A Moment of Weakness…Rethought

Posted on March 31, 2011 by boadams1

From March 25-28, I attended the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA. The theme was “Bold Actions for Complex Challenges.” On Monday, as I entered the general session arena and prepared for another keynote, I sunk in spirit. I thought, “I just cannot sit-n-get one more time at a conference touting itself as a professional development opportunity for the 21st century.” Because of my bad attitude during this one general session among several general sessions and hundreds of specialized sessions, I missed most of what the speaker had to say. Luckily, I had heard this speaker before…give the EXACT same speech, read from the same set of pages. Later, though, I checked myself. I was wrong. The conference was excellent and it did model the following 21st century attributes:

The 9700-10,000 attendees CHOSE to be there. We were not required to be there. We attended on our own free will and desire. It was our choice to learn at ASCD. I got to choose to attend the conference.
ASCD provided alternate sessions during the general sessions. I did NOT have to be in the general session; I could have attended another session in another room of the conference center. ASCD had provided for the possibility that I would not choose to listen to this general session speaker. I failed to exercise my ability to be elsewhere. I got to choose to attend this general session.
ASCD recommended a common hashtag for Twitter (#ASCD11), so participants could use the backchannel for questioning, exchange of notes and ideas, discussion and commentary. I choose to participate in this backchannel throughout the conference, and I used this backchannel to learn from others during the general session that I missed because of my bad attitude. Thankfully, I had some alternative learning opportunities through the integration of technology.

What if we gave our students the ability to choose more about what they are learning? ASCD allowed me to be a co-pilot in my learning. I chose my sessions. ASCD provided hundreds and hundreds of sessions, and I got to choose. ASCD set a room with 10,000 chairs in traditional, 20th century rows and columns, and I chose to be in that room on Monday rather than in another session. I failed to take advantage of the Monday general session, but I stilled learned from an alternative choice – the backchannel. Do we encourage the use of backchanneling with our students? Do we make it possible for them to tune in using a different method? Do we create the chance for students to engage with others who are asking questions and processing information without audibly disturbing the principal speaker? I mean, the kids can tune us out, pretend to listen and be millions of other places mentally. With a backchannel, those “mind wanderers” might have a better alternative. Lucky for me, I am a natural-born learner and exercised my creative options to backchannel. What if we gave the kids a “conference and backchannel” opportunity on more days?

Imagine students looking in a catalog of choices for a day (or a week) and deciding where to go to learn…from whom to learn. Imagine that we taught them a proper use of handheld technology to tweet and backchannel. Imagine if the learning was even more up to the learners. Can you imagine that?

Some schools already do such stuff. I am not thinking all that creatively. Some call it an “interim.” Others name it “winterim.” I am sure there are myriad names. Some offer “electives.” Some are in the process of trimming electives. Some offer special programs in the summer. The learners get to chose. Choice is a powerful thing, isn’t it? Free will may be the most powerful motivator there is for humans. I could have chosen a different attitude about the Monday general session. In hindsight, thanks to reflection and a free-will motivation to blog in order to think, I may do better next time. As it is, I am thankful that ASCD understands learners enough to know that we make mistakes and errors. So, they gave me a richer set of options than merely choosing my attitude. Thanks, ASCD.

What will you choose next? It’s about learning to choose and providing choices. Get in the game. Make a choice. It’s about learning.

Tearing Down Walls

Posted on March 21, 2011 by boadams1

We live in an increasingly connected world. Yet barriers to connection continue to operate in schools. Kathy Boles at Harvard has described school as the egg-crate culture. With some exceptions, teaching can be an isolated and isolating profession, unless teachers and administrators work to be connected to other learners. It is far too easy to go into one’s classroom and teach…relatively alone…siloed. Classes right next door to each other, much less across a building or campus, often have no idea what is going on outside the four walls in which they are contained. And departmentalization makes for an efficient way to deliver content in neat, organized packages, but departmentalization is not the best parrot of the real, inter-connected, messy-problem world.

What can we do to step closer to modeling and experiencing real, inter-connected problem-addressing? How do we communicate with each other when we are assigned classrooms where we can be siloed? What could greater connectivity look like for learners of all ages?

Recently, learning partners Jill Gough and Bo Adams submitted a roughly made prototype of a three-minute video to apply for a speakers spot at TEDxSFED. It’s about “Tearing Down Walls.” It’s about experiments in learning by doing. It’s about learning.

Flying in a Flock

Posted on March 16, 2011 by boadams1

A particular line from an email I received recently keeps coming back to my mind and making me reflect (the full email can be found in my post from March 15 – “Dumber or Just Different?“):

We have even seen some of our faculty peers engaging in technological multi-tasking by tweeting each other during presentations (so-called “back-channeling”).

If you are a teacher, educator, or school person, do you believe in note taking? Do you encourage, or expect, or even require that your students take notes? Do you assume that note takers are dutifully engaged and processing the information? Do you think that the notes can be used later to remind and refresh the thinking of the note taker? Do you sometimes ask a student who is not taking notes, “Hey, don’t you think you should be taking notes on this stuff?” Perhaps you even use a stronger prompt to elicit a note-taking response. Have you ever considered that note taking is “multitasking?”

Well, tweeting is just a form of note taking! Dare I write it…”21st Century Note Taking!” However, tweeters leverage technology to enrich their notes and interaction with whatever is the source of discussion on the “so-called ‘back-channel.'” Do you ever wish, or have you ever wished, that you could see someone else’s notes? Just a peek, so that you can calibrate your note taking and discover what the other person thinks is interesting, important, or needs-to-be-remembered. Now you can! Just join the hashtag of the back-channel and explore what other engaged note takers are thinking, asking, responding to, contemplating, etc. Perhaps there are too many people in the room for everyone to have a fair shake at audible-voice air time. No worries. Now more people in the room have a voice. One does not have to concentrate on injecting one’s thoughts into the audible conversation, but of course one can do both – tweet and discuss out loud. In fact, in my experience the two forms of participation complement and expand and encourage each other.

Note takers have always been multi-taskers. Now, many are simply “smarter” about it. The connected note takers realize the value of shared, collective, collaborative notes. WE are smarter than me.

Maybe the tweeters understand the advantages to flying in a flock, rather than flying solo.