Learning is Change

The Social Networks of Tragedies

This podcast is pretty heavy:

I was in Osawatomie, KS for the 4th of July. It flooded earlier in the week, and my sister-in-law lost her car and her apartment due to this natural disaster. This event really got me thinking about how we can use the technology that our schools provide (especially in 1:1 programs) in order to create social networks for a community. I hope that we can start putting together ideas like Steve Hargadon’s Public Web Stations (link below) in non-crisis times. If you have any ideas about how to do this, please shoot me an e-mail at benwilkoff@gmail.com

I am also interested in knowing if you would rather I don’t include links and pictures with my podcast, but rather simply upload the mp3 file. If you have an opinion either way, please post a comment on this podcast.

Show Notes:

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The Ripe Environment

I am tired of talking about the tools. Many of us have been talking about the tools for a long time now. We have said that using technology for technology’s sake is counterproductive. We want to use technology as a tool, right? But the tools for collaborating and creating are the largest sticking points for others. Teachers get caught up on jargon, on the basic skills of one program or process. They are still so focused on “podcasting” or “dreamweaver” that there is no room for creating the environment in which people will actually want to go beyond the tools, into true learning (you know, what we want our kids to be doing). What, then, is beyond the tools? What should we really be reaching for? The Ripe Environment. The simultaneous personal and public experience of using all of the tools at the teacher’s disposal to tear down walls, collaborate with each another, and question the traditional role of technology in the classroom.

So, how do we get to The Ripe Environment? Well, I have started to reflect on how I became a constant-learner and contributor to this thing I am more and more reluctant to call School 2.0. I want to replicate this process for others, and showing people my flickr account, my del.icio.us account, my blog, my podcast, my pedagogy, my wiki projects, and my twitter account just doesn’t seem to work very well. What does actually work is making sure that they have the right environment so that they can explore these resources on their own, through their own creation.

I am now proposing the 10 prerequisites for collaboration as a way of creating The Ripe Environment in the classroom, in a school, and in a district. There will be quite a few follow-up posts about this topic, but I wanted to get some feedback on what I have already written before I go too far off the deep end. Please leave a comment or e-mail me at benwilkoff@gmail.com.

Here they are:

In order for the environment to be ripe for collaboration, educators and learners must:

  1. Have a genuine need to be heard by others and, in one way or another, receive feedback for contributions.
  2. See living examples of collaboration (not case studies or projects from a few years ago) that they can become a part of.
  3. Have the time to connect more than two dots together. (Rather than connecting: “My students need to know this” with “here is the information” they need to have time to connect “My student needs to know this” with “my students need to evaluate this for validity” with “my students need to know how to use this resource to find the information” with “my students need to create new information for others to use.”)
  4. See collaboration as an extension of their natural instincts as a teacher (opening possibilities for learning).
  5. Find the backchannels relevant to them (these backchannels must be encouraged and honored as vital sources of learning).
  6. Know that their products and ideas are valuable.
  7. Understand the marks of successful collaboration. (They have to know what it looks like.)
  8. Accept that questions are both for interdependent and independent learning. (All questions are serious points of inquiry in The Ripe Environment.)
  9. Believe that personal and professional change can never be institutionalized. (Individuals create change, not schools or districts.)
  10. Know that meetings, conferences, and workshops are not the places where the most powerful learning and change takes place.

I will be writing more about each one of these 10 prerequisites, but please let me know what you think about them as stand-alone ideas.

The Most Change For The Most Kids

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It is with some hesitation that I post this podcast. I am a teacher, and I will always be a teacher. However, I have been given the opportunity to do more. I have been recruited (although not formally given the position) for a Technology Integration Position in a nearby school district. This podcast is all about coming to terms with the idea of leaving the classroom so that I might create change and achieve School 2.0 in a larger way. At this point, I am very much interested in following my passion for finding solutions, and if this job provides solutions for more teachers and more students and also for my family, I don’t know that I can do anything other than pursue it. I am, however, still looking for others who have either made this transition or who have rejected it in favor of the classroom. Please e-mail me at benwilkoff@gmail.com if you have any questions or ideas.

Show Notes:

Wired Teacher

 

This post is cross-posted here.

This is both a big moment and a small blip, a tongue-tied mixed-feeling overture. It reassures me that I have done something important, but I that can never rest on my laurels. I will never stop being passionate about learning, nor will I cease to use collaborative tools in the classroom. This is who I am now, and apparently, that makes me a Totally Wired Teacher according to Edutopia, Yahoo Teachers, and Ypulse.

Steve Hargadon nominated me for this award about a month ago and I really didn’t think much of it. It seemed like the Edublog Awards, something way out of my reach. But, about a week and a half ago Anastasia Goodstein e-mailed me saying that I was one of two finalists, and that the interview for the final decision would take place later in the week. I was flabbergasted . I have never presented at a major conference. I have never met the likes of David Warlick or Stephen Downes. Surely, I could not be The Totally Wired Teacher of 2007.

After many nervous moments before the interview, I had the chance to talk to Karon Weber (this isn’t her site, but it does say that she used to work at pixar and that she created the gobbler feature for yahoo teachers), Jim Daly, Derek Baird, Anastasia Goodstein, and Nicol Addison (I couldn’t find a relevant site for her). I really enjoyed the interview, a half hour of talking about how my classroom has changed and how I have dealt with the unchanging traditions of schools.

Then, last Saturday I received this e-mail:

Hi Ben. I’m thrilled to let you know that you have been selected to be receive the first Totally Wired Teacher Award at the Ypulse Mashup in San Francisco! We were all incredibly impressed with the trailblazing work you’ve done with your students.

I have always wanted to do something that I love, and teaching and learning is as good as it gets for me. That is why this award comes as such a wonderful surprise. I have found fulfillment in creating authentic learning environments for others. But, if this award is a symbol of that fulfillment, it is only the most concrete symbol.

If I have learned anything from the past few weeks, it is that we need to recognize those around us that are doing great work, and not just with words. We need to value them with the actions of collaboration and respect. So, instead of using this blog post to gloat about doing such great things in my classroom, I would like to take a moment to recognize those who have inspired me, who have led to this achievement:

  1.  Bud Hunt – He is one blogger who I have followed for a long time, but only recently met. His words of struggle and success keep me going. His ability to also have a young family and do what he loves is evidence that it is possible.
  2. Karl Fisch – When I stumbled upon his professional development blog a little over a year ago, I read everything. I think his blog is the only one that I can honestly say that I have read every word of. I would just sit there nodding my head at his ideas, and each one of them has challenged me to be a better teacher.
  3. Vicki Davis (the other finalist for Totally Wired Teacher, incidentally) – Her observations on how blogging and wiki creation can change the classroom are wonderful. Her work with constantly expanding the boundaries of school mean that it is easier for me to try it.
  4. Paul Allison – His forward thinking and questioning never get old. His voice of struggle is sometimes the only one that resonates with my experience. He is doing great things, even if he isn’t always convinced of it.
  5. Clarence Fischer – I always want to hear what he has to say on an issue. He has a way of distilling his ideas into easily thought-through chunks. I also like building off of all of the observations he has of the edublogosphere and his classroom. I also appreciate that he is never too tired to reflect upon his practice.

To all of you, Thanks. I hope that this informal award means something to you.

The 1.0 to 2.0 Transformation

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Well, there are two main elements to this podcast.

1. This is my first blog post/podcast about being named the 2006 Totally Wired Teacher by Edutopia and Yahoo Teachers. I am honored, but I hope that the one thing that comes out of flying to San Fransisco is that I meet as many would-be advocates for School 2.0 as I can. I really would love to be a larger instrument for change than merely by blogging and podcasting.
2. I am challenging everyone to come up with a description for Teacher/Classroom 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, and 2.0. I would really like to know what it should look like at all of these levels. What should we be striving for in our classrooms? What should a stranger be able to come in and observe?

Show Notes:

Never a Prophet in Your Own Town

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Many edubloggers (only the most recent one I have found) and podcasters have noticed this phenomenon that it is terribly difficult to receive recognition for doing great work outside your most logical sphere of influence: your own school. This tendency leads to less willingness to collaborate with the teachers that are geographically close to you. As Paul Allison describes, it can have some pretty heavy consequences (i.e., losing your job).

This phenomenon, although real and slightly annoying, is not what I want to concentrate on. I don’t want to plumb the depths of why it is that people around the world will comment on your blog and give you feedback on your work, but it is maddening to just get a coworker to check out a great resource. I’m not interested in figuring out why the parents of your students are less inspired than the parents of other teachers’ students. In fact, I really don’t care that the recognition for doing online presentations and creating learning objects that are widely held as groundbreaking is seen in local circles as an affront to the organization from which you hail.

All hyperbole aside, what I would like to focus on is creating collaborative opportunities in your “own town.” How can we go about making sure that the great types of conversation and feedback described above are going on in the hallways in between classes?

Well, I think I have come up with three things that will help:

  1. Wear your passion on your sleeve.
  2. Reach out on a consistent basis.
  3. Find a way to incorporate what others are doing already into your vision.

I have been e-mailing quite a bit about my podcast on this topic. There are a few teachers out there that are wrestling with the use of technology in their teaching. One such teacher, Jason Hando, said that he worked with a “flat world” project initially without applying all of the technology. After he had worn his passion on his sleeve for a while, he applied some web 2.0 technology in the form of a blog and received positive feedback from his school administration, including his principal.

This is not the only kind of passion that I think we can wear on our sleeve. We can be constantly talking about the great resources that we have found in our feed readers. We can be showing off the authentic products that our students are creating daily. Eventually other teachers will start to ask us how we are doing this. We can let our students and their parents become the advocates for the kind of learning experiences that are abundant in our classrooms. They will start wearing our passion on their sleeves too.

We should also be sending feelers out every once in a while for anyone who is ready to incorporate School 2.0, even to the smallest degree. Hold a class on blogging in the classroom even if you know only 5 people will show up. Send an e-mail tell others what you are doing that you know will only be read and trashed by the majority of your staff. Pull other people into a project that you are working on if they are on the outside looking in at your technology realization. Be the one teacher that “gets it,” but isn’t angry that others don’t.

The last thing that I have found for working collaboration with the people around you into your hectic global collaboration schedule is to honor what the teachers in your school are already doing. I am a big fan of looking at a project that is already in place and just making it 2.0. A great example of this was when my team decided that we were going to go on a field trip to Denver. Most of the other teams in the school were having the kids to a scavenger hunt of key places in the downtown area and answering questions on a sheet of paper, which was to be turned in and never to be heard from again. My way of making this trip into a “2.0” experience was to use Mapwing so that my students could make interactive tours of downtown which could be looked at by anyone from around the world to find out more about our fine city.

Each teacher on our team was able to contribute their expertise to the project, but we were showing the kids how to collaborate and create in an authentic way. My hope is that more of these types of cross-curriculum projects start to happen organically because we have opened up the door by using what was already in existence.

What do you think? Are there other ways to create collaboration in our own towns and become, if not prophets, at least teachers with advice and experience worth sharing?

The New Job Description

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The more that I think about doing something “different” in my classroom, the more that I feel that process should be transparent. Not just for my students and their parents, but also for my administrators. Principals, Assistant Principals, and even Super-Intendants should be aware that there is change happening in the classroom. They should also want that change to occur, meaning that they should actively support it. But the only way that this is going to happen is if we start advocating for it.


So, this podcast is all about how we should be writing our own job descriptions for the jobs that we dream about doing as teachers and presenting them to our administrators. I think that if we take this proactive approach, many will listen and start to think differently about what should be going on in the classroom.


Show Notes:

Feed Reader of Choice

 

(This has also been cross-posted here.)

When I first learned how to harness the power of the read/write web, it was by aggregating all of the blogs that meant something to me. Whether it was answering the daily challenges of Weblogg-ed, finding meaning in Edublog Insights, or trying to parse through the Borderland, I was enraptured by all of the great work already happening in the edublogosphere.

Now, I find myself with less and less time to read what others are because I am so consumed with trying to make my own vision of School 2.0 work. In some ways I think that this is an improvement. I am now participating in the conversation rather than just observing it. But, in many other ways, this is not an improvement. Will Richardson is always talking about how reading blogs prepares you for writing them, but finding the time to consume information that is not directly related to the projects that you are working on is harder than I would have ever imagined. The pile of blog posts just keeps adding up. And according to this, I will never catch up unless I do something drastic.

Well, I think I may have found a solution, both for myself and for all of the people who seem to be having the same trouble (I know that there are at least a few of you out there). I have been playing around with my new Palm T|X, which was purchased with funds from my school district’s Digital Educator Program. At first, I was rather disappointed with the limited web functionality of the built in browser. That is until I realized just how effective of a feed reader a palm pilot can be. Google Reader Mobile allows me to read one post at a time and then progress to the next. I don’t have to worry about seeing the 2000 blog posts that are unread. I can focus on just one. I can also pull it out whenever I have a free moment. I don’t have to pull out my laptop and fire up bloglines and search for something good to read. It becomes a book of blogs for me. It becomes the way for me to catch up again and listen in on the conversations going on in the edublogosphere.

The real reason, though, that I am so excited about finding this new feed reader is that I can imagine having a set of these in the classroom (5-10) and setting them up next to the bookshelf. Anytime a student wants to read something written by a fellow classmate, they take a palm pilot off of the shelf and read a few blog posts. This would not be the ideal venue for responding to blogs, but it would further the community of writing. These devices are also pretty inexpensive, so getting a few into the classroom would not require a huge investment.

What do you think? Are there other uses of a web-enabled palm device that I am missing for the classroom (other than for reference)? Is this another way of creating School 2.0 in small increments.

How do you explain change?

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When I try to explain to people, even the most highly educated and interested people, what I am doing in my classroom, I get two distinct reactions.

1. This is way too technical for me. It is fine if you want to try it out (and fall flat on your face when parent/administration/other teachers find out what you are up to), but I am just fine to live in oblivion. Wikis (did I say that right?) are too complicated for my kids. There is no way that they would be able to handle that kind of organization on their own. Your kids are different. You have more access to the technology. You were born into this stuff. I am too far into my career to start learning something new.

2. We tried something like this back in the 70’s/80’s/90’s/a few years ago. It didn’t really work then, but feel free to give it a try now. I was pretty excited about it before, but I think my interest petered out around when I realized that I was doing more of the work than the kids were. I think there are a few teachers in the school down the road who are doing this kind of stuff, so I’m not really sure that it is new or different. I will just sit back and watch you put effort into collaborative tools, but I will not put my own support behind it.

Now, #1 I have made my peace with. If a teacher has decided that they are not ready to try something new yet, I will reframe it as many different ways as I can think of in order to get them on board. At least they accept that working with students around the world, getting instant feedback on authentic writing, and infinite choice in assignments are things that are truly different than the traditional goings on of education.

#2, on the other hand, does not even acknowledge that working with web 2.0 tools is something that is a transformational step. They are so used to educational jargon and methods being repackaged and renamed that they have come to believe that School 2.0 is just a big facade that houses the likes of Project Based Learning or Cooperative Learning Groups. I can’t blame them for thinking this in the light of all that public education has taught them, but for them not to be able to see the drastic difference between writing an essay to one teacher and writing an essay to an entire school (and beyond) to be critiqued and linked to and built upon is something that I just will never understand.

Case in Point: After presenting The Academy of Discovery to a high-level technology coordinator in DCSD, he said that there were pockets of people who were trying this out elsewhere in the district. I was shocked. It was news to me that we just might have the most progressive district in the US and I just don’t know about it. Or, perhaps the problem is that he is having trouble distinguishing between an authentic collaborative student-directed wiki (receiving 50,000 hits in 6 weeks) and doing iSearches with google in order to make posters to put up in the room. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but I really think that this is an important roadblock to advancing our vision of education. Many educators, administrators, and parents believe that all technology integration is created equal. This is just simply not the case.

So, I guess what I am saying is this: We need something that will distinguish us from mundane “technology in the classroom.” We need to be seen as going beyond what has been done before, not something that is untested or fad-like, but rather something that is essential. How do we make sure that people get that we are not doing something old in a new way? We are doing something new, something that you would never be able to do without the tools of online collaboration and rss.

This is a challenge that I am willing to take up because if we can’t even explain what is going on in our classroom to other educators so that they realize the potential of a school 2.0 environment, we will never be able to explain it to the rest of the world.

Digital Sticky Notes

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Feedback continues to be something that requires a lot of thought to do right. I want to provide my students with as much timely feedback as possible, but I don’t want to have to resort to the methods of printing out blog posts and putting paper sticky notes on them. In this podcast I explore the possibility of giving student feedback using web annotation tools. If anyone has any good ideas for tools like this (other than diigo) please e-mail them to benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org

  • 00:00:00: Intro to Feedback
    The Podcast Blog

  • 00:01:33: Feedback Methods
  • 00:02:56: Revision-based Writing
  • 00:06:03: Collaborative Tools for the Individual
  • 00:07:21: Virtual Stick Notes
  • 00:08:55: The Outsourcing of Grading
    Steve Hargadon’s Blog

  • 00:11:51: Looking for the Tool and Conclusion
    My Blog