network | Learning is Change

Truth in advertising…

Published on April 19, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

I have had quite a few people follow me on twitter recently that weren’t exactly people. They were organizations and schools. They were large groups of people that all somehow are tweeting with the same account. This, is a little unsettling to me and I’m not sure why.

I guess it is partially because I believe it is a little less than genuine to have a single voice represent an entire entity. I also believe that many groups are joining twitter simply to advertise that they are on twitter. This is even less genuine.

To me, an organization should encourage all of it’s members to become a part of a learning network. It should ask all of it’s employees to have heir own voices and then stream them all into a single place. The school should aggregate the conversation about learning in their space, not merely give updates as to the merits of their latest program changes.

You raise the level or discourse about any topic by giving that discourse an official channel. By asking all participants in an organization to tweet on behalf of that organization, you can actually find the pulse of what is going on. Which is, after all, the major goal of Twitter.

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Swimming lessons

Published on April 5, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

For one year when I was younger, I took private swimming lessons. This
was in the stage after I had learned all of the basics with a bunch of
other kids my age. We could all do the breaststroke, tread water, and
do relay races for extended periods of time. And it was before any
official swim team existed for our age group. I saw potential in
myself; I wanted to do more advanced things than were going on in a
group, but I wasn’t yet ready to compete.

The reason I am relaying this rather personal story is that I feel
like this happens often for educators. They get to a point where they
need some one on one attention in order to continue their learning.
They are ready to fine tune their skills, ready to move beyond the
simple strokes that all teachers posses. So, where do they get this
one on one help? If they have a personal learning network, they can
get it quite easily. They can ask questions and create a relationship
with another teacher who has just had the benefit of “private
lessons”. But, if they see themselves as disconnected from all
teachers who aren’t in their school, then this kind of learning
doesn’t happen.

“Private swimming lessons” are much harder when everyone around you is
just treading water.

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I’m not sure why this matters…

Published on April 4, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

I just got word that the Chief Information Officer for Douglas County
Schools (my school district) is now on Twitter
(http://twitter.com/rmweldon). Allong with both McCains, I am the
third person he is following at the moment. I guess I’m not sure why
it matters, but there is this small part of me that is happy to know
that.

Not that he is following me, but that he is following someone… that
he sees the platform as one that is worth exploring. I don’t expect
many tweets or that it becomes his main platform for asking questions
and getting answers, but I guess it does matter. It matters because I
can now ask him questions. It matters because he is a part of my
learning network now (because I am following him too).

So, I guess if you are reading this, please give him a warm welcome.
And Randy, if you ever read this, I look forward to learning from you.

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15 questions…

Published on March 28, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

I was given the task recently of coming up with 15 questions to ask a
information technology director candidate during an interview. While I
missed the window during which this information would have been useful
to the person who solicited my help (moving is really hard), I would
like to provide it here. It may not be useful as a list in itself, but
I had a lot of fun coming up with it, and it may lead to more good
thinking if I ever care to answer these questions.

1. What do you see as the purpose of technology in education?
2. What is the one change that you would make to our institution that
would help students to learn in a more connected way?
3. What do you believe is the purpose for acceptable use policies?
What is your ideal AUP?
4. What should professional development look like?
5. Who is in your personal learning network?
6. What does your learning workflow look like, or how do you learn?
7. How should our institution archive, tag, and share information and
learning objects?
8. How do you plan on bringing all stakeholders to the table to make
technological decisions?
9. What role should open source software play in our institution?
10. What is your vision for mobile devices accessing our institution?
11. What does online learning mean to you?
12. What kind of technology infrastructure is essential in our institution?
13. How will you connect our institution to others in the state,
country and world?
14. How will you let our students take their learning identity with
them after they graduate?
15. What will we find if we google you?

Anyone think of any others?

Anyone want to answer these ones?

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Bigger than pedagogy

Published on February 8, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

The last two posts that I have written have talked about ideas vs. Tools. I didn’t realize it until after I had written them that I had not used the word pedagogy once. I was speaking of ideas in education, concepts, schemas for how learning works now.

At some point I would like to figure out a new word, though, for what I would like to see happen in schools. Pedagogy is too small and idea is too large. Pedagogy is all about the art and science of teaching. It is about best-practices and research in the classroom. And ideas are simply the supporting structures that allow us to carry on a conversation.

What I would like is a word that describes an understanding of connected learning, a word that explains the use of a tool for all stakeholder’s learning, not just the student’s. I want a word that keeps a network in focus at all times to show that learning is not an isolated act.

Well, I will be thinking about this for a bit, but what I would love to know what your word for what you would like to see within people in education. Do you want them to know the pedagogy? Do you want them to have a schema? Do you want them to just get a clue?

I’m interested in moving this conversation along.
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Getting excited about an idea, not a tool

Published on February 7, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

So, for a while in our district has been very excited about certain tools that they have invested in. At various times, they have been excited about SchoolCenter, iWork, Garageband, Powerpoint, Smart Notebook, and quite a few others.

While I have never been a real big fan of this type of technology integration, I can understand it. It exists so that most people have something to hang their hat on at the end of the day. It exists because it is so much easier to implement a tool than it is an idea. An idea (at least a good one) requires rethinking every tool and its usefulness; it requires questioning a strategy that is based on tools.

So, I have to say, when I put together the presentation earlier this week on asking the really big question of “what is the web for?” I didn’t think it would be taken seriously. I thought that it would be looked at only for the tools that are behind creating learning networks and role-specific portals. Well, at least so far, I have been proven wrong. All of my conversations this week have been without the specific tools that have bogged us down so many times before. I have actually heard other people say that tieing together all of the project-specific tools is a much better way than tying us to any one tool. I’m not sure how long this conversation is going to last, but you can bet that I will be riding it for all that it is worth.
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Networks are cities.

Published on January 23, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

I am on my way to educon 2.1 right now, looking out into the night (don’t worry, I am using my phone in airplane mode). For some reason there are no clouds out there tonight, and all I can see are the bright lights of cities, clustered together and beautiful. What I am thinking about as my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the conversation I will be leading on saturday, is that the lights of a city look like the networks that I dream about.

I want networks that are far reaching and bright. I want to be able envision the whole thing all at once or focus on a single connection. I want to hop from network to network. I want to see far off into the horizon and know that there are other networks thinking about the same things I am.

I want the network to be on every time I look, glowing more radiantly in the node that need my attention right now. I want knowledge to run around my network like the people push on out toward their well ordered lofts in the city and winding single-family house lined roads in the suburbs. I want my network to bring me in for a landing every once in a while, grounding me in what is really so important: taking the time to get to know an individual and seeing them as more valuable than any amount of community created or knowledge gained.

(I know this post is pretty flowery, but I am away from my family for the first time since my son was born. I may be a little wistful on the blog for the next few days.)
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Networks are cities.

Published on January 23, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

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Until it becomes easy for everyone…

Published on January 11, 2009, by Ben Wilkoff in Uncategorized.

I keep on thinking that because I am learning more and more how to get the most out of my phone, my browser, my email, and my time that others must be doing the same.

I mean, how could you not always be on the lookout for ways to do things faster, better, or more efficiently? That is like saying (to me), how could you not be placing yourself on a trajectory of ambition and success?

Well, the more that I see those commercials for sprint with the CEO talking down to a majority of americans, insulting them into buying better cell phones, the more I begin to understand that many people are looking to get by on what they have. They may be hopeful that something better is going to come along, but don’t know how or where to get it.

I guess what I am saying is that until it is easy for people to find the kind of learning that I seek out every day, it will not become a part of many lives. I can already hear many folks saying that learning is messy or that it is hard, and that it should be both of those things. I think that both of those things remain true, but that accessing the hard and messy learning should not be difficult.

If the “House Search of 2009″ is any indication, it is incredibly difficult to find out information about neighborhoods or schools that isn’t biased or based upon arcane measures of success. This kind of learning should be at everyone’s fingertips. We should be able to made learning decisions by turning on a dime if we need to change direction.

But we can’t. We have to wait and see, on nearly all learning that isn’t fully connected and informed.

Well, I don’t want to wait and see. I want overwhelming support of a network that is informing my every decision. I want it for everyone else too.

Until that is the norm, I don’t think that we are going to find much change happening within a school, a community, or a cell phone plan.
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Learning is Change

Truth in advertising…

Swimming lessons

I’m not sure why this matters…

Bigger than pedagogy

Getting excited about an idea, not a tool

Until it becomes easy for everyone…

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