Banning social media is a bad call

Last night I found this article. It is about Anthony Orsini, a principal in New Jersey, who is asking parents to ban all social media from their children. In a letter to parents Orsini wrote:

Please do the following: sit down with your child (and they are just children still) and tell them that they are not allowed to be a member of any social networking site. Today!Let them know that you will at some point every week be checking their text messages online! You have the ability to do this through your cell phone provider.

Let them know that you will be installing Parental Control Software so you can tell every place they have visited online, and everything they have instant messaged or written to a friend. Don't install it behind their back, but install it!

It is leadership like this that is misguided and more dangerous than prohibiting the technologies from the students. By banning social media you create a us vs. them scenario that is destined to create a greater rift between students and parents and schools.

Social media is not going away. If schools turn their head to the ubiquity of social media in our students lives not only will we push them away but we will be doing them a disservice as they will not be prepared for a world where connectivity drives all industries.

The only viable approach we can take is to educate our students, faculty and parents on the potential and danger with social technologies. To turn a blind eye to how our students communicate is dangerous but so is to ban all technologies. It is our responsibility to adapt to changes, understand how we can utilize them to best prepare our students while teaching them of the dangers as well.

Starting with Education Futures

This is a week late but better late than never, right?

I am starting the Open Course in Education Futures with George Siemens and Dave Cormier because I am not content with the status quo in education. While I consider myself to be ahead of the curve regarding implementing new practices or technologies in my classroom, I am only one person. In the past, I have worked to help my colleagues to understand current trends but I hope that this course will help improve my impact as an educational futurist.

Based upon our first reading, this course will be dedicated to understanding how to anticipate trends, plan for different scenarios, map out a vision and mission, create goals and implement strategies to ensure schools will be prepared for future challenges and changes.

Learning about and preparing for our educational futures is something that EVERY school must do. My hope is that this course will help me understand how to prepare for the massive changes we will continue to face. I want to be able to help a school prepare for the changes, draft a vision that a whole school can support  and help a school adjust to those changes while still embracing their particular culture.

Change is inevitable and if we are not properly prepared for it our schools will struggle to adapt. As I begin this course, my hope is that once I finish I will be able to extend my understanding of future trends and be better prepared to help a school adjust and be prepared for those potential futures.

If you feel the same way, you should join the class. We are only two weeks in.

Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

Driven to Distraction?

Today's Class

I am teaching a unit on "The Impact of New Media". This week our guiding question is "has the evolution of new media been a detriment?"

We watched "Distracted by Everything" a section from Digital Nation, a PBS documentary on how technology is impacting our lives.



My Questions

After watching the video, I asked my students:

"Would you be able to give up Facebook, gChat or BBM if you KNEW it would make you at least 2 times more productive with your work?"

100% of my students declined and said they would not give up their technologies even if they knew they could produce higher quality work in less time.

I then followed with:

"If the work was more engaging, would you give up your distractions?"

This time I got a resounding "Yes!"

This made me think.

My Reaction

The technologies that are available enrich our lives. This will only become increasingly more apparent.

That being said, in my mind, our challenge lies in the fact that the technologies that are currently distracting our students are doing so because our teaching has not evolved with our students.

I do not believe that the content we teach is necessarily wrong or that we should change to keep up with a technology but if our students are willing to be distracted, should we not reconsider how we teach that content?

My goal is to find that happy medium. Create curriculum that meets the benchmarks of a particular school while investigating the use of technology and differentiated learning to engage our students and ensure that they don't feel inclined to be distracted.

I have a challenge for everyone reading:

As we near the end of the year and begin planning your curriculum for next year.  Create learning opportunities that are more individualized, more authentic and that support student involvement and inquiry.

If we can do that, I think we'll be well on our way to pushing aside these distractions.

Posted via web from Dave Bill's Posterous

NUMMI and School Change

I was listening to This American Life last night. It was the show from two weeks ago. The episode focuses on a collaboration between GM and Toyota that began in 1984.

Decades leading up to the collaboration, a GM plant in Fremont, CA had been overrun by labor unions. Quantity took precedence over quality and there was no incentive for good work.  Employees at the plant did not like their job nor did they work hard.

The show focused on how NUMMI, the new collaborative plant in Fremont, CA, implemented a new culture and how its new employees struggled to spread the ideas started at the plant throughout the rest of GM.

The Start of NUMMI

To begin with, all employees were fired when the plant changed. Employees who wanted to be apart of the new plant, were sent to Japan and introduced to the Toyota Production System.  That system was based upon teamwork and quality over quantity.

While it took some time, the unions bought into the system and in turn NUMMI became the most successful plant in GM.

Despite the fact that NUMMI had been successful, the production model that Toyota had introduced had not been embraced by the rest of GM. This problem plagued GM up until early this decade but by then it was too late. GM was on the road to bankruptcy.

NUMMI and Education

I tell this story because I believe our schools are very similar to this story.  There are great school models out there. Many of them are moving away from that "industrial" model of teaching and implementing approaches that put the students at the center of the learning. Using models like the ones I refer to in my previous post, these schools have changed the culture and have created their own NUMMI.  The problem we face is very similar to that of GM.

The models are out there. There are "commandos" on the ground, ready to see schools change. Our challenge is to ensure these model are implemented more widely.

What can we do to ensure we do not become GM? I sure hope so.

Listen to the podcast, which is linked below and let me know what you think.

The Podcast

Episode 403 - NUMMI

Posted via email from Dave Bill's Posterous

Learners - In all shapes and sizes

Learners come in all shapes and sizes and there are opportunities for every student to access a learning style that suits his or her individual needs.  Whether it's restructuring curriculum , redesigning classrooms or utilizing online learning there are options that can help reach all learners.  It should be our goal to build models that provide options.  Schools now have the ability to create flexible learning spaces based upon the needs of its students.

Providing opportunities for each student is our goal.  Schools must recognize that to reach that goal we must look beyond our current model.  We must evaluate space, time, location, and approach when examining potential learning.  There are viable options right now that schools can incorporate into their culture.

Models

To obtain this goal of learning that suits the needs of all students there are options that can be implemented.

Kahn Academy

Online learning is nothing new but creating an option where students can learn on their own pace is something that can be easily incorporated into a school.  Allowing students to learn a subject, like Math, through a program like Kahn Academy has long term benefits for kids who "don't get it".  There needs to be face to face time to support that learning but online individualized learning has a big upside.

Generation Schools

Sometimes the model of the school can be improved to suit the needs of the community.  Generation Schools in New York, NY take an approach that challenges the traditional schedule and structure of the curriculum.

Classroom Design

Redesigning how and where we work is as important to the content itself.  Flexible learning spaces are essential to ensuring that learning is not confined to desks in row but rather a little bit of chaos.

Design Thinking

Speaking of chaos.  One of the ideas that has the most potential to provide opportunities for all learners is to follow the idea of Design Thinking.  A process made famous by IDEO and that focuses on groups working together, has a great deal of potential to solve problems and make learning authentic.  The book Change by Design has helped a great deal in shaping my thinking on this topic.  Here is an article by GOOD magazine on the importance of failure.  This whole idea will be a post for another day.

These models all have potential to help improve our schools we we move further into this new century.  And it will be classes like "Open Course in Education Futures", being taught by George Siemens and Dave Cormier, that can help schools understand these shifts.  Classes like that and reports that examine the "Impact of the Internet on Institutions of the Future" will help us move towards schools shifting and addressing the needs of all learners.

Technology is no longer the focus, it is the learning.  So forget about teaching blogging, let's focus on new models of teaching.

Posted via email from Dave Bill's Posterous

Drive: The Two Questions That Can Change Your Life

In full disclosure, I have yet to read "Drive" by Dan Pink. I know, I know.  It's on my to read list.  That being said, @antonioviva made me aware of this video.  The two questions are:

1. What one sentence would define you?

2. Was I better today than I was yesterday?

These two questions can help us to simplify and define our calling while motivating us to stay on target.  Whether it is personal goals or for our students, these two questions are powerful ones that we all should embrace and incorporate into our work.

Posted via email from Dave Bill's Posterous

Chaos and TEDxNYED

TEDxNYED, which was last weekend, has created a great deal of engagement.  Our Twitter hashtag is still being used, there have been a number of blog posts about what happened on Saturday and there is still a strong interest in repeating an event like TEDxNYED.

This engagement has also made me think about a few things (ok, a lot of things but i'll list three here):

1. The critiques of the format (See examples: one and two)

2.  Follow up - a want to continue the conversation

3. How this model can assist us through the chaos

The format

The TED format works on a number of levels.  It introduces ideas, inspires and drives conversation that can lead us to new understandings and directions. I am a big believer in what TED does offer: access to ideas.  For many those ideas can only be accessed online, there is access nonetheless and those ideas can start something bigger.

TEDxNYED did a number of things well as we attempted to follow the TED format.  We brought together a number of great minds and provided as much access to their ideas as possible.

That being said, we were limited to 275 seats and could have approached the attendee process differently but either way we would have disappoint many people.  Yes, interacting online is not the same but we attempted to provide forums for discussion by using our Facebook Fan page discussion boards and will work to develop the online community even more in the future.

While we were limited  by the number of physical attendees, our biggest problem was that TEDxNYED was designed for educators and focused primarily on education reform.  This is only a problem because when dealing with teachers who want reform, they NEED more of a take away than simply presenting ideas.  So, as we move forward we plan on addressing a few things.

What to fix

Conversation: Based upon arvind grover's idea, once the talks are up, we plan on hosting online discussions based upon the talks and inviting the speaker and any interested parties to come together and talk about what can be done to address the speaker's particular thesis.  That is just the start.

Action: Because ideas and brief conversations alone will not sustain teachers and administrators who are interested in educational reform, future versions of TEDxNYED and other TEDxED events will have a model that allows deep interaction and planning.  Based upon Dan Cohen's idea of using the THATCamp idea, we are envisioning a format that is potentially half a day of talks and half a day of a physical and virtual unconference.  The unconference would be the opportunity to unpack the ideas presented and envision what can be done to help implement those ideas.

Elitism: To ensure that we are not "elitist", I think creating more awareness through a number of mediums well before the event and then have a first come first serve sign up a few weeks before the event might equalize who can physically attend.  Again, the entire event would continue to be streamed live for those who can not attend.

Diversity: As for the problem of diversity, we must reach out to all communities that can improve education as well as have an open application process for speakers.  If you have other ideas, I am all ears.

Finding our way through the chaos

The goal of TEDxNYED was and will be to help educators learn about and implement ideas that will improve our schools.  Clay Shirky talks about how immediately after the introduction of the printing press there was 50 years of chaos as the masses adjusted to a new medium.  There were extremes. A number of people adopted the powerful printing press immediately and then there were the scribes who held on to their now outdated positions of power with all they could.  Stuck in the middle were the rest of the population trying to find their way.

In the world of education, we stand in a very similar situation.  TEDxNYED was started to help educators "in the middle" be introduced to ideas on how technology can improve the way we teach and learn.  While the ideas are at the core of what will help, it will be the action that will create the results and lead us out of chaos.  As we move forward we will improve this model so that we can address what needs to be fixed in order to improve teaching and learning.

If you think I am overlooking anything, like what i have to say, or think am just plain wrong please feel free to add your comments below.  I want to see TEDxNYED and the idea of TEDxED improve and hopefully meet the needs of ALL educators looking to improve their schools.

Expanding the model

As I mention in my previous post, my goal is to extend the TEDxED model to other cities.  To help shorten this period of chaos my hope is to have a number of events dedicated to using the TEDx model and incorporating a more action oriented approach.  I will be writing more about this in the coming weeks as we begin to plan the next steps for future TEDxED events.  Let me know if you are interested in contributing to the future of TEDxED.

Photo Credit: SpecialKRB