For Children in Massachusetts Today is a New Day

It has taken ten years of advocacy by colleagues throughout Massachusetts to achieve this reform package. I am proud of the role MASCD has played in shaping the agenda. Working together with hundreds of educators, business leaders, parents and politicians, we have come to a new day for children. The power to transform is with us; let us use it wisely. "It's about all the kids!"

(Note: Pay particular attention to Goal 4: Innovation and Systemic Reform to Create a 21st Century Public Education System) Technical Help Request: Please comment on how to anchor this to the goal 4 section below if you know how. Thanks

Below is a communication I received from a colleague of mine in Massachusetts. I am the President of the Massachusetts Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (MASCD) and Mary Forte Hayes is the Executive Director. Yesterday Mary was at the Kennedy Library when Governor Deval Patrick announced the next generation of education reform. The last major educational reform in Massachusetts was in 1993.

Dear Colleagues,

It was an exciting day today (June 25, 2008) at the Kennedy Library, a perfect setting for the launch of a visionary plan for education in the Commonwealth. I was there, as were many education and policy leaders and friends of MASCD. The Governor unveiled his vision for education, which is a call to completely redesign the system as we know it. He kept repeating “Today is a new day,” with good effect, and with the backdrop of the wall of windows onto the blue sky and water of Boston harbor framing the skyline. The Governor stressed many times, as did Secretary of Education-designate Paul Reville, that “all children” means ALL. Paul Reville recapped details of the 10 year plan that have been shared over the past 2 days. There are some very bold actions included. They are consistent with our priorities and well-aligned with the Whole Child compact. See summary below, which I have taken from the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE). Thanks to MBAE for the timely summary.

Mary Forte Hayes

Ready for 21st Century Success

The New Promise of Public Education

Acknowledging that our schools "must ensure that high school graduates know and are capable of much more than ever before", this report calls for transforming public schools over the next decade to meet the needs of current and future realities rather than perpetuate past practices that did not prepare all students for the demands of higher education and a technologically driven economy. With an unequivocal commitment to eliminating disadvantages based on socio-economic status, the proposed reform strategy focuses on four challenges:

International competition and an outdated curriculum

- Massachusetts must shift its focus from a 20th century approach to teaching to a modern curriculum that includes 21st century themes such as global and cultural competency, financial literacy, and other applied skills as well as strengthening content ranging from math, science, and world languages to social sciences and the arts.

A stubborn achievement gap - This can only be closed by acknowledging that children have different needs based on the advantages and obstacles they encounter outside of school. Public education must be coordinated with other social and health services so all children can meet high standards.

An education workforce crisis - Student achievement depends on teacher quality. The teaching profession has to be promoted as the critical and valuable vocation that it is in order to attract and retain outstanding candidates. The system for preparing, supporting and evaluating teachers must be comprehensively re-designed.

A century-old system - The system of standards and accountability instituted in 1993 has brought us far, but reaching the goal of bringing all students to proficiency requires a new, individualized approach. In an economy where the same skills are needed for college and for jobs at family-sustaining wages, it will take new, differentiated approaches to give all students what they need to succeed.

Read the Full Report

Four Goals of Action Agenda

Putting Children's Learning Needs First

For each goal, the Patrick Administration has identified what will be achieved in the short (by 2011), mid (by 2015), and long(by 2020) terms to reach the stated vision. Details can be found at: http://www.mass.gov/governor/education

Goal 1: Raising Student Achievement

Key short term goals include increased support for early childhood education; an inter-agency Child and Youth Readiness cabinet; a pilot drop out prevention and intervention program for urban districts; Student Support Coordinators to link services for students in low-income schools; and a statewide data system that will provide a "Readiness Passport" to document all education and social service experiences received by every child.

Goal 2: Teachers and Education Leaders - Supported and Effective Educators

By 2011, establish differentiated pay for high-need locations and disciplines; pilot intensive induction and mentoring for new teachers; establish Readiness Science and Math Teaching Fellowship to increase supply of teachers in these fields; accelerate development of "real time" assessment data to support instruction; strengthen MCAS requirement with complementary measures of student growth and 21st century skills; build state capacity to attract and retain a highly competent, culturally diverse teaching force. Mid- and long-term actions would strengthen teacher preparation in several different ways and provide support for continued improvement at all education levels.

Goal 3: College, Career and Life Success

In addition to integrating 21st century skills into all aspects of public education; needs based financial aid would be increased; offer community college opportunities to early childhood educators and income-eligible parents; provide accelerated graduation and early college opportunities; allow in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants; build a school-to-college web portal; offer college readiness assessments to high school juniors; and guarantee transfer credit among public colleges and universities. In the longer term, additional initiatives to increase work and college readiness will be implemented, in some cases focused on students with specific needs.

Goal 4: Innovation and Systemic Reform to Create a 21st Century Public Education System

The Readiness School concept which has received much press attention is part of this goal, which would also establish a Readiness Finance Commission to recommend cost savings and efficiencies, potential sources of revenue, and options for a complete overhaul of the state's education finance system. Other key features of this goal are expanding learning time both during out-of-school time and the summer; establishing a public-private Commonwealth Education Innovation Fund to foster innovation; expand student access to online learning; and provide other incentives and programs to use technology to improve teaching and learning.

Links to Subcommittee Reports and Video of Announcements
Above summary provided by MBAE, email of 6-25-08.

Pygmalion: What 21st Century Literacies Does John Need to Learn?

Clarence Fisher at Remote Access posted some interesting data for his students blogging and commenting habits. One question I have: Is their a correlation between attainment of 21st Century Literacies and your data?

In other words: Do students who evidence attainment of 21 Century Literacies blog and comment more, and students who blog and comment less do not evidence attainment of 21st Century Literacies. I suspect that if the potential of tapping the richness of collective intelligence to help us invent a more creative, collaborative, contributory future is dependent on students developing 21st Century Literacies, then I'd conclude that understanding and monitoring student attainment of these literacies is something we have to research.

As I work to introduce my 15 year old grandson John to Web 2.0, I am thinking about these issues. What the syllabus for our web 2.0 instruction? for students? for teachers? for administrators? for parents? for school board members? for the public at large?

Can we as a society take the risk of not teaching 21st Century Literacies? What are the personal, social, planetary benefits of everyone attaining 21st Century Literacies? We speak too much of consequences. What are the benefits to our students if they acquire 21st Century Literacies?

When I thing of 21st Century Literacies, several sources come to mind. I think the juries still out on this issue.

Adopted by the NCTE Executive Committee
February 15, 2008

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to

1. Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
2. Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
3. Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
4. Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
5. Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
6. Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

Or iste NETS

“What students should know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world …”

1. Creativity and Innovation
2. Communication and Collaboration
3. Research and Information Fluency
4. Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making
5. Digital Citizenship
6. Technology Operations and Concepts

Or Will Richardson's

The new world of learning is requires us to teach students to be independent learners, ones that are not dependent on teachers but are:

* Self-directing--we now have the ability to create our own, personal curriculum around the ideas or topics that we are most passionate about. We no longer require curriculum to be delivered to us. We need to help our students find their passions and pursue them in the context of online networks in ethical, effective, organized and safe ways. And finding a balance between the online and offline life is also a "literacy" in this age. There are so many ways to communicate these days (blogs, wikis, IM, text, etc.) that it's easy to get overwhelmed.
* Self-selecting--in this world, learning spaces are created, not provided. And teachers are not assigned, they are selected. The creation and nurturing of these highly collaborative spaces and communities is a new "literacy" that we need to help our students develop. How do we find the best teachers? How do we connect to them? How to we build communities with others that are supportive and effective?
* Self-editing--whereas most of us were educated in a world where the materials we worked with had been edited by someone else along the way, in today's world, less and less of what we read is now "edited" in the traditional sense. So, reading and writing is no longer enough; we need to develop people who are effective editors of information as well.
* Self-organizing--the Dewey Decimal system doesn't serve the online world well, so we have to organize our own stuff. To do that, we use tags and social bookmarking systems, building folksonomies where we organize the Web together.
* Self-reflecting--as we become more and more in charge of our own learning, we need to develop the ability to reflect upon and assess our own work. This "metacognitive" work can involve a number of different genres and tools.
* Self-publishing--our students will need to be literate at sharing out the work they produce because that increases the connections and conversations that can lead to further learning. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and video are among the publishing skills they will need to have.

Or the New Media Literacies Project.

From the Executive Summary - Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

The new skills include:

* Play— the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem solving
* Performance— the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
* Simulation— the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
* Appropriation— the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
* Multitasking— the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
* Distributed Cognition— the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
* Collective Intelligence— the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
* Judgment— the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
* Transmedia Navigation— the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
* Networking— the ability to search for synthesize, and disseminate information
* Negotiation— the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.


Fostering such social skills and cultural competencies requires a more systemic approach to media education in the United States. Everyone involved in preparing young people to go out into the world has contributions to make in helping students acquire the skills they need to become full participants in our society. Schools, afterschool programs, and parents have distinctive roles to play as they do what they can in their own spaces to encourage and nurture these skills.

New Media Literacies Project

Kenyan Strife 2007-08

In this VoiceThread we listen to the story of a woman and her son's visit and eventual escape from Kenya. It is a good illustration of the potential power of this Web 2.0 tool.

Three-Year-Old Rachael's Haircut VoiceThread

Wes Fryer and family share this VoiceThread with us. Rachael's trip to get her hair cut short was an opportunity for the family to create a Web 2.0 artifact for family and friends. Feel free to add your comments so Rachael can know you enjoyed her story. With help from dad's pictures, Rachael presents a really complete story of a trip to the stylist.

In Their Own Words ~ Students Learning with Web 2.0 or Two Master Teachers at Work

Chris Harbeck and Darren Kuropatwa are mathematics teachers in Canada; Chris at Sargent Park School, a junior high school in Winnipeg and Darren at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate only a few blocks from Sargent Park. In April 2008 they brought a few of their students to Manitoba for the Pan-Canadian Interactive Literacy Forum to speak about their learning experiences in their respective math classes using Web 2.0 tools. Listen to Chris and Darren and their students speak. Be ready to take notes on the interactive internet tools the students refer to that have become signposts for how technology has become a transparent backdrop to the real business of school - learning. More important however, be ready to be inspired by these teachers' comments and the students' presentations. Remember as you are watching and listening to these SlideShares that if students do not have teachers like Darren and Chis who are willing to learn how to use Web 2.0 tools and use them to push learning off the charts for their students, the students in our schools will never have the learning experiences of which these students speak.

Here is Chris Harbeck and three of his students, Kate, Karen, and Angelo, speaking about their learning.

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Here is Darren Kuropatwa and three of his students, Chris Cadonic, Graeme Weiss, and Mark Rabena, speaking about their learning.

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Finally, don't miss the Q and A after the presentations, which you can find on Darren's blog in a post on the conference right here.

Pygmalion Project: April 3, 2008

Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0 , a post by Will Richardson prompted this comment on a project I am beginning with my grandson.

Will, I've been thinking a lot about the juxtaposition of the tremendous challenges we face as we try to improve schools systemically and the individual learner's right to learn. Is it the story of learning students experience in schools that which is preventing them from fulfilling the promise we see for web 2.0 pedagogies, is it a broader issue of cultural norms and expectations that students have internalized, or is it something else?

I keep seeing in my mind's eye the pictures of your children sitting in your home with their laptops open ready to learn with a teacher who is with them via the internet. (Don't remember where the picture came from. Probably Pageflakes.) Right to learn triumphs over attempts to improve schools!

Here's a conference session proposal I just submitted to MassCUE for their November 2008 conference that describes the platform my grandson and I intend to use to learn more on the topic.

In the original Greek version of the story Pygmalion is a sculptor who creates a statue into which Aphrodite breathes life. Every day students in schools throughout our country are learning without the benefit of 21st Century Web 2.0 pedagogies. What would happen if someone tried to add those pedagogies from outside the system? Google applications, digital story telling tools, blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds and aggregators are some of the tools teachers are using to help students become self-directed learners. If a high school student is not asked by teachers to use those tools, is it possible for a student to learn how to apply those tools to complete his assignments and breathe live into his own learning? In this session John, a Massachusetts public high school student who once told me he did not mind learning, it was the homework he could not stand, will join me to report on our efforts to add Web 2.0 pedagogies into his learning environment. Which tools help John with assignments? Which carry him beyond the assignments into new learning? We will report on what happened and speculate about the implications for John’s future learning and schooling in general.

Here's John's first assignment.

I'd love to have my network join the conversation as this project (Pygmalion Project) moves forward. I'm flying somewhat blind here and could use everyone's help. You can start by commenting on this post.

Did You Know - IV?

This is the most recent version of Did You Know - IV? video that I have seen. It reminds me of a 60 Minutes interview with Al Gore that aired tonight on Global Climate Change. This week a marketing campaign will begin (April 1, 2008) to convince people to acknowledge the truth of global climate change; Gore says, "this is about survival," and comments that Vice-President Dick Cheney and others like him, who say the jury's out on whether or not global climate change is being caused by humans, are similar to people who "still believe the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the earth is flat."

Later in the interview at CBS Gore says, "We don't have any other choice; we just don't have any other choice. I wish I knew a better way to do it. I constantly ask myself, how can I be more effective in getting this message across? It's so clear. It's so ... compelling and yet it takes time to get the facts out.

This new version of the Did You Know video is an attempt to get the facts out on a different topic - the global digital shift.

Web 2.0 Presentation Style

If you are new to making presentations on Web 2.0 pedagogies and want to see someone's work to emulate for content and style, here is a good example from a South Carolinian, Cathy Nelson. Good stuff Cathy!

Creating, Contributing, Collaborating

Comment on the features in this this style of presentation. How does this style of presentation differ from a typical bulleted slide presentation? To ignore it is to choose ~ Death by PowerPoint.

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Creating Powerful Online Communities of Practice: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

In this presentation from the North Carolina Association for Educational Communication and Technology Shift Happens Conference, March 12-14, 2008, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach shares her understanding of how to build online communities of Powerful Learning Practice. She really drills down into the topic, good insights!

Here is a Ustream.tv feed of the presentation. Below it you'll find the slide presentation and go here to find additional resources Nussbaum-Beach provides learners.

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NCAECT Shift Happens 2008 Conference Wiki

Interactive American History Websites

John Maklary from Katy, Texas, United States is a Technology Coordinator and Middle School Computer teacher at a PK-8 parochial school in Houston, Texas. His ed tech interests as of late include Digital Storytelling, Geo-Literacy projects, and incorporating more read-write web tools in his classroom.

He attended a workshop session on Interactive American History Websites and did a live blog post on what he was learning. Cover-It-Live was the tool he used.

Cover It Live Blog Post from Workshop on Interactive American History Websites from Learning 2.0 Resources.

Transcript

Launch of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

I think this is an interesting development in the world of networked learning. Although I don't like the corporate slant to the applications of research, perhaps we could have some influence on directing part of the energy of the center to education.

While people have talked about collective intelligence for decades, new communication technologies—especially the Internet—now allow huge numbers of people all over the planet to work together in new ways. The recent successes of systems like Google and Wikipedia suggest that the time is now ripe for many more such systems, and the goal of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence is to understand how to take advantage of these possibilities.

Our basic research question is: How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?'

The Center for Collective Intelligence brings together faculty from across MIT to conduct research on how new communications technologies are changing they way people work together.

MIT Center for Collective Intelligence Launch Video (Requires RealPlayer 8.0+)

Apple's Tour of 21st Century Learning through the EduCon 2.0 Lens of Experience

The Apple Tour of 21st Century Learning I attended this week offered a lot to think about. I created a mind42.com (a really useful free online tool) MindMap Apple: A Tour of 21st Century Learning to represent some of the ideas that were presented in the Opening Presentation and three hands-on-the-computer-they-give-you sessions. The differences between this event and EduCon 2.0 in Philadelphia in January 2008 were striking:

1. These were very "teacher-at-the-center-of-the-learning" controlled experiences of technology and core subject content.
2. The questions on control of technology and by implication of student learning were noticeable from the participants in the one session where we had time to talk.
3. These were rehersed presentations and carefully orchestrated to deliver content through a simulated hands on use of the loaned computer.
4. No Ustream.tv broadcasts; no wiki to go to for follow up resources to support ongoing learning.
5. No conversations except over lunch (no Philly steak and cheese).
6. No free applications/technology tools.
7. No students.
8. None of the energy, excitement, sharing, or audience-presenter interaction.
9. Ideas on technology were "corporatized," a real word in case you are wondering.
10. The "core values" for 21st Century Student Learning presented at the beginning of the day (Creation - Distribution - Access - Collaboration) were invisible beyond the scripts we followed in the classrooms.

Despite these failings, I praise the Apple team for their efforts. Their hearts are definitely in the right place and they worked hard to deliver a good day. I just think we all have a lot to learn, myself included, before we know how to consistently push learning off the charts for students and educators. All children need to be healthy, safe, supported, engaged and challenged every day. We're not there yet.

Guy Kawasaki in the video on the Art of the Start speaks about passion and a desire to save the world as key ingredients for a start-up company's success. Guy claims these ingredients were keys to Apple's success. I wonder if Apple remembers that history? It sure didn't seem as if they did in the learning environments we experienced last week. They said the right things. Now they need to learn how to walk the talk. Keep the focus on Claiming What We Imagine for our students!

Some Questions

1. Do we know how to build passion and a desire to save the world into the way we educate children?
2. Would it help students learn?
3. Can Apple help us answer the questions?
4. What would an AppleCon 2.0 look like or are corporations and the conversations we had at EduCon 2.0 antithetical?
5. What would the world be like if Apple and Microsoft found the passion to learn from the lessons of EduCon 2.0? Could they help to "save the world?"
   

Math Comics Web Site or Opportunity for Formative Assessment?

Jackie B from my Twitter.com network put me onto this site. Students with an interest in mathematics will appreciate the humor: Brown Sharpie. Math teachers can use the comics to add a little levity to the learning. If carefully guided by the teacher, I suspect it could also allow students with an aesthetic interest to show other students in the class how you can use an artistic lens to take a substantive look at math concepts in a way that extends and deepens their learning. What a great activity to publish in posts, a new scribe post activity worth investigating for math class - do the math and transform your understanding into something fun. For those who might not understand the math concept, it would help to accompany the comic with an explanation of the math. For another activity, how about asking your students to explain the math in the comic in a way that their parents can understand? In all cases these are opportunities, I suspect, for the teacher to assess what students understand about the math ~ formative assessment. With that information in hand, you can take the next step for each learner that is appropriate given their current level of understanding.

First Live Blog: Cover It Live

I got a tip to check this tool out from Jeff Utecht. Thanks, Jeff. Here is my first Live Blog, archived for the world to see. Just a test run!

I Traveled to Mount Everest using Google Earth and Left My Mark (Placemark that is!)

Thanks to David Jakes' first post of the year on The Strength of Weak Ties, I learned how to create a placemark using Google Earth. I noticed on Twitter that David had created his first post of 2008. Mixed Media-Extreme Environments was a tutorial on how to use an online HTML editor to create a placemark for GE. When I learn how to upload and embed files to Blogger posts, I'll let you see the results. Impressive. Text, picture, links, video link (David helped my over Skype and we learned after much trial and error, that GE does more support videos in placemarks for Macs), and resource web page for National Geographic.

The Learning Culture We Need but Don't Want or Will we move the School Improvement Conversation to the Next Level?

Here is my comment on the comment Patrick Higgins left in response to my December 23, 2007 post.

[This is my attempt to walk the talk. Online engagement in conversations about our practice. Can we get better at our student learning? I really think so, but we are going to have to stop doing some things and start doing other things if we hope to succeed.]

Hi Patrick,

Glad you dropped by and shared some thoughts.

I do think the ideas I presented in the December 23rd post are replicable in any school or district. If I can elaborate, feel free to get in touch. You can direct message me on Twitter at dennisar.

I think the come-on-along-and-blog with me challenge is much more daunting than you let on. My little experience with it (my web 2.0 birthday - July 2007) tells me that initially it has nothing to do with PD. This is going to seem like a radical notion, but, face it, in education, we don't read and we certainly don't write about the art and science of our practice. I'd go so far as to say that even though we are the learning profession, we do not truly invest in self-directed learning for ourselves. The culture of our profession is more prone to build walls than bridges. For example, I have my degree. Now leave me alone so I can teach.

I make these comments with affection for my colleagues because I count myself a member of this class. I certainly did read about our practice and did write occasionally, but nothing like I have done since creating my wiki in August 2007 (now I have a second one) and this blog. It takes a lot of intellectual scaffolding to gear up to engage in this effort. Learning every day is hard work.

I try to post at least once a week, if not more. I read twitter comments and investigate leads about new ideas , tools, resources, blog posts, articles, and books, and meet people who have similar interests as I do and develop important professional relationships. It is a very stimulating environment that few in our profession want to participate in for a whole variety of reasons. In ten minutes I'm sure you and I could brainstorm a top ten list of reasons teachers and administrators would give for not engaging in reflecting, reading, writing, thinking, and communicating with others about their practice on an ongoing basis, even if it is off line! Isn't that a learning environment? Until that issue is confronted, I do not believe teachers and administrators, in general, will

• significantly improve schools for students and ourselves,
• experience the exhilaration of efficacy, regularly,
  
• actively participate in online networks,
• create blogs.

The later two actions, as you and I know, have a synergistic impact on the first two. First, we have to find teachers and administrators willing to our schools into learning cultures.

It is also worth pointing out that although we want students to be life-long learners, we never confront the fact that we may be modeling just the opposite for students. How much richer would our schools be for students if we expected the Framework for 21st Century Skills of ourselves ~ all teachers and administrators, even unions negotiating for learning cultures in all our grades, teams, department, schools, and districts.

I'm not really sure who to blame (I'll take my share) or what all the answers are (I strive for answers in my face to face work and through my online professional network). We need the critical mass of teachers and administrators involved to get beyond blame so we can think critically and creatively so innovative solutions can be owned by all of us for the profession that cherishes student learning above all else.

As a former English teacher, I agree with your comments about the writing process. Writing within the online environment of blogging is similar to other writing. I think it is very intense if presented correctly to students. Others are much more skillful doing that and writing and speaking about that than I am. I think blogging can help students learn a lot and develop net literacies that will serve them well in the future as the world becomes more and more digitally oriented.

Thanks again for stopping by; your comments got me thinking. Without them I would not have posted this morning. That is one reason I blog: the commitment to post causes me to think and write; the comment by someone about my post causes me to think and write in a way that extends my thinking. Well, Patrick, let's see if anyone else offer us their insights on our exchange.

Patrick Higgins left the following comment in response to my December 23, 2007 post.

Dennis,

I figured I would come here and drop my comment off and continue the conversation a little bit.

You lay out a great plan for implementation as a thought and planned process, and I must admit, since reading Kim's post initially, I have had visions of how to organize this meeting with our ed tech and curriculum staff. We need plans like this for addressing exactly how an why we ask our teachers to introduce technology, or better, to embed it into their planning.

As you probably can tell, I am a blog "evangelist" among our district's teachers; There is so much power right at the fingertips of students when you give them space, guidance, and freedom to choose their voice. But that is not to say that we put them there and let them go, yet. We've got much scaffolding to do in order for our students to understand the parameters of writing online and for a relatively unknown audience.

Does blogging or any form of connective writing differ from traditional paper and pen writing? Absolutely; however, there are so many things about it that easily translate: drafting before you publish, proofreading, prompt writing, process writing, relevant topics, finding voice, bringing in expert sources, etc. My biggest stumbling block has been to pull teachers on board to show them how similar the two can be and that the shift, while significant, is not much of a change for them or their students.

December 25, 2007 7:12 AM

Is there a Professional Knowledge Base for Using Web 2.0 tools for Student Learning?: A Question, The Education Context, The Implementation Context

A Question

Why not start [teacher's modeling for students] earlier, right from the moment our students sign in [to their blog] for the first time?

Patrick Higgins, who works for the Sparta Township, NJ Public Schools, posted on his blog, Chalkdust: the latest incarnation of my professional self, about the help he gave to one of his colleagues who wanted to set up a blog for her class. His protocol for assistance in this case involved

... showing her what the other Civics class blog looked like, including the types of assignments and assessments the class was using, and the general pattern we followed to allow the students to transition into writing on blogs. A couple things stood out to me as I was describing the process to Carole on Friday:

• allowing students time to get used to the space is essential
• rigor is also necessary; time given to assimilate onto the blog should be limited and have a definitive end time where the students know that they can still play, but they are being held accountable for their content.

After we had set her up to play with the blog and finalize her vision for where she wanted to go with it, which she will have time to do over the holiday break, I headed home, still thinking about how I described the process to her.

Later in the post Patrick comments that he read a post by Kim Cofino.

When reading this passage from Kim Cofino, something new was apparent to me about the blog spiel that I deliver to teachers:

All too often, teachers set up an online space for their students and then just “let them have a go” - basically leaving the students on their own in this new environment (sometimes because the teacher is not sure where to start). Not only does this provide fertile breeding ground for misbehavior, but it is definitely not something teachers would do in the physical world, so there’s really no rationale for letting them go in a virtual environment. Teachers must be the model for appropriate behavior online, just like they are in the physical classroom.

It makes perfect sense: teachers rarely give students directions so vague and expect anything of quality to return. As Kim states, it's a breeding ground for trouble to begin. We ask our teachers to be present online, as it insures that they are an integral part of the process the students undergo online; our most successful teachers with students online are our most frequent commenters. Why not start that process earlier, right from the moment our students sign in for the first time? Instead of "hey, let them play for a couple of days," I think I will advocate having the teachers model how to customize their page and require that they "assign" a few of the layout changes to the students by a specified date.

I responded to Patrick Higgins post with the following comments on the educational context I believe is very relevant to the question raised by his post.

The Education Context

Patrick,

As you know, it is not about technology, it is about learning.

We need to professionalize PK-21 leadership and learning. The way to do that is for everyone in the profession to always use our knowledge base to guide our decisions and actions each day for each student. We meet with student 180+ days a year to help them learn. Each of those days is precious and must include relevant learning activities and formative assessments guided by three beliefs: 1) What we are doing today is important; 2) You can do what I am asking you to do; 3) I(we) am(are) not going to give up until you have learned what we believe is essential for you to learn. It is critical that we communicate these beliefs in our words and actions to students throughout school day, each and every day.

Are activities using technology any different?

A blog provides a tool for learning. "Students, what we will do today with this blog is important, you can do it, etc." Prior to that event in the class, our grade-level team or department team should have asked what is essential for the students to learn? We decided that using the blog is the best way to help the kids learn the essential "it." During and after students have used the blog, we check (formatively assess and then summatively) to see if the kids learned what we believe is essential for them to learn.

But what do we do if students do not learn what we consider essential?

As a team, department, and as a school we must have a plan in place to ensure that students will receive emotional and academic support from a variety of different angles and providers to ensure that we find a way for students to learn the essential "it" that, so far, they have not learned.

Providers that could be part of the plan for helping students learn the essential "it:"

• Guidance counselor
• Administrator
• Faculty advisor
• Upper class student mentor
• Teaching team members with special skills
• Grade-level or cluster team leader
• Department head
• Special education teacher
• Volunteer mentor
• Volunteer tutor

When it comes to the essentials, I think we need to trim down the learning standards that the academic associations and the states have set as targets for student learning and integrate the Framework for 21st Century Learning (21stcenturyskills.org) and the new literacies for powerfully using the internet for learning. We need to act on "What are the essential" standards students need to learn.

FYI, I am collecting information related to 21st Century Net Literacies on a wiki in case you are interested.

Thank you for the prompt your post provided. I hope my comments are helpful!

Regards,

Dennis

The Implementation Context

Kim Corvino on her blog, always learning: teaching technology abroad, posted about the first year implementation of social networking with elementary school students at the International School, Bangkok, Thailand. She pushes the profession to take Web 2.0 very seriously, as serious as any other effort to establish a meaningful learning environment. Kim models what we need to do to advance the knowledge base in this area. It is an excellent commentary on academics, technology, implementation, change, learning and leadership. Thanks Kim.

Formative Assessment ~ Rick And Becky DuFour

It’s Not Your Father’s Internet Anymore or A Framework for the Emerging Field of Study Examining the Effects of Digital Media on Learning and Youth

December 12, 2007

"The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning examines the effect of digital media tools on how people learn, network, communicate, and play, and how growing up with these tools may affect peoples sense of self, how they express themselves, and their ability to learn, exercise judgment, and think systematically.

Thanks to the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation, open access electronic versions of all the books in this series are available. Follow the links ... below to read these editions."

What? So What? What's Next?

The Digital Media and Learning series is a major six-volume publication by the MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with MIT Press on the effects of digital media on young people and learning that will be used as a framework, beginning in 2008, for the new International Journal of Learning and Media. The IJLM will continue the investigation of the relate topics introduced by the framework. The prominence that this publication and associated journal lends to this emerging field of study seems important, certainly, but what really makes the effort significant in my eyes in addition to the content is "...the participatory and open online review process [used in the initiative that] is helping to establish new collaborative approaches to scholarship.” "Open discussions were held in virtual worlds and on a wiki hosted by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.

Excerpts from December 12, 2007 Press Release

The MIT Press today announced the publication of a new series on digital media and learning supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The new six-volume series

examines the effect of digital media on how young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

The series’ release marks the launch of the new International Journal of Learning and Media, through which

core issues facing young people in the digital age will be explored.

In a departure from traditional publishing, articles were subject to a robust review process that took place in a series of online conversations among the authors, editors, and the public. These open discussions were held in virtual worlds and on a wiki hosted by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.

A Framework for the Emerging Field of Digital Media and Learning

“The series and the new journal are critical tools in providing a framework for the emerging field of digital media and learning,” said Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation. “Of equal importance is the way in which the articles were written and developed. In a field made up of diverse researchers and practitioners,

the participatory and open online review process is helping to establish new collaborative approaches to scholarship.”

Vol. 1 ~ Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth

Lance Bennett points out that the future of democracy is in the hands of the young people of the digital age in Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth.

Michael Xenox and Kristen Foot tackle the generational gap in online politics. As they point out, it’s “not your father’s internet anymore.”

Vol. 2 ~ Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility

The contributors to Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility look particularly at youth audiences and experiences, considering the implications of wide access and the questionable credibility of information for youth and learning.

Vol. 3 ~ The Ecology of Games

In The Ecology of Games, noted game designer Katie Salen of the Parsons New School of Design has gathered essays not only from those who study games and learning but from those who create such worlds

… the volume contains an article on participatory culture by Cory Ondrejka who as CTO of Linden Labs helped create Second Life and a case study on collective intelligence gaming by Jane McGonigal, premier puppet master of the new genre Alternate Reality Games.

Vol 4 ~ Youth, Identity, and Digital Media

Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, edited by David Buckingham explores how young people use digital media to share ideas and creativity and to participate in networks that are small and large, local and global, intimate and anonymous.

Vol 5 ~ Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected

The range of topics touched on in Tara McPherson's volume Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected is perhaps the widest of all in the collection. Lest we forget lessons learned from other eras she includes essays by Justine Cassell and Meg Cramer of Northwestern on moral panic in the early days of the telegraph and telephone and Christian Sandvig of Illinois and Oxford evokes the collective imagination applied in the early days of wireless technology and analogizes it to that of the era of short wave radio.

Vol 6 ~ Learning Race and Ethnicity

Anna Everett of the UC Santa Barbara draws on the work a diverse group of scholars including Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre from her own campus, Raiford Guins of the University of the West of England, Anotonio Lopez of World Bridger Media, Jessie Daniels of Hunter College and Doug Thomas of USC and others who in Learning Race and Ethnicity draw out lessons from Chicana/o activism, Hip Hop, and digital media in native America as well as hate speech and racism in online games.

International Journal of Learning and Media

Beginning in 2008, the new International Journal of Learning and Media will continue the investigation of the effects of digital media on young people and learning. Supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the new journal will be published quarterly by The MIT Press in partnership with the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education. Funds also have been provided to support an on-line community for discussing the articles in the journal and the issues that are central to the emerging field.

MIT Press Digital Media and Learning

Beginning on December 12, 2007, all the books in The MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning will be available in bookstores as well as electronically at MIT Press Digital Media and Learning.

About the MacArthur Foundation

About MacArthur Foundation Digital Learning Initiative

About The MIT Press

About the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education

Why is this like our jobs as educators in K12 schools? Leave your thoughts as a comment.....

Here is a video that was presented in a workshop on Professional Learning Comunities by Richard and Becky DuFour, December 1, 2007, New England Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.