The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, argues that President Obama has failed to tell the story he needed to offer in order to effectively lead the country through these turbulent times. Obama, according to Westen, campaigned under a pretty clear narrative of “hope,” but has never really fully developed or told the story that “…would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative…”

With the Iowa-tailored version of the widely viewed Did You Know? videos, Scott McLeod (with some help from XPlane and others) is trying to re-frame the dominant narrative around schooling through a modern lens. Scott’s a highly-respected colleague and a dear friend. But, while I’m on a roll in airing professional disagreements with dear colleagues/friends, I thought I’d offer a critique of the video.

Here’s the logic of the video, as best I see it:

• Computers were invented; EVERYTHING changed.
• There are a ton of cell phones being used in the world.
• There are a whole lot of people using social media (babies are tweeting in utero!).
• There’s a lot of information online.
• A lot of people own a lot of gadgets.
• Iowa is struggling to keep up.
• Lots of kids are graduating high school, but not college.
• Jobs, especially in growth areas, will require a college education.
• Iowa’s schools are struggling to keep up, too.
• Lots of low-level mental work; i.e. basic skills instruction.
• Not many kids in Iowa are taking online courses.
• Technology expenditures are down.
• Some Iowa schools have made some significant changes (1:1 computing  + virtual reality technology?), but we can do better…

More succinctly, the narrative of the video boils down to:

Lots of people are using lots of technology –> Our world is increasingly connected and our economy is increasingly “global” –> Therefore, our schools need to integrate technology more and focus on “higher-level” thinking skills.

(NOTE: that last part is admittedly sketchy; the “shift” that should “happen” is a little unclear)

I think there’s a huge gap in the logic. That is, the emphasis of the first part of the video is on social media usage and information abundance, but the second part jumps immediately to issues of education with a focus on outcomes. That Iowans are disproportionately not graduating college is evidence that Iowans are not keeping up with societal changes (with an emphasis on social media usage and information abundance)? Really?

I could nitpick various statements throughout the video, but my critique is more macro. I’ve written about this before, but, to reiterate, I think the gist of the argument is misguided. It’s the wrong story…

IF our schools need to “shift” (again, we’re left to assume that the “shift” means something much more technology-centric?), it is NOT because that will help us be more competitive in a global economy. As I wrote earlier, “If you make that argument, you have to believe that one of the fundamental purposes of schooling is, in fact, to prepare kids for the workforce.  That’s not at all something I believe.” Furthermore, this “global competitiveness” argument doesn’t resonate with the public, let alone educational policymakers. These days, I’m not sure anything resonates with educational policymakers beyond test scores, but what about something a little more immediate and obvious? What about learning? Gosh, we can all get behind learning, can’t we?

So, with learning as the focus, why do our schools need to “shift?”:

1. Because public schooling exists to prepare young people to be productive and engaged citizens in a deliberative democracy, and, increasingly, civic engagement happens in “hybrid” spaces. Despite what Malcolm Gladwell would have us believe, social media has fundamentally changed the nature of political engagement. One need only look at how the Obama campaign leveraged social media in winning the 2008 presidential election and, of course, at how social media has played a major role in political uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, etc.
2. Because computers allow young people to learn in a more integrated way through, well, computing. Want kids to learn math? Have them take a real computer science class. As Gary Stager wrote, “If mathematics is a way of making sense of the world, computing is a way of making mathematics.” Teach kids programming, and they necessarily learn logic and argumentation and math. As they improve their logic and aptitude for argumentation, watch how their writing improves. Furthermore, logic and argumentation are the basic competencies needed for deliberation. Again, from Gary Stager, “[c]omputer science should be taught as a basic skill.”
3. Because learning has ALWAYS been social and collaboration has ALWAYS been an important skill (or, more accurately, IMHO, a set of skills), but the modern Web exponentially amplifies the possibilities for collaboration and social learning.
4. Because now learners don’t always have to go to schools or libraries or anywhere specific to learn. Actually, that’s always been true, but the modern Web does change our assumptions about time and space for learning.

In other words, IF we are going to rethink schooling in and for the 21st Century, it should be based on what technology affords for learning. It’s that simple.

I understand that the Did You Know? videos are intended to be conversation starters. But, I think they tell the wrong story. Instead of negativity or even fear mongering (“We’re not keeping up!”), let’s tell a more positive story about affordances and possibilities.

This is the question I asked this morning on Twitter.

Before I unpack that, though, let me first offer kudos to the many, many educators with whom I interact on Twitter and other forms of social media who have spent many, many hours this summer engaged in both formal and informal professional learning activities. Many educators I know spend far too little time over the summer thinking and learning systematically about how to improve their practice in the coming year. So, good on you for taking the time and energy to learn and think and share…

But, back to the question…

• #edchat
• #RSCON3
• #msftpil
• #140edu
• TEDx______
• edcamp____

That’s just from this summer. And, I’m sure I’ve missed stuff…

Many of the educators who participate(d) in those events report that they are/were perfectly wonderful; “amazing” even. Apparently, this social media-aided PD is more powerful than any PD they’ve ever done; better than any grad school course they’ve taken. And, it may very well be.

But, it seems to me that many of the folks who take part in these events have been at it for a couple/few years now. And, they’ve become pretty good at sharing what they’re learning and even doing. There’s value in talking about and sharing ideas and actions, but that only gets us so far. Furthermore, I hear/read many knowledge claims about how awesome these ideas are. “Students are learning more!” “Students are so much more engaged!” etc.

So, I ask, what is your warrant for those knowledge claims? What evidence is there that all of these new forms of professional learning are making a difference for kids?

I’m not asking for the sorts of formal, systematic inquiry that most people associate with “research” (though, that would be nice). Among those I interact with on Twitter and other forms of social media, there are some wonderfully creative storytellers. So, here’s an idea: what if you spent this coming school year documenting how the professional learning you did this past summer translated into improved outcomes for students? What if you systematically collected artifacts that would help you tell a story (or stories) about how what you did differently this year had a positive impact on kids? Then, tell that story. Don’t tell a story of what you did; tell a story of what happened for kids.

If you really think that these forms of professional learning are making a difference for kids and that more educators need to be doing it, it behooves you to make the case.

“In god we trust; all others must bring data.” -attributed often to W. Edward Deming, though the origins of the phrase are contested.

If you’re like me, when you travel by air, you invariably pick up and read through the Skymall catalog with great interest. I find it fascinating. Mostly, though, I find myself repeatedly thinking and/or saying, “What problem does that solve?”

In other words, for most of the products I see in that catalog, I cannot imagine why they were ever invented. They’re clearly targeted at consumers with disposable income, because nobody else could possibly think that they NEED to have the product. Consider, for example, these remote control-operated flickering LED candles. As of the writing of this post, they were the featured product in the “Home Living” category of the online catalog. “A click of the remote turns all 8 Flickering LED Candles on or off at once.” Well, hallelujah! I’ve been struggling for years with that whole candle turning off problem…

Yesterday, many of the folks I follow on Twitter shared the following video

North Point\’s iBand

I suppose there’s something “neat” or “slick” about an iBand, but I couldn’t help noticing the guy who was effectively playing a tambourine using a ~$600 gadget. Furthermore, I asked myself if this band was doing something that was not possible without their iPads. Playing instruments on the iPad… what problem does that solve?

Unfortunately, I have this same (or a similar) response to much of what I see touted within the educational technology community. I see technology applied in ways that are not novel and/or that don’t add value to the learning process. In fact, I’ve been fairly vocal in my opposition to iPads as computing devices for students. I’m not entirely opposed to them. For example, if the touch screen interface affords particular learning opportunities for students with disabilities, and those affordances justify the costs, go for it. But, as currently configured, iPads are NOT real computing devices and don’t add value beyond what’s possible for the same amount of resources.

On the flip side, consider students writing in blogging platforms or in Google Docs. These writing spaces are digital and digital IS different. Instead of just simple text, students can now fairly easily compose multimedia narratives. Also, the writing process can be much more collaborative, in a real-time sense.  Hypertext replaces footnotes… etc. There are significant problems “solved” by moving writing to digital spaces. Or, more accurately, there are tremendous affordances to writing online as opposed to on paper or even in a word processor.

Thus, I hope that as educators consider integrating new technologies into the learning process they ask themselves questions about the value proposition the technologies bring to the table. Are you really addressing a problem or are you doing it just because you can?

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy. – John Dewey (1900, p. 3)

I am by no means the best or wisest parent. However, lately, I find myself thinking about what we have been able to provide for my son before he even enrolls in kindergarten. He lives in a house full of books and other print reading material (the floor in his room is often invisible under a pool of books). He has his own laptop. We talk to him, lots. He talks to us, incessantly (I mean that in the best way; I think). Though he was eligible to begin kindergarten this fall (he turned 5 in June and the cutoff date in VA is October 1), we chose to enroll him in an amazing preschool for another year.

In other words, our son (and daughter, but she’s only one) is awash in social capital and cultural capital. We have provided him with a literacy-rich home environment and we have engaged in LOTS of what Hart & Risley (1995) call “extra talk.”

As a result, when he begins kindergarten in Fall 2011, he will be more than “ready.” In fact, I am confident that he will be much more “ready” than most other kids starting kindergarten at the same time as him. This phenomenon ( i.e. the contribution of home literacy environments or literacy-rich homes to differences in school readiness) is well documented, and I suspect well within the conscious mind of many educators (especially elementary educators). Kids show up to school with hugely different levels of “readiness,” and those differences relate strongly to subsequent educational outcomes.

***

A lesser known phenomenon is the seasonality of student achievement. I live in the world of educational research and question a lot of what passes these days as “evidence” in education. However, there are a few studies that I point to regularly as of high quality and meaningful. One of those studies is written about in an article called Schools, Achievement, and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective by Alexander, Entwisle and Olson (2001).The authors used data from schoolchildren in Baltimore, where kids took achievement tests not just in the spring, but also in the fall. The figure below is a rough approximation of what they found with respect to reading achievement.

It is noteworthy that during the academic year (between fall and spring), all kids gained about the same. That is, the slopes of the lines between fall and spring are nearly identical across all three SES groups. It is during the summer months where the gains (or losses) are disparate across SES groups (i.e. the spring-to-fall slopes are significantly different). “Lower SES youth start out behind (i.e. the baseline differences are significant) and during the school year they keep up, but during the summer periods their gains fall short of those registered by upper SES youth” (p. 182). As a result of starting behind and the “summer learning loss,” achievement gaps are exacerbated over time.

This is not to say that families and communities are the only holders of the keys to student learning. In fact, the Alexander, Entwisle & Olson study points to the extremely important compensatory role schools play.

Schools do matter, and they matter the most when support for academic learning outside school is weak. School-based public resources do not completely offset the many and varied advantages that accrue to children of privilege by virtue of private family resources outside of school (e.g. Coleman, 1990)…The powerful role of schools in fostering achievement of all children is one lesson informed by a seasonal perspective on learning.

One might even go so far as to suggest, based on this study, that, on the whole, schools do a reasonably good job of serving all children, not just those of wealthy families. That is, schools are not “failing.” Berliner and Biddle (1996) refer to this as The Manufactured Crisis.

***

I don’t know if we qualify as mid- or high-SES, but I know we’re not low-SES. So, what does our son do over the summer? He goes to camps: nature camp, pottery camp, general day camp, etc. We travel over the summer, too. In other words, my son’s learning does not stop because school is not in session.

Thus, at the risk of sounding terribly elitist, I want for every child in our nation what my son has. For that to happen, we cannot and must not talk about school reform without talking about equality of opportunities for kids outside of K-12 classrooms. If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, we need to:

1. Commit, first and foremost, to high-quality preschool for all kids.
2. Consider policy efforts to improve the literacy richness of homes of children in low-income families.
3. Think seriously about shifting to year-round schooling, especially in low-income communities (NOTE: I’m not necessarily talking about extending the school year beyond 180 days; rather, I’m talking about shifting away from school calendars based on the agrarian calendar).
4. Make schools community centers that are open beyond the school day, where kids can regularly access media centers and computer labs.

So, while policy makers are arguing over labor matters and the intricacies of school governance, and while we’re all waiting for superman, my hope is that local communities commit themselves to providing meaningful learning opportunities for all children beyond what is provided during the traditional school day.

Think about *all* the implications that come from shifting our language from learn(ing) from to learn(ing) with. (and words matter, right David Jakes?)

That’s the “shift” that has to happen. (apologies to Karl Fisch)  That’s it.

“Learning from” was often necessary when one party in the learning transaction(s) had greater access to information than the others. There are hardly any differences in access to information anymore.

“Learning with” has always been possible, but it was limited by our capacity to be in the same place(s) at the same time(s). Those limitations are all but gone now, too.

I don’t want to learn from anyone anymore, and I don’t want students to learn from me anymore. I’m willing to be a lead learner, but I want to learn with everyone.

Those with whom I network for learning purposes through Twitter, blogs, Nings, etc. are largely members of an amorphous educational technology community.  That community is fond of throwing around terms like “change” and “reform” connected to schools or education and most often the “change” or “reform” is largely related to advances in technology. The gist of the argument is that technology has changed the world we live in but not schools so schools need to catch up (or something to that effect).  Schools are becoming “dangerously irrelevant,” right Scott?

There are also frequent references to those other educators who do not “get it.”  Yet, it is never clear, at least to me, what the “it” is that other educators are supposed to “get.” There are references to School 2.0, Classroom 2.0,etc.  Significant technology integration is certainly implied, but even that is a loosely defined concept.

Many of the same individuals with whom I learn and interact online will be attending Educon 2.2. at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia this coming weekend.  That event will involve lots of conversations, largely around technology and the future of education. Chris Lehmann, the principal of SLA, has long been clear that Educon is not an educational technology conference.  In fact, the conference is guided by five axioms which you see below:

That’s not a bad starting point for framing the “it” that “others” are supposed to “get,” but like all standards, they are vague and high-minded.  I believe “we” (myself included) would all do well to think long and hard about what “it” is that “we” are aiming for and figure out a way to articulate “it.”

What troubles me more than an overall lack of an operationalized vision of the change that “we” want are the many flawed arguments made in favor of “it.” That is, to justify a vision that I argue is not clear from the start, there are a host of arguments being made within the amorphous ed. tech. community that are logically problematic. I summarize and briefly discuss some of those arguments below:

The “Digital Natives” Argument – yes, I’m well aware that “we” have largely denounced the digital natives-immigrants dichotomy, and I’m on board with that.  However, I see a new, related line of thinking that is equally problematic.  It has to do with the notion that kids are really comfortable with technology, they use it a lot, so we should bury them in it at schools too.  When the recent Kaiser Family Foundation report was released, it spread like wildfire among “our” networks/communities.  Here are the money lines: Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

Well, there you go. Given *that*, how can we NOT make our schools more “relevant?”  HOLD ON…what’s the logic there?  Just because that’s what kids do on their own time, that’s how we should engage them in schools?  Why is that exactly?  Maybe, actually, what we need to be doing is using that evidence to argue for maximizing face-to-face time.  In fact, this gives me even more reason to argue for the “flipped classroom” model that you see discussed here.  Let’s “disrupt” or “interrupt” kids time online by, where necessary, providing content or instruction via digital means so that when they come to school they can learn to interact with each other and learn socially while face-to-face.

The Economics Argument – this is the argument based, often, in the works of (non-economists) Daniel Pink, Richard Florida, etc.  It is a big part of presentations done by folks I admire greatly, including my friend/colleague Scott McLeod.  Watch and/or listen to Scott’s presentation to the NEA and you’ll hear a lot about the changing nature of the workforce and how we need to reform schools to meet those changing needs.

I get that, kind of.  Here’s the problem.  If you make that argument, you have to believe that one of the fundamental purposes of schooling is, in fact, to prepare kids for the workforce.  That’s not at all something I believe.  For me, first and foremost, schools are in the business of preparing kids to be active, productive citizens in a deliberative democratic society.  Schooling for citizenship and deliberation, not employment.  I want to remove all references to “workplace” or “workforce” or “economy” from any and all school mission statements.

If I argue or advocate for technology integration in schools, it is based on the idea that we need to recognize that the Web is causing us to rethink what citizenship means and is increasingly becoming a space where important deliberation happens (see e.g. the ways in which social media impacted the last presidential election in this country).  We need to help kids become deliberative  and to express their ideas and thoughts in productive ways in spaces that are digital and PUBLIC.

That said, building upon my notion of maximizing face-to-face time, let’s think about ways to use school time to foster civic engagement and deliberative habits. As far as I’m concerned, every kid should be required to take a debate class.

The Business Argument – this argument was bolstered by the publishing of Disruptive Class which is based on the theory of disruptive innovation developed by of one of the book’s authors, Clayton Christensen.  The general premise there is that technology will increasingly allow us to individualize/customize learning and makes learning possible anywhere/anytime and that is an innovation that will disrupt the model of formal schooling as we know it here…unless, of course, schools figure out a way to head off that disruption at the pass.

Let’s say we accept the book’s premise. Then what?  It was NEVER clear to me in reading the book what it is that schools need to do in order to not get “disrupted.”  Are student-centric learning technologies that customize learning the disruption or the prescription against disruption? I may be missing that, and if so, I’m willing to listen.  But, if “we” include the “Disrupting Class” thinking in “our” arguments, “we” need to be prepared to then tie the vision of the “it” that “they” are supposed to “get” to the logic of disruptive innovation.  In other words, it’s not enough just to say that the current model of schooling is going to be disrupted.

That said, I’m not accepting the book’s premise, largely because I’m missing the last link  in the chain of logic.  I also still don’t understand why the author’s went after K-12 education and not higher education.  Higher education is a choice (to a degree). Up to a certain age, though, public schooling is mandatory.  It’s also, for most people, a public enterprise and not a profit-driven one, and I don’t think the theory of disruptive innovation works in that context.  For a more thoughtful critique of Disrupting Class, I encourage you to read this critique by Andy Zucker of the Concord Consortium.

The “Bored Kid” Anecdote – OK, @bengrey, your turn under the bus. So, lots of attention was given to the story of Aaron Iba, the now former CEO of AppJet, the company that created EtherPad.  Ben wrote about Aaron’s story here.  Lisa Nielsen wrote about it here and here.  Aaron’s story is not a new one.  And, I know Ben and Lisa and others know that.  In fact, that was pretty much their point.  Since forever, kids have been bored in schools.

Well, guess what?  For all of the Aaron’s out there, I can point to a…well…me. School worked beautifully for me.  I’m the perfect anecdote for maintaining the status quo in schools.  I loved school. I got to learn, largely by myself, and that’s what I liked.  Teachers soothed my ego and made me feel smart and great and I achieved at high levels. So, why isn’t anyone blogging about me and how schools work?

Additionally, the Gladwellian tactic of finding a case to fit an a priori belief is not compelling to me.  I think case studies can be immensely interesting and meaningful, but only if done thoroughly and systematically.  Gladwell gives us bits and pieces of his cases and, as a result, we can’t know how well that case “fits” his theory because we don’t know enough about the case.  Same with Aaron Iba. Do we really have enough information here to know the whole story? To conclude that the schooling system failed Aaron? Writing a good case study is hard to do.  When done well, though, they are deep, rich narratives that are full of meaning; they aren’t meant to be “generalizable” though.

One last question about the “bored kid” anecdote: what makes you think the “it,” the “new” school or modes of learning that you apparently have in mind though haven’t quite fully articulated will be not boring for everyone?

In sum, then, I think “we” are putting broken carts before the horses. “We” are concentrating too much on the “why change” argument without first fully and clearly articulating what it is “we” want from schools.  Furthermore, the “why change” arguments, I argue (meta?), are fundamentally flawed.

There are lots of reasons for the institution of schooling to be transformed.  Likewise, there are lots of reasons to consider the affordances of ubiquitous computing for learning.  I ask you to help me think through those reasons in ways that are well-informed and logical…especially those of you with whom I hope to have fully maximized face-to-face experiences this weekend at Educon. I look forward to deliberating with many of you there!

]]> http://edinsanity.com/2010/01/29/the-logic-of-our-arguments/feed/ 29 http://edinsanity.com/2009/09/30/the-politics-of-education-blogging-tagging-etc/ http://edinsanity.com/2009/09/30/the-politics-of-education-blogging-tagging-etc/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:32:15 +0000 Jon Becker http://edinsanity.com/?p=388 I’m teaching a course called The Politics of Education to an awesome group of our doctoral students this semester. The wiki/syllabus (a living, breathing document) is located HERE. You can participate and help my students’ (and my own) learning in a couple of ways. First, tagging…anything that you think might be related to what the [...]]]>

I’m teaching a course called The Politics of Education to an awesome group of our doctoral students this semester.

The wiki/syllabus (a living, breathing document) is located HERE.

You can participate and help my students’ (and my own) learning in a couple of ways.

First, tagging…anything that you think might be related to what the course is about (see e.g. http://sites.google.com/site/edpolitics/syllabus) can be tagged with “adms707“.  I know, just about everything education-related is also about the politics of education, but that’s OK. Tag away. We will all be feeding Google Reader with a subscription to the tag and we can filter out what’s useful or not.

Second, please consider subscribing to and/or reading the blogs my students are using as reflection spaces.  You can get to individual blog posts HERE.  Or, you can see the blog URLs HERE.  Of course, comments are helpful as I want this blogging endeavor to be meaningful in a connectivist sort of way.

Thanks for considering being a part of our learning experiences this semester!

photo credit: helgasms!

I am part of a team of professors facilitating the learning in an Ed.D. program for a group of sitting school administrators in a local school division.  I am currently leading a module on decision-making and resource allocation within the realm of educational technology.  This Saturday, I have a pretty unique opportunity (for me at least).  To better inform the larger conversations, I’m going to take our meeting time (3-4 hours) to try to “make a case.”  What case?

Well, good question; I’m glad I asked.  What I knew when I first began planning this module was that I wanted to spend some time with the students talking about all that I’ve been talking and thinking about over the last year or so within the ed. tech. community/network.  The problem is, I haven’t quite wrapped my head around what “it” is that I’ve been talking/writing/thinking about.  “It” is about learning, technology, reform, etc.

The beauty of this Saturday is that it has provided me an opportunity to synthesize and summarize my thinking and learning.  Here are the points that will comprise the logic of the argument (i.e. “the case”) I’ll be making on Saturday (in no particular order yet).  The students will have (hopefully) read the referenced articles ahead of time:

• connectivism as a new theory of learning (Siemens, 2005)
• ubiquitous computing affords ubiquitous learning (Cope & Kalantzis, 2007)
• Rhizomatic education: advances in networking technologies render obsolete any theory of learning that involves the individual construction of knowledge and that bounds learning by place and/or time (Cormier, 2008).

With those foundational points in place, I will demonstrate a number of the technologies.  In other words, I will show the students how I “do” networked learning. I fully intend to overwhelm them.  I am, after all, trying to “make the case.”

[NOTE: I intend to "broadcast" the event via Wimba Live Classroom.  If you want to stop by (in the virtual sense), leave me a comment so I can send you the URL.]

photo credit: Ben+Sam

No point in re-creating the wheel, so I’ve copied the e-mail I sent to my faculty colleagues below (he only difference is that I embedded my teaser video into this post instead of just providing a link):

***

Dearest colleagues,
If I told you that there is an extraordinary educational conference that you can attend at no expense to your travel budget, (or to any other budget, for that matter) and that you could attend largely at your own convenience, you’d listen, right?

Well, beginning on October 13 and continuing through the end of the month, the K12 Online Conference 2008 will be taking place…well…everywhere and anywhere.  As it is written on the homepage of the conference:

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 13, 2008. The following two weeks, October 20-24 and October 27-31, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations.

To learn more about the conference, I would suggest reading and clicking through this site. Basically, though, presentations are made via prerecorded videos and broadcast at specific times.  There are also opportunities to “meet” and “talk to” the presenters at a webinar called a Fireside Chat.

The schedule of events can be found here.  You will notice that yours truly is one of the select presenters and my presentation airs on Tuesday, October 21 at 12:00 p.m GMT (which, if I’m correct, is 8:00 EST). You can view a “teaser” of my presentation [below], and teasers for many of the other presentations are being added to the conference blog every day.

I can’t recommend this conference enough, and please pass along this information to your students.  This is a FREE conference FOR educators BY educators.  It is a 21st Century conference about 21st Century teaching and learning.

Thanks for considering this extraordinary learning opportunity and I hope to “see” you at the fireside chats!

Yours,
JB

On April 16 of this year, I wrote a post entitled “You say you want a revolution?“  In it, I wrote of true visions of the future of education, with particular reference to writing by Dale Mann and a white paper by Roger Schank and Kemi Jona.  I often ask my students to read the Schank/Jona paper to get them thinking about the possibilities for the future of education.  Mostly, my students have visceral reactions and think the ideas in the paper are outlandish and unrealistic.

Outlandish?  Maybe.  Unrealistic?  Nope.  In fact, I just learned that the VOISE Academy opened a week or so ago in Chicago.  It’s billed as a hybrid school, combining computer-based learning with face-to-face socialization opportunities.  As described, the school sounds a lot like what Schank and Jona suggest.

Well, as it turns out, one of the board members of VOISE Academy is…Kemi Jona!

It will be interesting to see how things go in that school.  I’m sure someone will be studying the school; nothing happens in Chicago without somebody studying it.  Some academic colleagues of mine have built entire research agendas around Chicago school reform.  For now, though, I wish VOISE had a better website. It’s a little hard to believe that this particular school launched with such a basic and incomplete website.