Shift to the Future

It is an interesting debate.  Especially when it is with a librarian who is passionate about books, the conventional paper-based type.  I’ve listened to (and read about, on a machine) the arguments for paper-based books, the cognitive advantages, the feel, the humanity of it.  I think this is a case of hanging onto a long tradition and it repeats itself over and over through history.  Even when the Gutenberg press was invented, the religious leaders of the day tried to paint it as a tool of the devil.  I suspect that was to protect the vocation of the tireless monks copying texts and to protect the political leaders power and control over the spread of knowledge.  Or, how about when the oral tradition was shifting to a written one, albeit using stone tablets.  There were fears that peoples ability to remember would be lost.  With any change in tools, there is a sense of loss and a sense of wonder and gain.  Reading is one of those practices t...

I have been out visiting a lot of schools over the past few months learning about culture, demographics, economic status of neighbourhoods, existing and historical use of and interest in technology, and capacity to weave technology into common practice.  My District has a fascinating array of schools.  I was in a 105 year old secondary school last week in a highly urban area with a rather low socio economic status.  The school is quite oddly designed and has an institutional feel and look, but I suppose 100 years ago architects and District officials thought differently about school.  I also visited one of our newest elementary schools which replaced a very old school but retained part of it for heritage reasons.  This new school is a 21st century design with open aggregation spaces, learning communities for grade pairs with varied sizes of learning studios (aka classrooms).  It is designed for collaboration and public display.  They have a “tech loft”...

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...

I think that it is getting more complicated for school districts to decide what to buy or build and what to leverage for technology learning spaces.  The past few years have brought so many options, many for free, out on the public Internet.  Tech savvy teachers are taking their students to wiki, blog, google docs, social networking, social bookmarking, video sharing, and other spaces on the public Internet.  There are so many fantastic tools available for free. There are some challenges though with just using what’s out there on the Internet… privacy law issues, especially for Canadians, and more so for British Columbians (obligation to protect student identity) multiple digital identities to create and manage (this seems to be evolving though – often a user can login with their google, twitter, or facebook account) different tools have different setup and navigation details = complexity for less tech savvy teachers (kids care less about this though) c...

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...

Noun 1 . futuristics - the study or prediction of future developments on the basis of existing conditions – or see futurology (wikipedia) for an in-depth description… President Barack Obama’s Sep. 8, 2009 speech had some profound insights for K12 ( note, I’m not supporting any particular political view by using this quote ): “And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.” I think that Obama is right in saying this.  Public education over the past 100 years or so has served its original purpose well – preparing students to follow rules, be on time, read, write, and calculate (I know, learning today is much broader).  But, does current curriculum which is more about today and yesterday effectively support students in leading us into our fut...

You know with all the bad press lately about students of all ages inappropriately sharing pictures, videos, and information, we should wonder if privacy still exists.  My last post Living and Learning Responsibly in the Digital World talked about online behaviors.  This post is intended to explore the related problem of online privacy or lack there-of. Where does the responsibility for dealing with privacy issues lie?  Parents?  Teachers?  School systems (i.e., curriculum)?  At what age should this topic be introduced to students?  Should it be reinforced at every opportunity through a student’s educational career? I wonder how much privacy awareness young people in Pitt Meadows had leading up to the rave party incident I referred to in my last post?  What went wrong?  The actions of taking pictures and texting (sexting) them to friends and putting them on Facebook are an invasion of privacy.  How is that young girl going to ever es...

I have three grown sons (22, 21, 18) with my last son having graduated high school in June 2010.  Parents have a tough job raising kids these days.  I’d like to focus on one aspect of this job: homework.  I don’t know about you but as a parent I found it progressively more difficult to motivate and help my kids as they climbed the years through their K12 education.  Homework was that dreaded task that we had to encourage, bride, coerce, force, argue about, etc. with our kids.  My kids grade 8-12 years were in a self-directed school which made this process even more interesting and difficult.  I always found it frustrating that my kids had to push through content before they “got it” at various stages.  Homework often further reinforced what they already felt, that they didn’t understand the concepts yet.  By doing more problems, tasks, etc. at night they got progressively more frustrated with what they didn’t understand. I just read a refreshing...