Facebook Games for Learning?

So it seems that many people play Facebook games - Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. It is also now apparent that many people despise the constant barrage of updates they receive regarding their friends automated game updates. I must admit that I am one of those that gets tired of constant updates regarding my friends gaming progress. I actually joined a Facebook group that was titled something like "I don't care about your farm, or you mafia, or your fish." However I just read an article on CNN.com regarding these types of games. Link to article here. After reading the article I have a better understanding of what makes these games popular. They are simple and they are social. They are social in that sometimes people work together or help each other accomplish things, and at other times people are locked in fierce competition. My question is this. Could an environment like this be created in order to help students become better at math or reading? Could a game be created that rewarded people for solving math problems or improving their reading comprehension? I don't see why not. Just a thought.

Jail Break Your Learning

Exponential change - change that occurs at an exponentially increasing rate. See the graph above to see what that looks like. This graph explains how galaxies are moving away from each other at an ever increasing speed, but you could just as easily replace the y-axis title to "rate of technological change within our society." My point, and the point of the video below is this. In a world that is changing exponentially can we really depend on institutions to teach us the details of what we need to know? I think not, and maybe they never could. I think there is still a role for some portions of our learning institutions - those portions that teach reading , writing, and math - as well as a new portion that helps students learn how to manage their own learning(ie. portfolios, research skills, etc.) On second thought maybe this wouldn't be a new portion at all. That learning management piece sounds to me like a library function. (That makes me think of a book title I saw last week - This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. I haven't read it yet, but I love the title!)

Anyway, back to Jail Break Your Learning - video below. Key quotes that I found most thought provoking in this clip:

"In a world full of information and readily available expertise we need to ask if we should be letting someone else manage our learning."

"While our learning options have expanded greatly our learning methods haven't."

"... it's the self-learners, the informal learners that are making the biggest strides."

"Those who continue to rely on others to manage their learning for them will find the going hard."

"Learning does not have a start or stop date."

"The world is changing too fast to expect training every time something changes."

I hope I am separating the noise from the signal.

/span>

Defining my Vision and Teaching Online

Now that I am teaching high school I am often asked about my classroom experiences. People ask the basic questions regarding what it's like and if I like it, but many also seem concerned about the future of education as well as the quality of the work that is currently being done in education. I have these concerns myself, and when asked what I think needs to be done I have a hard time articulating my ideas. In my next few blog posts I am going to spend some time defining my vision of how I think organized learning should occur. Based on how difficult it is for me to speak extemporaneously on this topic I know this will not be an easy task for me. I will start with two basic statements that will serve as part of the foundation of my vision / philosophy.

Statement #1: The most important learning skill for a person to acquire is the ability to READ extremely well.

Statement #2: Course completion should not be time constrained.

There are other ideas that I feel are important (cradle to grave availability, asynchronous pacing, delivery / consumption of information should not be tied to a particular time or place, use of student and teacher portfolios, non-manipulative, non-compulsory, non-centralized, use of open, collaborative materials, tools, and resources), but these first two are the most important in my mind - at least for now. Though it shouldn't need much explanation I will begin clarifying Statement #1 in my next post.

Teaching Online: I mentioned above that I feel asynchronous pacing is important. As of yet, I don't know exactly where it fits into my philosophy, but I AM sure that web based / electronically delivered interactive lectures and material will play a large role in the asynchronous pacing portion of my philosophy. That is why I have decided to apply for a position teaching high school math online this summer. The State of Tennessee offers high school classes online through www.e4tn.org so I am going to try to get some experience in conducting formal online classes through this channel. This part of my philosophy has been guided by a book I read last summer and wrote about in a previous blog post. That book is Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen. I have been thumbing through it again recently, and I am convinced that he is on to something. Though I would like to see more of an Illich-ean spirit in my work I do believe that disruptive innovation can take hold in any field. Education is no exception as long as people such as myself work in that direction. I'm trying.

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.