to do, but I don’t have that time. And I could imagine a lot of edu-techies looking at Drupal and running screaming. And as I was poking around, I started to get the sense that even Drupal might have some limitations…

So what’s the tool I want?

One login to a portal that gives members of the community access to their courses, their email, their RSS feeds, their blog and displays the most important parts of that on the front page. (i.e. — you have new mail, 500 new RSS articles, a link to create new blog entry, etc…)

A really robust course management system, ala Moodle.

The bility for teachers and students to decide what is and isn’t public. For example, it’d be amazing if a class could develop a wiki inside the walled garden and then, a teacher could go into an admin function and decide to publish it.

Blogging / podcasting that can be tied to classes. Individuals would all have their own blogs, but if a student published a blog entry by clicking through a course page, the entry would automagically have the keyword or category with the course name built in.

… and therefore, RSS feeds by course so teachers can easily follow student blog entries. (As well as the typical user-based RSS feeds… and site-based RSS would be helpful as well.)

Parent access to whatever pieces of the "walled garden" that teachers allowed, but at bare minimum a system that allowed parents access to all assignments with due-dates and project sheets attached. (I was able to hack moodle to give access to everything but the project sheets that the teachers post.)

And then the piece that isn’t part of any of these tools yet — a strong Student Information System that allowed teachers to collaborate, get information about kids, write narrative reports, track student progress over time, etc…

And again, there are lots of pieces of the puzzle out there. There are rumors of one of the portal companies partnering with a district to create a student portal. GooglePages could provide a more robust portal than most schools already have, but I still believe in the single login killer app that is school-based, community-centered, with a focus both on the user / student / teacher and the class.

(And yes, I’m still pinning my hopes on Open Academic.

Will Richardson writes today about the difference between having a blog and "blogging." He writes:

Ok, so here’s my beef, again. Blogs are powerful communication tools. Blogs are powerful publishing tools. But blogging (the verb) is still much more than that to me. Blogging, as in reading and thinking and reflecting and then writing, is connecting and learning, neither of which are discussed in the article. (And maybe they weren’t meant to be, I know) I’m not knocking what Tim or his teachers are doing, I think it’s great. But I’m just asking the question: how are his teachers modeling the use of blogs to learn not just to teach?

And I agree. A blog is a web page that’s easy to publish. But that’s not blogging. I tend to look at my own blogging here, and I get frustrated when I see too many quicky posts in a row that toss out an idea without exploring it in any kind of depth. Blogging for me has to be about reflective practice.

It’s about putting ideas out there, exploring them, sharing them, and taking part in a larger community. Sometimes, yes, it’s just about an announcement or two, but at its best, my blogging helps me think, brings others into my thought process and improves it because of their input and forces me to make sense of my thoughts — which is why it’s so damned hard sometimes.

Blogs make publishing easier, but having something to say is still hard. But if we can model reflective practice, if we can embody the old Socratic ideal that "the unexamined life is not worth living," if we can publicly create communities where thoughtfulness — truly being full of thought — then we have accomplished something powerful.

And hey, we can always post the daily announcements and homework assignments later.

One of the true visionaries in both the computing and the educational technology community, Seymour Papert is in critical condition after being struck by a motorbike. Papert invented Logo which turned millions of kids onto programming. He was one of the proponents of Constructionist learning, which has a powerful influence on SLA and all of the project-based learning folks, and lately, he’s been a consultant on the One Laptop Per Child project.

For more information about Seymour Papert, I encourage you to read Andy Carvin’s Prayers for Seymour Papert post. And I’d like to add my prayers to the mix as well.