Passion about use of technology in schools

Two blogs in one day? The following is a cut and paste from a student of mine who was commenting that for schools to spend money on technology before they are teaching to standards seems inappropriate. My comments follow:

Hi to both of you,

I want to wade in on this one because (with humbleness but a great deal of passion) I don't think your analogy of technology to money works. What is the goal of education? To meet standards or to prepare our young people for the world they will inherit? When my homeless students have web pages so they won't lose track of their friends when they move, yet our schools don't have computers for word processing the students papers, education is out of sync with the world. If homeless students know how to access free technology then we can count it ubiquitous.

When our students know more about the basic tools of their lives with technology than their teachers - we have become like the English as a second language parent who uses their children to translate at the doctors office - and really inappropriate things result. Somehow an entire generation (starting with mine) thought that learning technology, preparing for it etc was an option - not in the world our children inherit - they know it and education looks really dumb that schools spend money on buildings that come from the industrial revolution when we don't have the tools they need for tomorrow.

I see the "but they can't even write" comment by teachers still teaching using tools that aren't interesting to their students as similar to doctors in the age when antibiotics were coming of age asking, "but have we used Willowroot yet?" Just as we will always have natural herbs, most of the world's medical problems were overcome through the use of antibiotics. Just as we will still have herbal remedies, we will always have fountain pens - but students know they need keyboards - as kids in Nigeria are learning through cell phones. Education first and foremost needs to meet children where they live and they live in a world of technology - whether we do or not. Technology will be a major player in solving the issue of illiteracy - but we have to use it because our kids want to.

How's that for passion?
Alana

A PAR cycle in website design

Hi everyone,

As I write this I am in the middle of a big PAR cycle – done with the intention of putting up a web presence for myself, one that models the complexities my life and who I am. After all, if people want to work with me they deserve to have a fairly good idea of not only my skills but also the ideas and personality I will bring to the mix.

As you all know, I use participatory action research (PAR) for both my personal and professional patterns of research and growth. My move into designing and managing my own site is playing out like a perfect PAR cycle. The graphic above explaining the process was done by Alan Bucknam at Notchcode design for the book we did together on the subject. I’ll take you through how the process has worked for me on this latest journey into web development (remember this is a field in which I am a complete novice).

Diagnosis: For six months or more I have been reading blogs by people who specialize in social media, communicating in business etc. I will have a links page on the new site that sends you off to all of these really great people, for whom I am very grateful. I have hundreds of bookmarks and have spend tons of time reading, thinking, drawing out ideas, feeling frustrated, and then reading again. Throughout my diagnosis of what I want these writers and thinkers have helped me craft my ideas.

When I can get to the point of clearly stating my goals I know I am ready to move into the next phase (action). My goals for this website are to:

1. Encourage rather than discourage exchange of ideas and interactions between people who just happened to stop in and would like to add “their two cents”,

2. Give a format for my writing as I sort and weave together the ideas that are changing my practice as an educator (distributed content and PAR for development purposes).

3. Encourage others to want to consult with me and my associates (who are slowly showing up to work here as well) as they reinvent their personal, professional or global lives.

Action: This particular action cycle feels very big – designing and learning to put up my own website. Fortunately the Measurement cycle that is wedded to it is equally direct. Actions I take either work or they don’t. I can either get into the site or I can’t. Doors to the next step in my thinking and development are either blocked from me or they work and I can test them out. Slowly, (some days two steps back for each one forward) I have progressed (as you can see from the top picture).

The REAL measurement cycle will be when others can see it and interact – if things go well I will cross this bridge in a couple of weeks.

Reflections-could I have learned faster? Perhaps if I had had a local tutor – however the forums have helped and day by day I have progressed. It is possible that the sheer frustration of some days has helped my neurotransmitters reform to embrace new concepts more readily than if I had been taught how to do it. I know this project is helping my brain plasticity.

Will it be all that I want it to be? Probably not even close – but I am far enough into it to see my way clear to wonder why more people aren’t doing some things differently. For instance if we are saying we want to encourage community on our websites, why do we make everyone give away so much of themselves just to begin to talk to us? I would never go over and start a conversation with a stranger in the face to face world by having to give him/her my phone number first and I think online communities request too much too fast and it doesn’t fit the cycle of how people relate.

I want to share ideas first – and I want for you as my reader to be able to hear my reaction in response – then after we have interaction we can decide if we like each other enough to go further.

I also wonder if whether because I come to this as a more chronologically mature person than the majority of designers, if my ideas will be slightly different. Hopefully I will have something to add to the mix (once I get there).

Anyone reading this who would like notification of when the “real deal” website goes online – please email me at james.alana@gmail.com

All the best to you in your lives,

Alana

Social Networks and Communities= MyNews

Hi everyone,

My morning routine has changed in the last four months and I think it is worth mentioning here. For all who are currently involved in any educational or social science research practice online communities are a must on staying current. I use my book, journal and paper writing for work that is (as the Irish would say) "done and dusted." By its nature it is not what brings the greatest passion, nor does it contain HOT ideas. For those you need to find the people who blog about your world, or one tangential to it. It is also helpful if you find a few "aggregators" as well - blogs that make it their business to pass on what they are finding. I realize no that through the series of practices I discuss here I have created for myself a personal news platform - and I must say I enjoy it more than I ever did the newspaper!

My passions are three fold: distributed e-Learning 2.0, multicultural living and personal/world development. My mainpage of news is Google Reader - the blogs I have captured using RSS feed all put up synopsis's there. The bloggers write and link back to their sources, so when I am particularly interested I open those links in another tab. I cruise through as many blogs as keep me interested, then I read through the links. Those I find may be references for later work or links I will use here, I bookmark in del_ico_us. I may start and/or end reading Tweets.

Two months ago I was asking how people found those they follow and the ideas they play with - following links has become the answer. Someone will link in an article to someone they read, and if I like what I find I subscribe by RSS to their blog - after all, all I lose is a little time if they don't pan out to remain interesting to me. It humbles me to know that this link is from 2002 - but then we all have to start somewhere and I know that I am still ahead of most of the people in my work/social group with these habits. My next step is then to move into the conversation and see where it takes me.

I have lurked long enough now that some of my shyness has ended. I follow some people on both Twitter and their blogs, looking at their presentations and reading their papers or articles. When someone posts a blog or a Tweet that moves me I "chime in" and comment or respond. Occasionally they even get back to me.

I liken this all to a cocktail party cum conference. I am there for my own reasons, one of which is some desire to share community around the thoughts that interest me most (not many in my social world in Kinsale care a twit about distributed learning, although many would be interested in multicultural living). I stand in the corner with a drink in my hand, ready to throw in a line or two. As I better understand what my next main body of work will be, I simultaneously prepare to "put it out there" as I go - but that is a topic for another blog.

My bottom line to all who read this who are students - don't wait until your work is over to begin to lurk in these places. Search today for blogs on your topic, join Twitter and post a line or two, but more important follow those whose ideas you like (it is nice to see each other as people, not just ideas). You will be amazed at how enlivening your morning "newspaper" can be to your intellectual life.

Further thoughts:

• read about different types and reasons for networks
  
• we may need help doing this - watch for sites with community managers to help us figure this all out
• I am considering what Chris Brogan has written about what a community manager would do for my site as I develop it.
  

More as we go,
Alana

Follow your inspiration

Hi everyone,

Thanks to one of my doctoral students for being the inspiration for this post. I am frequently confronted with folks who want exemplars (this I can understand) and/or who are insecure to do what they think is best and want to follow "the" model." This is what the rest of the educational system breeds, so no harm in following the path that lead you to success in the past. However .......

I would coach (others may disagree) NOT to change from your ideas to match a model given in a course. Why? Because those choices are stale. At some point in the past your course content author or professor chose a few exemplars - but once the choice was made it became static. Words on the other hand are fresh - so when you become inspired from words, don't turn back to match the older models.

What may work best, and a system of which I am a big advocate, is to adopt an "and/both" stance. Try to incorporate the ideas that inspired you AND those which make sense from an exemplar. However my bottom line here is to coach for you to stay true to your spirit. A doctorate is to be a rite of passage from one place to that lofty doctorateness status (smile). Only by being true to your spirit (from which inspiration comes) can you get there with grace.

Of course if your own spirit leads you to want to follow an exemplar exactly - so be it. Put this in the back of your mind and let it hatch as a new way of being in its own time and space.

all the best,
Alana

Disributed Learning 2.0

Hi everyone,

The times they are a changing! If your interest is in the future of education, I don't have to outline it for you - the manufacturing of content is redundant - and like artists for the last hundred years, those of us who like to create content just need to get used to that redundancy and carve our niche somewhere else rather than focused on its uniqueness. As Dylan put it (in what was the most exciting period -before this one) that I have experienced in my life.....

Admit that around you the waters
Have grown and accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you
Is worth saving'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a changin'.

It is appropriate that I use Dylan for this analogy, because what the 60's taught me and the rest of my generation was the fun and the excitement that can come with both change and helping the world evolve. That then is where I lay my hat in the next evolution of my life as a facilitator of education: How can Learning 2.0 be used to help personal lives, businesses and education, and the community systems of the world evolve?

In future weeks look for discussions on the website I will be starting up where these ideas can be discussed, projects taken on by doctoral students I am mentoring, and my own support of personal growth retreats, permaculture and clowning (as the nonprofit based in the US ReinventingLife.org) gets off the ground.

All the best for now, more soon,
Alana