Shift to the Future

It is amazing what we don’t know.  We take for granted so many inventions.  It seems sometimes that we have become immune to innovation.  Often we see blog posts or tweets complaining about what some new product or service doesn’t have rather than sharing their awe at what it does have.  I too get caught up in “what’s missing” sometimes.  Well, in this post I share some amazing (my opinion) things researchers at IBM are doing. I had the pleasure of joining about 40 educators and IT directors at IBM Research Almaden in San Jose (Silicon Valley), California.  It is located on the outskirts of the city on a high hill in its own private wilderness of 690 acres.  Researchers (currently about 800 chemists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and physicists) at Almaden have invented a whole host of new processes and capabilities including: relational database architecture (crucial to databases that govern our livelihoods and lives) al...

We often talk about the importance of parent involvement in their child’s education and in their school.  I’ve heard statistics that suggest about 10% of parents participate in school parent advisory councils.  I wonder what the statistics are for parents being deeply involved in their child’s learning?  From personal experience, my wife Shelley and I were quite involved in our kids (now 23, 22, and 18) learning but that this declined as they grew through the system – they were selective as teenagers in wanting our help and to varying degrees, resistant in sharing how they were doing.  We felt informed and involved when they were young but somewhat in the dark about their progress as they became older.  Well, okay, there were the report card events… Wouldn’t it be great to be quietly and electronically plugged into your child’s school and their learning progress? I presented last week at a District Parent event where about 30 parents attended.  My talk w...

It is quite profound how over the past 10 years the importance of “the network” has increased.  It used to be that you could happily get a lot of work done or communicate with others, offline or disconnected.  In schools if the network was slow or didn’t work, the teacher had a backup plan.  Often the network wasn’t critical to a lesson the teacher designed.  Today things are rather different… In our School District (Coquitlam, BC) our success in infusing the use of technology for learning, teaching, and administration has now hit the wall so to speak.  The network is our Achilles Heel!  I wrote about this last year in reference to a visit to a Digital Immersion 9 classroom .  Enrolment was forecasted to decline for this innovative school program where all students were expected to bring, rent, or borrow a laptop to use in this class.  I also referred to a consultative process I initiated around Digital Tools and Social Responsibility to uncove...

I can’t recall ever enjoying reading about or studying history when I went to school.  It was, well, boring.  It seems that as I accumulate my own history, I become increasingly interested in who and what has come before my time.  I am fascinated with scenarios both historical and future.  For example, key events in history link up to bring us to where we are but what if things were different, even one link in the chain of events? “Coal gave Britain fuel equivalent to the output of fifteen million extra acres of forest to burn, an area nearly the size of Scotland.  By 1870, the burning of coal in Britain was generating as many calories as would have been expended by 850 million labourers.  It was as if each worker had twenty servants at his beck and call .”, The Rational Optimist, Kindle loc. 3236-43. I read that and think ‘wow, what if coal and its use had not been discovered?’ Coal has become and continues to be a key ingredient for most generatio...

Michael , Tyler’s older brother by a year, is teasing him about how much he likes school.  Tyler attends Centennial High School as a grade 9 student while Michael, in grade 10, is learning 100% online from home.  Michael had some difficulties “fitting in” at high school so he and his parents decided that this would be best for him.  Tyler on the other hand is loving grade 9 in his new school.  Tyler’s younger sister Stephanie also loves school and in particular her amazing grade 2 teacher.  Stephanie likes to call him“Ty”. Centennial is a brand new school designed and built for the future.  Back in 2010, a vision for Centennial was developed to create a school that would best serve the needs of students over the next 50 years rather than the past.  It is designed to have many small learning communities of about 150 students in multiple grades and content areas.  In a school of 1400, it still has a small “family” feel to it.  Most lear...

In my work a lot of what I do is consult with groups to get input on new ideas and thoughts on proposed changes.  It wasn’t my normal practice to approach students for their input.  This year has been different…  In the fall I spoke to our Student Leadership Council (SLC), about 50 grade 6-12 student representing their schools.  I talked to them about technology and how I believe it will impact them in their lives.  But, what I consulted them on specifically was their thoughts on being digitally responsible. It is interesting to try to figure out the best way to consult with students.  I wanted them to take the questions I asked them back to their schools and to meet with other students to bring back a broad representative input.  Initially I asked them to respond to a blog post I wrote for them – Thoughts on being Digitally Responsible thinking “hey, they’re comfortable with these tools, a blog is a great way to get input”.  Well, it didn’t w...

I’ve been thinking a lot about our complex world lately and how our education system does or doesn’t match what we need.  There’s a lot of buzz about the need to support 21st century or personalized learning.  Although there isn’t necessary consensus on what that means or entails, my impression is that most people recognize that our world is quite different today and is rapidly changing and our education system should adapt accordingly.  Education hasn’t necessarily evolved and transformed fast enough to fully match our world’s needs.  I’ve written before about complexity ( Education for an automated future or Complexity is Everywhere ) and I am in awe of our potential.  I’m reading a couple of excellent books right now that are quite fascinating.  One is Macrowikinomics by Don Tapscott and the other The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley (thank-you @lisarink e for loaning this one to me).  I’m 39% through Macrowikinomics on my iPad and at p. 41 o...