User Generated Education

I love how the messages of our times are digital.  Folks from the future who look back to study this time will view these digital messages as primary source documents that tell the stories of us.

The following are some of my favorite videos of this past year.  They tell the story of what needs to and should drive education – in this era of social media and educational networking.

These two videos tell the story of what is occurring in the real world -businesses know this,  journalists knows this, the kids on their own time know this  . . .

New Brunswick Department of Education “gets it”:

This video was produced by the New Brunswick Department of Education to stimulate discussion among educators and other stakeholders in public education in the province of New Brunswick. The 21st Century presents unique challenges for education worldwide. In order to keep pace with global change we must focus on 21st Century Skills and public education must adapt to keep students engaged. Rigor and relevance are key,

This principal does not. But note that InnovativeEdu’s editorial re-mix is part of this video:

Yet, it is being implemented within educational projects such as the Flat Classroom Project and Rock Our World:

Hopefully, WHEN (yes – I am hopeful) schools adopt social media as standard operating practice, the results will help lead to enlightenment in the 21st century.

William Kamkwamba is becoming famous through his TED talk.

. . . and from his book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

I had the opportunity to hear a live interview with William Kamkwamba.  He conveyed many guidelines for obtaining a real life education.

Interview – Part 1

The Importance of Education

Education Provides More Choices

William noted that in Malawi students have to pay for school. He was forced to drop out of school due to family financial problems.  He went to the library so that he could continue his studies and in his words did so, so that “I wouldn’t be behind the rest of the students.”  This lead him to studying engineering books – realizing during his early teens that he had an interest in and a propensity for inventing . . .  in this case, windmills.  Now in his early twenties, he believes that education is not about getting a job but it does give one more choices.

How this translates into the classroom is, first and foremost, by creating a culture of the specialness of education.  Education in countries such as the US is taken for granted by most.  Learning should be fun and engaging, and viewed as a special privilege.  Hearing kids say that they hate school breaks my heart . . . and truthfully, I don’t blame them given how the system is structured today.  One of my goals as an educator is to create a learning environment where kids shiver with excitement thinking about what they are going to learn that day, stay in the flow most of their learning time, whine when it is time to leave because they want to stay and learn more, and continue learning on their own time.  In other words, the process of learning needs to be viewed as important as or more important than the product of learning.

Second, William is living proof of Passion-Based Learning.  See my post PBL is Passion-Based Learning: Show Me Your Passion for more about this.

Interview – Part 2

Solving Our Own Problems

When you are in trouble, you don’t wait for others to pull you out of trouble.  You start things yourself, and then the other people come and help you.  People who are facing the problems need to come up with ideas for solving the problems.  Others don’t know exactly the way yourself know it.  Waiting for government or some other organization won’t solve your problem.  We need to be thinking of our own ways to solve our problems.

In the learning environment, this translates into allowing and facilitating critical thinking and problem solving.  Standards-based learning, backwards design, best practices lead to scripted programs and product-based learning not critical and heuristic problem solving.  Tinkering (see Tinkering School comic) and learning from failure do not become an option in these learning environments.

It also relates to our school systems in that problems should be addressed locally within those systems.  Administrators and educators need to stop the blame game – waiting for the right curriculum, the right amount of money, the right superintendent to solve the problems within their schools.

Educating Others About the Magic

When William’s neighbors in his village believed that the electricity that the windmill created was magic, he educated them in a way they could understand the science behind it.  Due to social networking (e.g., blogs, Twitter, and Facebook), I know a lot of educators are doing it right – creating learning environments and projects that are the real magic for their learners.  I wonder – almost daily – why aren’t the policy makers being educated about “good” education?  They believe, falsely, that the magic of learning can be structured with standards and measured by numbers.

Learning Entails Flexibility

I learned to be flexible in the things I wanted to do.  I changed the design to fit in with materials I have.

Learning and Innovation is often stated as a 21st century skill.  Flexibility in learning means great learning is not dependent on big bucks initiatives – often used as an excuse for substandard education.  William built a functional windmill out of materials from a junk yard.  I built a full technology program from eight old computers and internet access (see Creative Web Tools For and By Kids, and Discovery Kids). I really am not comparing myself to William.  I want to emphasize that when educators and their learners create a community driven by flexible innovation; rocket ships are built from the wood pile, books are written and illustrated in the sand, and global collaboration occurs on cell phones.

Solving Problems in Our Own Communities

William is beginning his college education at Dartmouth College this fall.  He then plans on going back to Malawi when his studies are complete to help build his community.  He also began a nonprofit to rebuild his primary school, Wimbe School.

I find the walls and fences – literally and figuratively – between schools and their communities to be baffling.  Collaborations between schools and their local nonprofits (e.g., shelters, food pantries, environmental centers) create amazing learning opportunities and set a climate, an expectation, an affiliation for local and global stewardship.

Achieving Our Goals

William ended his interview with the following:

In life we face so many challenges in order to achieve our goals.  Don’t let the challenges stop from you from doing what you want to be doing. Everything in life is possible.   If you work hard and trust yourself, you will achieve so many things.  Don’t give up, no matter how tough it might look like.  You will achieve something.

This year I have a new position as a part time technology instructor at a K-8 Charter School.   The principal and a few of the teachers/staff, not realizing how advanced educational technology has become, got excited when I demonstrated how technology can be integrated throughout the entire school curriculum.  The principal, being the change agent she is, understands that the integration needs to be a process . . .  that the first year of my employment should be in assisting teachers to see the benefits of technology integration, and how it can enhance the lessons and projects that are already doing.

As a learner-centric educator, I perceive my role as a tour guide of learning possibilities.  As such, I offer a menu of options for learner engagement (in this case, the learners are the charter school professional staff).  I provide instruction about how to use the tools and examples how they have been used in other educational settings.  But then I get out of the way to see if and how the learner uses the technology.  I may love a tool but learners may not – I then let it go.

For this upcoming year, I set up the following FREE educational networking tools to offer the professional staff at the school:

• Social Bookmarking: Diigo
• Wiki: PBWorks
• Social Sharing: Gro.ups
• Blogging Platform: Kidblogs
• Projects and Student Pages: Thinkquest
• Classroom Projects and Communication: Edmodo
• Online Book Shelf and Discussions: Shelfari
• Facebook (already established) – Parent and Community Communication

I will document if, how, and why these technologies are used throughout the year as a case study of technology integration in a school that has historically had a limited use of technology.

A Rationale for Integrating Technology Into the Classroom

Social Bookmarking: Diigo

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Social bookmarking permits websites and online resources to be saved and compiled in a central location.  By setting up a group for a school or an organization, users can save them so all members of that community group can view and access them.

Diigo in the Classroom tutorial:  http://www.slideshare.net/granolagirls/diigo-in-the-classroom

ANSER Group Link:  http://groups.diigo.com/group/anser-charter-school

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Wiki: PBWorks

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A wiki allows a group of people to collaboratively develop a Web site. Anyone can add to or edit pages in a wiki — it is completely egalitarian.

• “A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web site, using only a plain-vanilla Web browser without any extra add-ons.”
• “Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page link creation almost intuitively easy and by showing whether an intended target page exists or not.”
• “A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.”

In the Classroom

• Encourage student-centered learning.  Even young students can build web pages, embed images & video, and post documents.

What can you do with a Classroom Workspace?

• Class Resources - Publish class notes, PowerPoint lectures, schedules and policies; show off examples of great student work.
• Group Projects – Build collaborative pages, start discussions and encourage comments.
• Parent Outreach – Keep parents involved. Post assignments, key dates and volunteer lists. All available at home, from work, or anywhere.
• Student Portfolios – Give students their own page to post content, upload homework, and share their work.
• Expand Horizons – Share and interact with other classrooms or groups, across town or around the world.

Throughout the School

• Host and share information between students, faculty and staff. Encourage staff development and shared resources across schools. (http://pbworks.com/content/edu-classroom-teachers)

User Manual: http://usermanual.pbworks.com/Educational-Editions

Resource: http://educators.pbworks.com/

Class Example: http://weewebwonders.pbworks.com/

ANSER link: http://ansercharter.pbworks.com/FrontPage

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Social Sharing: GRO.UPS

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GROU.PS is a do-it-yourself social networking platform that allows people to come together and form interactive communities around a shared interest or affiliation. The functionality of any online group is limited only by the members’ collective imagination and ambition.  By giving any user the ability to create an easy-to-use, yet powerful, social network, GROU.PS is propelling online collaboration, communication and content sharing in a new socially-aware direction.

For those familiar with NING, GRO.UPS is being used as the alternative as NING has become charging for its services.  I foresee using the GRO.UPS as a central place to post the different classroom projects.  It permits uploading of photos and videos, and the ability to make comments and discussions.  Individual members can create a “My Page” which has some similar properties as Facebook.

ANSER Gro.up Site: http://grou.ps/anser

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Blogging Platform: KidBlogs

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Blogging is a means of self-expression that extends to nearly every social sphere — moms, entrepreneurs, soldiers, athletes – bloggers can be found in every walk of life, every niche, profession and people group. Everyone has something to learn or share in a blog community. It is that idea that makes blogging such an ideal method of learning for children. Surely Matt Hardy, an elementary school teacher, had this in mind when he created Kidblog.org, a blogging platform exclusively for elementary and middle school students and teachers. The platform creates a safe and simple environment for students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community.

Since this is a K-8 school, Kidblogs was selected as the Blog Platform.  This is a closed learning environment meaning only ANSER students who are registered by their teachers can use it.  If the school was upper level, I would  have recommended Edublogs.

Kidblog Tutorial: http://www.slideshare.net/cgmediaspecialist/blogtutorial

Special Note:  I like Nicholas Provenzano’s idea of staring a Blogger’s Community-Café at his school – see http://www.thenerdyteacher.com/2010/08/creating-blogging-community.html and plan to offer this at my school.

ANSER Link: http://kidblog.org/ANSER/

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Projects and Student Pages: Thinkquest

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ThinkQuest is a protected, online learning platform that enables teachers to integrate learning projects into their classroom curriculum and students to develop 21st century skills. It includes the following: a project environment where teachers and students engage in collaborative learning; a competition space where students participate in technology contests; the award-winning ThinkQuest Library.

I think this is underutilized in education settings.  It was a favorite technology tool of  my gifted elementary student a few years ago.  It permits students to set up their own “My Page”.  It has many of the same attributes of Facebook – the ability to have a “My Page” where students can personalize their avatar, create polls, suggest links, upload pictures and create discussions.  This site can only be accessed by registered schools, their teachers and students.

I plan to create accounts for all of the 350 K-8 students as well as offer classroom teachers the opportunity to develop projects.

Example Student Page:

Example Project Page:

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Classroom Projects and Communication: Edmodo

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Edmodo is a social learning network for teachers, students, schools and districts. Edmodo provides free classroom communication for teachers, students and administrators on a secure social network. Edmodo provides teachers and students with a secure and easy way to post classroom materials, share links and videos, and access homework, grades and school notices. Edmodo stores and shares all forms of digital content – blogs, links, pictures, video, documents, presentations, and more.

This is a closed learning environment meaning only ANSER students who are registered by their teachers can use it.

Edmodo Users’ Guide:  http://www.edmodo.com/guide/

http://www.edmodo.com/home

(Need Log-In Code to be go to ANSER Site).

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Online Book Shelves and Discussion: Shelfari

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Shelfari is a social cataloging website. Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles they own or have read, and can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. You can also create groups that other members may join, create discussions, and talk about books.

I introduced this site last spring during my interview.  One of the Junior High Language Arts teachers and a few of the students have been using this site throughout the past summer.

General Website: http://www.shelfari.com/

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Facebook

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A Facebook page is already an active part of the ANSER community.  It is used a parent-family informational and PR tool.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Garden-City-ID/ANSER-Public-Charter-School/190805753573?v=info&ref=ts&__a=24&ajaxpipe=1

Recently, I discovered RSA Animate series of videos. The importance of these types of resources is not only in their content but also in that the messages are conveyed in written, oral, and visual modalities. If I had only seen this type of content in written context or heard it in an oral presentation, I am certain I would have acknowledged it as interesting or possibly noteworthy, but missed the synergistic power of using the combined media.

This brings me to the most recent RSA Animation, 21^st Century Enlightenment, by Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

I became intrigued with this organization and when I looked them up via an Internet search, I found the following mission:

For over 250 years the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action. We encourage public discourse and critical debate by providing platforms for leading experts to share new ideas on contemporary issues. Our projects generate new models for tackling the social challenges of today.

What a great mission . . . “to encourage public discourse and critical debate by providing platforms for leading experts to share new ideas on contemporary issues . . . to generate new models for tackling the social challenges of today.”  I would love to see a similar mission for public education . . . “to encourage discourse and critical debate by a community of educators and learners to share ideas and generate solutions for social challenges of today.”

Another significant point about RSA is that even though they are 250 years old, they recently made a proclamation, of sorts, that their organization should reflect 21^st century enlightenment. Again, this could apply to public education systems – a need to re-conceptualize its mission to reflect this period of human growth, development, and evolution.

Taylor believes we need to ask ourselves: “What are these values (that shaped us and our systems)? Do they work for us? Do they meet the challenges we now face?” We need to live differently in the 21^st century and to live differently involves thinking differently. To paraphrase Taylor, this form of questioning, of thinking often unsettles who we are in the world, and states that we need “to resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is familiar or make wrong or false that which is only strange.”

21^st Century enlightenment, according to Taylor, encompasses the following:

• The principle of autonomy holds that human beings should be free to use their reason to create self-authored, valuable lives. The 21st-century enlightenment should involve a more self-aware, socially embedded model of autonomy.
• Universalism is generally taken to mean that all human beings are born with inalienable rights and are equally deserving of dignity. The emotional foundation for universalism is empathy.
• The basis for social arrangements should be what increases human happiness and welfare.
• Mature ethical discourse is the foundation for multiculturalism, mutual respect and conflict resolution.

How does this translate into everyday practices in the education environment?

1. We are living in a world that easily, frequently shares information via the Internet through Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube. In order for our learners to be able to engage in mature ethical discourse, first and foremost, they must have access to this information. Blocking, or if we really want to label it truthfully – censorship, does not help learners become critical consumers of the information they have easy access to outside of the school environment.
2. As noted by Taylor, the real time global media has brought suffering of distant people into our living rooms. These are teachable moments in the educational setting – where learners can engage in discourse and intelligent debate, and develop and implement action plans for change, if so desired.
3. Educational systems do and should take responsibility for teaching skills – skills for and related to reading, writing, mathematics, science, humanities, and the arts. I think, though, we need to question the content that is taught. Schools are often driven by an Essentialist view – that there is specific content that students NEED to know. Why, for example, do New Mexico history textbooks only contain one chapter about Native Americans when there are centuries of historical events there? Why did I have to read Shakespeare (over and over) in high school when my preferences, at the time, were to read African American female writers? Why does a young person need to struggle learning geometry out of a textbook when s/he would prefer to be learning principles of 3D objects via drawing or building in a virtual world? Who and how chooses this content? Why do administrators and educators take at face value that this content is what young people are to know?
4. As the noted by Taylor in his RSA talk, this century has given us some tools for being different in the world than in the past centur. The systems that drive the education of youth need to both mirror and assist them for being in the world. What are these systems doing to . . . prepare them to lead self-authored and valued lives? . . . to engage in mature ethical discourse? . . . to develop empathic capacity?
5. So, what I propose for education for 21st Century Enlightenment:
   • Assist learners in developing their own individual learning plans.
   • Open up the Internet and ask learners to engage in ongoing and critical analysis of its content.
   • Ask learners to produced content/projects based on their interests and share it in ways to get feedback – both positive and ways it could be improved.
   • Assist learners in developing survival skills – personal safety and protection (online and real life), interpersonal communications (real life and online), networking, and goal setting.
   • Provide venues for engaging in mature and intelligent discourse, e.g, Socratic seminars.
   • Help learners develop and engage in communities of practice.
   • Provide opportunities – both with time and suggestions – for learners to work in and for global collaborations and stewardship.
   • Rid the system of tests, data-driven decisions, assessments – assist students and educators in establishing feedback loops for improvement (peer, experts, educator-based) (see post – Youth Participatory Action Research).
   • Help learners develop their own unique voices in whatever medium and modalities they choose.  Again, this means opening up the internet and giving them a tour of all the media creation opportunities and then . . .
   • Assist them in becoming the authors-producers of their media and in finding ways to publish these works for viewing, commentary, and feedback by an audience both within and outside of the immediate learning environment.
   • Build in reflective practice for learners to self-evaluate, assess real-life relevancy, and articulate one’s desirable long-term, lifelong legacy.

Student-centric learning puts the educator in the role of an ethnographer.  In the role of ethnographer, the educator studies the learners – both individually and as a group.  The educator can then offer a menu of learning activities based on what is discovered about the learners.   Because of technology and the Internet, this menu can be composed some rich and exciting learning delicacies.  The learning environment operates in a similar manner as a food cooperative (the ideals of a cooperative, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles)

The Size of the Universe

A few years ago, I worked with gifted 3^rd through 5^th graders in a pull-out program.  What I learned about them, as a group, was a general attraction to science and especially, space and space exploration.  I also learned that as much as they loved technology (I had a small computer lab and integrated technology into the curriculum) that when given a choice they would choose hands-on activities over technology.  So with that in mind, we began our second year together with an activity, The Thousand Yard Model or, The Earth as a Peppercorn.

This is a classic exercise for visualizing just how BIG our Solar System really is. Both the relative size and spacing of the planets are demonstrated in this outdoor exercise, using a mere peppercorn to represent the size of the Earth.

The kids talked about this activity for the entire school year – stating it was one of the best school activities in which they had ever participated.

Now, with so many related activities online, I would have offered (and can offer future students with similar interests) the following activities as part of this learning menu:

Online Interactive

The Scale of the Universe

From the smallest possible unit of distance (known as the Planck Length) to the other reaches of space and the universe and everything in between, this amazing tool gives you a small idea of the incredible scale of the universe. Fascinating for any biologist, chemist, physicist, as tronomer, cosmologist, science student or simply anyone who marvels at our insignificance in the grand scale of things.

Videos

The Known Universe by AMNH

The Grand scale of the Universe

Artistic Interpretations

. . .  and for the more artistic and mathematics oriented learners, here is a TED talk:

part of the transcript:

And here is a similar sculpture. That’s the Sun at that end. And then in a series of 55 balls, it reduces, proportionately, each ball and the spaces between them, reduce proportionately, until they get down to this little Earth. This one is about the Moon. And then the distance to the Earth, in proportion also. This is a little stone ball, floating. As you can see the little tether, that it’s also magnetically levitated.

And then this is the first part of — this is 109 spheres, since the Sun is 109 times the diameter of the Earth. And so this is the size of the Sun. And then each of these little spheres is the size of the Earth in proportion to the Sun. It’s made up of 16 concentric shells.

As a former outdoor educator, I experienced how the physical leaning space contributes to the learning process in the best environment available – the natural one.   See DesignShare, http://www.designshare.com/, for more information about importance of learning spaces.

I also believe that a purpose of education and the educator is to provide learners with a framework and skills for directing their own learning (hence the name of this Blog – User-Generated Education).  Part of the process becomes giving the opportunity for learners to develop and share their own unique voice – about how and what they want to learn and actually do learn.

Narrative Architecture and the Learning Space

Today, I heard the term Narrative Architecture for the first time.

From Latin, narrativus means telling a story. In mid 16^th century architecture from Latin, architectura means the art or practice of designing and constructing building. Started from both of definitions, narrative architecture means an art of designing and constructing building to tell a story.

If novel, fiction, comic, and folktale tell the story by texts and picture. If painting and photograph tell the story by a great picture. If movie tells the story by moving picture and sounds. Architecture tells the stories without texts, but by geometrical form, space, and materials. Narrative could be translated into architectural form by envelope materials, route, event, rooms, and also smell, sound and light effects.

The essential question becomes, How can the educator create the learning spaces – real life and/or virtual – to elicit the positive power of narrative architecture? This would be a space where learners feel as though they can tell their stories as the producers of their own learning.

Narrative Architecture and Making Meaning

Meaning is not exclusively in the morphological properties of space themselves, nor in the cultural processes of its formation and interpretation, but in the dynamic network of spatial, social, intellectual and professional practices that embody and produce different kinds of social knowledge.

Learners (real life or online) working in collaborative learning spaces will interpret and form the learning space to have personal, and ultimately collective, meaning. They do so in all learning spaces.  Does the learning space create stories of boredom . . .  fear . .  . isolation?  Or does it create stories of engaged and passionate learning experiences?  Because I fully believe that since time spent in any learning space becomes a narrative architecture for the learners, educators should approach that space with intention, knowing that learners will draw from and create meaning in and about that space.

Interestingly, Henry Jenkins used the concept of Narrative Architecture in his ideas regarding interactive gaming.

The game space becomes a memory palace whose contents must be deciphered as the player tries to reconstruct the plot. Game spaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing activity of players.

This statement can be translated to – have meaning for learning spaces:

The learning space becomes a memory palace whose contents must be deciphered as the learner tries to reconstruct what he or she is attempting to learn. Learning spaces should be designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing and sense-making activity of learners.

The how-to of creating this Narrative Architecture – whether in real life or online – becomes having the educators and learners co-create this space together – all being equal participants in the process.  The space then becomes part of the learning process – increasing the opportunity and potential for deep and indelible understanding of the learning process and content.

Photo: My 5^th-6^th students (a few years ago)  creating a blueprint of how the classroom should look.  The classroom was NOT set up for them prior to the beginning of the school year.

I read several posts this week about recommendations for the future of online learning. These are summarized below.  First, though, I know we are currently differentiating between online-virtual and face-to-face, place-based education.  We also have added blended education into this discussion about how and where education takes place.  This is probably a moot point as the education of the future will be where, how, and when the learner chooses.  Lines will be blurred with some education face-to-face, some virtual – depending on the learner’s interests, skills to be learned, and knowledge desired.  These recommendations should be discussed as best practices for all types of education.

Two articles, one from the Chronicle and one from Mashable, discussed the following:

1. Education needs to reflect the ability of the web to keep an ongoing and current pulse on global events and information.
2. Education needs to embrace the collaborative, social aspects that attracts users to social networking.

Real Time, Current, and Authentic Knowledge

What’s required are innovative approaches to course design that set aside old models of instruction where theory often trumps actuality. Online course providers must embrace the web’s potential to match students with the kinds of timely knowledge and skills that address current issues head-on, and enable them to thrive in the global marketplace.

It’s not enough for a course to be accessible online, it must also be designed in a way that keys into the digital pulse of current events, trending topics and insider knowledge endemic to the web.. The web, as a real-time medium, is begging us to build innovative courses that can be used for the rapid delivery of education designed in a way that integrates current news, information, insights and research about topics like the oil spill and thousands of other current issues.

Networked Learning

To attract and retain the typical college-age demographic, as well as the larger population of adult learners in search of relevant and engaging educational content, the next generation of online education must be characterized by courses that build in the social, real-time information capturing components that have made the web such a dynamic medium for sharing information and knowledge.

We’ll see more collaborative endeavors in online-learning offerings. It will be more social than what it has been. New technologies are moving that way. The rise of social networking, Web 2.0, and the participatory web.  At the center is the social interaction between individuals. Right now most courses that are based on content-management systems are not focused on interaction between participants. They’re focused on, let’s put together this weekly module, and then that’s where the experience happens. The student goes there to read about the weekly module. The future is where the center is the student, and the people comprising this online learning community. The student and the community are collaborating on the content. It’s no longer possible for universities to be offering distance-education courses that are isolationsist or individualistic when people’s experiences outside of the university are social and connected.

Claims have been made that the MTV generation forced educators to have to be more like entertainers to keep students’ attention.  I believe that such boredom existed throughout the institutionalization of education – that students of the MTV generation just realized the potential of media to engage, entertained AND educate them.

An American lecturer believes he has found the secret of engaging the “MTV generation” who have an attention span of “minutes”.  Stressing that his undergraduate experience was in the United States, he said: “The worst thing in the world for me was these one-way lectures. I sat through so many lectures that were just so boring.”  But while he put up with it, he said today’s young students were less tolerant.  “The old guy who stands there and just lectures to the class – these days are gone. Their attention span is in the minutes now,” he said.  Mr Dever said that studies as far back as the 1970s had shown attention spans of only 15 to 20 minutes at a time. But today’s bricks-and-mortar institutions now faced a threat from online courses that engaged students and avoided the problems of one-way lectures.

The same is true, in my perspective, for the claims being made of online learning.  Human beings have a natural propensity to stay informed, to work socially and collaboratively, and to help with global stewardship.  The technologies are now providing the opportunity to do so.  Users of the Internet are now the learners. These consumers of education will just insist, as did the MTV generation, that their educations of all kinds, face-to-face and online, contain the elements of real time and authentic information and connection.

During the weekend of July 30-August 1, I attended the Reform Symposium, an online conference for educators, administrators, parents and students.. One of the sessions was by Angela Maiers, What the Heck is a 21^st Century Skill Anyway? in which she spoke of her Dream Team.  My big “aha” from her session was providing students with the opportunity to live like a scientist, an artist, a mathematician …

Let them find their hero(s) — their choice, not yours. Once they pick their hero(s), have them dive into what made them tick – and what made them successful.

Fast forward one week later.  I watched a segment on 60 minutes about Jose Andres, a molecular gastronomy specialist.  My interest in this man was instantaneous due to his extreme passion for culinary arts.  When asked to describe him, a food critic stated, “Expect wonders.” The why’s and what’s of high school didn’t interest him so he dropped out to enroll in cooking school.  I repeat, he quit high school to pursue his passion.  What is the purpose of education especially in this century? Shouldn’t at least one major purpose be to nourish students’ passions?

Passion-Based Learning appears in the Blog-o-sphere every so often, most notably through the words of John Seely Brown.  During his New Media Consortium keynote this past summer, he stated:

What’s the mindset? A passionate pursuit of extreme performance with a deep questing disposition and a commitment to indwelling. Perhaps we should teach not skills, but dispositions. Immersion in, not about; marinating in the phenomena. Without digital media, this quest and this indwelling and this immersion would not be possible.

As I see it, if the characteristics of Passion Based Learning could be identified, they would include:

• Self and Intrinsically Motivated, Learner-Driven
• Individualistic
• Desire for Deep Understanding of the Content-Topic
• Driven by Innovation and Creativity
• Vision of What Can Be
• Desire to Make the World Better Via the Passion

If a student is passionate about a topic, doesn’t it make sense to have that student study, really study, professionals who who are also passionate?

Mastering a field of knowledge involves not only “learning about” the subject matter but also “learning to be” a full participant in the field. This involves acquiring the practices and the norms of established practitioners in that field.

It is passion-based learning, motivated by the student either wanting to become a member of a particular community of practice or just wanting to learn about, make, or perform something (John Seely Brown)

A student, who is passionate about culinary arts, has a possibility of learning about culinary arts through Jose Andres.  Not only could this student learn about the craft of culinary arts, but also study and “practice” some of the dispositions.  Andres owns several restaurants, teaches a course in culinary physics, works with Harvard scientists to understand the science of food, and works at a food kitchen.  Some segments from an Interview with Jose Andres exemplify these dispositions:

Don’t be afraid to fail. I came to New York to open a Catalan restaurant that later closed. Failure, right? But not really, because that brought me [to the United States] and out of that came everything else … A lot of young people are afraid to make mistakes, and I think that keeps them from succeeding. Churchill said success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. So screw up, but don’t lose heart. Learn from it and keep moving.

Being on the board of directors of D.C. Central Kitchen, a non-profit that feeds the hungry and offers culinary arts training to the unemployed. Meeting Robert Egger, founder of this amazing organization that fights hunger and creates opportunity and trying to help him achieve his dream … to make sure no one is hungry and that we give opportunities to those people who want to contribute. That has been my sidekick job for 14 or 15 years and is probably the one that has given me the most joy.

As I watched the 60 Minutes segment and read through interviews I found online, I realized that it becomes much more than learning about the culinary arts.  It becomes a way of being in the world, the dispositions that contributes to success as a culinary artist.

Due to the Internet, the student can read and view media about Jose Andres, possibly connect directly with Jose Andres, and find similar minded students-professionals.  Follow-up could include the  study of molecular gastronomy, volunteering at a local soup kitchen, and writing/preparing his-her own recipes. This, in essence, would become a Personal or Individualized Learning Plan (PLP).  The student would learn about – live the dispositions of the culinary artist.

Even though I think students should find their own passion mentors, I believe that in my role as a tour guide of learning possibilities (how I explain my role as an educator), I can help identify possibilities.  I have begun a list . . .

• Architecture – Cameron Sinclair
• Animation -  John Alan Lasseter
• Online Gaming – Jane McGonigal
• Creative Writing – JK Rowling
• Data and Statistics – Hans Rowling

This year, I have a half-time job as the technology instructor for a K-8 Charter school.  I plan post a big sign in my classroom that says, “Show me your passion!”

Beginning during my Doctoral studies and continuing throughout my professional career as an educator, I discovered and keep re-discovering how congruent the concepts related to Progressive Education, Naturalistic Inquiry, Participatory Research, and Reflective Practice are with my beliefs about good education, learning, assessment, and research. Conversely, the practices related to Quantitative Testing and Research and Essentialism never worked in my scheme of what good education entails. What I knew, intuitively, to be de-motivating and toxic for me as a high school and undergraduate student, I became able to articulate with words.

I absolutely understand the need and desire for accountability and evidence of efficacy. Concrete evidence, scalablity, and the ability to duplicate best practices actually are the indicators for a profession being viewed as a profession. The problem lies in that the education system’s efforts in demonstrating efficacy occur through quantitative methodologies. There are several problems with this approach:

• Human behavior and learning is complex – assigning numbers to learning is reductionist, implying that learning is a simplistic process that it can be measured in the same manner that blood pressure can be measured.
• Quantifying learning does not provide the in-depth descriptions of best practices for other educators and students. Best practices – the success stories of education cannot be duplicated based on viewing test scores.
• Students become commodities, where their value is measured by the numbers assigned based on test scores.

At the Reform Symposium (an online conference), I had the privilege of listening to Monika Hardy and her students/cohorts (for the archive, see http://reformsymposium.com/blog/2010/07/12/monika-hardy/) . Of special interest to me was the part presented by James Folksmead on Youth Participatory Action Research #YPAR. His Prezi can be viewed at http://prezi.com/kx2njm16ouqy/par/

It became an earth moving AHA for me – the missing piece of my perspective on “good education”.  Students should be part of the research process. Note that the emphasis here is on part of the research process not the subjects of the research.

I got motivated to do a search on YPAR. What follows are excerpts from a referred research conference paper, Students: From Informants to Co-Researchers.

It could be argued that the dominant discourses of schooling, in relation to curriculum, assessment and pedagogy are grounded in psychological, rather than sociological, perspectives. Power differentials between teachers and their students are less often discussed from such a perspective. Students are typically positioned as immature, not yet fully capable children

This power differential between teachers and their students, as manifested in schools and classrooms, is reflected in the educational research processes themselves. Students are at worst the objects and at best the subjects of the research. They are not seen as participants in the processes of enquiry. Indeed, Morrow and Richards (1996) note that within existing ethical guidelines on human research in medicine, children are considered alongside adults with impairments. In other words, they are not seen to have status, but to be vulnerable. They are characterised as relatively incompetent and at risk of exploitation.

Studies centered around the experiences of young people in schools typically position the students as the objects of the research. They are observed, surveyed, measured, interviewed and commented upon in order to inform a research agenda to which they have made little contribution. They are rarely recognized as active agents, who can not only be reliable informants, but also interpreters of their own lives. The positioning of young people in educational research is analogous to that of women within traditional patriarchal research paradigms. They are at worst, silenced; at best patronized.

The authors describe their ideas for Principles for Substantive Participative Engagement in Research by Students:

1. The purposes of the research should be in the best interests of the students;
2. The purposes of the research should be transparent and consented to by all key stakeholders, including students;
3. The research should be respectful of the students’ definitions of the phenomena being examined and incorporate methodologies which allow for varying levels of literacy and oracy;
4. Students should be active in providing input and advice regarding the initiation and design of the research;
5. Students either directly, or by representation, should be partners in the research’s enactment and interpretation;
6. Students should have a voice in determining the implications of the research for appropriate educational policies and practices;
7. Students should be enabled, by provision of appropriate resources (such as time, space, technologies and materials) to be fully participative in the research.

The benefits as I see . . .

• Students assess what they learned, how they learned it . . . and reflect on their learning as part of their participation. They learn the skills for reflective practice. They learn to be critical consumers and producers of their own learning.
• The boundaries between assessment and research become blurred . . . as it should be. Assessment becomes naturalistic and descriptive rather than reductionistic and contrived.
• Best practices are described, developed, and disseminated through the collaborative efforts of educators and students, the populations who have the vested interest in these practices. This increases the validity of these practices in the eyes of these stakeholders and the chance/opportunity for implementing these best practices. The quality of education improves.