The Rise of Video - Viral Education

Today I watched a great TED Talk about the rise of video for all communication by Chris Anderson. "TED's Chris Anderson says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation -- a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the invention of print." The power of video can permeate all of education from kids learning with other kids around the world to bringing experts into the classroom. Video is powerful - non-verbals, tone of voice, tempo communicate a lot!

But the bigger opportunity is to open learning resources for kids and their parents (and teachers) to consume as needed. Imagine if students were given the standards that we all believe they should learn/demonstrate - and also guided to develop their own based on their talents and interests - and then let them, their parents, and their teachers design a personalized curriculum? It can be done now, with technology that already exists. In fact, home schooling parents ARE doing this.

This isn't the end of 'lessons' or teachers - printing didn't eliminate the powerful experience of listening to an expert speak about his or her passion - but video and videoconferencing provides a rich virtual environment of experiences that learners can take advantage of.

By the way, a personalized curriculum doesn't mean that millions of kids would learn independently, isolated - a school of one literally. It means that they are learning what they need and want to learn - in the way they want to learn - with technology enabling them to be connected to other kids learning the same things...but it doesn't have to be in the same school - or even the same country.

Imagine this! Let go of your pre-existing restrictive thinking...imagine what it will look like? Because it will happen!

And we still need teachers! Designers of learning experiences, guides on the side, tutors, facilitators of learning, assessment developers....all sorts of things!

Merging Personal and Public Learning Environments: Why Not?

I've just returned from the ISTE Conference in Denver and had many take-aways, but a big one was about the merging of formal and non-formal learning environments. During a  keynote panel discussion, Karen Cator,  Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US DOE,  challenged the audience (mostly teachers and technology coordinators) to start accepting that kids are learning as much or more out of school than in it. This happens because many schools do not allow or make available the tools students want to use to learn with depth and breadth.  And students don't separate their 'learning lives' into artificial subject areas and standards. They just go after the information they need to address their learning needs.

What can we learn from them? What would happen if all teachers could figure out a way to propose problems, challenges, quests, and journeys to kids, teach them some strategies, immerse them in a learning environment and let them go?

Take a look at this video about a girl's Personal Learning Environment. She is participating in a project that her (obviously flexible, net-savvy, and enlightened) teacher is doing on networked learning. She is using an application called Symbaloo and you need two hands to count the number of websites, resources, and tools she uses to do her work (in a 3-minute video).

Be sure to listen to the last minute. I love her quote: "We like learning this way because we have more freedom...it's not that I don't have to do the work, I just get to choose how to do it." Freedom to learn the way they want...wouldn't we all prefer that? Been in a corporate or college class lately?

Tech Tools Don't Transform Learning - Teachers Do!

A recent article in the Washington Post by Stephanie McCrumman questions the value of the expensive technology being installed in classrooms all over the world, particularly interactive whiteboards. While I agree with a lot of what she is saying, she misses the key point. Unless teaching and learning activities change to more learner-centered experiences, technology will not revolutionize our schools. And this depends on teachers knowing how to change their approach.

In 1975 I had a wonderful technology in my kindergarten class - a machine with a monitor, speaker, keyboard, and early stage interactive disk which the kids would sit at to learn to read. A word would come on the screen and a voice would say "cat" and then the student would type the word "c-a-t" and if successful, they got to see the word, hear "cat," and see a picture of a cat. WOW! For 35 years ago that was pretty amazing technology. Everyone wanted to be on the machine - but after only a few weeks, most found it boring, and the expensive toy was abandoned. I learned to design more engaging activities, like having the kids dictate experience stories into a tape recorder (technology), transcribe them with our parent volunteers, illustrate them, then read them to their peers.

Fast forward to today and the New York City  School of One, in which differentiated learning is the philosophy and approach (this came first) and the technology is the enabler. A similar school in South Carolina, Forest Lake Elementary School created a self-directed curriculum in which students as young as five interact with each other to learn, create, and publish their work in a variety of ways. Teachers are designers of engaging work and facilitators. In both schools there is a tremendous amount and variety of technology, but the curriculum design came first. Wouldn't you love to teach in these schools? Why can't every school adopt this approach in which the students thrive? Vision, strategy, plan, execution...technology is an enabler and essential to today's educational landscape, but the educational vision comes first.