The Strength of Weak Ties

As an educator with 24 years of experience, I can honestly say that schools aren’t a great deal different than they were when I first started teaching.

One significant difference is that we have the opportunity to be hyperconnected via technology.   And being connected means exposure to new ideas, new people and new conversations.

Conversations…hmmm.

Much is made about the role of conversation in the change process.  We now have 140 character conversations that occur in Twitter, conversations that occur via blogging, and the new trends of conversational conferences, unconferences, cafes, you name, we have it at our disposal, much of it always-on, always available.

But it just doesn’t really mean that much when you are talking school-based systemic change.  Yeah, its cool and friendly and sexy to engage in these conversations, meet the people face-to-face and give them a hug, it might even be…well, amazing.  Yet, having these types of conversations are exactly why schools have never really changed-we just talk about it, we never really do it.

Of course, there are a number of impediments to change in schools, which if I listed them here wouldn’t make me a lot of friends.  Let’s just say that there are obstacles which we haven’t dealt with very well.

Continually talking about the need for change isn’t helping.  At some point you have to do it what you are advocating for.  How exactly does that get done?

Online and face to face conversations at conferences/unconferences/Eluminate sessions/Webinars are for sharing ideas.  People get their ideas challenged, they have a chance to reflect and change their direction if they deem it appropriate.  Perhaps the conversation serves to reinforce the validity a person’s belief, which is good. Nothing wrong with that, but its individualistic.

But how does that exactly contribute to school-based systemic change?  That’s what I’m interested in.  Everyone going together in an identified direction, all pulling together, and believing that that place is the place.

I get that the person can bring the conversation into their schools.

But the more critical conversation begins locally, and not in 140 characters.  Not at conferences.  Not online.  It occurs as a discussion among school community members about what they want their schools to be.  Plain and simple.  It needs to be an organized process with contributions from all stakeholders.  Doing that can root conversation as an essential element in the sequence required to change schools.  Expecting that a set of conversations that occur outside of the climate and culture of a school will have a significant impact on change is a simplistic at best.

What’s first?  Engaging in these endless conversations online, and then bringing some of it in to a discussion?  Or is it simply putting heads together in a school and just talking through it.  Perhaps many of you are saying that it doesn’t have to be necessarily either or.  Maybe so, but maybe not.

Talk about education.  Talk about your kids and what skills they need.  Talk about your school.  Educators are smart people.  We know what to do.  Change is about leadership, not conversation.

Having endless conversations online, and thinking that the online conversation is required in order to change or start the change process in a school won’t get you anywhere.  Instead, roll up your sleeves with your colleagues and have the difficult conversations face to face.  Sure, bring some ideas from the never-ending, feel-good stream of educational consciousness, but talk and discuss and share with your colleagues while using the climate and culture of your school as a foundation for that discussion.

Simply stated, change begins at home.

Game Changer.

Something, for some reason or reasons, changes the intended course of something else.

“The Apple iPad is a game changer.”

No.

It’s not.

A game changer is when every kid in America shows up at school with a proper breakfast…

A game changer is when every school in America has the funding it needs…

A game changer is when schools are de-shackled from the bad laws of politicians…

A game changer is when we rebuild the crumbling infrastructure of schools, and have places to learn that reflect the kind of country we are, the kind of country we expect to be…

A game changer is when we have equity and consistency of educational opportunities in America…

A game changer is when communities place schools as their absolute number one non-negotiable priority…

A game changer is when every parent is vested in the daily activities of their sons and daughters…

A game changer is when teachers stand up and refuse to accept mediocrity among their ranks because what they do is too damn important not to…

A game changer is when education attracts the best, the brightest, the most committed and dedicated to the education profession…

A game changer is where every group, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity has a place in schools and that diversity is understood, accepted, celebrated and used as a source of unified strength…

A game changer is when every kid, every teacher feels safe in the place where they teach and learn…

My suggestion:  choose when to use those two words very carefully.

Why don’t you add your “game changers” to the comments?

Look into our school through the lens that we believe in…

As you walk to the Science Leadership Academy from the Educon conference hotels, you walk past this school.  And it’s right there in the window, and if you’re paying attention, you’ll stop and read the hanging sign in the window, posted for everyone to see.

The school on the way to SLA is the Russell Byers Charter School.  What is in the window is a sign that makes clear the “design principles” of the school, written from the perspective of student expectations.  There are ten statements, printed on a transparent piece of plexiglas, which in itself sends a message.

Here they are:

I make choices that help me learn and do my best work.
I am aware of the needs of others and do great things for them.
I learn about myself and all that I can do by trying new things.
I think of new ideas and share them with others.
I think about people’s feelings and help take care of others.
I learn from my mistakes and build on the things that I do well.
I work with others to learn and complete a task.  I push myself to do my personal best and keep improving.
I learn about and respect different people and include everyone.
I care for and learn from nature.
I take time by myself to think about what I have learned.

There is much commentary in various online venues about school change, and the need for it.  I certainly don’t dispute that need, but I wonder how many schools have taken the steps to deeply consider and identify their core beliefs together.  Understanding what everyone is working towards is what change should be about.

How many schools have clearly identified those beliefs, and made those visible in the way Russell Byers has?  Because it does send a message that this is what we believe in, what we want our students to be, what our learning experiences are grounded by, what we measure success by…

Of course, what Russell Byers has communicated here is a vision, or what my friend Adam Paikai calls a “future preferred state.”  That doesn’t necessarily identify an endpoint because I doubt that there are any endpoints in education, but the statements above clearly communicate what the school wants its culture and climate to be.

If the expectation is that schools must change, where is the place that change will take schools?  Has your school identified that place?  A set of beliefs like the Byers school has composed make clear where that place is, and is a first step towards a common understanding of what is valued, and where and what everyone is working towards. You can’t change schools unless you have that.

If you are a teacher, are you a facilitator?

Facilitator?

This is generally still the first word out of teacher’s mouths when they talk about the changing nature of the role of a teacher.  I’ve always hated it, it’s as bad as…shudder…”guide on the side.”

Labeling yourself, speaking of yourself, as a facilitator weakens and devalues what a teacher is and does.  You’re a facilitator of what exactly?  You facilitate learning?

Stop it.

And don’t think I’m gonna let you off the hook by labeling yourself as a “co-learner” either.  Stand up and try that a parent openhouse…”I will be a co-learner of algebra with along with all of your kids.”

Really?

If I’m a parent (and remember, they pay your salary) I want a professional teacher.  I want you to teach my kids algebra, not facilitate it.  Do what you have to, but have enough respect for your profession to be proud that you are a teacher, and all that brings.

Don’t facilitate.  Don’t label yourself as a co-learner.  While romantic and trendy, do one thing.

Be a teacher.

Posted via web from djakes’ posterous

I’ve been intrigued with learning spaces for awhile, especially in regards to the development of digital components that support and extend the physical experience of our schools.  To me, the consideration of how space is used in the learning process is perhaps the most forgotten element of instructional design.  One size space does not fit all, however most of our schools, designed in an era of where classrooms were the sole place for learning, assume that learning takes place in rows with individual desks, and only there.  There is much more to consider now, and truly effective schools, and their teachers, need to consider how their legacy spaces can be modified, altered, and re-created to provide a more multidimensional type of physical support system for learning.  This emphasis towards new thinking regarding space should also be applied to the creation of digital spaces for learning.  All of us are fortunate that the emergence of connective technologies provide a fresh slate for design, and one that can be created to support the development of key skills that support the development of a shifting notion of what it means to be literate in 2010 and beyond.

My Educon session, entitled “On the Development of Learning Spaces” will challenge co-conversationalists to rethink space.  You can read about it here on the Educon site.  If you are interested, and even if you are not attending Educon, I would hope that my session resources (I think some of my best work) are of value to you.  For those of you attending virtually, I think they will help you follow and contribute to the conversation.  The resources provide an overview of my challenge to participants, a flow for the conversation, and resources targeting learning spaces and also literacy.  I finish with some questions to stimulate your thinking regarding learning spaces.

I hope to see you there on Sunday…

via readwriteweb.com

Google has released Near Me Now, access it through Google on your browser under Local. Very cool…Google continues to penetrate everything we do. But we always have the choice, don’t we.. It’s called the ON-OFF switch.

Posted via web from djakes’ posterous

Along time ago I wrote a post questioning the added value of a tablet computer in a teacher’s hands.

We’ll shortly have access to a new class of tablets, slates, whatever you want to call them, or at least we should very shortly.

There appears to be new technologies emerging from Apple, OLPC, Dell, NotionInk , and yes, even Google.  There’s even the Mag+, which seems to be more reader than anything else.

Do I want one.  You bet I do.

And when they appear, especially the Apple product (expected January 26, 2010), can’t you just see the Twitter firestorm?  And if you thought the lines at the local Apple store were long for the iPhone, just wait…

So, what does this mean for education?

Probably very little.  With a price point that is anticipated well-beyond the price of a netbook (with the exception of the OLPC at around $100, predicted by Forbes.com to come in at $75 bucks), your local school, and their limited budgets will have very little wiggle room for acquiring these devices.

And they shouldn’t anyway, because most are far from having the organizational readiness required to plan for, implement, support, sustain, and evaluate any kind of program that places these technologies in a student’s hands.

In the middle of all of this, across a gradient that ranges from the desktop/laptop on the left, to the future tabets on the right, is the netbook.  Interestingly, some have predicted that this will mean the end of the netbook.

I don’t know about that, and I won’t speculate, but I’m hoping it makes them even more affordable, so that I can get my hands on more of them.

That means getting more of them into classrooms, of course, where teachers and kids can beat them up, so we can see how all of these technologies play out in the context of our school-wide technology and literacy goal (Incorporate new and evolving technologies to support the development of literacy.)

The eventual access to a machine that will support many of the same features many of us enjoy on an iPhone or Android is fascinating.  And there is no doubt that these will probably make us all rethink what mobile computing looks like.

But just not in schools.

UPDATE:  Apple Tablet apparently to ship in March.  See Mashable for the story.

I really like this title a lot as it captures what this post is really about.  I ran across this phrase when reading Chris Sessums’ post on using Twitter to help in course design.  I’ve borrowed it for the title, as you can read.  I hope Chris doesn’t mind.

Before I begin, this post isn’t about tools.  Well, it is and it isn’t.  It’s more about building out a presence and the way in which tools can be associated together to build a digital platform.  But if you don’t like posts about tools in anyway shape or form, stop reading now…

I’ve begun to build out my digital presence, or “life on the screen” in new ways, and for a number of reasons.  Most of this is associated with my work as a school administrator whose responsibility it is to lead a school-wide goal on the intersection of technology and literacy.  Some of it is also directed towards adding new ways of engaging people beyond our school community in things that I feel are important to schools.  So the purpose of this post is to help me intentionally clarify the structure of my digital presence, and see what you think.  I’ll be talking tools here, and how they combine to serve a higher purpose for me, and potentially for our school community.

When I sat down and put all of this down on paper, I was surprised at how many tools I actually use, and the interesting way they combine together.  At the present time, there is some overlap as I negotiate the value that competing products have for me.  For now, it seems they fall into three groups: 1) information services, or those tools that support the storage, retrieval, and management of information, 2) presence services, or those tools that support presenting ideas to an audience, and support the development of my online presence, and 3) mobile services. or those tools I can use on my Droid.  Now, this framework is fairly artificial, and there are gray areas, as well as overlap, especially in regards to the mobile apps, but I guess that is to be expected.  Here they are:

Information Services:

del.icio.us: social bookmarking tool I couldn’t live without, although being challenged by Evernote.  A huge component of del.icio.us (and yes, I am still del.icio.us old skool and type the name with periods) is the subscription feature, which enables me to subscribe to tags and get information from all users, which is something I use all the time.  I’ve never got into Diigo, although I have imported my del.icio.us content there.

Box.net:  online file storage which has been indispensable for me-I’ve got all my presentation files there, along with all the images I have purchased from istockphoto.com.  Box makes sharing files and folders very easily, and it partners with many other services that I can select to use that add functionality to my Box account (Twitter, post to WordPress and Gmail, plus about 30 other cool services).  For example, I have added Picnik, the online photo editor-so when I have an image in a Box folder that I want to modify, I use the pull down menu associated with the file, open the file from Box into Picnik, do what I need to do, and click the button in Picnik that enables me to save back to the original Box location, either as a new file, or to replace the one I am working on.  I lose usb drives, I can’t lose the Internet.  All my files are available on my Droid.

Evernote:  wow, Evernote blows me away.  I’ve been using it for about two weeks so I am still learning it, but it is simply fantastic.  Sign up for an Evernote account and get an online account, then download the client to each machine you have.  This enables you to sync information between the Web and all machines.  You can use the Web-clipping feature to “clip” anything on the Web and organize it in folders, along with searchable metadata information.  It also has outstanding iPhone or Android support, with the ability to take photos, create text notes, and audio notes directly into my account, which is a function I’m beginning to value more and more, with the ability to interact with my resources from my mobile.  I’ve not yet got the file upload to work that’s available from the Droid app.

Dropbox:  online file storage, but what this does exceptionally well is place a folder (for example, on your desktop) where you can drop files into.  Install dropbox on any other machine and it all will sync together.  I have a home and work desktop, plus two laptops.  Using dropbox enables me to have the same files on all machines, a continuual problem for a disorganized person like myself.  It works perfectly and its free.

Mozy:  file backup. This is different than storage, my files constantly backup offsite automatically.  I currently have the 2GB free account, but after testing, Ill upgrade to the unlimited backup for $4.95 a month shortly.  Piece of mind for the price of a happy meal.

Google Apps:  useful collaboration tool, especially with the forms feature, which has really taken off at my school for survey work.  All of our students will have Google Apps accounts and this will form the student content creation space in our multi-dimensional learning space.

Google Reader: aggregator that keeps me in touch with really smart people.

Presence Services:

WordPress Blog (The Strength of Weak Ties).  I’ve divided up my presence for posting my writing/ideas between my blog, my Posterous site and Twitter.  TSOWT will be my site for posting most of my in depth writing and ideas, while Twitter is, well, Twitter.  I’ll use Posterous as a bridge between the two for posting quotes, quick ideas, notes, and imagery.  In 2009, I believe its about representing yourself, presenting yourself, in multiple ways across multiple venues.  Blog to Posterous to Twitter provides me with a gradient that I can engage people socially and intellectually on different levels.

Posterous:  I really like this site a lot with its ease of use, clean look, the ability to post via Gmail (which means an easy post with my Droid), and the way it handles multiple media types, all with ease.  But probably the best feature is the ability of the site to Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, Youtube, Vimeo, Tumblr, WordPress, Xanga, and Blogger in any combination.  So, not only is this a place for sharing ideas, it’s also a distribution platform to extend voice.  To give you some data:  since November 30, I’ve put up 25 posts that have had a total of 5,322 page views!

Twitter:  a place for fun, some ideas, and seeing a lot of great resources I wouldn’t have.  Interestingly, I’ve been watching the page views of Posterous posts, and most go over 200 very quickly, simply by links being sent from Posterous into Twitter, and then being amplifed by the network.

Web site: My main Web site presence, Jakesonline.org, where I host a lot of my Web content.  Personally, with my presentation work, I need a place where I could do a little more (for example, hosting multiple media types) with building Web content.  I could do that with wiki technology, but that technology wasn’t there yet, when I needed it to be.  So, I’m sort of traditional here, with a dedicated Web site.

Wiki site: available at jakes.editme.com.  I use this principally to host my presentation content, and its a lot easier to update than my Web site.  Plus, I need a place to host collaboratively created content, which to be honest, I haven’t done as much as I should.  I really like the Editme.com site, which has fantastic customer support, and is a unbelieveable bargain at $4.95 a month.  Plus, at that cost, it gives me the granular level of control I want, with public view, registered view, administration view, as well as public, registered user, and administrator content creation rights, all which can be combined in a various permutations.

Facebook: one site I need to explore further, certainly more social than anything, which is ok.  Not sure where it fits into my overall presence, as I’m not that big of fan.

Slideshare: I really like this site alot, especially with the ability of the site to generate embed code and put it in different locations.  I currently have 51 slidedecks at the site.

Dim Dim: pretty excited about this one, which for$19.00 bucks a month gives me the opportunity to deliver Webinars.  We’ve also integrated this into our Moodle instance at school, so I’ll be interested to see how it works.  I’ve got some ideas how to leverage this kind of environment in school environments, which I’ll share in another post.  Be sure to watch for an announcement on Twitter about my first Webinar, which I think will focus on presentations and slide redesign.

Adobe Presenter: I’m playing around with it, as it integrates into Powerpoint, and provides the ability to create video/Powerpoint online slide decks.  I’m not satisfied with the performance so far, and at $500 for the license, I’ll probably look for something else. But I want the capability to do this.

Adobe Connect Pro:  I’m also considering this for webinars but it carries a more hefty price.  Still trying this out.

Flickr: a must for any digital presence, I really like how I can use Pixelpipe to distribute photos from my Droid directly into Flickr.

Youtube: I be looking at developing my YouTube presence in the new year.  This is probably going to be one of my biggest growth areas.

TwitPic: a repository for my photos from my Droid.  Again, not a competitor to Flickr, buts it free and easy, and I can post out of PixelPipe directly here, so why not?

Mobile Services

PixelPipe: an awesome app that ties together a lot of my online tools to my Droid phone and let’s me publish ideas to a variety of media sites.  I currently can publish in one click to Box, Flickr, Google Docs, Posterous, Scribd, Slideshare, Twitpic, Twitter, and YouTube.  That’s pretty phenomenal and although I only 9, there is access to 114 sites.  Wow.  Read more about my PixelPipe use here.

AudioBoo: gives me the ability to post audio through my Droid, directly into Posterous.  Sweet.

This is the infrastructure of what I do.  It’s important, it’s pretty cool, and it provides me with a lot of flexibility in an media-based world.  Combined together, they represent a suite of tools that enable me to express ideas, engage people in conversations, and learn.  Additionally, I can connect to most of this through my phone, which for some reason still amazes me.  In an upcoming post, I’ll explore how I’m using all of this as more of a mobile user.

I happened to be working the other day at Caribou Coffee, which has pretty good coffee, a cool northwoods atmosphere, and free wifi.  It’s a fairly big space, with ample electricity, different table sizes, and a really nice environment for reading, writing and learning.  A wide range of people use the space, including high school kids.

As you might imagine, its filled with people using laptops and other forms of mobile technologies.  People come and go, people re-arrange the furniture.  No rows. No desks. So, I was interested when a group of high school kids invaded the table near me.  They were kids from a school I taught at for 10 years and I had some fun talking with them about my recollections of the school. These kids were working on calculus, talking, using their cell phones to text, and their graphing calculators.  No surprise there, they’re kids.  But what was interesting to watch was the way they interacted. I’ve been interested in learning spaces for awhile, and I’ll be doing a conversation about such spaces at Educon.   Watching these kids, and knowing the classroom (a word I use intentionally here) that they would go back to, I wonder where they would rather learn and interact in.  We all know the answer. We need different spaces for kids today.  Yet, there is very little focus on establishing or creating spaces that serve today’s learners. When kids walk into Caribou, what kinds of interactions do they believe will happen?  When the same kids walk into a classroom, what kinds of interactions do they believe will happen? My question:  How does the design of the learning space influence the perception of the type of teaching and learning about to take place?  In other words, how does design inform the intent?

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