Is this what education is for?

I have been away from my blog for too long. It is necessary for me to do this regularly in order to feel connected. Teaching is hard, and so is parenting. The two leave very little time for breathing, much less blogging. However, those details are for another post.

What I want to write about today is the seemingly unquestioned assumption that the picture above refers to. I guess I used to think like this myself. I clearly remember wondering, as a young man, why people made such a big deal about athletes leaving college early to play professionally. I mean after all, conventional wisdom told me that the reason people go to school is so they can get a better job, earn more money, and consume more products and services. These guys just got to skip the school part. They were going to make tons of money without taking classes, so in my mind they didn't need education. I didn't even question that reasoning, and I now know why. This week marks my one year anniversary as a public school teacher. Before October of 2008 it had been over 14 years since I had been inside a high school classroom for an extended period. Over those 14 years I healed from the conditioning that school subjected me to, and I now feel that I can see a bit more clearly what is going on in our public school classrooms. Children are being sold on the fact that the only reason a person should be educated is so they can make more money. Learning is not presented as an end unto itself. It is only preparation for something better. This notion was confirmed when I attended two Saturdays worth of professional development earlier this month. The focus was Standards Training. I would like to say upfront that I am not opposed to the concept of standards. I understand the need to have some sort of guide to chart a general course. However, this training gave me a deeper view as to the motivations of our current educational system. The ONLY motivation given for the implementation of standards (or education at all for that matter) within the framework of this training was economic motivation. This motivation was expressed from the macro as well as the micro. All of the rhetoric / propaganda that was presented stated that the reason we are doing this is so our nation / region / city could be more economically prosperous, competitive. We needed to produce people that could be better workers and consumers. Wealth, wealth, wealth - jobs, jobs, jobs. These are the only reasons for public education. That was the message I took away from the training... and it was horribly disheartening. I cannot be part of a borderline fascist, nationalistic, wealth driven, mechanized method of "education." I don't know exactly how I am going to make my career in this field, but I must chart a different path. I feel overwhelmed and discouraged right now. How do I move forward?

Fall Creek Falls Reteat

I am currently at Fall Creek Falls Sate Park near Pikeville, Tennessee at a Metro Nashville Public Schools retreat. Principals, SLC Change Coaches, and selected teachers from each of the district's Comprehensive High Schools are in attendance. The event is being hosted and facilitated by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce. I arrived yesterday afternoon while the meeting was in full swing, and I also participated in the discussions this morning. Basically, this session is geared toward implementing Smaller Learning Communities in our high schools. We are talking in depth about the types of experiences we want to provide for students in our schools, and we are using people at other schools in our district as brainstorming partners. My first reaction to this event is this: We have some very sharp people in this district, and meetings like this that include leadership and faculty are great. It has been a tough Summer for many in the district, and it is understandable how some people are frustrated and tired. However, at events such as this you can visibly see people's spirits and moods change when they begin to get involved in the collaborative process of envisioning again what is possible. I am a new teacher (last year was my first year), and as tough as last year was for me I still carry with me a sense of excitement about what education will become in the not too distant future. That being said it is easy to become bogged down by the daily grind of beaurocratic education systems. Events such as these allow school leaders and faculty to step back, look at the big picture, think about possibilites. I feel privilaged to be here. This school year I will be teaching in the Pearl-Cohn 9th Grade Academy. It will be separate from the rest of the high school. It will be a new operation, and it sounds like we will have many new teachers - ie. not averse to doing new, creative things. I am looking forward to doing the best I can, and helping shape this new school. Now it is time for me to get more information on how this SLC model works, and how I can be an asset to my school. As usual I feel I am behind the curve, and will be playing catch-up. Stay tuned.

Pinky and Illich

I read Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society for the first time about a year ago. It has had a pretty big impact on my view of what education is, and how I want to do it. It is free online here if anyone would like to read it. I did a presentation on Illich in one of my M. Ed. courses last fall. After doing some online research about Illich the man I came across this clip on youtube which is a great video even if you haven't read the book. I showed the video at the end of my presentation. It is pretty powerful. I see the Open Education movement as the possible beginnings of a realization of what Illich was talking about. Anyway enjoy the clip.

Dr. Register on One-On-One

It is July 7, 2009, and that means I report back to my teaching post in about 1 month. Time to get moving on the planning. I have some great ideas based on all of the independent research I have done this summer, but it is time to get those ideas into some sort of coherent form that I can use next school year. My blog posts for the next few weeks may go in a different direction as I begin working through how I pan to conduct my classes in the fall. I thought a great place to start would be from an organizational side. It is important, I think, for my practice to be in line with what the district and my school wants / needs. Dr. Register was on One-On-One with John Seigenthaler and that interview is posted above. Very informative, and I would say it is a must watch for anyone working within MNPS. He repeatedly hit on collaboration among teachers which is definitely something I want to do, both in my school and with other CTE teachers in the district. I have to admit, being a new teacher last year I was more focused on my day to day activities than I was regarding activities in the district, and how to shape my practice to fit the new direction. Not this year. Another note on Dr. Register. I was impressed with the interview. I can say that he seems to be on it, and it sounds as if this is not his first rodeo. I also think it s worth mentioning that he got a solid mention in a book I am finishing up. In a previous post I wrote about Clayton Christensen's book Disrupting Class. Great book and the fact that he was mentioned in a positive light by Chrisensen gave me even more confidence in his ability.

If there is anything that bothers me about the interview it is the given assumed by Seigenthaler and Dr. Register that Test Scores are the be all, end all in determining the success of a school district. That detail is not even questioned. Now, don't get me wrong. I know Dr. Register has nothing to do with that. The Test Score lens with which this country views education is the hand we, as educators, have been dealt at this time. Those are the rules of the game and we have to follow them. I'll stop here, because that issue deserves a separate post (at the least). I just thought that oservation was worth mentining.

Tinkering School

I want this for my kids. Look at the faces of the children in this video. Something GREAT is happening!!! It's only 4 minutes long.

Non-consumers in Education

One of the books I am reading right now is Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen. In Chapter 2 he writes about what he calls disruptive innovation theory, or how disruptive innovation occurs, and he gives some examples. He gives great examples of how this has happened in the past. One of the examples he gives is of the computer industry, and how the personal computer came to lead the way in computing in the 1980's. Christensen says that from the 1950's through the 1970's when people thought of computers they thought of mainframe computers. These were huge, expensive machines that could only be purchased and used by large institutions, organizations, and companies. He talks about how innovations occurred within the mainframe computer industry, and that those innovations were what he calls sustaining innovations. These were innovations that were geared toward making better and better mainframe computers. Some of the innovations were breakthrough innovations and some were relatively small, but the purpose of all of these sustaining innovations was to make better mainframes so the manufacturers could sell them new an improved versions to their customers (institutions, organizations, and companies). These machines cost millions of dollars and the margin on each of these machines was hundreds of thousands of dollars. These machines were not marketed to or purchased by individuals. They were just too big and too expensive. A company named Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) sold a product called the minicomputer, and it was mini compared to the mainframe, but it still cost on the order of $200,000. Nowhere near affordable for the average consumer.

So what does a disruptive innovation look like? Enter the Apple and the IIe personal computer, which was originally marketed and sold as a childrens' toy, and was nowhere near as powerful as the mainframe or minicomputers. Now it is time to introduce another of Christensen's terms - the nonconsumer. Children were nonconsumers of computers before the Apple IIe so they did not know and did not care that this new personal computer was not as good as the mainframes and minis. Also, DEC's customers didn't care too much about the Apple IIe because it was simply too weak to execute the complex tasks that their customers needed execute. In the eyes of DEC the personal computer was not a threat. Why? Because they were listening to their best customers who were telling them that the Apple IIe was junk. This worked for DEC for about ten years, because it took that long for the personal computer to gain strength. At first the personal computer industry looked like an entirely different industry than the mainframe minicomputer industry - they had entirely different customers. But just as the Mainframe / Mini computer manufacturers made sustaining innovations so too did the personal computer manufacturers. The PC makers innovated better software, better processors, better displays, better storage. You can guess from here what happened. The personal computer became powerful enough to supplant the mains and minis. They were now up to the job and instead of costing hundreds of thousands of dollars they were mere thousands. DEC and the other main / mini manufacturers collapsed in the late 1980's. Christensen says that the PC industry introduced disruptive innovation by making computers smaller, cheaper, and easier to use while DEC was innovating in a way that made compters bigger and more powerful. Christensen says that the fact that the sustaining innovations in the minicomputer industry were taking them in the opposite direction of the disruptive innovations of the PC industry made things very difficult for them. The ground shifted beneath their feet.

How can we apply the disruptive innovation theory to public education? Who are the nonconsumers of education. It is hard to say since everyone is required to go to school, but Christensen does identify some nonconsumers. Underserved high school students looking to take AP courses can be considered nonconsumers. For example, my high school did not offer AP courses when I was in school in the early 1990's. I was also in a rural community and internet service was not really on the radar yet. Had a student that wanted to take an AP courses had the option to take it online he or she likely would have. Taking the course online beats not taking it at all, right? That demonstrates who nonconsumers in education are. I am a hish school teacher and I can say from personal experience there are classes offered in our community via the web that we do not offer in house that students are interested in. For instance, a local community college offers an audio engineering course via the web that has peaked the interest of many of our kids. Nonconsumers in education are niches of students looking for something that is not offered. Christensen also indicates that students taking makeup courses or credit recovery are also nonconsumers (also occuring in my school), as are pre-k students. Increasingly students in this nonconsumer role are turning to computer / web based instruction. Why? It's better than nothing. It should also be noted that it is very inexpensive for institutions to offer this type of instruction. If disruptive innovation theory holds true in this case then we should see this type of instruction begin to make inroads into traditional classroom based, teacher-centric education. Sustaining innovations within the computer-based instruction industry will ocur (just as sustaining innovations in the PC industry occurred) and that could mean that the computer-based courses improve to the point that they are better and cheaper than the traditional method of education. How could they improve? Christensen says that improvements could come through individualized instruction for every student. Computer-based individualized instruction could allow every student to learn the way that they learn best. I don't think the human would be completely replaced, but a shift such as this could truly move the human into of the role of facilitator or guide.

I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag

The title of this post is a quote fom Jim Groom at a presentation he made at Duke University in April (embedded below). He is an Instructional Technologist at University of Mary Washington in Virginia, and that quote should give hope to all of us trying to find a new way to do education with technology that may not be the most technically astute. I know it does me, and although I plan to have more technical knowledge at some point it is good to know that this guy seems to be doing it well and self professes, "I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag." All these guys I am following, listening to, and interested in are Instructional Technologists. They are at the forefront of a new way to do education. They are doing what I want to do. Jim talks here about how teachers can use free, readily available products on the internet to use with their students in order to give the students more control, and ultimately help them create identity and engage in deeper, more meaningful learning. He says that he thinks students may actually be approaching their work a bit differently in this environment because they know the work they do is going to be "out there" for all to view online, and with UMW blogs getting alot of what he calls "Google juice" there could be many people seeing the work that students do. (Aside - That also makes me think that Jim Groom is bringing alot of value to his university for relatively little money.) He also shows how, at the same time, with the same tools, clubs and departments on campus can develop their own parts while contributing to a whole. I really like the Google Calendar thing he talks about beginning at about minute 40:00. It's great.. and it's nice for me to see a guy that does not, at first glance, fit into that mold of academia (ie. he seems cool) doing great things in higher ed.

Tim O'Reilly at the 140 Character Conference

I want to see who else was at this conference, but I just watched a talk given by Tim O'Reilly at the conference and wanted to blog about some of the highlites here, as well as reflect a bit on what he said. I have embedded the video below for anyone to watch if they wish. First the tag line for the conference was "Exploring the Disruptive Nature of Twitter 140 Characters At a Time." It made me think of the book I am going to read after I finish The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (Wired MAgazine. Editor in Chief). That book is titled Disrupting Class and it is by Clayton Christensen. It is about disruptive innovation and how it effecting how people learn. I would say Twitter definitely fits into this "disruptive innovation" class. One has to look no further than the Iranian Election protests to see this.

Anyway, Tim O'Reilly said the following: He said Twitter had been summed up by someone as "Ambient Intimacy" or news from your close friends, but it is news that matters. He said you could look at what is happening in Iran to see how one person there Twittering can have impact on an international scale. I see this, and can see this through other social media such as YouTube. One person caught the horrific images of young Iranian girl, Neda Agha Soltan, being murdered on Saturday. Those images have had international impact. Barrack Obama has even said he has seen them, and he has now made his harshest comments to date regarding the activities in Iran. Did the video of Neda being murdered prod him to harsher words? I don't know for sure, but you could see how this could happen, thereby providing an example of the power of social media and technology.

Back to Tim O'Reilly's remarks. He said that being in the media is about serving a community; not making money or being widely read. Don't go for the audience first. Serve a community. He said we should be asking ourselves this question "How can I add value to the community that I am a part of?"

He gave some insight into his Twittering process. He said he Retweets (RT) alot, and it is not always a Tweet that he Retweets. Sometimes he Retweets emails, etc. He says he built a team of people he follows and promotes them through his stream. He said he acts as a point guard and distributes content. He said that he used to tweet 30 times a day and realized that was too much, and that he needed a filter. So now he types his tweets in a text document for later posting, then he filters them and posts what he feels are the best.

He said that there is a nervous system that extends from the center of government out to each of us. Our role is to be active synapses in that nervous systems. Congressmen and women are Tweeting. We can now follow them and engage in conversation with them.

He closed with the following statement, "Create value for a community and eventually that community will create value for you."

Factor E Farm and Open Source Ecology

I came across this group - www.factorefarm.org - while looking for Open Education information on the web, and it has caused me to think a bit about the context of the Open Education movement. I am realizing that the OE movement is occuring within a broader "Open Everything" context. I am coming to this conclusion by reading Clay Shirky and Tim O'Reilly, and seeing the Obama Administration embracing openness among other things. The Factor E Farm is located north of Kansas City, MO and the whole purpose of their project is to bring the open source mentality to real world tools and methods. It's Research and Development for sustainable community living, and they are sharing their processes, instructions, and discoveries with everyone for free in hope that people will use them to develop their own sustainable communities. Their website states that they are "Building tools for replicable, open source, modern off-grid resilient communities - to transcend survival and evolve to freedom." Some of the things they have shared on their site are how they built their tractor, and how they are developing an egg incubator. The things they are doing remind me of Benjamin Franklin's Franklin Stove and this quote by Franklin:

"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

Clay Shirky on TED

I have only been reading Clay Shirky's blog for a few months now, but I am learning that he is a visionary that makes many cognitive connections between society and social media. I don't care who you are or what you do he is a MUST read in my book. This video was posted at the TED website today, and watching it evokes many emotions in me - namely excitement and anxiety. Excitement because it helps me see the possibilities of the present and the immediate future, and anxiety because I feel that I am very far behind the curve on all of this stuff (I am trying vigorously to catch up).

Shirky quote: "The moment we are living through, the moment our historical generation is living through, is (experiencing) the largest increase in expressive capability in human history."

Facilitating Online Communities course

I just saw this post by Leigh Blackall this morning. I have decided to take this course. It starts in late July and it will be the first Open Ed course I have taken. I have been hoping to find something relevant to Open Ed that was real time and not just stored OER. I am very excited about participating in this course, and am committed to learning as much as I can. I have added the course details to my online portfolio, and I will post my work there.

Brian Lamb at TTIX Yesterday (6/4/09)

I just watched the presentation Brian Lamb (University of British Columbia) gave at the Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange yesterday at Utah Valley University. t was title The Urgency of Open Education. You can view the actual presentation here, and you can view the presentation outline here. I wanted to write a few notes on my blog today about that presentation. Brian talks a bit about the "social media" environment that we all find ourselves in today. It seems that everyone I read or follow is trying to come to terms with what it all means, and how it can best be used. Everyone seems to indicate that social media is a big deal, and I agree, but no one seems to know exactly where it is going. I suppose that is one of the things that makes it so exciting. Anyway, Brian talks in his presentation about how, at a base level, social media boils down to participation. He shows the Obama in Berlin photograph, and asks the question "Why is everyone taking a picture?" His point was this. Did everyone really NEED to take a picture? Were they afraid that the moment would not be adequately captured on film? No. People want theirs. Taking a photo says "It's Mine. I did it. I was there." Brian also said something that I found interesting. He said that the photgraph taking was almost a greeting or a social welcoming of Obama. If it was a welcoming I don't think it was conscious on the part of the crowd. They obviously wanted to capture the moment for themselves, and they were obviously excited, so I guess in that way it was positive and flattering. It wasn't a negative from Obama's perspective. It was, in fact positive in that regard, so I guess it was welcoming afterall. I liked what Brian said about the big positive of the web. He said that he, Chris Lott, and Scott Leslie were talking about all the negtives of the web - at times vulgar, reinforces short attention spans, hard to find fact or truth - however one thing it is not is passive. It promotes participation, and in that way it may be taking us back to something that we lost in the 20th Century. He called back to a time before movie theatres, radio and television when people participated more in their culture. The example he chose was music - If a person wanted music pre-twentieth century then that person had to learn how to play or know people that could play. The act of enjoying music was social and participatory. Lamb referred to an Aldous Huxley quote about passive entertainment . Huxley is quoted as saying:

"In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.”

The web may be in the process of returning the ability to easily participate and contribute back to the masses - valid point, I think. From the perspective of an educator I can say this. We are constantly trying to get students to create meaning rather than memorize and regurgitate. Participation and contribution are key to that effort.

I liked what Lamb said about New Media Literacy and Traditional Literacy. He said that Traditional Literacy is not obsolete. It is a foundation upon which New Media Literacy is built. I would add that it is impossible to build new media literacies without traditional literacy. In my observation I have noticed that when students don't possess basic literacy skills the web just turns into a fancy television. At that level the user is still no more than a conumer.

Brian referred to a personal story where he was invited to Barcelona to help with a project. Once he was involved it was apparent to him that he was in over his head from a technical perspective, and seemed to panic a bit. Afterall the folks in Barcelona had invested quite a bit of time and money into his participation. What did he do? He turned to his network. He began blogging about his dilemma, and his readers began making suggestions, and pointing him in the right direction. I can imagine that this was a humbling yet wonderful experience. He was able to reach out to a community of people that he has been serving in a way and ask them for help, and what happened? They came to his aid. I loved what he said about not having to be the smartest guy in the room on your blog. He said that the posts that have been most valuable to him were those where he explores areas that he doesn't know well. He posts what he does know and then lists the questions that he has. It sparks discussion among his readers and everyone learns together.

In his conclusion he talks Bruce Sterling's comment that "Broadband eats everything." What is it eating right now - music industry, newspapers, tv and film making. Lamb argues that it is coming to education. These other industries were relatively slow to embrace the new business models of the web, and they are suffering. He lists examples of how it is already affecting education - textbooks on Pirate Bay or BitTorrent. He says it's only a matter of time before we see pirates textbooks on the Kindle or other eReaders.

Toward the end of the presentation Lamb began to tie things together and explain why educators should urgently embrace open models. Lamb said, "When copies become super-abundant they become worthless. When copies become super-abundant then things that can't be copied become scarce and valuable." This caused me to think about Michael Wesch at Kansas Sate University and the types of experiences he helps create for his Anthropology students. Click here to see a presentation by Wesch. The types of things he does cannot be copied like a text can be copied. The type of experience for students that he provides will continue to be valuable in an Open Education environment. Lamb ended by saying that universities and colleges were created at a time when information was scarce, and those institutions should discontinue practices baed on information scarcity.

Lynda.com Certificates - Tests Coming?

If you haven't been to Lynda.com you should visit and watch a few of the free video tutorials.  Basically Lynda.com costs $25 per month, and they provide professionally produced video tutorials for ANY piece of software or programming language that you could ever hope to learn.  I have used it before (casually), but I will be using it this summer to learn the Adobe CS3 suite.  I will be teaching a high school web design class next year, and although I know enough to build basic webpages I would like to know a whole lot more before I begin teaching it to eager 15 year olds.  Anyway, Lynda.com has announced that they are now offering Certificates of Completion for those people that complete a series of lessons on a piece of software or programming language.  Their website says the following about the certificates:

"Once you're a member, it's easy to share your success with coworkers, friends, and potential employers as you earn Certificates of Completion for each course you view in the Online Training Library®. Whether you're up for a promotion, seeking employment, or just wanting to show off to your friends, you can share a Certificate of Completion when you finish a lynda.com course. We've also created banners and links for your web site, blog, or social networking profile—all at no extra cost to you." 

 They are looking for feedback from users regarding testing which means they are at least flirting with the idea of providing some sort of assessment of a user's learning.  I can't believe that this would be free, but still it could open certified computer learning in a big way.  What are the implications of this? There was an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education published in September of 2008 that discusses something along these lines.  To me it seems that there have always been more acceptance in "the trades" for the concept of informal or open learning.  If you can do the work you can do the work.  End of discussion.  Who really cares where or how you learned it.

OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC)

OpenCourseWare Consortium - This is what really started it all for me in terms of consciously understanding the possibilities of open learning and open education.  Well, this in conjunction with Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) intiative.  I guess I first came across it about two to three years ago.  I think I first heard about it on NPR. Anyway, I thought writing a bit about it here was a good way to kick off my blog.  OCWC is an excellent example of how open learning can take place.  To visit the OpenCourseWare Consortium website visit www.ocwconsortium.org.  It's worth a look. Hundreds of universities are participating in this.  Basically these universities are putting their classes online for anyone to take that wants to gain the knowledge.  There are some heavey hitters on this list.  MIT grabbed my attention immediately.  The other program mentioned above, One Laptop Per Child, is Nicholas Negroponte's quest to make a $100 laptop.  He figures that if he can get the price down that low third world governments would then be able to afford to buy one for every child in their respective countries.  You don't have to follow these two developments (OCW and OLPC) too far down the line to see where it could lead.  You have just put OCWC in the hands of people that still see learning as a privelage.  It could empower millions of people to take charge of their own learning, and inturn completely transform third world countries.  The possiblities are incredible for what these two develoments could help spark.    

I want to get back to OCWC, though.  Now, I must mention that learners don't get a degree for taking these classes, and no one is going to grade your work, but if you are looking to do some self-directed learning this seems to be a good place to start.  Many of the courses contain video lectures, class syllabus, and notes.  The textbook used in the course is also listed.  It was easy for me to see how a person could design their own course of study and keep an online portfolio of work completed.  This leads me to an interesting question.  If someone took all of the OCWC physics courses on the MIT OpenCourseWare website, and they kept miticulous notes, worked all of the problems, did all of the projects, wrote all of the papers, etc. and posted all of this information in some sort of online portfolio would they then be qualified to work in the field of physics?  If so what does that mean for the future of traditional university education? If not why not?  Because there work wasn't assessed?  What if they presented this portfolio to employers, and the employers assessed it?  What if they submitted it to a graduate school of physics?  Could they be accepted to that program?

These questions lead me to my next bit of information.  I am graduating this month with a Master's Degree of Education from Tennessee State University (not exactly MIT, but I had a good experience just the same).  I am not ready to work toward a Phd yet, but I am looking for a way to stay academically engaged.  I am very interested in the idea of Open Education and Open Learning, and I am flirting with the idea of creating my own course of study to follow that explores open learning, and maintaining an online portfolio of my work.  This blog may be a part of that project.

Note about this blog:  This is my first blog, and I'm not really sure how to do this.  I've been reading some other blogs that deal with Open Education, and I am amazed by how much and how often some people are able to write.  I have a plan for the types of things I want to reflect on in this blog, but I am not going to restrict myself.  I want it to evolve in a way that reflects my growth.  I hope I have the discipline, and energy to keep it up.