Shift to the Future

I’ve noticed that some people are abandoning Facebook or Twitter, or at a minimum, removing the apps from their smartphones.  A colleague of mine was finding it difficult to focus in the present when with real people while his smartphone buzzed with new Facebook and Twitter posts commanding his attention.  My eldest son disabled his Facebook account – he found that he was wasting too much time there, not getting to important things.  We were chatting as a family recently about how ‘friends’ build up in Facebook and talked about deleting all those who aren’t really friends (or family) – I did and so did my second son – it reduced the noise level.  Add to the mix Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, LinkedIn, About.Me, Flickr, Diigo, Yelp, Skype, Strava Cycle, Prezi, Instagram, and it does tend to become overwhelming doesn’t it.  However, I think social media tools are super useful for sharing, learning, and staying in touch, but users of these must learn to self-regul...

I remember when I was 15, quite some time ago, I bought a car.  All my close guy friends were also buying cars.  We worked on the engines, drive trains, electrical systems, etc. to get them into good working condition.  We were allowed to drive them in the driveways to practice – back and forward.  My dad would also let me drive his car in the church parking lot when there were no other cars around.  My dad formally taught me how to drive when I turned 16.  I learned the rules of the road from a seasoned “expert” driver, wrote a test which I passed and then received my official drivers license.  I was qualified to drive safely on the roads and highways.  Following tradition, Shelley and I taught our three sons how to drive as well.  Fast forward and kids still have to learn to drive from an expert – a parent or a professional – before they can take and pass a test to get their license.  Historically this scenario repeated itself in all s...

When my kids were in school the proverbial answer to “What did you learn today?” was, wait for it…  “nothing”.  Do any of you get that response from your kids?  I suspect so as it seems to be some kind of natural law.  As parents, we were never quite sure what our kids were learning.  The periodic report card or the marked work didn’t tell the real story.  With today’s access to technology, there are ways to mitigate this and keep parents ‘in the loop’.  There are various tools that provide a range of connections for parents.  Some enable simple consumption of lesson outlines, homework lists, pictures, stories, spelling lists, and with portals or other secure spaces, the viewing of marks.  Other tools such as wikis, blogs, etc., depending on how they’re configured, enable parents to interact with their kids and their teachers.  “ Technology makes connecting, collaborating, and learning easier than ever before in human history ” (Kindle 4...

One of my professional goals is to regularly visit classrooms and capture learning stories.  I love talking to students and teachers who are engaging with technology in meaningful ways.  One such story I captured a few months ago involved blogging in a grade 3 classroom.  Jens, the teacher for this class, contacted me via email to describe the journey he’s been on with his kids: “I’m a grade 3 teacher and I have been blogging with my students since September. Each of my students has their own blog and even though we only get two 45 minute periods of Computers each week, over the last seven months I’ve experienced a number of ‘teachable moments’”, Jens Preshaw You can follow his class blog, The Griffin , here .  He describes some of the value or benefits of students blogging: “For the parents in our learning community it has created greater transparency in the classroom. They regularly visit their child’s blog and often leave very positive comments. The s...

The need for people to be effective at self regulation has always been important.  However, I believe its importance is greater today and increasing given the “always on world” we now live in.  When I was a kid, self regulation involved behaving properly, using proper table manners, putting my hand up in school, and being home for dinner on time.  I think things have become a little more complicated in these technology transformed times. “Self control should increase with age due to the development of the sensory system. As the sensory system develops, people's perceptual abilities expand. For instance, children do not have a concept of time, and in this sense, they live in the present. However, as children age and develop into adults, they gradually gain the ability to comprehend the future consequences of their actions.”, Self-control. Wikipedia March 4, 2012 . Self-regulation (aka self-control) needs to be learned early on and it’s encouraging that this is something...

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...

I was recently invited to go see the movie Courageous .  A key theme for this movie is how important it is that fathers step up and seriously commit to their role in supporting and leading their families.  The film is Christian based but even if you have a different belief system, the values and the challenge expressed in the movie are pretty powerful for dads.  This article advocates for fathers deep involvement but ultimately both parents are critical to support and train up their kids regardless of marital status.  When times are difficult, solid family life becomes even more important for all members of the family.  I think you would agree that we are in increasingly difficult times… The key themes I read, think, and write most about within this blog are education, technology, and the future.  I also read a lot of material dealing with economy, history, and government as I think these significantly influence the outcome for education, technology, and...

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...

Well, the time arrived to replace my fence.  I’ve been putting it off for a few years but got a good start on it this weekend.  I am thankful for my three sons, they were a huge help in digging post holes, putting up panels, and cleaning up the mess.  It’s a lot of work to disassemble an old fence and take all the old boards, posts, concrete, rocks, clay, and dirt to the dump.  We’re on a corner lot and it’s a weird feeling to take your fence down – you kind-of feel a little exposed in your back yard! There is another type of fence that teachers, schools, and Districts are required to build with technology – walled gardens so to speak.  We need digital places behind “fences” that are safe, secure, under our control, etc. where students can store their work, communicate with each other and their teachers, write and comment on each others work, etc.  Teacher’s also need digital spaces that have similar attributes so that the work they ask their students t...

Our District has formed a small focus group of early learning teachers to experiment with documenting the learning of K-3 students (starting with a few Kindergarten classes) in an unconventional way.  Teachers will use video cameras, digital cameras, and audio recorders to capture students learning.  The intent is to make the learning transparent, to capture artifacts that can be used for various forms of reporting.  Parents could access their child’s “portfolio” of learning and see how they’re progressing relative to the curriculum.  Teachers will see how they could use this type of documentation to replace the traditional “report card” for formal reporting as well. At this age group, play based learning is often the norm.  Video will be used to capture kids in action creating things, acting in a play, working in groups, drawing, and just playing together.  Student work will be photographed at stages and the pictures assembled to show a progression over t...

It is fascinating how quickly new Internet services and now mobile devices and apps pop up.  It used to take years for innovation to take root and spread whereas now it seems every week there’s something new to be aware of.  There is so much power and convenience in these tools, what’s not to like!  Well, there are dangers lurking amongst the gems… I’ve been immersed in and managing my organization’s way through a serious issue related to online pornography.  Being a school District, we take issues like this very seriously.  I can’t provide many specifics ( read this newspaper article for more information ) but the gist of the problem is that an individual created a website on a free web hosting service and dedicated the site to serving pornographic images and videos.  Through pure coincident and how search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo work, that person’s inappropriate (horrific actually) images are automatically being intermingled with pictures f...