Shift to the Future

Do any of you feel like we’re in times of extreme change?  If you don’t, you must be living in an alternate reality!  I talk often about how change is exponential.  When we look back hundreds of years or even 30-40 years, things didn’t feel like they were changing all that quickly.  But now, when we reflect back just a single year we can marvel at what has changed, in particular how technology has changed how we do things, enjoy things, play, interact, work, and learn.  Notice the green (exponential) line in the graph.  The leading edge is history past where change was almost unnoticeable in one’s lifetime while we are now likely at the sharp up-turn point of change. “If you make some very logical, and even conservative, assumptions about where technology is likely to lead in the coming years, much of the conventional wisdom about what the future will look like becomes unsupportable”, The Lights in the Tunnel (Kindle 222) I’ve been in my current ro...

I’m impressed with how quickly the K-2 teachers involved in our District’s Making Learning Visible project are becoming both skilled documenters of early learners AND skilled users of digital tools for documenting.  Their purpose with this work is to collect and record learning events and experiences, to build a narrative from documentation to reflection.  Some of the purposes for digital documentation they are working with include: stimulating and supporting narrative illustrating a point providing evidence of learning opening up a conversation sharing an experience understanding a situation more deeply asking questions such as “What is going on here?”, “What have I missed?”, “What do I need to explore?”, “What’s the next step?” Digital documentation is “more than decoration”, “more than posed photographs”, and “useful in formative assessment”.  These teachers have had rich conversations about supplementing and / or replacing formal repo...

Our District has formed a Documentation Focus Group to “ Make Learning Visible ”.  I wrote last year about the early exploration of this approach to documenting learning in Capturing the Journey of Early Learners .  This year we have about 18 committed kindergarten teachers working with an external facilitator Pat Holborn, who specializes in Learning Through Play and Making Early Learning Visible in Early Primary .  They are embarking on an ambitious journey, going where most teachers have not gone before…  The stated purposes for this project include: build and share strategies and skills for documenting, assessing and sharing student learning over time. involve children and families in the documentation process. begin to develop a framework for documenting student learning, supported by examples in different subject areas that can be shared with others. explore ways to use technologies, including photographs, video and the Internet ( my43 ) to sha...

Over the past couple of years our school district has been working to develop a ‘dream vision’.  We have been fortunate to have a top thought leader, Dr. Andy Hargreaves , working with us to develop an inspiring, inclusive, compelling, learner-centered vision: Learning without Boundaries.  Last week our Design Team met to “clearly define the SD43 dream vision, Learning without Boundaries ”.  This team consisted of students, parents, teachers, principals, managers, superintendents, and trustees. One of the exercises our highly skilled facilitator   Myriam Laberge asked us to do, in advance, was a futurist activity (sure got my attention).  We were asked to (paraphrased): Imagine that it is now 2020. Over the past decade, the Coquitlam School District (SD43) has consistently built on its strong positive foundations to make its inspiring and inclusive dream of “Learning Without Boundaries” come alive through innovative, tangible and effective outcomes. In f...

In my classroom visits I encounter all sorts of great examples of flexible learning environments.  I’m specifically interested in how technology is being used, good or bad, to support teaching and student learning.  What I increasingly see are natural, seamlessly integrated uses of educational technology and less of the standalone technology focused uses.  Check out this cute K/1 class learning about the number 10 using a variety of technologies, physical objects, and student interactions. K’s and 1’s learning about the number ‘10’ This teacher created opportunities for kids to use a variety technology with other traditional classroom objects and tools.  It is important to note that the technology really does need to be in the classroom and not in a lab for the occasional “field trip”.  I had a great time that day – if I was a teacher I’m pretty sure Kindergarten would be high on my list of preferred grades to teach. It is interesting how the notion of “...

We are fortunate to have very creative teachers in Coquitlam School District.  A couple of our middle school teachers (at Banting ), on their own initiative, discovered Quest Atlantis , a 3D immersive learning environment.  Quest Atlantis (QA) is “ an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-16, in educational tasks ” developed at the University of Indiana.  Meghan describes how QA supports her students learning Meghan Enga provides a great overview of how her students are using this.  She is partnered with Cory Cleto (another teacher at Banting Middle school ) and her class on this initiative. Quick side bar, it’s amazing how easily these kids are able to talk about what they’re doing and learning.  With no preparation, warning, and very little prompting, they take us on their own personal learning journeys.  How cool is that. Dr. Sasha Barab is the principle researcher for the Ques...

I wrote a post Digital Natives Need Infrastructure last spring about a visit I made to our first Digital Immersion classroom at Riverside Secondary school.  That visit and subsequent workshops with principals and IT staff on Digital Tools and Social Responsibility spawned a priority for our District to review and revise our procedures.  We need to ensure they are current and able to guide our students and employees in being responsible in their use of digital tools, services, and content.  The need for increased bandwidth is another top priority but without digitally responsible use, bandwidth on its own is not the solution to an overused network.  While writing Living and Learning Responsibly in the Digital World and then  Privacy, Living and Learning Digitally , I reflected on some examples of students not being digitally responsible.  What digital “foot print” are students leaving? (photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/langwitches/5141256792...

I recently had the privilege of visiting a couple of our middle school classrooms.  Our middle schools have students in grades 6-8 and they are organized into teams of approximately 120 students who share teachers for their core subjects then explore other topics or subjects with specialist teachers. One classroom I visited is led by a technology specialist teacher James Gill .  I wrote briefly about this visit in a previous post Preparing Students through Educational Futuristics .  In this classroom, James was facilitating skills development and collaboration with a variety of technical tools including discussion boards within our my43 portal and using Google Sketchup (free) to propose designs for their new school to open in 2014.  Here is James talking about the setup for the learning activity… James talks about using discussion board to brainstorm school design Emily took the lead with a topic discussing the pros and cons of Smart boards vs. White boards and...

Our School District (Coquitlam, BC, CA) has agreed to set a new direction in how it provides teachers with technology.  Have a quick look at this presentation recently delivered to introduce our principals to the teacher laptop initiative (TLI). 2010-2011 teacher laptop initiative in coquitlam school district View more presentations from Brian Kuhn . The TLI is designed as a District <—> School cost share:  35% District and 65% School.  Each year up to 1/3 of all teachers will receive a new laptop and after three years, the laptops will be given to students to use and those teachers will receive a new laptop.  In other words, every three years, teachers get a new laptop and students gain access to a set of three year old laptops. Coordinators from the District Staff Development department will design and coordinate various professional development (PD) opportunities for teachers and the implementation is based on an inquiry model (action research).  ...