Not So Distant Future

Perhaps there should be an adage–what we celebrate, gets done.

The issue of celebration has been cropping up lately, both in discussions on campus and in my extended network.

When we are doing something well in our district classrooms or libraries, is that being celebrated within the district (as well as without?) 

We celebrate the visible things, like winning teams or competitions, academic test scores, etc.   But are we celebrating equally our daily academic successes?  Are we celebrating lessons that work, transformative uses of technology tools to deepen understanding, a classroom that has struggled and is now finding its way intellectually?

And if we are, are we celebrating it somewhere accessible to our students, parents, other teachers and the general public?   Are we celebrating the joy of teaching and learning?

In his presentation today at Learning 2.0–A Colorado Conversation, Dan Maas, CIO at Littleton Public Schools Schools, pointed out that in education, we typically reward success and punish struggle, when in fact, we should be rewarding struggle.  He believes that the struggle is what leads to the success, and consequently should be considered as consequential.

His point led me to wonder what it would look like for a school campus or a district to really feature learning–not the final end products of a project, or the awards, but the learning.   And what would it do for a school’s culture when  learning was celebrated?

I’m imagining a school newsletter or website or video interview with a teacher or student each month talking about learning and teaching–describing a particular success or struggle in the classroom.   I’m envisioning professionals sharing their thought process as they work through a difficult unit, and the things they consider as they do so.   I’m pondering what it would be like to hear a student analyze how they approach their own learning, or why some classroom activity was particularly powerful for their learning.   

Part of why people don’t understand what education is “like” or what teachers do, is because we don’t engage our public in the deeper conversations about what we do, particularly sometimes in our own districts.  Blogging helps with this a great deal, but only when a blog is really a significant piece in the district’s website.  

I also think this idea of celebrating both academic successes and struggles extends far beyond the “public face” of it.  It has to be an embedded belief in a school or district.   There has to be a level of trust so that people can share their struggles and so they know that the real classroom successes are valued beyond any one assessment score.

One of the best examples of this I can think of is when the Science Leadership Academy was struggling last year with their 1:1 laptop implementation.

Chris Lehmann wrote a blog post about the problem (students using chat too much) and how they were having honest, schoolwide(including with students) discussions about the problem, and how they were working it out.   Embedded in his blog posts were the beliefs I write about–a trust in both the students and teachers, a belief in the students as partners in the solution, and a trust that he could share their struggles openly and not be concerned that the district would impede their process at their campus.   The campus is built around these open types of conversations, it was clear.   We all learned by reading about their struggle and their process, but what we learned most of all is how this school is centered around learning as a core of its very being.

So, the other consequence of celebrating these struggles and successes is that our communities come to know that we are seriously engaged in what we do.   Imagine the increased trust that engenders with parents and community members when they know we are really about learning at a deep level.   And imagine what a better understanding the general public gains of what we do in all of our schools when we celebrate and share our stories about learning. 

I don’t often write ’inside info’ kind of posts, but in the last two days, I witnessed an amazing example of a learning network in action.

Twitter, a site I’m a huge fan of as many of you know, announced it would be going down for maintenance for most of Saturday.   Since a number of us rely on twitter to keep us “in the loop” with a network of colleagues, a plan spontaneously hatched on Twitter for our whole network to “move” for the day to a different site, Pownce.

However, there’s one problem–Pownce doesn’t give unlimited access.  You have to be invited, and each person only gets a few invites.

So, harnessing the power of web 2.0, a wiki was set up(I believe by Derrall Garrison), where you could post your email if you needed an invite to Pownce.

Once on Pownce, our learning network explored the tool and evaluated what they liked/didn’t like about it or how they could use it on their campus.

The amazing thing is that through the power of connections, and knowing a few handy tools, we literally MOVED a whole group to a new site within a day.   We problem-solved, collaborated, and brainstormed in order to stay connected because it was important to our own learning. 

This is the kind of a learning experience we would want for our students–for them to spontaneously identify a problem and possible solutions, to find the right tools to achieve those, to have the freedom to try out solutions, and to evaluate their choices.    Even as an adult learner, it felt so empowering and energizing to be a part of this team approach.  Imagine how powerful this would be for our students or other teachers on our campuses.

Do we give them enough opportunities to harness their own learning this way?  

(P.S.  By the way, Twitter didn’t end up going down, but through networking, we have a toolkit of ideas for “back-up.”)

In Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Sir Ken Robinson astutely makes the case that unless we understand the education system that the future demands of us, then our efforts to create testing systems will not prepare us for that future.  

He points to the increasingly rapid rate of technological change that is driving cultures around the world and changing the needs of the workplace, pointing out that employers “want people who can think intuitively, who are imaginative and innovative, who can communicate well, work in teams, and are flexible, adaptable and self-confident.  The traditional academic curriculum is simply not designed to produce such people.”

In the midst of perusing Robinson’s book, I read today with dismay that the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges in partnership with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities has announced a new “voluntary system of accountability” or VSA for colleges(most likely to avoid this being legislated like public schools have endured).  

The accountability system will standardize several aspects of college information, some of which I don’t disagree with one way or another, like better information about costs, student and family information, etc.  

But, and this is the part I find appalling, the colleges will require students to take one of several standardized tests across all academic disciplines to measure student progress. (Basically, the Texas TAKS test has come to colleges.) 

Colleges participating have four years to figure out how to administer the test before they have to publicly report the scores.   Granted, this is a voluntary accountability system, but some 200 major universities(including University of Texas) are participating, and it is likely this will pressure private colleges to participate as well.

Two of the tests are prepared by or administered by ACT or SAT, according to an article in the Baltimore Sun, and most of the testing choices consist of multiple choice tests.   Goucher College President Sanford J. Ungar voices the concern which mirrors Ken Robinson’s:

“How do you measure citizenship?. . . ”How do you measure values? How do you measure inspiring a spirit of lifelong learning?”

The dean of John Hopkins University, Adam Falk concurs:

“The more we rely on standardized testing as our bellwether for the quality of education, the more we will value in education only those things that can be measured on standardized tests.”

This is exactly what Sir Ken Robinson writes about, as we continue to use a strategy from the past(multiple choice, standardized tests of traditional skills) to measure what we will need in the future.

He writes,

“Education and training are meant to be the long-term answer for all of those asking how they are to survive the coming turbulence.  But they will not provide the answer while we continue to misunderstand the question that this new revolution is presenting.” (p. 24) 

and further:

“These standards were designed for other times and for other purposes.  We will not navigate through the complex environment of the future by peering relentlessly into a rear view mirror.”(p. 16)

Yet once again, we have failed students because we are failing to understand what is needed and what lies ahead, and the way we are measuring them doesn’t apply to the needs of the future.  Here’s the multiple choice test we should be giving them, because at least it speaks to their futures:

I’m a parent, and I don’t want my son to attend a college where the way they assess what he has gained in college is a standardized, multiple-choice test, because I want more than that for him.   I want him to explore, find his way, cultivate the passions he discovers along the way, and to feel free to do that.  I wouldn’t think of assessing a college by how many students there passed a standardized multiple choice test. 

There’s some notion this whole movement comes from parents who are eager to intervene and compare colleges in some scientific manner, when at best, choosing a college is a personal decision for each student.  In fact, most parents I know are tired of testing, tired of having their children subjected to test prep curriculums, skill drills, and frustrated with the system, not clamoring for more.  I have heard in dismay as parents talk about how to better prepare their children for the tests, not for learning or deeper thinking, because that’s where the emphasis is, which saddens me.

Because at heart, all of us know it is not best for children.  Do we want to be sure all of our children are learning?  Yes, we do.   Learning.  All of them, in every school, everywhere, deserve that.  

But learning, as Ken Robinson points out so eloquently, is so much more than you can test on a standardized test, and my fear too, is that colleges also, will value what is tested, rather than testing what is valued.

How have we gotten so far away from what is meaningful assessment in education?
 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quse/350806666/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasmeet/104390023/

Our campus staff development started its second strand last week–centered around the theme of authentic student engagement.  (Our staff development period is built into the school day once each week).

  To begin the series, we on the staff development committee decided to invite panels of students to speak to our staff about how they learn best, their interests, and obstacles to learning.  We met with students ahead of time and gave them a framework of questions to work from, like how  they learn best, what are obstacles to learning, etc.

Over two days, rotating panels of four students spoke to the faculty in small groups, with time for question and answer from teachers.

It was a fascinating and engaging exchange–both for the teachers and the students.   The panels had a consensus on some things–like preferring hands-on learning or participatory lectures or group work, while not on others (some thought they should have iPods in class, others didn’t.)  Students overwhelming preferred to have quiet music playing in class–saying it helped them focus.  As one student commented, silence is uncomfortable, so students start talking–the music helps “fill the void.”

They also had very specific advice about what makes group work better(smaller groups particularly–no more than 4 to a group and almost all of them preferred working in pairs).  

The meaningfulness and length of homework was a big topic of conversation as well, with some students reporting as much as five hours a night of homework.   One student pointed out that past two hours of homework, she really wasn’t learning because she was too tired.    Others commented that they found it really valuable to have teacher websites where they could get help or download materials.   All of them felt that homework was most valuable when it was meaningful and concise, and several mentioned finding online assignments very motivating.

We learned that students at our high school have study groups on Facebook for Spanish and Latin, among other things.  We learned that they find powerpoint meaningless and overused–one student pointed out that ‘You can make a powerpoint without even knowing the topic.’   So they were interested in using a larger variety of media and in having choices in what projects they did.  They liked the idea of choice and “feeling like they are in charge for a second.”

One student suggested that when projects tap into his own passions, they become much more meaningful for him. 

Students also liked teachers who shared their passions, and teachers who engaged them personally in some way.  As one student pointed out, ‘When I know my teacher cares about me, it’s really hard to let them down.’   The power of relationship was a really significant part of the comments students made, and how significant that was to their learning.

We’ve summarized the student responses in a Google Document .  

This week in our staff development workshop, our tech coordinator, Joel Adkins, will be showing teachers websites that students use–particularly Facebook–so that we all have a better understanding of the tools that are important in their lives, and we’ll be discussing what the takeaways from the student panels were.

Joel is sharing part of an excellent powerpoint by Mary Madden (created for librarians, coincidentally ) about the Pew Internet Study and teen use of the internet.  

So the question becomes, how can we incorporate what they are telling us (and showing us) into our teaching/libraries/labs/schools?  

In a tremendously insightful post, educational consultant Lee Wilson recommends ten strategies that publishers should consider to harness the power of web 2.0 (and to preserve their businesses I might add).

As these tools become more and more integral to educators, textbook(and reference book) publishers will have to transform themselves into more accessible media.

Some of Lee’s suggestions for ways textbook providers can incorporate web 2.0 thinking :

Network your learners – Often we treat collaboration as cheating – but in a world of Facebook and Twitter we have no choice but to harness it. Encourage people working on the same problem to find each other through virtual study groups, student written FAQs, and peer-tutoring. Imagine a system that could help students working on the same problem all over the world find each other on any given evening.

He even suggests the idea of incorporating “guilds” from the gaming world–groups of students who work with each other through the textbooks’ site to solve problems.  Imagine how much more motivating that would be to students than reading the typical print textbook.

Other innovative suggestions:

Build RSS into your products – Proactively deliver a steady stream of new content to users.

Teachers and librarians are extremely busy.  Wouldn’t it be excellent if textbook or reference publishers offered RSS feeds that updated the textbook constantly and kept you in touch with the latest resources?  

And my favorite idea from the article:

Build a two way street - . . . . Allow students and teachers to send you resources that they create or find as they work with your materials. Reward and recognize them for this – make it a competition and you will harness the power of user generated content.

Just thinking about a textbook service that invited students to add/generate content to place on their textbook site is fascinating.  What about reference books or fictional novels inviting kids to do the same thing?

Lee’s whole series on managing information overload is fascinating, and has some really out of the box thinking–like we shouldn’t “store” sites we might need later because it’s so easy to look everything up when we need it, etc.   Well worth the read.

(I do have to mention –Lee is a now a parent at our campus and is a new member of our technology committee.)

As I have been doing some reading all summer, my whole notion of research is shifting somewhat.  Maybe it is reflecting the shift that many of our students are living, as well.

I’m coming to realize more and more that although in schools we treat research as a somewhat solitary activity, in its true form, research is a very networked activity.

As George Siemens writes, in describing Connectivism, “learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity.”  He goes on to point out that learners “remain current in their field through the connections they have formed.”   I often think of how scientists or historians conduct research, not in an isolated bubble, but in a network of colleagues, acquaintances, librarians and in the company of information from the past. 

Siemens goes on to cite Karen Stephenson, who writes:

“Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge.”

Our students already practice the power of knowledge sharing because they use their social networks not only socially, but in order to help one another….in the olden days, via long phone calls about homework, and now via Facebook or MySpace or IM.  But do we ask them to employ those skills DURING the school day, officially, particularly when they are engaged in a research project?

As I read more and think about research projects, and then think about how my own approach to learning has changed the last few years with the increasing ability to network both within and outside of my campus, I am realizing that we need to be addressing those changes in library research programs as well.

What ways can we  support students in drawing on the knowledge of both experts and of one another?

Some practical ideas I am considering that would allow students to network more:

• Using message boards or forums during research projects so that students can give one another research tips is a way to engage students more actively.  We tried this last year during our Vietnam Wall project and it worked well.  Students enjoyed giving tips to one another.
• Creating collaborative wikis for projects is another way.  Again, we tried this on a government policy project, where students collaborated across class periods on a wiki.

• Asking a student to explain to the class how they would approach a research problem establishes that students have expertise as well (a fact they already realize, since students often ask other students for help.)
• Asking students to “play” librarian for a class and explain how to use the appropriate databases.
• Enabling some sort of “chat” during a research period that could be used for research help from one another.

• Making sure that students spent time conferencing face to face with one another every couple of days to share good resources with each other (ala the Cha-cha website model).
• Employing a “team” of researchers–assign a research project to a team, much as a team of scientists would work on a research dilemma.  Allow the teams to conference with other “teams” from other class periods, via blogs, wikis, Skype chats, chatrooms, or face-to-face meetings.
• Posting white butcher paper on the wall where students can write requests for help on a topic and others can volunteer to assist them or write suggestions.  (It doesn’t always have to be “high tech.”)

• Helping students set up a Pageflakes site with feeds from helpful blogs and links to helpful websites to “display” their learning network.
• Having students use web-mapping software like Inspiration or Bubbl.us to map out who their information “lifelines” are.
• Teaching them how to use the del.icio.us bookmarks of other experts or their friends as a way to broaden their network and find good information.
• Asking them to show you how they use social networking to help them with research–What are the sites they use to share information and help one another?

By redefining research in a more “real world” and connected way, I think we can help it become more integral to our campuses and more integral to the way our students learn.  

I’d like to hear of other ideas you may have for helping students “network” during a research process.  Thanks to Dean Shareski for the links.

I’m joining Patrick Higgins today via Skype for a workshop he’s conducting on web 2.0 for teachers in his district.   The plan is for me to share the Vietnam Wall project that our English 3 AP students completed last spring, so I’ve been looking through my post about it, re-viewing some of the student projects, and looking at the wiki we created to support the project.

In looking back (and looking forward), I can see so much better how to work with the other teachers involved to deepen the project for the students and how to build more global connections and conversations into their work as well, so that their end products will be more varied and even more meaningful.

When we began the project, doing one on that scale was new to us, the tools were new to the students and teachers, and so we were learning as we went.
I can see now that what I have learned myself in the last four months would enrich my own approach to the project.    And it feels rewarding to reflect on how I’ve grown.

What has gotten me to this point in my thinking?  Time.  Time to reflect.  Time to do other things away from school.  Time to travel, to visit museums, to see movies.  Time to read what other teachers are doing in blogs and articles.   Time to talk with other teachers (in person or over chat on Skype or in emails).  Time to read books.

All of which brings me to this–how would building more time into things we do with students deepen their ability to step back from their work and evaluate it, rethink it, or view it differently–providing them with the “long view”?    Do we provide them learning encounters with long stretches of time between them to allow that reflection to occur?  

Are there ways we could ask students to go back later and reflect on a project from months ago, and evaluate it, via a blog or a learning journal or some reflective writing piece?  

The standard format of school is that it tends to march inexorably on, towards the next project, or class, or test.   How can we work to make learning in school more cyclical in an authentic way, one that is more reflective of our own “life-long” learning?

Image:  Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Tx

Update:  In taking the long view this morning, I looked back at some of the student video projects, and wanted to point out a few more well done ones, in terms of creating a theme, use of music background, or verbal storytelling.  It’s interesting how some students’ voices are subtly reflected in the tone–either patriotic, or questioning the war, etc.  (We did work with students generally on appropriate tone, given that the theme was to create a memorial.) 

Update 2:  During the Skype I realized that we had gotten several posts over the summer on the blog Joel set up after the project, several from Marines.   It was really thrilling seeing the response and that the project was meaningful. (in addition to a few emails we’ve received.)

allenavery.wmv

jamesdozbun.wmv

michaelfsheridan.wmv

A few days ago, I wrote about reflective learning, and really identified with Will Richardson’s and David Warlick’s comments about focusing on the learning and community, and how the process sometimes gets lost in the production of the product.  

Ironically, as I was reading Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix last night, I noticed that Harry has difficulty in Snape’s Potions class.  Frequently his “product” doesn’t meet Snape’s expectations.   After some discussion with Hermione and reflection, Harry realizes that he needs to slow down and focus on the process more.

Now that may be a simple analogy that doesn’t entirely fit, but the point is, that many research models that we use support this focus on process and self-evaluation, (such as the Big 6, or Carol Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process, and many others).

Carol Kuhlthau  work particularly focuses on the process, students’ emotional stages as they move through it, and how we can support them during the process, by identifying when the most opportune times for intervention are, and what those types of interventions could look like.

As teachers and librarians, how can we provide more time for reflection and focus on the process and the learning?  But particularly, how can we do that in a way that builds a supportive community of learners that Will Richardson writes about?

Where I see the breakdown occurring is in several areas:

1.  Do we have expectations?  –The students may not be required to spend time on the research/reflection part of the assignment prior to the production part.   Kids are in a hurry(and so are we sometimes).  I’ve seen students starting their powerpoint on the same day they are doing the research assignment.  Where is the time for them to absorb what they are learning? Is the assignment so fact-based that all they are doing is regurgitating information?

2.  Do they have enough time for reflection during the process and afterwards?  In our haste to cover so much content, are we neglecting the time to reflect?   Can the research be spread out over several weeks or over the semester to create time for more deep inquiry?   (This would model authentic research–which isn’t completed in a couple of days or a week.)

3.  Do we ask students to evaluate the process?  The product gets evaluated in many different ways.   How can we help them be more reflective as they are doing research and share that reflection with other learners who are having similar experiences as a means of extending their reflection and gaining support?

4.  Do we help them build a network for discussing the process and extending their learning?   Or are they working in isolation?    Do real scientists and researchers work in isolation?  Do we?  How does helping students build a network help create a more authentic experience?

4.  Is our goal even to teach that reflection?  Should we?  What is our goal?  Product, process, learning?  Is the focus of the assignment actually reflective of what the goal is?

Some concrete ideas for focusing on process–

1.  a research process log or questionaire (And some other examples I’ve linked to).  These could be used at the end of a research period, weekly, or throughout the stages of the process.   One question I am pondering is how to make these types of questionaires more networked–post on a wiki? or blog?  Other ideas?

2.  a research blog –A place where students can write reflectively about their process, and dialogue with others in their class.

•  If it seems too overwhelming to have each student create a blog, use a group blog and have a scribe for the week or day. 
• Or  threaded forum may work better, where students can toss out topics they need help with and get feedback.
• What about podblogs?–Group the students in the class into pods or groups.   Each group collaboratively writes a blog as they move through a learning process.  That way, the teacher is only checking in with four or five blogs per class instead of 30, and the group can interact and form community and share tips and help during the research process.    The 6 or 7 members of each pod can alternately post to the blog.

3.  Wikis–use wikis for students so they can collaborate as they collect information.   We have done this and it worked well.    Students across class periods working on the same topic were able to help each other gather the research.  (This would work best when there are a set of topics that all the classes are working on.)   As Will Richardson points out, Wikis have a much neglected but interactive discussion feature.  Pbwiki even incorporates chat features and yackpack, which allows recorded conversations to be sent back and forth.  How could those types of discussion tools be used along with a research wiki to stimulate discussion of the learning that was occurring?

4.  Google Docs–encourage students to use Google docs as they take notes or begin writing, and have them invite a few of their fellow students to join in as collaborators or just as readers.

5.  Sharing bookmarks–another route other than wikis is to have students set up accounts on del.icio.us or Furl or Google Notebook, because these tools not only allow students to bookmark their findings, but to share their bookmarks with other students.  Diigo not only allows students to bookmark their sites, but annotate them, clip them, and share them on a blog, email, or album.   Bookmarking a collection of sites that they can use later conveys the idea that the learning is ongoing, that they can “add to” what they have found later, in a way that a set of notecards or a bibliography doesn’t, because they seem more “final” and product oriented.   And these sites allow them to network and learn collaboratively from one another.

6.  Evaluation–As librarian extraordinaire Doug Johnson reminded me in an previous post,

“One of the things I’ve noticed is that when we ask students to follow an information problem solving model like the Big6, we tend to ignore the 1st step of defining the task and the last step of evaluating the product and the process. “It’s the final step where we need to ask students to reflect on both how good their product was AND how effective they were in doing their work. I’d ask students to always answer the question ‘What will I do differently next time to improve my work and skills?’”

Even if we ask students to reflect on the process along the way, asking them to reflect at the “end of the journey” or to try to pull their thoughts together after the process is important.   And having them do that in a way that is networked(like a blog or wiki discussion or a chat on Skype, or a classroom discussion, etc.) allows them to learn from one another, and build on one another’s evaluation and learning. 

That is where we are really having them extend their learning, deepen their reflection, and internalize their own learning process.

Other ideas, thoughts?  This potion I’m working on is not fully baked yet

  What is the real  shift in how our students learn and how we teach? 

I spoke on the phone recently with a good friend of mine who taught with me an eon ago   She went back to teaching last year for the first time in 15 years, and commented to me that when she taught before, the internet didn’t exist, and how much it had changed her practice and ability to find new connections for her students.   It really drove home for me the fundamental change that access has provided for educators.

I’m following several passionate conversations about how our students learn and how we teach in the blogosphere lately, and have been thinking about Doug Johnson’s presentation at NECC, as well, where he talked about how the digital generation learns, all of which resonated with my own experience.

Considering how we can extend the focus of learning with web 2.0, Will Richardson asks:

“Through teaching them to use these tools to publish, are we also teaching them how to use these tools to continue the learning once that project is over? Can they continue to explore and reflect on the ideas that those artifacts represent regardless of who is teaching the next class? Can they connect with that audience not simply in the ways that books connect to readers (read but no write) but in the ways that allow them to engage and explore more deeply with an ongoing, growing community of learners? Isn’t that the real literacy here?”

He envisions that the change isn’t just the ability of students to publish, but to connect, and to reflect, and to be able to continue that life-long skill of reflection long after the class or assignment is over.    He wonders if it is too easy to fall into the trap of using new tools just to produce different products for a wider audience.

David Warlick extends this conversation. 

“What I seem to read in in his[Will's] examples was an insistence among educators — traditional and progressive — to work toward final products. Instead of a book report or a graph in colored pencil, it’s a video or a podcast.  In RL, so much of what we do never really gets finished.”

He goes on:

“I would rather not look at the production of a video or a podcast as the end of an assignment, but as the beginning or continuation of a conversation.

We are so focused, as educators, with what is learned. I wish we were more focused on learning.”

Why are things we do in education so finite?  This assignment is over, that grade is turned in, this project is done, this course is over.  Now we can move onto something unrelated.

(I know from working with students on their projects how easily the idea of completing the project distracts them from their process but that is another post.)

Where educators can and are most helpful is on keeping the focus on the thinking process involved.    And we need to make sure that just because the students’ product is shiny and pretty, that there is thinking behind it and that it isn’t “the end of the road” for that assignment.

   How can we refocus students on the process? How can we extend the conversation beyond the specific project?  And how can we connect cross curricular content so it’s more meaningful, as it is in the “real” world?

I think one of the powerful things about blogs and also about social networks, is that you can create an ongoing community conversation as a class or as a school, which can serve to unite those discrete assignments or efforts into a more unified and continuous learning experience.

One of the most effective models I’ve seen for continuous learning and a focus on process and conversation is a strategy that several of our English teachers use, called Occassional Papers.  I don’t know that my description is going to really do it justice here.  But as I sit here and think about it, an occassional paper is like a blog post (except they were doing this well before blogs!)   

Students write on a topic that arises for them….often a personal reflection, something they’ve realized or learned.  The teachers in the class also write Occassional Papers.   The students and teachers read their paper to the class, and then the class discusses the paper, ask questions, explore their ideas.   As the semester goes on, this experience builds a community within the class.   The teacher shares their personal reflections just as the students do, a participant in the process as well.  

Why do I bring this up here?  Because as I was reading what Will, David, and Clay Burrell had to say, I realized that what our teachers like Bill and Valerie and Carra  are modeling in their classroom is the focus on the process, the focus on continuing the conversation, and on connecting.   And that’s because the pedagogy is there, behind the scenes.   Students are writing authentic pieces for an authentic audience, and sharing it with their class creates a connection and ongoing conversation built on reflection.

Web 2.0 tools give us a similar ability to engage in an ongoing, extended conversation, but beyond the walls of our own classrooms, libraries, or schools.   It extends the power of our network.   And I would say, it can become, as it has in political realms, a galvanizing force as we collectively share our inspiration, ideas, and efforts.

Christy Tucker sums it up excellently:

The network isn’t just a source of information; our connections actually help us make sense of that information. We see patterns in what people talk about and how they discuss it, and that helps us in our sensemaking. . . .

If I understand Will correctly, he’s hoping we can teach students to use the network as a way to make sense of the vast amounts of information now available to us. What the technology lets us do is connect with people so we can understand more and keep learning. We don’t have to stop learning when a course is finished; we can keep interacting with our network and learning together.

Learning together–isn’t that what education should be?

Images:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mworrell/266913194/;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mworrell/266180687/