think:lab

Funnelling "Change" Through School Video

If you have a minute or two, take a look at the following video produced by students at Nolan Catholic High School, Ft. Worth, Texas:

Watch more videos like this at www.quantumshift.tv

Corey, a buddy of mine -- fellow daddy blogger, a colleague that I used to design schools with, and fan of Smoke Pit BBQ lunches -- sent me this video link to the Nolan project the other day.  Been thinking about it on a number of levels ever since.  Even left a comment of my own on the original Ft. Worth-based blog post that brought this student video to my attention, if you are curious.  Encourage you to leave one of your own (time permitting).

On the way to my own school every morning, I pass Nolan High School, a private school in Ft. Worth, TX.  Typical in many ways to my own -- save for the religious affiliation -- it is a school with a healthy reputation in the larger community but not one I know a great deal about internally. 

And yet, with this single student video about urban grasslands research, I find myself wanting to make a bee-line for Dr. Kuban's classroom door (and his remarkable ecology program that really deserves some attention, as well as a bit of journalistic context on the grasslands story he and his students are working on together).  Needless to say, Dr. Kuban is a teacher any of us would be lucky to send our kids to or to call a colleague/mentor.  And definitely the kind of guy I need to meet in the near term (esp. considering we live 'down street' from one another).

The more I work with DK of UK-based MediaSnackers, the more I want to one day meet Marco Torres (one of the founders of the "iCan" student film festival), the more I am able to grab phone time with last year's Yahoo-sponsored "Totally Wired Teacher" winner Ben Wilkoff (podcast link, blog link, Academy of Discovery site) about what he has in the idea-equals-change hopper, the more I life/work-Skype chatwith Chris Lehmann with an ear open for the work his students at SLA are beginning to do, the more I think about what Wes Fryer has been saying for ages, the more time I get conversationally with mind-of-the-future-bending Ian Jukes, the more I think about Dan Meyer's increased blog-call to take note of the deep impact of "story-telling" (fueling even his "design" thinking) in all things we educators do, and the more I think about what the real end game is for my own students in the months and years ahead, the more I am convinced that a mindset of digital and F2F storytelling with a thoughtful eye on "change" advocacy must be at the center of what our educational programs produce.

Why?

Because high schools students -- almost by definition if you know them well -- are a group that dig "change", especially when their voices will be taken seriously in an advocates' position.   Reinforce that inner youth passion with a fine-tuned sense of presentation and story-telling techniques (from concept to storyboarding to research to editing to production to publication and even getting messy in front of a real audience), give it access to digital creation/editing/storytelling tools on a wide array of fronts, and put their work in front of real-world audiences with an ability to sense quality/value...and you'll hook the kids.  Undoubtedly.  Unapologetically.  And without limits.

And make a few parents, teachers, administrators, and community members take notice (and be proud) in the process.  Maybe even create a few digital change-oriented teachers, too:

Note: first noticed this video from a recent post at Chris Lehmann's blog; followed up in detail to find out that the teacher -- WonderingMind42 -- has built a remarkable portfolio of videos dealing with the issue of global warming from a wide range of ideas; and love that he clearly uses a Ze Frank video storytelling style -- a la "the show" -- wink, wink.

You may have noticed the  "Watch more videos..." note under the top clip above.  Been exploring the QuantumShift.tv site and their high school video contest since the Nolan video came my way.  Might be worth a peek if you have a few additional moments.  The following contest description caught my eye this morning:

Quantum Shift TV is challenging students from grades one to twelve across the United States and Canada to participate in the “Be the Change" School Video Contest.

This contest will serve as a launching pad for a new spirit of youth engagement and activism as children learn from and are inspired by each other. For teachers and educational professionals, “Be the Change! Share the Story!" is a project-based tool to teach their students about social and environmental issues that can easily be incorporated into curricula.

Students are invited to work on a social or environmental project of their choice, and document their progress in two short videos to be uploaded on the Web. In addition to making a difference in their community, students have an opportunity to win $50,000 in prizes for their school. An original entertaining video puzzle game is woven into the contest to optimize the educational impact.

Here's how QuantumShift.tv explains it via video:

Watch more videos like this at www.quantumshift.tv

Again, might be worth a peek at the contest.  WonderingMind42's work, too. 

Especially if you've already followed the previous breadcrumb trail and watched "Chalk" lately. 

Considering the Branding of Public Education Issue with "Fast Company"

The offer was intriguing this past spring: be interviewed by Fast Company magazine about Microsoft's "School of the Future" partnership with the City of Philadelphia. 

Note: the article can be read in the current issue (12.07) or in the previous link.

Needless to say, as a long-time subscriber to the magazine, as well as someone who had been following the evolution of this school project for a long time, it was a no-brainer to say yes to the invitation to speak with the article's author, Elizabeth Svoboda.  Predicting what she wanted to talk with me about, however, was not so automatic it turned out.  In other words, I was completely wrong (yet very intrigued)...

"Social Networks and School Communities" -- A Take on Private Schools

For anyone that loves to write and has a few things to say about the rise of social networking on private school campuses, this book collaboration might be something you should consider.

Over the last year or more, I've been quietly keeping track of a national listserve for independent school educators, technologists, administrators, etc.  Now that I'm re-joining their ranks this fall, I'm taking a much more active look at the conversations showing up there.  Strikes me as curious that a listserve continues to be the dominant form for them, where as a wiki or blog might foster a more nuanced conversation.  But, I'm pleased to see more and more tendencies for exploring social networking technologies in the private school world. 

Case in point:  The following invitation just popped up on the listserve:

Kenyon Hill Publishing (formerly Old School Press), publisher of "Behind the Walls: A Parent's Guide to Boarding Schools" is in the process of developing a number of new group-authored titles.  First and foremost, we are going to create a piece tentatively titled "Social Networks and School Communities." 

I am accepting chapter proposals for essays (2500-3000 words in print) from educators who believe they have something important to contribute to this incredibly current development in school communities. In particular, I am interested in material that is both philosophical and anecdotal in nature.  Ideally, the book will provide a point/counter-point discussion of the issues.

The very fact that Facebook is an outgrowth of a social networking initiative that started in an independent school is certainly an important part of the discussion.  Those of you who worked with Mark Zuckerberg know more of the story than any of us. 

Please contact me with your interest. I look forward to getting this project off the ground.  It certainly has the  prospect of leading the conversation as social networking technologies effect all of our lives.

Interested?  Contact Tim Hillman, Editor-in-Chief at tim@timhillman.com

First thing I'd ask Tim is if he's planning on 'writing' the book via a blog -- or other social networking tool -- as Naked Conversations was spawned.  Granted, he's taking chapter submissions as an editor, but it seems that interested authors could contribute abstracts via a blog that he keeps as a work-in-progress, and that over time the 'conversation' about social network conversation would actually live up to the concept in real time.  Just a thought.

Either way, seems that a few of you edu-blogging/social networking types might have a few things (and a lot of substance) to share with Tim (and the independent school community). Give it a shot.

What Does Google's "20 Percent Time" Policy for Creative Research Have to Do With Montessori?

If Google's founders stress that their own Montessori background inspired their investment in the "20 Percent Time" invitation for all Google employees to creatively research what catches their attention, how could our own schools -- traditional or not -- begin to see the value in a similar investment in human capital/creativity?

They help us consider just such a point in their 2004 TED Talk, if you have 20 minutes to consider the connection with them:

"Future of Learning" Metaphor-image of the Day

Simple rules.  I'll provide the image. You provide the caption. Both have to have something to do with the "future of learning". 

[from the 21st Century Museum of Art of Kanasawa, an installation by Leandro Erlich, photo mash-up by Wired]

What Would The Institute for The Future Say?

Had the pleasure of receiving an email today from Mike Love, who works at The Institute for The Future out there in sunny California  A few months back we were both invited to participate in a workshop on the future of the college campus where we spent several hours together in addition driving from/to the airport as well.  Needless to say, a fascinating guy who works at a fascinating place.

Why do I mention this?

Well, I wonder what The Institute for The Future -- one of the uber think tanks, if you will -- might say about where the future of learning is headed.  Might be worth subscribing to their blog, if you have a few extra minutes today.

Would you be interested to know that in one of their internal discussion groups that they've been passing around Karl Fisch's "2020 Vision" video (and his others) lately?

Very interesting.  A teacher in Colorado creates a few quick videos to help a few colleagues look at the future through their students' eyes.  He puts them on his blog. The blog taps into something bigger. The videos go viral, go global.  Funniest result of all:  his own colleagues in his district pass the videos to Karl -- and never put two and two together.  Funny. Telling.  And now very well known future-oriented think tanks are passing his work between colleagues as a prompt for pushing on big questions.

Makes me wonder:

• Has the world changed? 
• And are the stakes and opportunities different for your teachers and students than they were even 5 years ago? 
• Are we still creating "21st century schools" based on our affinity for the past or simply adding 'technology' to make a good run of it?
• And are we still trying to get teachers to blog because they need to blog for bloggy-blog sake?

"We Need an Intellectual Network" (not a faculty)

Will, deeply appreciate your post today called "YouNiversity." 

You quoted the following from Henry Jenkins writing in the Chronicle for Higher Education (taken from his own blog):

To educate such students, we don’t so much need a faculty as we need an intellectual network. The program has a large pool of loosely affiliated faculty members who participate in an ad hoc manner depending on the needs and interests of individual students: Sometimes they may contribute nothing to the program for several years and then get drawn into a research or thesis project that requires their particular expertise. Our students’ thesis advisers come not only from other universities around the world but also from industry; they include Bollywood choreographers, game designers, soap-opera writers, and journalists. We encourage our students to network broadly and draw on the best thinking about their topic, wherever they can find it.

Two things you wrote yourself that particularly made me sit back in my chair:

1. How interesting would it be to teach and encourage our students to go and find the best available information out there? I mean, isn’t not doing that really doing a disservice at this point? It’s still such a difficult concept for a lot of teachers to embrace, this idea that there might be better information, better learning outside of the traditional structures.
2. For most teachers owning or controlling the knowledge or content is a much more comfortable position than “owning the network” or the learning that comes with it.

A Victrola Mash-Up for the Future of Learning

If you're humming along to the Victrola without a sense of irony, you might not fully appreciate this video called "Connected Classroom." If, however, you 'get it,' it might be well worth passing it around.  Thanks to the TeachingEveryStudent blog for pointing me in the direction.  Great stuff!

Of course you can see the Karl Fisch influence ("Did You Know?") in this video below.  Good to see good influence spreading!  Also appreciate seeing Eminem pop up.  Always a good sign that someone sees the larger patterns forming.

Now, sit back Joplin fans and get your future of learning groove on:

More Crystal Balling, Tech Style

If you had to bet your paycheck on one of the following having the greatest impact on education in the relative near future, which would you select?

• User-created content

• Social networking

• Mobile phones

• Virtual worlds

• New scholarship and emerging forms of publication   

•   Massively multiplayer educational gaming

According to the recent "New Horizons" report by the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE, these are the 6 emerging tech trends they predict will have a significant impact on what you do in the classroom and beyond over the next 5 years.

Anything missing?  Anything over-exaggerated?

Sheep, Wolves, and Border Collies

Years ago I used to keep a magazine photo of a wolf above my classroom blackboard with the following sentiment attached:

"Dear students:  You have 2 choices in life, although they probably didn't tell you.  Learn like a sheep safely tucked away from anything that might spark imagination. Or be a wolf.  The views are quite different.  And both require real effort.  One is found comfortably in the middle where the answers are consistent and echoed, but the view is rather limited.  The other, a solo adventure that feels lonely and often at risk, offers you something far more extraordinary along the way.  Remember, you have 2 choices.  Even if they never told you."

Note: Brilliant and giddy-enough-to-make-you-smile shot of the racing sheep was brought to you by Burak Yilmaz in his very clever Flickr set.  Check out his other work!

I was a young teacher, a border collie of sorts, who preferred to avoid learning fences while keeping an eye on my kids risk/reward choices with an occasional nip at the ankle but more often the willingness to let them wander and explore and develop an alpha-instinct of curiosity.  The metaphor was a bit forced and in response to the overly grade-conscious questions that often peppered class time.  But it gave us a provocative touch-stone when the "Why do we have to learn this?" goblins began to beat their drums.

One of the most remarkable moments happened a year or so later when a group of my 9th graders began responding to the typical teacher Socratic moments with, "I'm going to go straight up wolf on this question.  Step back..." Playful and a bit sarcastic, but something had sparked.  Once they owned the choice between being passive learners and something more active, things became very interesting indeed.  Teacher tricks were no longer needed.  We were in very unchartered waters as co-learners.  And the conversations began to take on a life of their own.

Last night, I'm reading a copy of The New Yorker from a week or so ago.   An article covering the recent documentary on Ralph Nader called "An Unreasonable Man" catches my attention.  The following caught my attention in particular:

"When Ralph Nader was a child, his father asked him, "What did you learn in school today?  Did you learn how to believe or did you learn how to think?"

I don't pretend to be a family therapist nor to overlook the intensity that must have existed around the Nader family dinner table.  But I am drawn to the distinction this father offered his developing child's mind.  And begin to wonder how we foster a more impassioned, more optimistic, more profound desire in our students (actually, all of us) when it comes to the learning process. Believing is not the issue.  Nor accepting and sharing a fair degree of common social/civil understandings as a society.  But in this day and age, we will only have ourselves to blame if we do not foster an instinct for thinking, for asking questions, for sharpening our students' imaginations as well.

Due to the way my RSS feed comes in, Harold Jarche's posts reach my radar first most days.  As I'm doing some early Sunday morning reading of yesterday's blog posts from around my imagination globe, I begin to sit up at Harold's discussion of "sheepwalking" within the educational system.  Note:  he takes his lead from Seth Godin who I'm going to get to in a second and give credit where it definitely belongs.  Harold writes the following that seems particularly apt today:

One of the reasons I’m all fired up about the potential of informal learning on the Web is that it can let us be wolves in our learning. We have the means to connect with other members of the pack all over the world. We don’t have to revert to sheepdom so that we can be scheduled for the next course or workshop or whatever the all-knowing organisation has decided is best for us. “I don’t need your course, I’ll learn it on my own and I’ll find others who are willing to help me”.

Why does this matter? And is it only an issue for the few adults on this planet who are privileged enough (myself included) to have 'after school' made a career and personal choice that allows them to fully tap into this global network of thinkers and ideas, essentially charting a solo path rather than remain tethered by a traditional societal/professional role?  Or is there something else we must face?

Let's go back to Seth Godin, and once again remind ourselves that if we only stay within the echo-chamber of our disciplines (such as education as an edu-blogger), we miss extraordinary opportunities each and every day to tap into a greater web of wisdom and momentum.  Harold's use of "sheepwalking" was taken directly from Seth's recent post by the same name.  Seth isn't an educator, but I'd put him pound-for-pound up there as one of the most capable educators and storytellers and cultural mapmakers of our time.  Period.  Oh, and pattern definer, which I think may be the great skill that will separate the past from the future, but that's another story.

In Seth's recent post on "sheepwalkers," here's a bit of what he offers that has an absolute dead-center tag on all of our edu-discussions.  What starts off sounding all business-oriented quickly shifts to the underlying foundation we must all take credit for:

It's ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That's because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff.

We've mechanized what we could mechanize. What's left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it's not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish.

Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep?

And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition and the job market), students fall back on what they've been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless.

If I were in a faculty meeting tomorrow, I'd print out Seth's post for my colleagues. But instead of using it as a cheap sideshow trick that rants about the differences between sheep and wolves in our school, I'd use it as an opportunity to discuss where we humbly and proudly are walking this path together for the first time.  How we are both sheep and wolves ourselves.  Just like our students.  W want 21st century schools, but we want to make safe decisions to get there.  We want to prepare our kids for the future, but we only have the past to guide us.  And on occasion, we're border collies, with enough instinct to serve both halves with honor.  And that our kids and colleagues and even the reflections we see in the mirrors each morning crave a bit of each from us.

Note: Shot of the dog and sheep provided by Pascale Une Autre.  Lovely set of Flickr images from a land that can't help but cause you to dream.
 

As for our future, however?  This is where we have to make a choice.  A difficult choice where work is required either way.  The great irony of using the wolf metaphor to distinguish those that learn from those who comply is that the real opportunities that lie ahead do not support the 2-dimension wolf example.  No.  Real learning in the future requires something far more collaborative, far more interactive, far more social, far more an overlap of skills and instincts. 

Wolves have their place.  So do sheep.  But I'd offer that we're looking for something bolder as inspiration if we're really going to be in a position to best take advantage of the future coming our way.  And the views and opportunities that it'll provide.

Seth Godin offers the following at the close to his post that I believe we are all challenged to consider in our edu-domains (and everything else we hold dear):

The biggest step, though, comes from anyone who teaches or hires. And that's to embrace non-sheep behavior, to reward it and cherish it. As we've seen just about everywhere there's been growth lately, that's where the good stuff happens.

Yes, that's where the good stuff happens!