scottmerrickdotnet: future education

Showing posts with label future education. Show all posts

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Utopian Visions? Possibilities? Something...Virtual Pioneers Closing Keynote October 30, 2010

Thanks to the folks who attended my closing keynote for the two-day Virtual Pioneers History Conference in Second Life last evening. Spiff/Andy had asked me to close with some visions for the future of education, and I kind of went wild. Though one attendee rather rudely backchatted his boredom during the opening wrap up and summary, I appear to have stifled his criticism, at least to some degree, with the following presentation. I spiffed it up (pun intended) a bit after subsequent dinner conversation with my lovely wife, who serves up the best pushback from the point of view of a parent and educator. The backchat text file is at http://goo.gl/xiro .

Here 'tis. I may add some audio, but for now as you view it you should likely put on the Beatles "Revolution" or virtually any Ratatat, either one played very loud...

Utopianfutureofeducation from Scott Merrick

View more presentations from Scott Merrick.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Live Interactive Event Monday--Come Join the Discussion!

From http://futureofeducation.com, an invitation:

Date: Monday, October 4, 2010

Time: 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 9pm GMT (international times here)

Duration: 2 hours

Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.

Event and Recording Page: http://www.learncentral.org/event/106358
Hashtag: #elev8ed

The Future of Education

Charting the Course of Teaching and Learning in a Networked World

A message to all members of The Future of Education

Between the NBC "Education Nation" Summit, Waiting for Superman, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million gift to Newark city schools, there has been a lot of media attention focused on the topic of education reform. Unfortunately, much of it has excluded actual educators, let alone students. Furthermore, and perhaps as a consequence, the dialog has become divisive, blaming, and ultimately counter-productive.

FutureofEducation.com and Edutopia are collaborating this coming Monday on a two-hour live and interactive look at "Elevating the Education Reform Dialog"--an online discussion with special guests and specifically for educators, to help move past the bashing and to engage in a constructive conversation about the best way forward. Connection details are at the bottom of this post. Confirmed speakers include:
Julie Evans is the CEO of the national education nonprofit organization, Project Tomorrow (www.tomorrow.org) whose mission is to ensure that today's students are well prepared to become tomorrow's leaders, innovators and engaged citizens of the world.

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. The author of eleven books and scores of articles, he lectures at education conferences and universities as well as to parent groups and corporations.

Chris Lehmann is the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy, a progressive science and technology high school in Philadelphia, PA. The Science Leadership Academy is an inquiry-driven, project-based, 1:1 laptop school that is considered to be one of the pioneers of the School 2.0 movement nationally and internationally.

Deborah Meier has spent more than three decades working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer, advocate, and ranks among the most acclaimed leaders of the school reform movement in the U.S.

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. In addition, she is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She shares a blog called Bridging Differences with Deborah Meier, hosted by Education Week. She also blogs for Politico.com/arena and the Huffington Post.

Will Richardson considers himself an "evangelist" for the use of Weblogs, RSS and related Internet technologies in classrooms and schools. Over the past six years he's had the chance to speak and work with thousands of educators from around the world on the merits of "The Read/Write Web." He was a classroom teacher for over 20 years who integrated these technologies into his curricula for over four years.

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations.

Since 1982, Gary Stager, PhD, an internationally recognized educator, speaker and consultant, has helped learners of all ages on six continents embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Having discovered this by means of a circuitous route (wave twitter, weblogged-ed, .pdf) I want to toss it out as if not required reading at least highly suggested reading.

Charles Leadbeater and Annika Wong have produced a seminal treatment of educational innovation whose citations and stats should inform any discussion which centers around the future of education. Breaking the options down to only four types, it's holding up quite nicely and inspiring me to think even more radically than I have done in the past.

It's a Cisco white paper called "Learning from the Extremes," and you can read the entire 40 page .pdf at http://www.cisco.com/web/about/citizenship/socio-economic/docs/Lear...

Time crunched? Want the Cliffnotes version? Will Richardson does a typically great job for you at http://weblogg-ed.com/2010/transforming-learningno-really/

but like Will, I highly encourage you to go to the source for its case studies and descriptions of disruptive innovations that likely fall outside your usual media net. The timeline of how schools developed in the first place is by itself enough to warrant the effort.

While the report draws many of its examples from innovation in the developing world, it does address "the developed world" and its challenges. I'm going to print one section of this stunningly detailed report to give you a good taste of it. I hope that taste whets your appetite enough for you to investigate further:

The Developed World: Cracking the Code

For as long as there have been schools, there have been attempts to radically remake them. These efforts gathered pace in the 1960s in the United States and Europe— for example, through more childcentred education, the open-air school movement, and efforts to create more open plan schools, which felt more like communities and less like factories.3

Schools catering for children with special needs, often operating at the margins of the mainstream system, have pioneered more personalized approaches to learning—for example, using individualized timetables and one-to-one tutoring.38 Schools influenced by alternative pedagogies—Montessori and Steiner schools, liberal arts schools such as Dartington and Summerhill in the United Kingdom, and Big Picture schools in the United States and Australia—focus on creativity, social skills, and studentled learning. Schools in special circumstances, such as the Djarragun in Northern Queensland, which serves an isolated, indigenous community, organize learning around real-world, practical, problemsolving learning, which starts from questions the children want to answer. Learning in all these schools is more personalized and fluid, driven by questions rather than a rigid curriculum.

These experiments have tended to be the exception that proves the rule. However, in the past decade, more systematic efforts have been made to introduce disruptive innovation into schooling. In the United States, some charter schools have developed more creative and personalized approaches to learning. A prime example is the High Tech High network of schools, which offers a wide range of project-based approaches to creative learning. In Sweden, parents have been given the power to set up state-funded “free” schools by pooling the budgets allocated to their children.39 This has led to a wave of new, smaller schools being set up. Every child in the Kunskapsskolan chain of schools in Sweden has a personalized curriculum and a timetable assembled from different modules. Children are taught in groups according to the stage they have reached rather than the age they are. At the start of each of five terms, every child agrees on learning goals with their personal tutor and their parents. Kunskapsskolan’s 14 schools are housed in reused offices, hospitals, and stables; only one is in a dedicated school building. In the United Kingdom, new kinds of schools are being created by: academies, which are sponsored by a company and often specialize in a field such as media, arts, or business; schools created by groups of parents; Studio Schools, which are small schools in shopping centers, for children disaffected from standard school; and cooperative schools, which are owned by staff and the community. The spread of more personalized approaches to learning—tailoring how, when, and where children learn to their requirements—has transformed schools such as Cramlington Community College in Northumberland.

The Orstad Gymnasium in Hellerup, Denmark, has been designed so that there are not enough classrooms for lessons, thus forcing students and teachers to use many of the other informal learning spaces in the school, including the canteen, and so to learn in different ways. Schools all over the world are experimenting with virtual and distance learning environments.

Across the world, policymakers are starting to open up routes for new entrants to create new kinds of schools. In New Orleans, the city is remaking its education system based on commissioning services from a range of independent providers, thus giving it scope to continually stimulate the school system with new approaches.

As you can guess, there's much much more in the report, including a beautiful simple four panel grid called the "Education Innovation Grid." While it would be easy to paste that here, I'm going to up the ante to get you to go read the full report by refraining from posting it! Cheers!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Educator's PLN Live Chat with Alfie Kohn

While snowbound on Monday, I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the Educator's PLN live chat with educational philosopher and author Alfie Kohn. There were over 120 educators "in the room" and since questions had been solicited online prior to the event, I was asked to speak up and ask mine. Thanks to the event organizers and to Dr. Kohn for giving me the opportunity to ask a very pointed question about educational reform. I am sorry that it seemed to throw the good Dr. for a loop! What was the question? You'll just have to view and listen:

Alfie Kohn Live Chat from Shelly Terrell on Vimeo.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Opportunity Equation--Science and Math in Crisis

What kind of schools and systems of education does America need to transform mathematics and science education and deliver it equitably and with excellence to all students?

That's the focal question of a new report, entitled "The Opportunity Equation," from the Carnegie Institute's Center for Advanced Studies Commission on Math and Science Education, just released. Skip what I have to say about it and go read the full report yourself, or stay with me here for a minute then pop back up here and go read the full report.

It's clear we're in crisis, as the review from the National Science Teachers Association cites in some very frank and, errrm, stimulating language: From Education Secretary Arne Duncan, “'We’ve had 50 states doing their own thing,” and the education system has been “lying to parents” about their children’s readiness for college and careers.'" And “'Great teachers matter” in helping children in these schools succeed, he observed. America needs to find ways to reward teacher excellence—perhaps via stimulus funds.'"

More frank talk from a former North Carolina governor: "Informing parents about the state of science and math education and getting them to “raise hell about it” was former North Carolina Governor James Hunt’s suggestion. The Opportunity Equation contains the results of a national poll of students and parents that showed most don’t think it’s important for students to do well in science or math unless they are pursuing careers in those fields."

Of course you know where I'm going with this, and it's summed up by one paragraph in The Opportunity Equation. Listen up:

For today’s students, math and science also open the door to understanding new technologies—a realm of interest that is crucial to our collective economic future but whose value has yet to be fully tapped by our educational system. Outside the classroom, evidence abounds that new media are powerful vehicles for motivating young people, capturing their imaginations, and inspiring them to strive for mastery. In its 2008 report Fostering Learning in a Networked World, the National Science Foundation Task Force on Cyberlearning acknowledges that educational technology has not yet had the profound impact on American schools that has long been anticipated, but the Task Force also argues that “cyberlearning has reached a turning point where learning payoffs can be accelerated.”. If so, the potential for offering students new and motivating avenues to build science, math, engineering, and technology knowledge is great.

We need to re-envision the way we teach our students and the ways in which we motivate them to learn. If schools can't do that, and I'm talking about our finest independent schools as well as our struggling public school systems, we are in more trouble than even the direst pessimists predict. It's time for a model vision. Who can outline that? Who volunteers? Is it Education Secretary Arne Duncan? Is it our President? Is it us?

I'd submit it should be the last. It should be us. This of course is informed by my sometimes absurdly robust dalliance in things Web 2.0, my commitment to Distance Learning--both outreach and intake--and a mindset that is absolutely receptive to Steve Hargadon's recent rant about the future of education at his blog. Read "Web 2.0 is the Future of Education" at Classroom 2.0. Administrators need to be cognizant of these discussions, participate in them, and begin to assume a welcoming attitude toward innovation and change, not a resistant one.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Change PIE--Proponents for Innovative Education

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

It's Just Confusing, Isn't IT!? -- "Curriculum War!"

Wow, this crossed my email inbox this morning in an email from Education Week:

Backers of '21st-Century Skills' Take Flak

and I'd highly recommend a careful read. It's about time that one written piece describes the debate surrounding curriculum reform and does so with balance and thought-provoking comprehensiveness. I so wish I'd been at the lively and heated panel discussion that the article outlines.

A sample from the debate, which featured "experts" (I detest that word, but
it's convention to refer to experienced players that way) on teaching and
learning:

For instance, Mr. (Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville) Willingham said, a teacher leading a whole classroom-based discussion of Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger can largely control themed discussions. A project-based setting allowing small groups to explore different ideas might give students a chance to examine a diverse, richer set of subtexts—such as the history of existentialist thought or colonization in 1930s Algeria—but it also forces teachers to make many more snap judgments about how to guide students, provide resources on topics with which they may be unfamiliar, and ensure students are on task. “There’s a reason teachers have been taught for 75 years to do projects and they don’t do them,” he said.

Do you agree with another educator at the event? “We are stuck,” Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University, said in an interview. “We’ve been having this curriculum war for years.”

Go read. Weigh in.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Call to Share from Julie Lindsay in Qatar!

A friend of mine said last week that she's underimpressed with folks blogging other people's work. I present this in order to beg to differ. I'm absolutely impressed with sharing out valuable efforts to bring others into the Great Conversation that is Web 2.0. "Find your story and tell it. If you put two individual teachers together, they're always better than two individual teachers." I rest my case.

This is a MUST-SEE from Julie Lindsay.

Educators internationally gathered together at Qatar Academy on February 20 to
discuss 21st Century Learning. As a result they decided to take action and share
their experiences in the hope that others will be inspired to embrace change in
education using new tools, new skills and a new mindset. See http://elearning.qataracademy.wikispaces.net/21C_Learners for
more information.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Professor Spot Video

Kaplan University is running a commercial that made me weep a bit when first I saw it. I'm pleased as punch that my lovely wife Lee Ann excitedly looked it up on YouTube to share it with me. "This is what you're always talking about!" she said.

She's right.

I know little about Kaplan University but I bow deeply to a commercial that says important things. Watch:

Wow.

Monday, June 02, 2008

Singular Vision for a Disparate Future--innovateonline.info Article for You

I have to share this (no, it's not my ISTE member profile feature finally online!), an innovateonline.info article projecting the higher education classroom of 2035. It's rather densely written, stylistically speaking, but it has some things to say that you need to hear, if, that is, you care about the future of education, teaching and learning. Here's a little sample:

Similarly, the idea of campus-based learning communities will continue to cede ground to distributed immersive models in which a larger percentage of students' time-on-task is spent engaged in participatory knowledge creation across networks of dispersed learners and learning communities (Foreman 2007; New Media Consortium 2008). The most engaging content will be online and will build on trends in virtual worlds (Exhibit 1), gaming (Exhibit 2), and personal feedback (Exhibit 3) (van Dam, Becker, and Simpson 2005). Today’s Web feed protocols (Exhibit 4) are forerunners of a comprehensive data network that will provide learners with a continuous and personalized stream of information and perspectives.

Read A Singular Vision for a Disparate Future: Technology Adoption Patterns in Higher Learning Through 2035. If you haven't registered, you should. Doesn't cost a nickel...