Think Like a Teacher

As someone who works on a web site for teachers, I often stop to wonder about the disconnect between the way most adults think of education and the vision of 21st century learning that is growing as an invasive species amid the education establishment. For over three years I have been aware of the changes being promoted and adopted in forward-thinking schools and universities as they rethink what it means to be a 21st century learner/citizen.  But so many are completely unaware of this surge. Today I received an email with links to two videos — videos very much in the same vein as Karl Fisch’s watershed moment in 2006. Those who see these pause. Those who send them to me pause.  I watch and think, “This is what I have been trying to tell you about.” So I wrote back:

This is the core of what the edubloggers and online conference folks I “lurk” around have been saying for the past three years. The really frightening thing is how many teachers (the VAST majority) are completely oblivious to it.  They are so busy they don’t even notice (and is that their “fault”?).  TeachersFirst has taken the “infiltrate as a trusted source and instigate change” approach to opening some of their eyes. As we review many wonderful but “old school” drill-and-practice (20th century) web sites, we throw in 21st century approaches to going further, suggesting ways to ask students to take the initiative and design a review/practice activity of their own, look for local examples and document them, etc. The “in the classroom” portion of reviews has moved to “in the 21st century.”I am sure that in many cases the teachers see the suggestions and say, “I don’t have time for that” or “I don’t know how to do that” or –worse– “those tools are blocked in my school.” The teachers who take on the challenge are widening the gap between new and old, engaged and canned, active and passive, meaningful and “tested.” It makes me worry a lot about gaps that legislators and those over 40 are completely unaware of… that will make this economic crisis look puny in 30 years as the adult products of the testing era wander around, unable to discriminate between web-myth and reality because no one spent any time helping them evaluate and sift all that they have encountered (and created) on their own time while supposedly “learning” in school.

The most encouraging thing is that the grassroots teachers, students,  and profs who are making these videos (starting with Karl Fish of “Did You Know” fame) are getting better and better organized via the web. Those who want to know more have LOADS of company. The rest close their classroom doors and pull out the worksheets.

My editorial for today. Think I’ll paste this into my blog.

So here it is. Which side of the gap are you on? Can you be an invasive species?

I admit it. I am completely attached to my computer. For some people, it’s their Blackberry. For some it’s their cell. For me, it’s my laptop. My life is on that machine. I do not even know my daughter’s address. It lives on my laptop. (She does move a lot). My calendar, favorite quotes, sticky notes with ideas for my next blog post, links to every place I love to go, rotating family pix…everything is there. Yeah, I know a lot of people keep it all in some online venue, but that doesn’t work for me.  Nothing is as completely customizable as the laptop of my life. It WORKS for me as a vital organ, maintaining body and soul.

But this week, my laptop was amputated.  Somewhere in the process of poking through tons of links and RSS feeds in an idea-gathering session, I (oops- I mean my laptop) picked up a virus.

Now, I am a careful person. I close suspicious windows from the task bar so as not to “touch” them.  I religiously run back-ups and virus scans. But this Halloween season, the guy with the sickle got me. He amputated my laptop. I hope to have it back in a few days and am already trying to compile a list of the things I will have to reinstall IF the wonderful fix-it man is unable to save it all. In the process, I ask myself, “If you had to amputate one gadget from your life, what would you amputate?” Or, flipping it around, “Loss of what one gadget would make you feel permanently disabled?”

Cell phone? Car? DVR? Microwave? Digcam? (No fair nominating your alarm clock).

The corollary is that my Internet connection is nearly as vital. But even when Comcast dumps me for no apparent reason, my laptop is still there with me, allowing me to collect ideas in a sort of IV pouch until I can infuse them back into full circulation on the web. But without the laptop, the ideas drain onto the floor, causing massive blood loss from the site of the amputation.

So think of me and send me your technology tourniquets to stop the bleeding as I try to “live” on a borrowed laptop for a few days. And help me hope that I will not be forced into a complete transplant and risk rejecting the laptop if it is reimplanted without its familiar contents.

PS Don’t worry, I won’t email you. I don’t know your email address.

How often do you, as an educator, have the chance to provide a vision for a new technology before it is even available?  Or contribute ideas for anything coming “down the pike”?

How often do industry innovators put learning first in their vision for a new technology?

Here is your chance.

The parent company of TeachersFirst , The Source for Learning, has just teamed with the National Educational Broadband Services Association (NEBSA) to create a competition that puts first things first: educator before techie, learning before “glitz.” The whole idea is to ask the innovative minds out there who constantly think up new ways to engage, inspire, motivate, lure, cajole, launch, fascinate, steer, elevate, redirect, hatch, etc. how they envision a technology that isn’t even readily available yet. This is a dreamers chance to learn and a learners chance to dream.

We pulled this competition together very quickly and, unfortunately, the entries are due rather quickly. I hope people will spread the word quickly, since the actual entry is NOT that complicated (500 words– a middle teacher says that much just getting the notebooks out or computers fired up!). What really excites me, though, is the very idea of asking the educators instead of telling them. A sharp teacher might even ask the KIDS for their ideas to make up the entry!

So if you read this blog..tell a friend. Twit it, blog it, email it, listserv it …even post it in the teachers room. This is YOUR chance. Dream big.

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The full text of the “announcement” I sent in email:

The Source for Learning Teams with NEBSA on Wireless Broadband Education Competition Two nonprofit organizations—both leaders in educational technology—have teamed to sponsor a contest that will explore exciting educational uses for the next revolutionary technology: wireless broadband. The Source for Learning, Inc. (www.sourceforlearning.org) and the National Educational Broadband Service Association (www.nebsa.org) have for years been instrumental in helping educators enhance teaching and learning through technology.  The Wireless Broadband Education Competition will create a showcase for innovative educational uses of one of the newest dimensions of the learning experience: mobility. High-quality wireless connectivity is coming soon, and it will have a major impact on education—“anytime/anywhere” learning. But how will it actually be used? Exciting possibilities are starting to emerge—imagine, for instance: 

•  A class goes to a field behind the school to research native animals and habitats. While there, with no wires needed, they use the web to learn more about what they find, and share the experience via live video feed with other classrooms—from the same school or from many schools, anywhere in the world.
• A few students visit a location—for instance a “wind farm” where clean energy is generated. Other classrooms watch the visit live; they ask questions in real time as the students meet an expert and see the workings of the site. The students upload the GPS coordinates of the site; that data is merged with Google Earth layers showing wind patterns and electric power needs, for a comprehensive understanding of the experience.
• Older, non-wired school buildings add fast Internet access from any room, with no wires and virtually no capital expense.
• Students use digital equipment to measure on-site water quality in real time from multiple locations without leaving their classrooms. 

To stimulate creative thinking about learning supported by this new technology, SFL and NEBSA announce a competition for U.S. educators (Pre-K – 16), asking them to use their imaginations about ways in which wireless broadband could support and enhance teaching and learning. Three Grand Prize winners will receive scholarships to present their proposals at the National EBS Association Annual Convention, which will be held in Boca Raton, Florida from February 23-25, 2009. Each of the winners’ schools will also receive a $200 reimbursement to cover related school substitute costs.  

Visit the competition site for full details: http://wirelessbroadbandeducation.com/. Phase One submissions are due November 1, 2008, via a simple online entry form.