Tornado of Change in Education

An interesting post by Will Richardson (thought-provoking as usual) about the value of a college or university degree. He also points out and questions (as I am starting to) the assumption that university is the best / only / necessary path to take after high school. http://willrichardson.com/post/36888521605

Laptop Spying to Combat Digital Distraction?

I stumbled upon this article this morning, which is another interesting piece to add to the puzzle of the role of digital devices in the classroom and the articles I posted yesterday.

By Louise Brown of the Toronto Star:

York University prof enlists student snitches to battle digital distraction

When professor Henry Kim noticed a student this week paying more attention to his laptop than the class discussion, he asked another student to check out the suspect’s screen.

Twitter.

Busted.

The business professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business quietly asked the tweeter to leave for the rest of the 90-minute class for breaking the pledge his students must take not to use laptops for anything but class work.

And it meant using another new pledge this frustrated teacher had students take this fall; to spy on a classmate’s screen, if asked, and report truthfully what they see.

By recruiting this new breed of screen snitches, Kim hopes to make digital distraction so socially awkward that students will close forbidden windows — Facebook, email, Sikh field hockey matches — and plug into class…

READ MORE

 

 

19 Bold Ideas for Change (in Education)

I have been following Will Richardson by reading his articles or his tweets for a few years now and he never fails to

Who is Will Richardson? He is “an outspoken advocate for change in schools and classrooms in the context of the diverse new learning opportunities that the Web and other technologies now offer.” www.willrichardson.com

Here is a quick 5 minute presentation he gave recently. (The slide titles are below.)

1. Give open network tests — not open book tests.
2. Roll Your Own Textbooks.
3. Be Googled Well.
4. Flip the Power Switch.
5. Change the World. — Broaden scope of lessons
6. Don’t “Do Your Own Work.”
7. Learn First. Teach Second.
8. No More Workshops for Teachers.
9. Share Everything.
10. Ask Questions You Don’t Know the Answers To.
11. Repeat after me: “I want to be found by strangers on the Internet.”
12. Unlearn. Relearn.
13. Resume. Shemesume.
14. Stop Googling. Get a Network.
15. Go Free and Open Source.
16. Create an “Uncommon Core.”
17. Don’t Deliver… Discover.
18. Disrupt the System.
19. SCREAM!

iste-presentation from Will Richardson on Vimeo.

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement

Be a First Follower: “Leadership is over-glorified…If you really care about starting a movement, have the courage to follow and show others how to follow.” Woah.

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Despite this being directed at business types, I really enjoyed Mr. Sinek’s TED Talk. Indeed, I believe this gentleman has been latched onto by many people  – often people at the top of the food chain –, but thinking about his idea from an in-the-trenches teaching perspective, I think there is some merit in the notion that I, as a teacher in the 21st century, need to be able to tell students why coming to my class fits into their 21st century lives. “Why are doing this?” is actually, perhaps, a very profound question and my pat answer of “Because I said so” doesn’t actually suffice.  In fact, I need to preemptively tell them before we learn why we are doing something in class and, to take it a step further, I should examine what it is I’m teaching to see if it is relevant and appropriately challenging for today’s students.  The Golden Circle thing is a pretty nifty idea that I need to mull over… Also, his mantra, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”  Hmmm… Perhaps “Students don’t buy into courses because of what we are teaching necessarily; they buy in because of why they need to know this for their 21st century journey.” I’m not sure if that works, but maybe… Plus: People followed Martin Luther King not to follow him, but they did it for themselves, because their beliefs matched his own. And he didn’t make the ‘I Have a Plan’ speech; he made the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Woah.

 

Eddie Obeng: Smart failure for a fast-changing world

Eddie Obeng speaks very quickly and covers a lot of concepts in a short amount of time, but, ultimately, his idea of “smart failure” and thinking about the real world grossly outpacing the culture of learning is very relevant, I think, to the world of teaching. Which world are we preparing students for: yesterday’s world, today’s or the future world, the one in which they will live?

And I love the idea of “smart failure”, where failure is a powerful learning experience, which connects, for me, back to Rick Wormeli’s video about Redos and Do-Overs.

Eddie Obeng: Smart failure for a fast-changing world

21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020

I feel a little behind the times, but better late than never, I guess. I just discovered this blog post from a site that already sets me aflutter whenever I go there.

But, to add to the complexity of this original post from 2009, the author, Shelly Blake-Plock (@blakeplock), has written about his revisiting the aforementioned post. And that re-visit is powerful in and of itself:

What Will Education Look Like in 2020?

Here’s a quotation from the article:

“We aren’t professionals with clear-cut job descriptions or miniature technocrats micromanaging our classrooms, after all. Our job is to lead young learners to new heights of understanding and achievement.

The future of education isn’t in finding the best way to get all students to pass the same test. It’s in using the connections that technology enables to leverage the social capital of ­communities and inspire children to dream, innovate and create.”

Seven Proven Ways to Inspire Others

“You make a difference by inspiring others to make a difference.”

Another incisively insightful post from Leadership Freak.

I attended a workshop recently and the leader, a recently former principal, bluntly told us, a group of like-minded educators who are actively seeking out innovative and creative teaching practices, that the best way to inspire change is to model change. It was so simple yet so powerful and it has stayed with me. Trying to ‘fix’ others, however, is, it would appear, a non-starter. Rather, as Leadership Freak notes, helping others to see their own potential is more likely to inspire them to ‘dare to act’.

 

 

Seven Proven Ways to Inspire Others.