Assignments
• Day 1
Read the Horizon Report (2008).
Post a blog on what technological trend you feel will become most prevalent in K12 learning within 5 years and why.
(see Rules of Engagement)
• Day 2
Please watch both of the Sir Ken Robinson videos linked below. Then post two slides on the shared presentation: 1) one way schools kill creativity, and 2) one way schools foster creativity.
Do schools kill creativity?
Creatively Speaking
• Day 4
Assignment 1 - Wikipedia - see post below.
Assignment 2 - Colliding Forces - see post below.
• Day 5 and Day 6
Live Broadcast - post a response to the blog below on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Day 7 and Day 8 - Surprise.....
Your assignment is optional - you will receive credit whether you email me yes or no, but you do have to email me. I do not believe in zeros, nor in failure as an option. However, you get what you put in, so I encourage you to say yes....;-)
If you email me yes, here's what you are committing to. Give me your email address at work, what grade level or content area you teach, whether you are an administrator, whatever. What school you are at and a short resume/introduction of yourself. I will leave your name and contact anonymous until I find another teacher/educator/administrator in PVUSD who might like to work with you on REACH, and in turn you with them. I will make an intitial email introduction of each of you to the other - from there, you are on your own to put into practice the communication, collaboration and creativity of 21st century teaching and learning, using information technology to bridge time and space constraints.
REACH (Real Experiences Advancing Childhood Humanities) is an initiative our district is implementing with other educators/administrators outside of our walls. We are connecting students/teachers/administrators, from differing classrooms, differing schools, cities, states, countries, using technology to communicate/collaborate/create in whatever ways possible and appropriate to postively impact student learning - totally up to you and your PVUSD counterpart on what you think would be useful - how big, how small, how deep, how thin, is up to you.
It does not have to be high tech, with tons of technology - in fact, the technology is not the point - learning with and about others is, being creative and taking a risk is the experience. One simple internet connection and a Google account can do wonders (you should now know that), to connect students, teachers, administrators, whatever. I suspect your kids, your school will be richer for the adventure and you will cross into something I believe is profound and necessary in education - REACH'ing beyond the walls......
So, if you want to REACH, give me the details and I will personally try to connect you with an appropriate counterpart. Then, you have the opportunity to extend your coursework learning into actual practice - the point of taking a class. Email me yay with details, or nay. What I wish for you is to REACH beyond this ASU class, throw optimism into the wind and see what emerges in your participatory networking experience.
Jeff......
Read the Horizon Report (2008).
Post a blog on what technological trend you feel will become most prevalent in K12 learning within 5 years and why.
(see Rules of Engagement)
• Day 2
Please watch both of the Sir Ken Robinson videos linked below. Then post two slides on the shared presentation: 1) one way schools kill creativity, and 2) one way schools foster creativity.
Do schools kill creativity?
Creatively Speaking
(see Rules of Engagement)
• Day 3
Assignment 1 - See Blog entry on Web 2.0 Directory below for instructions.
Assignment 2 - See Blog entry on P21 Skills below for instructions.
• Day 3
Assignment 1 - See Blog entry on Web 2.0 Directory below for instructions.
Assignment 2 - See Blog entry on P21 Skills below for instructions.
• Day 4
Assignment 1 - Wikipedia - see post below.
Assignment 2 - Colliding Forces - see post below.
• Day 5 and Day 6
Live Broadcast - post a response to the blog below on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Day 7 and Day 8 - Surprise.....
Your assignment is optional - you will receive credit whether you email me yes or no, but you do have to email me. I do not believe in zeros, nor in failure as an option. However, you get what you put in, so I encourage you to say yes....;-)
If you email me yes, here's what you are committing to. Give me your email address at work, what grade level or content area you teach, whether you are an administrator, whatever. What school you are at and a short resume/introduction of yourself. I will leave your name and contact anonymous until I find another teacher/educator/administrator in PVUSD who might like to work with you on REACH, and in turn you with them. I will make an intitial email introduction of each of you to the other - from there, you are on your own to put into practice the communication, collaboration and creativity of 21st century teaching and learning, using information technology to bridge time and space constraints.
REACH (Real Experiences Advancing Childhood Humanities) is an initiative our district is implementing with other educators/administrators outside of our walls. We are connecting students/teachers/administrators, from differing classrooms, differing schools, cities, states, countries, using technology to communicate/collaborate/create in whatever ways possible and appropriate to postively impact student learning - totally up to you and your PVUSD counterpart on what you think would be useful - how big, how small, how deep, how thin, is up to you.
It does not have to be high tech, with tons of technology - in fact, the technology is not the point - learning with and about others is, being creative and taking a risk is the experience. One simple internet connection and a Google account can do wonders (you should now know that), to connect students, teachers, administrators, whatever. I suspect your kids, your school will be richer for the adventure and you will cross into something I believe is profound and necessary in education - REACH'ing beyond the walls......
So, if you want to REACH, give me the details and I will personally try to connect you with an appropriate counterpart. Then, you have the opportunity to extend your coursework learning into actual practice - the point of taking a class. Email me yay with details, or nay. What I wish for you is to REACH beyond this ASU class, throw optimism into the wind and see what emerges in your participatory networking experience.
Jeff......
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Colliding Forces
Assignment 1 - Read the paper "Colliding Forces", required reading for all PVUSD Principals. Post a comment here (below link) on the implications of this paper for education in Arizona and how will you prepare your institution for the changing market space? If you disagree with the position of the paper, post a compelling argument as to why.
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15 comments:
Professor, I'm not sure if the issue has been resolved yet and that I'm missing where the information is... but I cannot open the 'Colliding Forces' document that you shared. I found the document at http://www.scribd.com/doc/3182439/Colliding-Forces
Presuming that there is only one Jeff Billings at PVUSD, I'm going to read and respond to this first. I'll check back to make sure that I'm not running off into the dark on my own.
The trends, as evidenced in the reading, all point to the growing community (stress on unity) on the newest frontier of the world known as the internet. As mentioned in paper, the 'anytime' and 'anywhere' capabilities of the internet and corresponding technology are upsetting the old world balance and is screaming for a new system to take place.
As such, heeding the advice of the paper as well as innovating new ways to take in this new world order are mandatory in order to stay above the coming flood (lest we be swept away). Having personally 'participated' in the MIT basic physics course, I understand the power that free online courses provide: that the knowledge and lessons of MIT professors are now available to you whenever you'd like to obtain them (granted you have relatively quick internet). The world is quickly becoming smaller and education's purpose, no matter which one you subscribe to, absolutely needs to adapt to this change.
- Official response by Qadri
-Unofficial response and rant by Q-
***You should probably just ignore this one unless you enjoy boggling your head or listening to rants***
My above 'official' response is valid and legitimate. In order to compete in the world, using technology and understanding it in the field of education is vital. My concern, however, lies in a much broader question: is this power really necessary for the human race?
Glimpses of possible futures include that of a Japanese sci-fi series called 'Ghost in the Shell'. The future it portrays is a world where everyone is connected to the internet 24/7. Most people have chosen to replace many body parts for robotics. Almost everyone has replaced their brains, for example, with computers that run more efficiently and powerfully than any human brain could. Other robotics aid people like surgeons with synthetic fingers and eyes to make their operations even more accurate.
The drawbacks, of course, are even more incredulous. People are able to hack into other people and either take over their bodies, erase and manipulate memories, and implant programs and viruses to adversely affect them as well.
A few years back, before I started learning about Web 2.0 and the like, I was humored by the 'prediction' that Ghost in the Shell provided and found it intriguing. The more I learned, however, the less ridiculous Ghost in the Shell became. And now, I wouldn't be too surprised at all if the world did indeed end up that way.
A simple solution to such a rampant and chaotic future may be that we just have to regulate this and have lots of securities... which would be fine and all, except that hackers always find a way. Always.
Another solution would be to take it slowly. This, also, isn't happening and hence lies my concern. Are we moving too fast as a race for our own good? I'm already pretty sure our leaps in technology isn't entirely beneficial to everything else on this planet, but now I'm concerned for our own well-being.
Maybe it's just me, but I have the same mindset for technology as I do body building. In body building, the popular method is to gain a lot of muscle mass in rapid succession. However, with my experience in martial arts, I found that I prefer Bruce Lee's philosophy on body building: that you should only build as much as you can control. And I know that without having lifted any weights in my life, I still did not have mastery over my muscles as true martial artists do over theirs. This is why I prefer working on muscle toning exercises that stress control and endurance. The same applies to technology, I feel. We haven't truly mastered the internet (as evidenced by the highly uncouth and uncivilized behavior that is commonly found online).
I'm going to be called geek for this, but Star Trek had an interesting point in that the Federation never made contact with planets with sentient life unless those creatures managed to invent and produce their own spacecrafts. The reason being that every species/race has to go through the 'evolution' of technology in order to use it responsibly. A sort of maturation process... a coming of age thing. Which I think is perfectly reasonable since I believe the Middle East to be an example of what happens when you take 'barbarians' and give them sky scrapers and TV. You get a lot of insufferable bigots is the result.
Last point: the Chinese and other Asians had cultures that seemed to focus on mastering whatever they had. You hear about the stereotypes of ninjas being able to turn anything into a deadly weapon, which isn't entirely a joke. The general Western approach to things is 'shock and awe' and 'the bigger the better'. With that, you get the West jumping on science and running leaps and bounds with it. Even though the Chinese invented so much early on, they eventually peppered out and worked on making things like the Chinese brush do the job of 3-4 Western brushes by mastering how you hold and stroke with it.
So again, I'm asking... do we really need to moving this fast? Do we have to advance blindly into the future at such a breakneck speed?
I to had trouble getting the Colliding Forces article so I used Q's URL and it worked.
I think the reason this hasn't exploded into chaos is because the majority of parents and students are unaware of the possibilities. Knowledge is increasing and those that are aggressively pursing it need options and opportunities to sustain their quest. Educators have the advantage of realizing the potential this has before it becomes common knowledge. We need to pursue encouraging teachers to unit and utilize the possibilities to enhance their instruction.
As for myself I am using this information to help my daughters in their education. I can't help my oldest daughter in her classes and it's nice to know that I can direct her to a resource that can. My second daughter swears she's not going to college, but what a great option to be able to offer her a college education without the traditional settings.
We need to prepare ourselves as educators in order to be a part of the future.
Thanks Q!
I think the technoligical possibilies are amzazing! I feel this will be a long on-going process with controversy. Change always leads to a great deal of discussion. Educating educators will also be a tricky task to achieve.
I am not an expert by any means in this area and haven't had much experience in technology. However, I feel that it is important for students to graduate HS before attending online colleges. It is important that students be well-rounded. I agree they can take several college courses, however, the HS experience is important. It's a great opportunity to have a variety of technological opportunities to meet students' needs. However, learning in schools is not purely just "book learning." It is learning how to relate with people. Going on job interviews, it is extremely important to have quality people skills. I feel if all interaction is through computers, students will miss out on indivual interactions, limiting the hiring success.
Teaching elementary PE, I don't use a great deal of technology. However, I use a website with different links where students can answer their own health questions. This is a start...
WOW, I didn't realize how much technology out there to get an education. I think as educators, we have to prepare ourselves with all the high tech skils we need to prepare for any educational environment. I like the idea of high school students receiving a college education before they are actually graduate from high school. I graduated from high school in 2000 and got about 15 college credits. I mean I cant imagine that 18 years old getting a bachelor and are going to work in a professional workplace. Are we ready for this new technology like Q said. Can we control it and prepare for anything that goes wrong. I think if we are going to prepare our young in a techno world and about what their childhood, they will grow up so fast.
I talk to my students about technology on a regular basis and having this class has made me more interested in the path that we are moving toward which is even more technology. I believe that there should be an introduction to the use and benefits of online education in high school. College should continue to expand the experience, but all kids should still have to participate in gathering as a class because this is about the human experience, being able to interact, laugh, learn with different modalities and network. These are all powerful experiences we encounter in a classroom environment.
I think that this paper is very interesting and insightful to where schools may be going in the future. It is of course a huge paradigm shift for me to think of schools being entirely online. I agree that the issue of funding by enrollment would be easier to gauge with online schooling, and it would be very engaging for some kids that are “powering down” at school. However, I also think that there will never be a substitute for collaboration in person. I think that people need to be able to learn social norms and how to interact with people of all backgrounds not only in the primary grades but even at the college level. I feel that technology is important but at what cost to students’ social competence? Will all jobs in the future be online and flexible like these online classes? If not, in some ways we are setting students up to fail.
I think that the idea of shifting our entire educational system online as fast as possible may be a bit hasty...even if it is the trend in cutting edge schools of European thought. I do believe that experimenting is the key and a gradual shift as Q mentioned may be wise. However, to play devil's advocate-are we already behind? Is it necessary to make haste to catch up?
My own personal preference is to take classes in person-not online. I feel that I connect with more people and absord more hard and soft skills by doing so. I agree with Julie that secondary school is a time of great personal development and therefore that time oncampus is crucial for our young to discover who they are as people.
Though middle and high school students need the oncampus experience, it is our obligation to equip them with the technological skills for the future. So before we skip ahead to having each student learn from a computer in a location of their choice, let us bring the technology to them. Students should be equipped with a lap top and log into our classes from their seat when the bell rings. As we have created, shared and submitted documents of multiple forms in this class, so can our students. If we forge them into this technology they will push the snowball to roll faster down the hill, gaining size and velocity at an appropriate rate.
This paper is very interesting to think about. I had thoughts of excitment and concern at the same time. It's exciting for me think about the possibilities of education and the shift which is already happening, not only here but across the global education system. It gives me some concern because I don't want to miss the shift. I don't want to be the one left out in the cold and not be prepared for it. All in all I feel we have to embrace the change and better meet the needs of our modern day student.
As far as learning and technology goes, the possibilities are endless. I think it is our job as educators to be on the cutting edge, and not be frightened by the unknown. Even though the information is vast, there are many resources out there, and sometimes our students are our best resource. We have the responsibility to prepare our students and part of this is introducing and giving them the opportunity to learn and create authentic technology projects and products. This will not only help us assess their learning, but at the same time, allows the students creativity to shine through!
Hearing Jeff talk about how all of the principals in his district had to read the Colliding Forces article, really made me think about the kind of response principals in my district would have. I know that I work in a middle school within an elementary school district and not a secondary school, but I don't think most principals would even be able to wrap their heads around the kind of change discussed in the article. Some of this just seems so far away due to the huge shifts in thinking that would be required. In many ways I wish that I were in the classroom so that I could use the on-line resources and the many amazing tools we have been hearing about, without waiting for system changes to occur. Jeff, what were the reactions from your elementary principals?
This paper is the basis for what we are learning in class. As part of the current educational system, we are not doing a good job competing with what is out there. I think that people don't know what the possibilites are. This class has really opened my eyes to what is out there. I think that lack of funding and knowledge of subject and time is what is holding us back. I am not sure what the solution is as a whole but...I know that I will try my best to use technology in my school and provide plenty of professional development. It is also CRUCIAL to spread the word.....so that other may follow!
I agree with the article on Colliding Forces. First of all I do work at one of those institutions in competition for students. I work at a Charter school. We, like everyone else are trying to garner as many students as possible for funding purposes. Attracting students and keeping them is essential to staying alive. We cannot do this without upscaling what we offer and how we offer it. We currently have a Night School program where students can come in, in the afternoon and evening and work on the computers to get high school credit so that they can graduate. This has been very successful in the past. This requires programs that are visually appealing to the students as opposed to ones that are out dated and appear archaic. I think that our school will need to look more toward an online learning environment (one where students don't even need to come in to school) if we are going to continue to compete.
Kimberly
We all have to be an agent of change. This,online education, is the direction that society as a whole will need to embrace and accept. I applaud PVUSD for being leaders in this change and setting a model that others may follow. I do feel however that we need to explore content on a deeper level and not be so quick to push ahead to other grade levels. Plus, it is essential for children to be socially rounded as well.
Technology based professional development is the key to preparing teachers for the changes that are occurring or that will occur in the immediate future.
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