Today, David Brooks wrote in his column, The Medium is the Medium,
“Perhaps that will change. Already, more “old-fashioned” outposts are opening up across the Web. It could be that the real debate will not be books versus the Internet but how to build an Internet counterculture that will better attract people to serious learning.”
I have so many thoughts on in depth learning and the web. I believe that I’ve learned a great deal through my learning network online. I have also remained solidly in the book, conference, face to face, mentor/mentee learning world. I find that my learning network allows me to test my ideas and receive challenges to grow. It’s the social part of my learning.
As a teacher of students who grow up immersed in the Internet culture my instincts tell me that we need to be observing how they live in these online worlds while making suggestions/modeling ways to remain reflective thinkers and learners. Do you agree, disagree?
———————————————-Sent via handheld. Please excuse brevity and spelling errors.
Fred Bartels asked: I’m really curious about your emphasis on memorization still being important. This came up in our meeting yesterday. When you get a chance could you elaborate on your thinking?
I responded: There seems to be a statement that futurists make about not having to remember anything because it’s at your fingertips. Traditionalists tend to say that kinds need to remember everything.
In my experience, to be creative, you need to have content knowledge, but if you’re naturally learning something, memorizing it is not a conscious matter, but one that comes naturally. For example, when children move to a different country where a different language is spoken, they just pick it up. This is a natural memorizing, not an unnatural one.
There are basic pieces of information that we should know and by using a more natural form of education, students will learn by doing. I think that games are a great way to teach things like the multiplication tables. For example, my kids teachers recommend different card games. That works well. Fun = easy memorizing.
I think that there is a balance between the obsessed memorizers and the folks who say we can look everything up…
Does this make sense?
I visited two schools over Spring Break. One project based school based on the Big Picture model where teams of 15 students and 1 faculty member travel through the four years of high school together interning two days of the week and working on their core curriculum during their days at school. The other was Quest 2 Learn, a school based around systems design and using games to teach and learn.
In both I saw glimpses of the future, but both made me feel uncomfortable too. Letting go of teacher as the source of information is scary. We have been doing this for a long time.
What both schools seemed to get was that it’s about personal relationships with kids and helping them grow up is critical. Both had positive environments where kids felt supported and could ask questions about the system that they existed. The kids were involved with making their schools better. I think that is a key part of this equation.
We have a lot to explore here.
I could not have said this better…
This may be idealistic, but if I could talk about what I’d want for a TED Prize, it’d be to spend a year getting a 1,000 conversations going about what we dream education could be all over the country… and to record them all… and catalogue parents and students and teachers best hopes for school, so that we could have an action plan about where we need to go, because I don’t know that we, as a nation, know what we want or how to get there. But I’d love to find out what it might look like, and I’d love to think that the folks at TEDxNYED would have something to add to the discussion. (From the comments on Dan Meyer's TEDxNYED Metadata)
As part of my regular professional development, I have a group of education technology professionals I follow on Twitter. Through following this group of people, I learn about what they are reading and viewing and how they are applying this to their schools.
One site that came up recently is Facebook for parents by BJ Fogg, Professor at Stanford University. I thought that this site was informative and has a realistic view of social networking for parents.
Social networks are here to stay. Our job is to help our children make good decisions about how the use them. I encourage you to discuss social networking use with them.
Here are a few videos of Professor Fogg from the Stanford Facebook Fan Page that you might find interesting:
BJ Fogg to the very first Stanford Open Office Hours. The conversation starts here (part 1), continues here (part 2), and finishes here (part 3).
For more resources, you can follow my Internet Safety links on Delicious.
Fred Bartel’s Starting a Virtual Independent School thread morphed recently. 
As we discussed the topic, what resonated in me was the importance that our communities understand what it means to learn online. Once a critical mass of our communities know what the the pros and cons of this environment are, we can better assess how they will fit into our schools.
Over the past couple of weeks, arvind, Vinnie and I have been discussing the creation of an Online Teacher Academy for this purpose. Here are links to the two podcasts:
21st Century Learning #97:Designing an open, web 2.0, personal lear…
21st Century Learning #98: Designing an Open Online Teacher Academy…
In the two podcasts above, we begin the discussion about how to lead our teachers through an online experience that provides them with the tools and the inspiration to build their own personal learning network.
After our last podcast, I posted a couple of goals and a short description for this experience:
1. Teach online tools in the context of teaching and learning
2. Creating online community to model and sustain this learning
This online teacher academy starts by walking its participants through some basic online tools while building a community, and creates a structure for the participants to create and document new work thus leaving a legacy for the next generation of learners.
I would like to spend some time working to create this learning experience with a group of interested educators from June 30 – July 2nd here in New York City. We’ll definitely be broadcasting this, so don’t worry if you can’t be in NYC. This also coincides with NECC and I’m sure we’ll be bringing folks who are there into this conversation.
We already have some takers who are interested in participating in this discussion.
What do you think? Who’s interested in participating? Please add comments to the thread at isenet.
Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiscinfonet/405736372/
Check out the criteria for a successful student web 2.0 project that Marie Salinger from Whitefriars College just posted on a PLP NING group page:
What makes a good online project? The following VELS-based criteria may be addressed:
- Interpersonal – students should work in teams and have opportunities to develop speaking, listening, decision making and conflict management skills. They should also have specific roles and responsibilities in relation to those of others and the overall team goal.
- Personal – Students learn to seek and use feedback from their teachers and peers and draw on other members of the community who may provide feedback, knowledge and advice about skills that support their learning.
- Communication – development of literacy skills and opportunities to present information, ideas and opinions in a range of forms eg verbal, written, graphic, multimedia and performance.
- ICT – opportunities to communicate and collaborate and develop new thinking and learning skills in creative ways.
- Thinking – An explicit focus on thinking and the teaching of thinking skills to develop students’ thinking to a qualitatively higher level with opportunities for creative problem solving, decision making and conceptualising.
Projects will also be assessed for effective use of websites and web 2.0 tools, creativity, clarity of instructions and overall presentation.
The project and supporting materials should be presented in such a way that other teachers could follow the instructions and use/adapt the project with their own students.
From: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Teacher/Webquests.htm
Lots to think about there. Do you have criteria for online projects?
Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/darrendraper/3199912725/in/pool-858082@N25
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