Marching Backward into the Future

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/derbaum/14504516/

- The Media is the Massage. An Inventory of Effects. McLuhan & Fiore. p74

Everything we look at is shaped by our experiences. We come from a 20th century perspective and it is incredibly difficult to imagine what the 21st century will bring. When I started teaching 20 years ago, could I have envisioned an iPod, a netbook, a Kindle? We had the beginnings of an Internet, but nothing like the global interactions of today. And yet it was my job to prepare those 6th graders for their future.

Those 6th graders are now about 32 years old. Do we feel the 32 year olds of today are not productive? Are they not capable of doing the jobs we need them to do? If I taught them to think and to write and to question and to explore, did I not prepare them for their future?

And what of my students of today? How are they prepared to meet their destiny? We live in this moment and our vision is shaped by what came before us. We can imagine what will be next, but all of of our imaginings are seen through the lens of our own histories. And each of us brings a different history to our predictions.

In the field of education there is much anxiety about the future. These anxieties are only compounded by the downturn in our economy. Is this because we didn’t prepare our students for what was to come? How can we make sure that our country will be led by a knowledgeable and capable workforce? Is technology the answer?

How do the innovators of today come up with these inventions? Where do they get the ideas that transform our world? Someone invented the iPod, the Kindle, the iPad. Where did they go to school? Who were their teachers? Did they march backward into the future or were they somehow turned around?

New York Times edtech article fails the test!

The front page of today's New York Times boasted an article about the "failure" of technology in the classroom. Titled, In Classroom of the Future, Stagnant Scores , the article describes a school in Arizona where, despite a huge investment in technology, there hasn't been an increase in test scores.

The article is based on one school in one town in Arizona, hardly a statistically significant sample. Larry Cuban, an outspoken critic of technology in schools since the early 1990s, is quoted multiple times. Not one of the many experts in the field of educational technology, whom we know and love, was interviewed (or at least quoted) in the article. The only reason given for the failure of technology is a lack of increase in test scores in a district that already had high test scores. Finally, there was no test comparing the technology skills of students in this school to any other school in the state.

Clearly, I'm not thrilled with the article.
What did you think?

The Plus One Challenge!

This summer my entire faculty read the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. The book lays out some clear ideas for how to make change in an organization. The authors use a metaphor of an elephant, suggesting there are three things you need to do to affect behavior:

1. Direct the rider: Be very clear about what you want people to do, make it as simple and concrete as possible.
2. Motivate the elephant: Appeal to the heartstrings and the emotions. Give vivid examples of why people need to change.
3. Shape the path: Make it as easy as possible for people to complete the challenge. Figure out what is getting in the way and try to remove obstacles.

On Friday I presented the "Plus One Challenge: to my faculty:

1. Direct the rider: Add one technology project to your repertoire this year.  If you do zero right now, do one, if you do two, do three etc. It could be anything. You could do the same thing twice. Just add one.
2. Motivate the elephant:  We need to keep up with our peer schools. We can't be left behind. 
3. Shape the path: I will make this as easy for you as possible. I will meet with every member of the faculty by the end of the first semester to see what you are doing and how I can help.

So there you have it. I'm excited to start a new year and see what happens. I hope it works!




Image Soure: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xverges/5276822875/

Another Education Unconference. Don't miss it!

On Monday, July 25th Lisa Thumann and I are facilitating our 4th Edubloggercon Unconference. It will be held at the Park Plaza Hotel, thanks to the generosity of Alan November, from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Come all day or just for part of it. (If you want to help organize the day, please come by at 8:00).

If you haven't been to an unconference, you should really check it out. We design our own learning based on our own interests. It is some of the best professional development you can get, and it is completely free!

Our attending list is looking a bit sparse this year. If you know you are coming please add yourself to the list. We know we will have a great day, no matter the size of the group, but it helps to have an idea about who is coming.

Last, but not least, Lisa and I have decided to do 5 minute "ignite" presentations. We are hoping that 3 more people will join us in this endeavor. Ignite presentations are 5 minutes long, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds.  Check out some examples here. If you are interested in trying this out please contact Lisa (lisa dot thumann@gmail dot com) or me (lizbdavis @ gmail dot com) to reserve your spot and find out when your slides are due.

I look forward to seeing you on the 25th!

Edubloggercon East 2010

Teens With Cancer

A student at my school was diagnosed with cancer last year. He has just started a blog and wrote to me a few weeks ago to ask if I could give him advice on how to get more readers. I suggested that one of the ways would be for me to share a link to his blog with my learning network. 
With his permission, I encourage you to check out Jacob's Teens With Cancer blog. Please share the link with others (especially any kids you might know with cancer) and leave him a comment. I know he would appreciate it.


Here is the advice I gave him about publicizing his blog.

1. First, if it is ok with you, I will share your blog on Twitter and on my blog. But please let me know. I want to make sure it is ok with you before I start sharing your blog URL.

2. Take the ads off your blog and don't push too many products. You want to make sure people take you seriously (especially when you are trying to build a following) and if you have too many ads or if you start promoting products people may get suspicious about your motives.

3. Find other bloggers who are writing about cancer, even if they aren't teenagers and start a blogroll on your blog with links back to their blogs. If you link to other bloggers and comment on their blogs or write about their posts that is the best way to get them to reciprocate and start adding you to their blogrolls which is a way to build a following from their readers. Alltop,Google Blog search, and Technorati are all good blog search engines.

4. Start a Twitter account and search Twitter for people writing about Cancer. Twitter is probably one of the best blog promotion tools you can use. There are a few ways to find similar people to follow on Twitter. Search Twitter for key words that relate to you and then follow the people that use that keyword.  Wefollow and Twellow are two good Twitter search engines. When you create your Twitter account make sure you don't protect your updates and you include information about your cancer in your bio.

5. Set up a Google Analytics or a Statcounter account to see who is reading your blog and who is linking to your blog.

Predicting the Future with Marshall McLuhan

I just finished reading The Medium is the Massage. An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. Published in 1967, it is a prescient work, predicting with amazing accuracy the effects of technology on our lives. Here are a few quotes from the book that particularly struck me:

What does it mean that we have been saying these things for 43 years?



"Our 'Age of Anxiety' is in great part the result of trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools - with yesterday's concepts"

"Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage."

"Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. 'Time' has ceased, 'space' has vanished. We now live in a global village... a simultaneous happening."

"The circuited city of the future will not be the huge hunk of concentrated real estate created by the railway. It will take on a totally new meaning under conditions of very rapid movement. It will be an information megalopolis."

"In the name of 'progress,' our official culture is striving to force the new media to do the work of the old."

"Education must shift from instruction, from imposing of stencils, to discovery - to probing and exploration and to the recognition of the language of forms."

Results of my BYO Laptop Survey

Thanks to everyone who participated in my survey. I greatly appreciate your input. Here is a link to the results (I have removed email addresses). You can also see the results embedded below. Scroll to the right and down to see more responses.