Question 120 of 365: Who were we when we first learned to open doors?

My son just learned how to open doors. He stretches as far as he possibly can, trusting that his socks won’t slip under the strain. He extends each of his five fingers until they curl around the handle and then he pulls down with all of his might. It is amazing to watch someone that was formerly unable to go from one room to another be able to do so now without fear. I love watching him do this.

I can see the pride in him when he finally pulls the door open and turns around to gauge my reaction. He wants to see if I approve, but what he really wants is to show me just how little he needs me, even for only one moment.

It is even better when he wakes up in the morning. He lowers himself down from his “big boy bed” and then opens his door as wide as possible. As he swings the door in front of himself, he smiles as big as anything I can imagine as I do something that I am proud of. He says, “Hi dad.” And I melt.

And I wonder what it was like to be able to melt someone like that. I wonder what it was like to simply be able to open physical doors and have that be enough. Now, everything is metaphorical and it seems as though all of the doors that I look at will give me no more satisfaction in going through than staying on the other side.

A former student of mine wanted to know how to connect his Zune to the wireless network within his current high school. As much as I wand to be able to help him, I don’t have an answer. I now work in a place that does not believe in open networks or true guest access without prior approval. This door is closed. But who is proud of opening it? Who cares whether or not users can bring in their own devices and get on the network?

Even if I do open this door, are we really going to be better for having gone through? We know what is over there. We can get there on our phones, our connect cards and thousands of other local wifi hotspots. I get why access is important. I get why leveraging all of the computing power in our pockets is what we need to be doing, but I don’t need it right now.

I want to know who we were when we first learned to open that door. When we fist gained access or asked the questions about what was possible when we connected our devices. I am interested in the outstretched fingers trying to find the handle on the web. Who were we then?

Were we the ones who knew what to expect? Did we know that everything was going to be tactile? Did we know that everything was going to be collaborative? Did we know that the web was going to be the place that all of us played and worked and found value?

And who are our parents in all of this? Who are the mentors who are sharing in our joy at having found the other side?

Open doors clearly bring out the questions in me, but it is that smile that I keep on coming back to. When I look at my son doing it, I know that the world should be finding new doors to open and not harp on ones that have already been fully explored.

Question 72 of 365: Who is special?

My first elementary school principal would tell us once a day (and expect us to yell it out with her) that “You are Special.” It was a kind of mantra for her, and I think she believed it too. She wanted us to believe it anyway. But, even when we were in 3rd grade, we knew that being special wasn’t something that everyone could possibly be. Sure, we could all be unique, but special? We reserved the word special for things that couldn’t be done by everyone. We wanted special to be something we could do out on the playground that no one else could. We wanted it to be special for doing more than just existing.

I come back to this now because I think there is a kind of “special” that is being created online that is far more dangerous than the kind we tell our kids. This special refers to anyone that blogs or tweets. It refers to anyone with an opinion on anything, anyone willing to raise their hand and vote. We are starting to attribute the same across-the-board specialness to anyone with a profile.

We have long believed that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but only recently have we been able to read everyone’s opinion ad nauseam. Only in the past few years have the opinions been plastered for us, challenging us to respect all of them.

We trick out our Twitter backgrounds and write tons of biographical information, aiming for being special to anyone who comes across our presence. We seek the comfort of our own spaces online as being the one true harbinger of everything that we are, the sum of our photos, videos, thoughts, beliefs, and connections. This should make us special, right?

And yet, special isn’t a state of being. It is a badge of honor, a judgement pronounced by others. No amount of self-proclamation, promotion, or posturing is going to stand in the place of “special”. It isn’t your information that makes you special, it is how valuable you are to another person. It isn’t your social capital (the connections you amass) that makes you special, its your challenge of those connections.

You are special only if you have made yourself special to others.

You should be indispensable.

Your regrets and biases and flaws are a part of this too. Those elements of our profiles that stay hidden to everyone but those we trust most. That ability to vulnerable and completely open, that is where special is found. Only when we get past our promotional facades of our online profiles will we be special to someone. Our bios won’t do it. Our @ symbol conversation aren’t good enough.

We can’t all be special, at least not to everyone. So, let’s stop trying.

Question 56 of 365: How can we make openness tangible?

I have written about openness before in a more theoretical sense. I have talked about open as “the space between.” And yet, I never explored just what that idea of openness actually looks like and how we can strive for the balance of openness in our work every day. Defining what it means to be open, should exist in a context. It should be a part of the objects, situations, and people who are open.

So, I start with a story:

My introduction to anything like a blog was Karl’s Corner. Originally (in about 2000 or 2001), it was just a list of all of the happenings that the band Weezer were doing across the world. It spoke about how they were gearing up to record “the green album” and had lots of pictures and music to listen to. Karl updated the site nearly every day. He was incredibly transparent with almost all aspects of the way the band was progressing.

Karl is open. He shares the space between me (as a music fan) and the band (as the creators themselves). In many ways, I have tried to emulate Karl in my years of writing. I have tried to find the space between education and myself and explore that space. I have tried to ask the questions that will lead to figuring out the inner workings of that education, whether it is mine or someone else’s.

Another story:

A few weeks ago, I went to Nebraska to work with some teachers at an online school, ESU 13. I was being paid to come out and talk about what I always talk about: Authentic ways of teaching and learning. After the two 4 hour sessions in which we discussed Moodle, Google Apps, Screencasting, and the learning that happens after you ask the question but before you receive the answer via the submit button in Moodle; they said that they probably would want to continue working with me on these ideas. The principal of the school said that he would like to be able to pay me for doing work on an ongoing basis with the school.

For most people who do consulting full time, that isn’t a weird request. For me, it was incredibly odd. I was going to work with those teachers whether he paid me or not. I was going to keep the conversations going on Twitter, in Buzz, and in any other way that we wanted to continue them because the truth is that I am learning too. To me, the conversation has to be out in the open, if we are to advance in any way. Openness is the space between teacher and student. It is the space that we can both exist within and neither of us needs to be paid to exist in this space. If it happens that we are paid to be a student sometimes and a teacher others, then so be it. But, we must make contracts with ourselves and not some “third-party” so that we can learn and teach.

Last story:

I am applying to a startup incubator called Techstars. It is incredibly competitive and like over 700 applications will be sent in this year. I am planning my journey to apply out in the open. I am figuring out the itch that I want to scratch, and the itches that other people are interested in scratching too. No piece of information or idea is too small to be included in the journey. I want to always be able to see the iterations I have gone through (including changing names and directions completely).

So, this is the space between revisions. It is the space between now and the next now. It is the space that allows me to be wrong over and over again as I work toward being right, or at least right for someone. Doing this out in the open means that I will actually be able to use this data and not hold everything hostage until I finally can release version 1.0 of my idea. That is why open matters. It allows me to focus on being better with others, not being the best alone (because that will never happen).

We make openness tangible by giving others the space between creator and consumer, the space between teacher and student, and the space between this version and the next. If we can do these things for one another, we will be bringing about the most change for our ourselves, our schools, and our companies.

Question 10 of 365: What does Open mean?

Right now there is a heated debate going on about what Open Education is and should be. Mark Weller, George Siemens, David Wiley, Jim Groom, Graham Atwell, Frances Bell, Dave Cormier, Darren Draper and Stephen Downes have all weighed in on the issue. I mention them and the discussion here not in order to fully engage in the debate that is raging, but to simply acknowledge that quite a number of people are putting a lot of time and energy into hashing out exactly what a single word should mean and whether the word is something that we should aspire to.

However, my question is not so specific as to think through only Open Education, but rather to think through the word itself. I know that many of the proponents of more radical definitions of “open” would say that Open cannot be co-opted, that it is a conscious choice that both limits and frees a person who subscribes to the ideal. It limits in the ways that profit off of what is Open is strictly forbidden, and it frees because you can truly create a network of shared work.

Coming further away from those definitions, I would like to propose that Open simply means “having the space between”.

My “Open” is about having the space between commercial and personal to do with what you need. My “Open” means having the space between schools and learning to figure out exactly how real people fit in. My “Open” means designing and working on projects that require collaboration but that do not obsess on FOSS or Free-ness. My “open” is open enough to allow spaces for distraction, toiling away on things that are private, and pride in a single contribution.

The give and the take of “Open” needs to always be there. We need to have a “closed” to combat against. We need to have someone who believes they have a better way of sharing information to make sure that Open really is in the best interests of everyone involved.

If Open means the space between, then these are the spaces I want to concentrate on. These are the spaces that I want to be a part of designing. These are the spaces that will bring about the greatest change.

Conflict of interest

I accidentally posted this too soon, but here is the official version
of this idea (which is bound to change at some point).
 
What does it mean when you are faced with the following challenge:
 
The place that you work has given you the freedom to explore different
learning platforms, work with creative people, collaborate on process,
policy, and pedagogy, and the means to not have to say no too often.
 
The future you see for education is different than what is being planned.
 
The opportunities to branch out and create your own learning spaces
have never been more numerous or more engaging.
 
The community you actively engage in advocates for open communication
and documentation of every move forward that you make with your own
learning.
 
The boundaries on that communication have never been more clear: “Some
meetings are secret.”
 
The platforms for learning and support that you use are at odds with
“having someone on the other end of the line” when something goes
wrong.
 
So, what here is a conflict of interest. Can all of this coexist and
not create chaos, unrest or animosity between my job, my network, my
living, and my passion?
 
(Too vague? Give me a few months, and perhaps specifics will surface.)

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I won’t buy anything that only does one thing

I have been thinking a lot about this recently: I don’t want anything to do with a device that only does what it was advertised to do. It is something that I have slowly realized as over he last few years as I went through the experience of using a Smart Board, CPS clicker system, an iPod touch and an Apple TV. The two former products are meant to do one thing well. They are advertised specifically for educational purposes, and they work. But the two latter products are meant to do anything that the community makes them do, and they are not specifically marketed as educational components.
 
The latter products I keep on coming back to because they can do more and more as the community supports future development, and I guess that this is the difference between products I want to use and ones I don’t. The ones I care to use for education, are the ones with built in communities. They are the ones that get pushed to their full potential.
 
So I guess what I am saying is that if I am ever put in change of large purchasing decisions for a district or school, I will be choosing to purchase and support products that connect together and have a community surrouning them.
 
For example: I am right now using my iPod touch with an open source program called boxee (remote on the touch and the full program on the Apple TV) that is a full fledged media center in order to watch powerful TED talks in high definition on my TV using WiFi to stream the content. It is all connected.
 
Shouldn’t it always be this way?
 
(As an aside, I realize that this example is filled with apple products. I don’t believe that apple has a monopoly on connectedness or hackability, it happens that this is the community that I associate with most easily. I would actually love to hear about other devices that you keep on coming back to because they increase in value over time.)
 
Sent from my iPod

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The cost of not doing anything…

I was in a great meeting this week where we were considering whether
or not to go ahead with a full scale implimentation of the Moodle LMS
for assessment purposes in our district. It was a great meeting not
because of the topic but the way it was being handled.
 
We were talking about the absolute costs of an open source LMS and of
staying with a custom-built assmessment solution. We were really
looking for a venn diagram moment when one of the curriculum and
instruction representatives said something really smart: “There is a
cost to not doing anything as well. It may not be a dollar cost, but
it will cost the teachers the ability to know more about their kids’
knowledge and it will cost the kids some learning opportunities.”
(Paraphrased by me.)
 
Too often we do not think about the cost of doing nothing or of doing
things too slowly. Does appathy in the face of huge choices cost our
kids the best learning years of their lives?
 
So, it got me thinking: What are the costs of doing nothing (or doing
very little) to change school?
 
Share an idea if this makes you think as much as it has made me.

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New Responsibility

I was thinking about waiting until I got a little further into the
project to start blogging about it, but since I made the choice to
start blogging daily, I have really found that this forum let’s me
think through all of the things that I need to.
 
So the new responsibility is this: I have been put in charge of
administrating multiple moodle installations in our district. The
reason why this new charge I have been given is so strange to me is
that up until 2 months ago, the only “official” moodle installation in
our district was at a high school in parker, which I had little to do
with.
 
 The reason for the shift is nothing short of an economic and
pedagogical perfect storm. Our district had slowly been building the
capacity for more and more teachers to start asking for a way of
teaching and engaging with their students online, and with the failure
of our bond election, the only choice for an LMS was to have someone
who was already working in open source to implement and support a
solution like moodle.
 
The best part is, however, that no one I have talked to thinks that we
are settling for something. From all of the initial conversations, all
stakeholders believe that professional development, online learning,
and blended learning fit well within a vision of moodle that includes
outside assessments and google apps for communication.
 
I guess the only reason for this post is to ask for advice. If you
were asked to design and implement learning environments for an online
school, a professional development program, and a blended model
(online and in centers/schools) using moodle, what would you make sure
to do (or not do)?
 
While I have a definite vision for the way forward, I am not the
smartest person in the room (considering that I have no idea how big
this room is). I want to know more… Always more.

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Piloting you!

I had a lot of conversation today about pilot initiatives within a
larger institution. it seems as though in each project that I take
part in, there is reason enough to get a small group of (semi)
dedicated people together who will try something out and report back
on their success. Whether that is moodle, gmail, google sites, dimdim,
or ning; it seems as though there is never enough at stake to require
all users to jump on board initially. While this is good in a lot of
ways: less kicking and screaming, learning from mistakes with small
group is better, and less chance of falling flat on your face with
everyone watching. But, it is bad in many as well: no ensuring that
the pilot will go further, no urgency in rolling out to everyone, and
all pilots are basically representations of the person who creates
them.
 
This last point is what I would like to focus this post on. What I am
finding as I do more pilot initiatives is that I am trying to model
the pilot on my own practice and workflow. I am taking what I feel is
valuable and important and I am saying that others should feel the
same way. At the end of the day, I am piloting a larger and more
unwieldy version of me.
 
While it is flattering that others would want to help beta test me, I
am not totally sure how smart it is. I am not a typical user of almost
anything. I want to break things open and push them to do what I
envision, not what they were intended for. While I may have a good eye
for what others may need, I need people who aren’t using tools in such
ways to help design the pilots too.
 
I guess what I am trying to say is that I cannot pilot myself if I
want the pilot to actually do what it is supposed to: test whether or
not something will work for everyone. But, how do I ask those who are
less willing to try new things to become a part of a pilot. How do I
ensure that all voices are heard so that when things do go live, the
backlash from these users isn’t fierce enough to shut it down?
 
Easy question, right?

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15 questions…

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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