Disclaimer: This is a post about the need to marry design savvy with emerging technologies within the educational landscape [aka 'school']. And it is going to go on and on and on and on and on...and even further than that. Not a skimmer of a post, in other words. Or maybe the ideal skimmer. Who can say. Might be best to go back to Twitter (he smiles) until you decide for yourself!
This post involves a discussion of innovation, Brooklyn beat box, graduate school applications, a kick the School2.0 kid in the shins segment, the standard death-by-bullet-point reference, and a reminder that the back channels of blogging conversations are where it is at.
If you're neither intrigued nor entertained by any of the above, hit delete in your Google Reader and keep on movin'...or at least "super disco, super disco breakin'" away.
Image: It'll make sense why I fell in love with this Flickr image ("The New Monoliths of Chicago") taken by from the portfolio of Trey Ratcliff (aka "Stuck in Customs") in the brilliantly eye-stunning re-make of Chicago's Millennium Park later on in the post.
I took the liberty of adding the language/concept of "Design", one of Dan Pink's '6 senses' of the conceptual age (post-information age, if you will) argument from A Whole New Mind. Ratcliff's photo gets a happy-face from me because it also can be used via Creative Commons for a situation just like this!
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Rant coming up. Maybe a thesis. A fine line in this day and age of rapid-fire publishing without editors standing over the top of your shoulder.
In a Death-by-Powerpoint world, there's a lot of reasons to cave into bullet-point despair and call it a day. Even worse if you're a teacher assigning projects with a PPt flair...and have to suffer the visual/mental arrows of your best intentions once the little buggers submit their work.
There is ONLY one thing worse than being a corporate denizen being lulled to sleep in a conference room as a a colleague is slow-lane lumbering through PPt slide 15 (of 35 more to come), proving just how many complete and otherwise lucid/relevant thoughts chopped down to broken-mind bullet points can be crammed onto a single slide all while reading it word for word aloud rather than even hinting at a presentation style and an ability to connect to audience in a slightly meaningful manner.
Agreed. Okay. But what is that "ONLY one thing worse..." business?
The ONLY thing worse than this ubiquitous business scene is being a teacher who has assigned (possibly poorly, let's be honest) an assignment inviting a bunch of young kids to use PowerPoint as a "multi-media" tool void of any "design" instruction or "constraints" placed on the actual gimmick-vs-substance meter ahead of time.
The ONLY thing worse than that is the same teacher watching her/his beloved kiddos demonstrate a week later what 8 hours of badly conceived design gimmicks (add flying words and oddly sized photos here) and superficial creativity can do to thoroughly dismember and render obsolete/worthless 30 seconds worth of actual research they snuck in via Wikipedia on the final night.
The ONLY thing worse than that is the same teacher who must now sit through an entire class set of kiddos standing in front of the screen without the slightest sense of eye contact's value, the golden mean of visual balance, or the visual 'less is more' and research 'more is more' theories.
The ONLY thing worse than that is this same teacher then having to grade them without pandering to the "Well, they did use PPt slides to show off at least one multiple intelligence or another, I think..." rubrics.
[Do you find yourself feeling either guilty or nodding knowingly here?]
Sure, our kids are jivin' and shakin' in front of cut-n-paste pictures shown in technicolor on newly installed Smartboards, but are they really demonstrating anything that resembles learning? And maybe as importantly, are they saying anything about themselves as learners and showcasing their "global learning brand" of creative processes?
Why does this matter?
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Let's take a leap forward into a series of blogging conversations that have been catching my eye lately...which sparked this very post:
If you've been reading Mike McVey's take on the University of Chicago inviting applicants to submit 4-slide presentations with their files conversation hosted at the "Leader Talk" blog and the subsequent follow-up at the "DY/Dan" blog where Dan Meyer appropriately (in most cases) shows Mike where the proverbial door is on his argument with regards to "constraints" and "elevator speeches" and the multiplicity of ways that blogger/academic/researcher Scott McLeod keeps the conversation going on both blogs (and also invites a major rep of UofC to respond to the blog conversation along the way), then you are already ahead of the idea curve here. And probably have much to tell me on either argumentative front, rather than to learn.
Maybe you'll want to read the rest of this post. Maybe not. Maybe you just should spend your time at the "DY/Dan" or "Leader Talk" blogs adding your 2centsworth there. Your call.
Either way, blogging is a learning process so I'm going to continue thinking-while-writing aloud here and seeing if my own 'rant' (need a better word for it, but it comes to mind) has legs.
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We all recall the immortal words of The Beastie Boys:
Money makin', money money makin' / Super disco, disco breakin'
but like you, I, too, wonder how a well-intentioned wannabe MBA student slips a little creative "super disco, disco breakin'" of their own into the grad school application mix while submitting vital paperwork, test scores, professional recs, and their well-articulated high-flying vision in hopes that they'll be admitted into one of the elite business schools on the planet so that they can -- one assumes -- get down to some "money makin', money money makin'".
Sure, if you're applying to Stanford's d.school, every element of the university program trips the innovative light fandango for applicants and instructors. In other words, the very genetic underpinnings of this one-of-a-kind graduate program -- marrying design and business at the highest levels -- demand that a student is capable of both "super disco, disco breakin'" in the creative market while being able to demonstrate "money money makin'" to keep such a market sustainable and profit-rearing. Oh, and that professors/instructors/admissions professionals are able to see the the marriage of design/business in everything the students produce/submit. Nothing is a gimmick on that front. Nothing done to be clever for clever's sake. It all comes down to being able to compete well in a design-centric world that still must be financially successful at the end of the day.
But what about the other business schools (or insert program/level of your choice here) with stronger ties to tradition that may be somewhat slower to the emerging technologies punch bowl?
University of Chicago's B-school offers each candidate a rather curious/innovative opportunity:
To enable prospective full-time MBA students to present a more complete picture of their candidacy, applicants to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, one of the top business schools in the world, will now submit up to four slides about themselves with their application, the school announced. (www.ChicagoGSB.edu)
In announcing the new requirement, the school noted that prospective students are asked to supply facts about themselves throughout the application, but the slides will allow applicants to be creative and tell the admissions committee about themselves using a medium that parallels the communication tools used for professional and social networking.
4 slides.
4 slides for a candidate to tell their story, grab someone's attention, spark imagination. Fascinating. And I agree with Dan Meyer's take on it: "ingenious."
But will it demonstrate what is sought at the end of the day? Is it enough or just watered down use of technology? Is there a take-away for other universities and schools, other levels of teachers/students? And is this our shared future, one way or another?
"This is a departure from the text-only application that we used in the past because under the old format we were unable to capture important information showing how prospective students define themselves," said Stacey Kole, deputy dean at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
The slides may contain pictures, graphs, text or anything else that prospective students want to include, according to the school.
The requirement applies to students seeking to start the MBA program in September 2008. Applicants must still submit two traditional essays as part of the application process in addition to a maximum of four slides. More information about the school's full-time MBA program is available at http://www.chicagogsb.edu/fulltime/index.aspx
But what can you do in 4 slides? And shouldn't you be able to add some hyper-media - sounds and movement and live video and the such -- to the mix? The school offers the following:
"There is no right or wrong way to satisfy the new requirement," said Rosemaria Martinelli, associate dean for student recruitment and admissions for the school's full-time MBA program. "The important thing is that applicants can express themselves in ways they could not before in essay form," she said.
In today's business environment, communication is fast and concise, Martinelli said. "Whether it be e-mail, PowerPoint or a two-minute elevator speech, successful businesspeople need to learn how to express their full ideas in very restrictive formats. We feel the new application requirement represents this very common challenge," she said. "But instead of using this tool to sell a product or request new business, applicants are using it to present themselves."
The "two-minute elevator speech" -- very interesting. Certainly apt for a business school. But I'm beginning to shift from the striking conversations about whether the university is being innovative and inspiring creative outcomes via "constraints" (on the "DY/Dan" blog) or being stifling and a step-backwards in terms of emerging technologies (on the "Leader Talk" blog)...and wanting to see the impact at the high school (and below) level.
And especially in my 10th grade English classroom!
Mike from "Leader Talk" says: "This is the difference between a butterfly in the wild and one pinned to a board in a display case. As a method of gauging the creative energy of an applicant to your program, making a four-slide presentation might be a good start. However, when you evaluate this creativity based upon two dimensional screen captures devoid of the very creative energy you sought to assess, you might as well have students submit their test scores and forego the technology charade." At first pass, I agreed with him. But the inner voice in my noggin' that usually wins in the end managed to speak up about the something more vital than the technology itself:
How do you convey innovation and the depth of a message through less, rather than more?
As Dan Meyer rightfully says deep into the conversational comment section on his own blog post, "UC wants a [sic] naked presentation because the “affordances of a multimedia medium” so often produce the opposite of brevity and power." He constantly reminds us that "constraints" often lead to innovation, whereas limitless freedom often produce something hackneyed, wandering, and at best only self-serving (aka this very blog post, which threatens to be all 3 in one triumphant crash-n-burn trifecta, but I'm gonna hammer on through because it's my blog and if you get mad at me I'll take it home along with my ball and slip-n-slide you were using all afternoon).
As an English teacher working with kiddos of the 9-12th grade variety, I am often faced with the kid who wants to just "write poetry" (or whatever the assignment I offer) without boundaries.
They've either come up with that reactive compulsion to the assignment on their own (generally -- hey, they're adolescents, so its par for the course in spite of the near magic of so much of what they are capable of otherwise), or perhaps they've stumbled upon e e cummings as proof-positive that no rules rulz, so to speak. Anyone with 5 seconds of historical reference under their belt knows that e e cummings was classically trained and as strong-afoot in the traditional poetic structures as any of his peers, and then and only then did he feel free to break the traditional boundaries to create a new language structure...and give the appearance of writing without constraint. On the other end of the kiddo-in-class spectrum, you often have a kid who looks at you with befuddled glazed-over face, whimpering or vehemently stating, "Just tell me what you want...and I'll give it to you!" when offered a chance to be creative. In either case, thoughtful 'constraints' offer profound opportunity, not life-whithering backlash.
At the end of the day, it's all about storytelling, ain't it? And regardless of one's profession or audience moment, it comes down to how well we craft our story.
This is what Dan is saying (has been saying regularly on his blog). It is what UofC is subtly saying through their 4-slide application feature.
And it is what I know in my gut is key to everything we'll do in my 10th grade English classroom and LitMag club in the year ahead (and beyond), without apology: storytelling!
Image: If I were able to find a single image that sparks for me the power/impact of 'storytelling' in an unexpected way, I'd use Angela Wright's Flickr photo called "Wishing You a Wonderful Summer" that shows the second before a little girl gets ready to blow on a dandelion, the second before the seeds of her imagination become airborne. This is the 'story' moment for all students, all presenters, all of us in all of our professions or academic paths. And in the future -- more than ever before in history -- it matters to our survival. And our ability to thrive.
I'd do so because it is a great visual idea-spark of "Story", one of Dan Pink's '6 senses' of the conceptual age that he also talks about in A Whole New Mind. In this case, products and services in an educational sector refer to the projects and presentation our students are charged with, although the business overlap is obvious.
I'm hoping that an email I've sent Angela will allow this image to stay up here, possibly to be used with some of my teaching colleagues. If not, no worries. Still highly recommend that you check out her work. Amazed she's only a "part-time photographer"!
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So, here is my personal challenge -- to me and to whomever has been oddly curious enough to stick out the length of this post until now -- as I go back into the classroom in the coming weeks:
When it comes to the inevitable project presentation moment in my classroom this year and the opportunity for a student to showcase her/his story/ideas via some sort of multi-media work -- be it a poster board, a PPt prez, or a iMovie with nearly pro-level editing/intention -- will I be able to provide the right 'constraints' that allow them to truly manage their "global learning brand" both in my classroom and in te years to come? Or will I fall prey to the 'cool digital tools' bug lamp and simply rationalize that learning took place just because the kids did their own "super disco breakin'" in front of a whiz-bang Smartboard?
I know the answer.
I know the answer because I want a classroom full of storytellers who grasp the emerging power of their "global learning brand" and the impact they have on every audience they ever face. PowerPoint or no PowerPoint. College applications or no college applications. Business or no business.
But the proof will be in the proverbial storytelling pudding, won't it?
The idea of constraints really has come through for me with the 140 limitation of a certain new app. I love the idea of telling stories, conveying messages and image in tight, confined spaces and limitation...Takes way more talent to tell a story in 5 frames/slides (see the flickr group dedicated to this) requires deep thinking and synthesis not often done in school. I like it.
Posted by: Dean Shareski | August 01, 2007 at 11:36 PM
Christian, your comment over at Dan's blog was interesting and provocative at the same time so here I am reading the full blown version in detail. I might do the reverse and comment first here and then blog it later. Firstly, what some business school does in terms of entry is of little interest to me but Dan's focus on the concept that "less is more" is what captured my thoughts. It struck me because I've been devouring his slide presentation tips and processes for most of this year and applying those ideas to my meager number of local presentations.
But the lense with which I want to examine your take comes from my own classroom and our "Personal Research Projects" program that I have led out alongside our middle school teachers. Using an inquiry-centred learning approach, my students developed presentations on a topic of their own choice over the course of two months. I blogged about the process recently so I won't go through the details here but I tended to err on the side of guidance rather than requirements. I wanted the students to find their own way through, be open to advice and be prepared to have their presentation critiqued by their peers. So I know that when you describe the "Death by Powerpoint" presentation classroom, it's not mine and I dare say there are many teachers like me where the end product is just the start of the conversation. With my students, we negotiated together what we believed good presentations to be about. We designed a rubric that the kids themselves would use during the presentations. I talked about the slides complementing their research, that clear well chosen images convey meaning that excessive text cannot, the importance of considering your audience's needs and how eye contact conveys respect to your audience.
You ask in your post "...are they really demonstrating anything that resembles learning?"
My oath, they were.
Yes, Powerpoint was the choice of every student (but not mandated by me) and as they watched each presentation, the learning was there in masses. It was there in the feedback that the students gave each other, scaffolded initially by me, but when students say comments like, "I wasn't interested in Roman History before your presentation but now I want to know more", it's paydirt. It happens when the students who can't resist the call of the animated bullet points, clicking through them furiously because they've just realised they don't add anything to their message. It happens when a student proclaims an animé drawing as their own work scanned into a slide but someone eagle eyed spots the plagiarism via a watermarked URL on the corner of the slide. It happens when a well intentioned student's presentation goes over the twenty minute mark because they didn't want to leave anything out only to realise that they've lost the interest of the class. Done tactfully, which is where teacher guidance is crucial, the conversation emanating from these presentations has initiated and cemented learning about the research process, the importance of citing sources, catering for your audience's learning needs and yes, learning that "less is more" when it comes to conveying meaning, ideas and information across to your peers.
Posted by: Graham Wegner | August 02, 2007 at 06:58 AM
Dean: You and I are in concert on the less-is-more mindset (although I must confess that my own blogging style runs counter to that, but I never admitted to being a 'talented' blogger).
Curious about the 5Slide Flickr sets. Can you send me the link? Tried to find it myself, but alas no luck.
Graham: The passion and intentionality of your approach with using PPt with your kids is to be commended on many levels. Best of all is your conviction that the 'process' itself was more powerful than the end result, and by process I mean in 'review' as much as in 'creation.'
Like you, Dan's posts/ruminations on the power of good design in teacher work has also compelled me to be far more intentional when working with PPt, etc. His expertise and passion for design/presentation may define his role in the larger edu-blogosphere for some time to come (in addition to his clear math'pertise).
All I will add to your original comment is that while 'process' is vital (and the 'discovery' that comes with it), the clear 'constraints' we put on the project offer significant value as well (and 'challenge'). If our kids think always in terms of audience (both in and out of the class, regardless of 'grades'), then the 'constraints' are tied to the audience's needs and willingness to pay attention/care. Yes, we want kids to co-create the process, but we also want them to know WHY they are doing what they are doing...and constraints give us a place to push against, as opposed to limits.
Cheers to you both! Christian
Posted by: Christian Long | August 02, 2007 at 07:06 PM