2012 in Blogging Annual Report

WordPress generated an annual report for this blog – http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2012/annual-report/

Highlights were that I had 160,000 views during the year;  the most viewed post during a single day – Addressing Sandy Hook (and other tragedies) in the Classroom http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/addressing-sandy-hooks-and-other-tradegies-in-the-classroom/ at 1,889 views, and viewers from 183 countries.

 

Passion, Projects & Play: Restoring Creativity in the Classroom

crossed posted from: Passion, Projects & Play: Restoring Creativity in the Classroom.

By Howard Rheingold October 4, 2012 – 10:40am

Tags Connected Learning, Digital Media & Learning, Education

At my elementary school in Phoenix, Arizona, problem students like me were often sent to the art teacher’s room. Unfortunately for me, my objection to sitting in a little desk, arranged in rows with other little desks, then moving in single-file to another room full of desks in rows whenever a loud bell rang, made me a problem student. Fortunately for me, the art teacher was my mother, beloved by many as Mrs. Rheingold. After the pin-drop quiet, pin-neat order of our homerooms, the happy chaos of Mrs. Rheingold’s art studio was like travelling to an altogether different dimension. Mrs. Rheingold’s philosophy of teaching art was that all human beings are creative innovators who have a need to express themselves creatively and take joy in it, but many — most — people are shut down at an early age. Someone looks at the page you are happily scribbling and tells you that your horse doesn’t look like a horse, and you decide to leave art to specialists. Mrs. Rheingold didn’t teach technique. She gave permission to play. Thank you, mom. By now, art classes in US public schools are notions from a distant past. I was heartened when Sir Ken Robinson received world-wide attention for his TED talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” With so much attention to core curriculum, the creativity-blunting effects of schooling have not been at the forefront of discussions about how to fix educational institutions. I was heartened again to see that my mother’s philosophy of teaching creativity through permission rather than technique is being advanced by some of today’s educators. Jackie Gerstein, for example.

I first became aware of Jackie when she posted regularly and incisively in the text chats that accompany the weekly Connected Learning Webcasts. When I Googled her, I found her post about Sir Ken Robinson’s uncomfortable question, which led me to Gerstein’s argument for the increasingly rare unstructured places and times for learning. I wasn’t surprised to learn that she was not only an early advocate for “the flipped classroom” but spent a year thinking in public on her blog about what you do with the physically co-present classroom when traditional lectures have been moved to YouTube. And I love that she applied the flipped classroom frame to tinkering and making — introducing me to the delicious term “maker education.” Cyberized as my life and work has become, I still find joy in making physical objects. Along with art class, one of the few classes in elementary school that I looked forward to was shop class, another notion from the past.

I welcomed the opportunity to talk with Jackie for the brief video below. One thing that video conveys that is hard to get across in text: the passion of the speaker for her calling. Among other things, I asked her about “passion-based learning,” an idea she picked up from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and extended to include “project-based” and “play-based” learning. Passion, projects, and play. Sounds like fun. In the hands of Mrs. Rheingold or Jackie Gerstein, it’s also about connecting with the deep joy humans experience in learning until we’re schooled out of it.

 

Banner image credit: Todd Berman
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theartdontstop/3988434987/in/photostream/

An Education I Wished I Had As a Learner

Historically, teachers teach the way they were taught.  I want to change this.  I am on a mission to encourage and assist teachers in designing learning experiences they wished they had as students.  Seriously, how many would create lecture-based learning settings?  It is my belief that since that was the model used from early on, that most got used to it.  Some tolerated it, some endured, and some dropped-out (dropping out does not necessarily mean physically, it can mean physically attending school but mentally dropping out).  How many teachers, who use lectures as a primary instructional strategy, found them boring and ineffective when they were students?

I believe that a major role and responsibility of the educator is to become an ethnographer in the study of his or her students.  Educators should know the background, interests, passions, antagonizers of every student.

So I am going on a personal narrative.  I am going to become Jackie’s teacher and design learning experiences for her.

Dear Younger Jackie:

Jackie, I know that your school experiences left you with a life lasting legacy that you are defective. You were told to shut up, sit still, stay on topic, stay in line, raise your hand, don’t disrupt.

I will be an ethnographer in the study of you. I want to be your personal teacher and create learning experiences that invite you to disrupt, to innovate, to create, to imagine, to be you.

I will never make you listen to lectures of more than 15 minutes, memorize information, or take multiple-choice tests.  You have told me that not only do you find these tasks boring, you find them painful.  I will, instead, ask you to write, create, speak, make, and perform.

I know you find sitting in desks, sitting properly, sitting still to be confining, constricting, and contrived.  Playing, moving, and tinkering are such integral parts of how you learn.  Our learning environment will look more like a family room than a classroom.  Our playground will be an extension of our learning environment not one separated by time and space.

Your need for wanting to know more about topics is inspiring.  The Internet is such a gift for you.  I will permit you to have your laptop open and search for information when the need arises.  I will not ask you to unplug as you know when it is important to do.  I will respect your ability to self-regulate.   I will also ask you to share with others what you learn.  I know you love to share what you find with others.

I will observe you to find what interests you and suggest resources and readings that interest you like that English teacher who saw the types of fiction books you carried around with you, and gave you a massive books of plays.  She then suggested that you perform a few of them to the rest of the class.  Your performances, with a few of your classmates, of Edward Albee’s The Sandbox and other plays were such joy to her.

I know you “wonder” a lot out loud and ask a lot of questions including, “Why do I need to know this?”  I will point you in directions where you can get answers to your questions.  I will do my best in engage you in rich discourse or point you in directions where you can get answers to your questions.  I promise not to sssh you as so many teachers have. I know that is cuts through you like a knife and shuts down your passion and energy.

Relationships are the essence of all positive learning experiences. I know your family life has been tough, and that you developed a hard exterior to protect that soft, sensitive interior.  I will never look at you with disdain. Rather, I will treat you only with kindness, compassion, and love.

I will recognize you are my student and it my job to guide. When you are incorrect, too loud, too abrupt, I will take you to the side, and with love give you some feedback.  I will end these little conversations with a smile and a little hug.

And when I do see the hurt in the eyes, your eyes really do tell a story that you words do not.  I will touch you gently on the arm, and quietly say, “It’s okay.”

We will, as bell hooks suggests, create a place of possibility, openness, and freedom, where our hearts and minds will transgress all self-imposed boundaries.

Learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom with all its limitations remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labour for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom. (hooks 1994: 207)

Experiential Mobile Learning Activities Presentation

I am presenting workshops on Experiential Mobile Learning Activities at the Digital Media Literacy Conference 2012 and the Mobile Learning Experience 2012.  What follows is the slide deck from and a description of my presentation.

This interactive, experiential BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) workshop has its foundation in two guiding principles: (1) Building a sense of community in the classroom helps address the whole learner including achievement and academic success, and (2) Mobile devices are extensions of young people. As such, they should be leveraged in the classroom.

Young people are connecting with one another through technology in unprecedented ways. Computers, wi-fi networks, and smart phones allow young people 24/7 access to technology and to one another. Using smart devices in educational settings as learning and community building tools can promote interpersonal communication and encourage young people to positively express their individuality and build their student-to-student, student-to-educator relationships. The activities that will be presented and experienced during this workshop use the technology that young people use – cell phones, social networking sites, laptops, blogs, and digital cameras. These activities focus upon and build diversity and cultural sensitivity, teamwork and problem solving, self-reflection and self-exploration, and communication and self-expression (adapted from Wolfe & Sparkman, 2009).

Through participation in this workshop, you can expect to:

• Understand the importance of building community in the class.
• Explore the research about the use of mobile devices by young people.
• Learn through experience at least six community-building activities that you can use with your students.
• Develop ideas and strategies for integrating mobile-driven team building activities into your classroom environment.

This workshop is divided into three parts:

1. Exploring research on the importance of building a classroom community and how young people are using their mobile devices.
2. Learning, playing, and experiencing team-building games using mobile devices – see http://community-building.weebly.com/ for a list and descriptions of these activities.
3. Large group brainstorming through Wallwisher and discussion – how these ideas and activities can be integrated into one’s own work environment.

Supporting Research

• Abrams, Mi., Scannell, M., &  Mulvihill, M. (2011). Big Book of Virtual Teambuilding Games: Quick, Effective Activities to Build Communication, Trust and Collaboration from Anywhere! McGraw-Hill.
• Austrian Institute for Applied Telecommunications. (2010). The Mobile Phone in School.
• Handling Opportunities and Risks Appropriately.  Retrieve from http://handywissen.at/downloads/.
• California University.  (2006). Schools as Caring, Learning Communities. A Center Practice Brief. Center For Mental Health In Schools At UCLA.
• Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis. M. (2011).  Future Skills 2020.  Institute for the Future for University of Phoenix Research Institute.  Retrieved from http://www.iftf.org/futureworkskills2020.
• LaRose, R., & Whitten, P. (2000). Re-thinking instructional immediacy for web courses:  A social cognitive exploration. Communication Education, 49, 320-338.
• Lenhart, A., Ling, R., Campbell, S., Purcell, K. (2010, April). Teens and Mobile Phones.
• New Media Consortium. (2011).  2011 Horizon Report: One Year or Less: Mobiles. Retrieved from http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2011/sections/mobiles/.
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.).  Communication and Collaboration.  Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework/261-communication-and-collaboration.
• Pew Research. (2011). Global Digital Communications: Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide. Pew Research.  Retrieved from http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/12/20/global-digital-communication-texting-social-networking-popular-worldwide/1/
• Pew Research (2010).  Pew Internet & American Life Project.  Retrieved from http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx.
• Prabhu, M. T. (2010).  Author: ‘iGeneration’ requires a different approach to instruction.  eSchool News.  Retrieved from http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/04/12/author-igeneration-requires-a-different-approach-to-instruction/
• Schaps, E. (2003)  Creating Caring Schools.  Educational Leadership, 60(6) p. 31-33.
• Teaching Today. (n.d.).  Cell Phones in the Classroom.  Retrieve August 21, 2011, from http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/cell-phones-in-the-classroom
• Vesely, P., Bloom, L. & Sherlock, J. (2007). Key Elements of Building Online Community: Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 3, (3).  Retrived from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no3/vesely.htm.
• Wilson, M.E. (2004). “Teaching, Learning, and Millennial Students.” In M.D. Coomes and R. DeBard (Eds.) Serving the Millennial Generation. New Directions for Student Services, no. 106. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Postscript

One of the DMIL2012 workshop participants, Billy Meinke, wrote about his experiences in my workshop in his blog, Digital Media and Learning (DML) 2012 Conference – Experience Notes:

The session, as she explained before we began, was much less of a talking-head lecture and more of an interactive experience. After describing recent research supporting the use of mobile devices in K-12 and Higher Education, she broke up the attendees into groups to take part in the same exercises she uses in her classroom. Using such tools as Cel.ly and Flickr’s mobile image uploading, she took us through simple activities that can be used to improve student engagement and build a sense of community in the classroom. Sure enough, no ice was left unbroken during that session and many participants continued conversations into the main room when she was done. I’ll be showing some of those activities to my mentors back at UH, hopefully seeing them put to use by instructors in the College of Education.

An Experiential, Mobile-Device Driven Communications Exercise

This past week in my undergraduate interpersonal communications course, I adapted the Bridge-It communications exercise to incorporate my students’ (most ages 17-20) mobile devices.  It combined some of my favorite instructional strategies:

• Experiential and Hands-On Learning
• Team Building and Problem-Solving Group Initiatives
• Using Mobile Devices in Educational Settings

Procedures

First. students were asked to line up in the classroom on a continuum from those who believed they had the best, most effective communication (verbal and listening) skills to those who thought they lacked those skills.  They counted off by three’s to form three groups.  The top three self-reported communicators were asked to be the communicators, the others were the builders.

Next, groups were moved to separate rooms, given the same set of building blocks and their task . . .

Build a three-dimensional structure using all the pieces provided.  All three structures need to be exact in dimension and in color patterns.  The communicators can use their cell phones via text and/or voice to communicate with the other groups.

No time limits were set.  When the teams believed they successfully completed the task, they could send pictures of their structures to one another.

Reflections

After the completion of the activity, reactions and reflections were posted on a Voicethread slide using an image taken during the activity and quickly uploaded to Voicethread.

Comments included:

I loved doing this project! It was fun to get to know the class and it was interesting to figure all of this out without being in the same room with one another. We all worked very well together after we figured out what we were doing.

The activity showed we all communicated very well. The best way we were going to build our structure was to communicate by one and to make sure we had everything in place. i learned that communicating with good instructions will make it successful.

This activity showed how well we can communicate with each other. I learned that we can communicate well if given proper instructions that are detailed and precise.

Follow-Up

Next class students will be shown video clips of their participation in the activity.  Since the topic is on nonverbal communication, they will be asked to text to Wifitti what the nonverbal behaviors they witnessed during each of the clips.

It really is about the technology and . . .

It is not about the technology.

I have developed a sour taste for this common and almost automatic “battle cry” from the educational technology community.   If we view learning as a process that is integrated, holistic, and systemic, then of course it is about the technology . . .  and the pedagogy . . .  and the learners . . .  and the available resources . . . and the community.  It is not about one thing before the other, one thing over another.  It is about the whole picture.  It goes from being a reductionist view of technology integration to one that holistic, taking into account all the elements, and how they influence and are influenced by one another.

I am teaching an online Integrating Technology Into the Curriculum course for a Masters of Education fully online program.  This is the only technology course they have during their Masters work (and it is an elective).  It is an eight week course and one that has been designed by the university’s course designers.  Most of the students come into the course with knowledge of Microsoft products  – Word, Powerpoint, Spreadsheets and hardware such as overhead projectors (yes, they still reference this), DVDs, and Elmos.

Most of the students’ suggestions for integrating technology into their curriculum include examples using these tools they know.  Here are example recommendations from one of the “better” students  from his technology improvement plan:

Computers would make a nice addition to each classroom for use by students.  Software such as Microsoft should be installed on each computer so students can explore with Spreadsheets, word, and database.  In addition, with computers the school should install the internet on them so students may use it to search for topics of interests and study as well as thousands of other things.

They know their learners, their schools, their content areas, and only the technologies I described.  But most of their technology integration ideas pretty much contain these old school technologies.

I make suggestions about how to enhance their curriculum using more current technologies – Google docs and apps, social networking, Blogs, wikis, Prezi, TeacherTube – but few “take me up” on these offerings.   An emphasis here – these are masters of education students in an Educational Leadership program.

This fits with the cliché of “If all one knows is a hammer, then everything is viewed as a nail.”  The same tenet applies to educational technology integration, “If all the educator knows is Word and PPT, then all technology-integrated learning experiences will be viewed through the lens of a Powerpoint.”

The benefits of educators knowing a full range of emerging, educational-relevant technologies include:

• Content and process can be presented to the learners using a variety of modalities – visual, auditory, interactive.  Use of multiple modalities has the potential to make the content more interesting and more relevant to a broad range of learners.
• Instructional could be differentiated to meet each student’s needs.  The more tools an educator knows, the more likely s/he can offer the right technology to address that student’s learning style and interest areas.
• Teachable Moments are enhanced. When learners bring up ideas or questions, the educator has a larger back pocket of options, knowledge of internet resources upon which to draw to address that teachable moment.

It then becomes the responsibility for educators to understand the current technologies being used by society-at-large.  What that means in actual practice is:

• Keeping informed of how emerging technologies are being integrated into the educational landscape by other educators, librarians, instructional technology specialists, and administrators.  This is where social networks such of Twitter come in handy.
• Getting to know and understand the tools through webinars often offered by the tool administrators/developers and online tutorials.
• Understanding the user agreements and privacy issues associated with the tools being used by society-at-large.

If education is serious about preparing learners for their real lives – current and future, then they it becomes an ethical imperative to bring relevant, current, and emerging technologies into the learning environment.

Celebration of Learning

 

 

 

I prepared this slideshow to show current students examples of end-of-semester Celebration of Learning.  Love students’ creativity and passion.  It is always such a pleasure to witness these presentations.

Celebration of Learning, posted with vodpod

5th-6th Grade Civil Rights Project: Technology-Based Activating Event

The learning expedition for the 5^th and 6^th grade this year is civil rights.  The teachers in the three classes started this expedition by having the students study literature and view media (Little Rock Nine) related to civil rights.  During these initial activating events, students identified vocabulary related to civil rights.  The teachers requested that their students create covers for their binders during their technology class.  They asked for Word Clouds of their vocabulary words and a related quote to be included within this cover.

Content Standards Addressed (Idaho)

Technology:

• Demonstrate increasingly sophisticated operation of technology components.
• Locate information from electronic resources.
• Use formatting capabilities of technology for communicating and illustrating.
• Publish and present information using technology tools.

Language Arts:

• Use words and concepts necessary for comprehending math, science, social studies, literature and other Grade 6 content area text.
• Read grade-level-appropriate text.
• Apply context to identify the meaning of unfamiliar words and identify the intended meaning of words with multiple meanings.

Process

A Google Presentation was set up with sharing permission set for anyone to edit (plans to change to view only once their pages are complete). This permitted all the students in the class to work within the document without the need of an email to log in.  This would not only result in student binder covers, but also in an embeddable presentation of all student work for that class.   A template was developed that included a block for the Word Cloud image and text box for the quote.  The individual student names were included on the slides so the student could find and work on his or her individual slide.

Students came to their technology class with lists of their civil rights words.  Two types of Word Clouds were introduced to the students:  ABCya Word Cloud and Tagxedo.  I introduced Tagxedo during the first group but didn’t realize that Tagxedo needed Microsoft Silverlight to operate.  Due to the block on the system, any additional software needs to be downloaded by the network administrator.  ABCya Word Cloud became the back up tool.  But the third group (another day), got the opportunity to test out Tagxedo.  The students loved producing the word cloud into a shape of their choice.

 

To find a relevant quote, the students were directed to go to Thinkexist: more than 300,000 quotations by over 20,000 Authors. When students located their quotes, these were copy and pasted into their slide.

 

So with this few hour exercise, the students learned how to

• engage in language arts content standards through a technology interface
• convey their vocabulary words in a visual format
• creatively play with words
• download an image
• insert an image
• search for and locate a relevant quote
• copy and paste the quote from a website into a Google doc
• work collaboratively on an online document

Junior High Technology Project

Rationale
The Junior High Technology project was developed using the following rationale:

• Sometimes It is About the Technology: Many educators involved in educational technology believe “pedagogy before the technology.”  I agree, but sometimes it has to be about the technology.  Learners may not discover the full potential of a technology without direct instruction. There is a false belief that students, being digital natives, will intuitively learn all how the technology tools operate.   I have observed something quite different. If a student does not immediately understand the workings of a technology, he or she will quickly get frustrated and/or move to onto another. My role as a technology instructor is to know the tool and demonstrate to students how to use that tool . . . learning the tool separate from its connection to a curricular area.
• Offering Choice of Technologies: I know that has been some questions about the existence of  learning styles, but I also know, through years of working with and observing students of all ages, that they have different needs and desires for expressing their knowledge and understanding of content and concepts. In most classes I teacher, I offer a choice menu of projects – see A Technology-Enhanced Celebration of Learning.
• Tinkering is Important: At first I expected students to jump into their content-based project. I realized that the students needed to play with the tools to learn how they function. Now when I introduce a tool, I tell the students they can experiment with the tool, create projects on one of their hobbies and interests. Their content-related school project will come after they get the opportunity to explore and tinker with the various technologies being offered.
• Supporting the Content Area: Educators embracing the potential of educational technology believe, as do I, that technology should be integrated into existing curriculum rather than being offered as a separate course. It is similar to teaching multicultural education and character development. These areas, like educational technology should be embedded into all curricular areas.  But, since I am a technology instructor (and like being so), I want to use technology to support the content being covered in the students’ classrooms.
• Technology as Project-Based Learning: Along with supporting the content area, the technology project is designed to be just that – a project, one that will take several weeks to complete.
• Addressing National Education Technology Standards: Built into the structure of the Junior High project is learning and practicing technology skills: developing innovative products and processes using technology; applying digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information; and practicing safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology.

Idaho Content Standards Addressed

Technology

Basic Operations and Concepts

• Students demonstrate a sound understanding of the nature and operation of technology systems.
• Students are proficient in the use of technology.

Social, Ethical, and Human Issues

• Students practice responsible use of technology systems, information, and software.
• Students develop positive attitudes toward technology uses that support lifelong learning, collaboration, personal pursuits, and productivity.

Technology Productivity Tools

• Students use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity.

Technology Communications Tools

• Students use a variety of media and formats to communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences.

Technology Research Tools

• Students use technology to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.
• Students evaluate and select new information resources and technological innovations based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.

Humanities: Visual Arts

Goal 3.1: Demonstrate skills essential to the visual arts.

Objective(s): By the end of Grade 8, the student will be able to:

• 6-8.VA.3.1.4 Produce art that demonstrates refined observation skills from life.
• 6-8.VA.3.1.7 Locate and use appropriate resources in order to work independently, monitoring one’s own understanding and learning needs.

Goal 3.2: Communicate through the visual arts, applying artistic concepts, knowledge, and skills.

Objective(s): By the end of Grade 8, the student will be able to:

• 6-8.VA.3.2.2 Demonstrate the ability to utilize personal interest, current events, media or techniques as sources for expanding artwork.

Goal 3.3: Communicate through the visual arts with creative expression.

Objective(s): By the end of Grade 8, the student will be able to:

• 6-8.VA.3.3.2 Create a work of art that expresses personal experience, opinions, and/or beliefs.
• 6-8.VA.3.3.3 Use the creative process (brainstorm, research, rough sketch, final product) to create a work of art.

The Junior High Technology Project

General Goal:

This is a semester long project.  The goal of this project is for students to use a technology creation tool to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of one of the following content areas:

• Digital Citizenship (Technology)
• Universal Human Rights (2009-10 learning expedition)
• Africa (2010-11 learning expedition)

Progression of Learning Activities

For five consecutive technology classes, students will be introduced to different Web 2.0 project creation tools – one per class:

• Animoto
• Glogster Edu
• Dipity
• Google Earth
• Fifth Class – variety for extra credit: GoAnimate, MyStudiyo, Jaycut, StoryJumper

Students will be provided with an overview, during these introductory classes, of the expectations of their assignment.

• At least 10 facts with references about their topic.
• At lease five live links to additional resources.
• At least 10 copyright available images.
• A video embedded into the presentation
• An audio segment embedded into the presentation.

Safe and responsible internet use will be demonstrated throughout these lessons:

• Locating appropriate information sites.
• Judging the validity and legitimacy of a website.
• Conducting a Google Image search using strict filtering and user rights that permit use of the image.

Beginning with the sixth technology class, students will work on their technology projects.  They will provide the teacher with the topic and the technology tool they will use for their project.  As part of this contract, students will also specify possible extra credit projects.  The expectation is that students will work on their extra credit projects in the case that they finish their project by the end of the semester.

At the time that the students select their project topic and technology tool, they will be provided with a rubric of the assignment criteria.  At the end of each class, they will be asked to write a reflective statement at the bottom of the rubric specifying progress and challenges related to the project.

Criticizing, Pondering, and Actualizing: An Educator’s Guide

I posed the following philosophical question on Twitter yesterday:

Why do folks spend time criticizing what is rather than pondering-actualizing what could be?

Three themes emerged from the Twitter stream of responses:

• Is Pondering Just for the Privileged?
• Is it Critical vs. Criticism?
• Is it action for change or pseudo-action to appease the masses?

Is Pondering Just for the Privileged?

Bill, via his tweets, believes that pondering that (1) is for the privileged and (2) it does not lead to sustaining change.  Pondering is defined as: to weigh in the mind; to think about, reflect on;  to think or consider especially quietly, soberly, and deeply. I disagreed with Bill in that pondering is for the privileged.  I believe that all change begins with pondering. A follow-up question, for me, then becomes, “Can we afford to not ponder what education should and can be?”

Our Junior High students area reading-studying William Kamkwamba’s Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  He pondered how a windmill could change his village in Malawi.  More about him can be found at Real Life Education ala William Kamkwamba.”

I also included in my original question a double proposition with the first part being pondering and the second one being actualizing (to realize in act and not merely potential).  These two parts equal a more unified whole in terms of possible sustainable results.  Pondering without actualizing leads to stagnation.  Actualizing without pondering leads to shabby and non-sustainable results.

Finally, Bill expressed his concern that his pondering does not lead to change outside of the classroom.  The resiliency research demonstrates that change can occur given a caring adult, often a teacher . . . but that the results may don’t show up for years.  I experienced such a story with Mark http://jackiegerstein.weebly.com/peak-experiences.html

Is it Critical vs. Criticism?

The next theme that came up was the need for critical analysis or criticism for change to occur.

As you can see by Candace’s and Melanie’s tweet, there is a belief that change is driven by criticism.  This prompted me to respond with a difference between viewing problems with a critical (involving skillful judgment as to truth, merit) versus with criticism (the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding).  Approaching problems without a critical and discerning eye often leads to haphazard and trial-error problem solving.  Approaching problems with criticism often leads to tunnel vision in terms of possible solutions.

Is it action for change or pseudo-action to appease the masses?

The final theme to emerge was related efforts to change.

Candice believes that lots of efforts have been made for educational change.  I agree that there have been efforts.  When I look at them, I think they are more of the same – standards and test driven reform.  I believe this to be pseudo-reform that is often politically driven.  These are efforts to maintain the status quo with only cosmetic change.  Historically, few efforts (e.g. John Dewey and Progressivism) have attempted reform from the ground up.  Given the reform efforts of the past few decades, I tend to side with Alvin Toffler’s position that “We don’t need to reform the system; we need to replace the system.”

It would be hypocritical of me if I just criticized the criticizers.  It might be easier to say and do nothing – especially on my emotions and psyche as swimming up the metaphorical stream takes energy, but in the long run, I would suffer from the incongruence. between my core beliefs and my real world practices.  I had a boss once who said that if we were to come to him with a problem, then we also need to bring along our solution.  I attempt to live education reform in my own local settings –practicing think globally act locally.

This I know to be the problem

• Human learning cannot be measured through metrics.
• Competencies are one thing.  Standards are another.  Student should have some basic competencies related both to the process and content of learning.  Specific age-grade level standards are counter-productive to learning.  Standards assume that all students of a given age are developmentally the same . . . cognitively, emotionally, physically, socially.
• Given the previsous, one size does not fit all.
• Public schools are not preparing students to successfully maneuver in the real world – now and in the future.
• Kids are bored in school and similar to Pavlov classical learning theory, they are associating learning with pain.

What I Do “Locally” to promote educational reform

• I am an educator in both teacher education and elementary settings.
• I do not give any tests – none!
• I have chosen positions (PE and gifted) and schools where I can develop the curriculum.
• The students in my classes speak a lot more than me.
• I voice my thoughts and ideas – in my work settings and now via Twitter, Facebook, and BLogs.

Finally, these are these are the questions I believe educators, as change agents, “should” be asking themselves:

• Am I complaining or risking making a change?
• Am I contributing more to the problem or more to the solution?
• Am I a criticizer or an actualizer?
• Do I ponder what could be? Do I give my students and colleagues the time and venue to ponder what could be?
• What did I do today to actualize educational reform?