Cur-educ-ation...

   by  http://heretakis.com 

The ability to curate well is increasingly more desirable and necessary technology leadership and teaching skill. Despite their requisite teaching and learning value, trade materials found at teacher stores and other static 'set in stone' print materials designed to be photocopied or replaced once used won't be able to hold up to the nearly unbelievable volumes of immediately available and up to the minute online teaching and learning resources available in different forms online. This would be very difficult to debate, and perhaps a statement of the obvious. The fact that there are so many online resources available is irrelevant if educators aren't skilled at retrieving them and making good use of them in a teaching and learning context. In order for school leaders to model effective 'cur-educ-ation' skills, they will have to develop some of their own first.

curate[n. kyoo r-it; v. kyoo-reyt, kyoo r-eyt] verb (used with object), curated, curating.

• to take charge of (a museum) or organize (an art exhibit)

• to pull together, sift through, and select for presentation, as music or website  content

curate. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved August 14, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/curate

21st Century? Let's Just Call it Contemporary Teaching and Learning...

I don't write a lot about technology in education, but it is a prominent aspect of my professional development. I learned some years ago that the best way to learn in the context of professional development is to do the background work required to provide professional development for others. I did just that at the recent Alberta Technology Leaders in Education Conference (ATLE) 2010 in November. It's hard to believe I hadn't heard about this conference, and right in my backyard. Anyway, when I did hear about it via Twitter, I jumped at the opportunity to propose a session- Insights on Initiating a Technology Integration Game Plan from the Ground-Up.

My session was very-well attended and I was pleased with the dialog that it generated. I formatted my presentation in the form of a workspace; a style I'm using more and more often. I appreciate the collaborative element work spaces provide, and I think of this sort of presentation as an "open source" offering... when I'm done with my rant, those who attended can do whatever they want with it. The link is theirs to use however they want. They can even do the presentation themselves if that's what works for them. I'm learning that to be truly collaborative, (and my experience at ATLE 2010 confirmed this for me once again,) I have to let go of what I believe is a natural tendency of teachers to protect "their" stuff. If what I have to say helps a colleague advance their practice, I encourage them to leverage my message in their own way for their own purpose.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend much of the rest of the conference as a result of other responsibilities and commitments, so my learning was limited to what I discovered while preparing my presentation. My school is on a technology integration learning curve funded through the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI). Near half-way through our technology integration action research project, we've learned a great deal as a staff, and I've learned a tremendous amount personally as a leader within the project, mostly by making mistakes.

One of my larger epiphanies has surrounded the term 21st Century Learning. I'm not fond of this term. I have thought about this a great deal, and I've come to the conclusion that contemporary kids don't need to be told they are learning in the 21st Century... they just are. To me learning in the 21st Century, when boiled down to a core element is really just about change; not change as in a desired change of state from what is not good to what is, but rather change as a constant. This is how I've learned to frame change in contemporary teaching and learning. The world is shrinking and growing at the same time. This bit of irony continues to fascinate me. Technology creates accessibility among people around the globe, connecting them in affordable and efficient ways never before possible; our world is shrinking. At the same time, these networks and connections allow us exposure to new cultures, ideas and knowledge previously inaccessible; our world is expanding. This is an awesome shift.

As I stood and spoke with my audience during ATLE 2010, it struck me that much of the professional development we do in education fits the "change as moving to a desired outcome or state" paradigm. My session was contextualized as a primer for building a technology integration plan from scratch, and when I asked participants where they were at on the tech integration spectrum, most indicated they  arrived at a place where technology integration was evident. There was one lady though who asked me before I started who the target audience was. I explained that my initial plan for the session was to provide some insights for colleagues who were just getting started, but as I worked to prepare the session in the weeks leading up to ATLE 2010, I realized that the process of change, (in this case, change in the way we approach and utilize technology in schools,) is perpetual. Authentic change doesn't end because once we get to the state we desire, it's time to change again; that's just the nature of change within contemporary teaching and learning.

I told the lady that my session was for anyone who had an open-mind and a willingness to think deeply about the role of technology in schools, and more importantly, how teachers should be continuously upgrading and refining their technology skills and perspectives. She stayed, and participated in the back channel too. She engaged, and that made me happy.

So in retrospect maybe I should have called my session "Approaching Technological Change in Contemporary Teaching and Learning" instead, because that's what it ended up being. Imagine that, my approach changed to fit the context of my learning and what I wanted to share with my colleagues... maybe I am becoming a contemporary teacher and learner.

You can teach an old dog new tricks...

Although I completely get that our children are growing up in a digital age that is vastly different and more advanced than any other widely accessible technology we have previously seen in society, I am growing weary of the whole "digital citizens/digital immigrants" continuum. Let me tell you why.

We recently bought new net-books for our children. My son is particularly interested in computers, and we are actively encouraging his interest. He is a very smart kid, but the traditional school environment isn't really working for him, so we're working on connecting him with different forms of digital interaction so as he grows perhaps he will migrate toward his aptitude for tech integrated learning. He's super excited about the new blog we're building together, the gaming he's getting involved in and different forms of social media software like Skype, Twitter etc.

This evening, one of the coolest things happened. I've been communicating with my grandfather for years now via Skype. Originally from Saskatchewan, he now lives in Ottawa. My grandfather is an electrician by trade, and worked for years with Saskatchewan Power Corporation, so he has some really strong mechanical understanding and worked with analog computers in his role as an operator with Sask. Power, but it wasn't until I sent him an old HP computer we had replaced about 9 years ago that he began tinkering with digital technology. That's also when we started communicating via Skype. When the kids were babies we used to hold them up in front of the web camera so my grandfather could see them and talk to them. They have grown up with this, and they love to visit with their grampa in this manner. Tonight was the first time my son spoke with his great grandfather on his brand new net-book, and he was thrilled... it was touching for his mom and I to see him get so excited about what he was doing. The happiness on his face as he spoke to his Grampa Woods using this tool that he has always known, but never manipulated personally was obvious.

So here's why I'm weary about the digital native/digital immigrant continuum. This evening I witnessed the joy of two people... a ninety-two year old man, and a seven year old boy... as they manipulated a tech tool to digitally connect with each other. My grandfather was born in 1918. Certainly that must place him in the digital immigrant cohort. Think about it... he has lived to see the evolution of the motor age, the age of flight and the video age. He told me once that when televisions became widely available and he got his first in the 1950's, he wondered if there would ever be a day when he would be able to talk with people on the telephone and see their face on some sort of TV-like screen. Well today he did just that, and on his computer screen were the happy faces of a couple of digital citizens- his great grandchildren.

How cool is that?

Open Source Hardware?

flickr CC image via dimnikolov

So we have a litany of open source software in cyberspace, when will the connected youth of today enjoy open source hardware as part of their education?

The open source concept is brilliant. Open systems in general appear to be winning the day in so many social contexts, and open source software has changed the education system drastically for those who choose to access it. A standing position in my teaching circle is if you're paying for software at all, you're paying too much. I'm wondering why open source software has caught on so widely, but open source hardware hasn't. To me the two are natural partners.

As Moore's Law goes, anything in the software world would be considered yesterday's tool practically as soon as it is introduced... before new software gets wide-spread recognition, developers are taking advantage of exponentially-expanding digital capacity and already working on something better, faster and more enticing to the consumer. Exponential growth in digital capacity fuels the software marketplace for sure, but it also fuels the hardware sector. As digital capacity increases at a faster and faster pace, today's hardware is quickly replaced by something better, faster and more enticing to the consumer also.

So where do the laptops, cell phones, e-readers, etc. go after a year or so when consumers have replaced them with the latest improved tool? Other than being recycled for parts, or in a drawer or closet to be forgotten, I'm not sure I know. What if the same huge software companies that work so hard to create better tech tools and applications understood that perhaps the largest potential market research sector they could be exposed to is short on hardware needed to use the software in question. Kids in schools are often wanting for relatively up-to-date hardware tools, and six months old would be more than current to them compared to the five and six year old computers they commonly are limited to as a result of budget constraints. If huge-scale software firms got into the recycling business, they could put their software in the hands of students who had something to use it on. Isn't that a win-win situation?

Let's take Google for example; if Google were to create a recycling protocol for those wishing to donate their old laptop, cell phone or whatever to them for reconditioning and installation of whatever Google software could be loaded onto them, and then donated these devices to schools under a partnership agreement that the schools would use their software exclusively with the expectation that feedback would be provided to improve it, I would be jumping over other teachers to sign up for that program... schools get their hardware and the software applications it enables, and Google would get real-time feedback from perhaps the largest cohort of connected technology users on the planet so they can continue to improve their products more efficiently and pragmatically.

What do you think?

Drug and tech companies... too much influence?

flickr CC image via shipbrook

As drug companies influence medicine, is there a concern among educators that tech companies will become too influential in education?

In a market driven economy, I am of the opinion that sometimes wrong actions take place because they haven't been thoroughly and systematically reviewed beforehand. The Vioxx controversy comes to mind. The massive scale prescription of Vioxx proved to be damaging to our collective health to be sure.

The tech world operates in a market economy too. I wonder if we are occasionally sold a bill of goods in the "latest and greatest" tech tool that will advance our teaching practise and our student's abilities. As I write this, I'm actually wondering as far as software goes, why we're being sold anything tech oriented with all the open-source software out there for the taking. To further that idea in the context of education, can we be far away from open-source hardware? I see possibility in big hardware companies taking advantage of the availability of the recycled tech hardware that Moore's Law creates, refurbishing it, and giving it to educational institutions for free under the provision that a partnership is established to help develop software and uses for the hardware that the partner company has a vested interest in.

All I'm trying to say is, in our vigor to remain on top of Moore's Law in providing the most advanced tech integration possible in our schools, are we forgetting in our haste that just because something is "new," that it doesn't automatically mean it is pedagogically good for us or our students?

The More Things Change, the More They Should Stay the Same...

flickr CC image via robinrkc

We live in a strange and wonderful time. Our world is changing at a rate never before witnessed in virtually every aspect of society. Arguably, the advancement and integration of technology in society is at the forefront of this change. In the context regarding how technology is changing our lives, a curious irony is taking place.  As our technological capabilites expand, the distance and wonderment between previously unreachable networks of people shrink at the same time.

Technologically speaking, we appear to be rewriting the book on so many things: collaboration; cultural awareness; sharing of skills and knowledge; popular culture; real-time news... navigating this change is a fast-moving train. As a result, I am anxious that ethical and moral relativism is rearing its ugly head. Responsible utilization of digital fluency means different things to different people, and the rationalization of purpose and need regarding technology can take questionable forms. This is why I say, the more things change, the more they should stay the same.

In times of quantum change, there is a tendency to focus on rewriting the rules we think need to align with the change. We forget that, philosophically speaking, everything worth discovering has already been discovered, and that the challenge is to discover it again. In our quest for increasingly faster channels of technology evolution, I believe we can lose sight of deeply entrenched, historical values and essential truths that should be guiding our evolution; timeless bits of wisdom that never go out of style. Ethically and morally speaking, in order to guide the evolution of our new technology paradigm, I believe we should get back to ideological basics in the way we treat each other, the way we govern and the way we lead change.

I have stated before that there is no better arena to lead technology change than within the institution of learning. Can there be a better environment to synthesize timeless truths with the minute-by-minute advances occuring within the digital world? However, in order for this to happen, attitudes and perspectives need to be re-evaluated.

In virtually every collection of thoughtful insights since the beginning of intellectualism,  whether within Toltec wisdom, the Ten Commandments, the Book of Tao or countless others, sages have been extolling the virtues of ethical and moral well-being. Can we define a set of contemporary moral and ethical guidelines for the use of our expanding technology knowledge? Is anybody writing this book? Assuredly, everyone has an opinion related to how technology should be affecting and shaping our lives, and this needs to be respected, but also analyzed from a critical perspective... grounded in the timeless ethical and moral frameworks that already exist throughout the world. As a teacher and advocate for children, I believe school is the perfect place to begin filtering these frameworks alongside the technology integration challenges facing society.

A culture of learning is a culture of inquiry that values discovery and supports creativity, but it's also a culture that acknowledges discoveries of the past that guide our inquiry. Relative to the intense inertia surrounding advancing technology, there is without a doubt, contemporary wisdom to be gained through modern thought processes that will help us continue to learn and develop insight into how to maximize the advance; but there also exists timeless wisdom yet to be fully acknowledged by contemporaries about how leaders of technology change can ground their work ethically and morally. It is the integrative nature of combining the two spheres of wisdom that will allow us the largest capacity to frame technology so its potential to affect society positively will be fully realized.

Calling all schools: this is our task... are you prepared for the challenge?

Technology in Education- How to Support a Tip in the Right Direction

flickr CC image via Hampton Roads Partnership

There are so many issues surrounding education. People all over the world are tweeting, joining personal learning networks, participating in professional development and lobbying about all of these issues... there is seemingly no end to it, and perhaps this is for good reason. One of the most current extremely hot-button issues in education is the integration of technology in teaching and learning. Considering the pace at which technology is advancing in our world, there is a very real challenge in education to keep pace. (I would argue that keeping pace isn't even good enough. I believe that educators should be leading the charge in society regarding technology integration and utilization. Can there be a better environment for this to occur?)

As correlated to so many variables influencing the tone that technology integration in schools takes place, (age, access to technology, desire to learn, socioeconomic status, school division philopsophy, personal teaching philosophy, parental support, etc.) all of us who influence children's education fall somewhere on the spectrum of attitude toward the use of technology in schools as  microcosms of society, and society in general.

By creating an us (those who endorse, support and nurture digital fluency) against them (those who don't support, for whatever reason, the advancement of social, educational and scientific technology applications) adversarial environment in schools, there is no opportunity to move from transactional forms of leadership to idea-tipping transformational leadership (what we so desperately need to effectively synthesize tech. integration in schools, and in reality, so many other change-requiring elements of N. American education institutions.)

I'm a fan of eastern philosophy. In Taoist philosophy, the word "Tao" is loosely translated as "the way." I believe that in order to find 'our way' on the technology transformation journey, education leaders need to be less provocative and more transformative.

Those of us who are keen to explore, understand, discover and utilize technology in our teaching and learning practise are duty-bound not to alienate those who, for whatever reason, are not. (I would assert that most who appear opposed to tech. integration actually aren't; they simply are anxious about something that they don't fully understand, and they're waiting for someone to just 'tell them what to do' so they can reserve the right to continue feeling, dare I say, safely dictated to by powers beyond their control.) Many teachers suffer from this default perspective, in my opinion. I also feel that the vast majority of them are intensely passionate professionals who have simply been dictated to too many times; they've lost their verve. It's up to us who's flames haven't gone out to re-ignite their desire to explore and discover the tech. integration possibilities that have yet to excite them.

We do this by treating our colleagues the same way we would responsibly treat our students when they feel anxiety toward a new challenge; we lead by example as pioneers unafraid to make mistakes. Stepping out in front as teachers constructively utilizing technology in schools will provide a bit of necessary Teflon for those who are apt to hang back and not take this sort of risk. Stepping to the back when their incremental efforts produce success is a great way to support this 'tech pioneers as leaders' mentality.

Self-esteem comes to those who become good at something, and then are provided a means to share that with others when comfortable. My strategy in leading a technology integration process aims to provide opportunities for colleagues to watch and learn without anxiety (the art of protecting,) and then to illuminate their learning progress by creating opportunities for them to share new skills (the art of celebrating). The desired outcomes are a comfortable tech learning environment where success is unaffected by stress and external pressures, and an expanded set of tech skills and insights on behalf of the teachers I work with. How can this lead to anything but a transformational change?
The most effective revolutions are the ones nobody realized were happening.