EdTechTrek

Twitter is no longer the hot buzz word on the Internet these days. It’s been around since July of 2006 and reached over 200 million users by 2011. Of course, these are accounts created, not necessarily active users. Nonetheless, we’ve been hearing about Twitter for a long time now. Isn’t it time to move on and stop talking about it like it was the best thing since sliced bread?

The answer is a resounding, “NO!”

The preservice teachers that I teach, and most of my education colleagues on campus for that matter, know very little about Twitter other than what they have heard and seen in the mainstream media. I think that this is largely true for many educators. Here are the types messages that they receive about Twitter:

And there are many more. These examples should suffice for now.

What our teachers/educators to-be are not getting are messages of how social media in general, and Twitter specifically, are empowering and connecting learners in meaningful and powerful ways. There is no doubt that users may indeed go through stages (and here) of using Twitter or any other social communication tool or learning space, especially when left on their own with little support or guidance. However, there are an overwhelming amount of resources that lie just a Google search away that testify to the benefits of Twitter, whether for marketing, education, or any other number of purposes.

The point of this post is not to convince anyone of the value of Twitter (although here are some of my bookmarks related to Twitter in education), but rather to remind you that for those educators new to Twitter, they need you to let them know that you are there and that you are finding great value in it as a learning, sharing, and connecting tool. As presenters or teachers, we can tell our students how great it is, we can point them to the infinite number of resources that illustrate and document its power, but there is nothing like having you respond in the moment by answering the call of the “shout-out” request.

I can recall many times people responding on Twitter after a shout-out is requested that they are so tired of the shout-out requests. I have to admit, I have had those same feelings. But there is a certain degree of authenticity and power that comes from seeing immediate responses of passionate educators who are present on Twitter sharing how they use it and how they benefit from it.

The other night, as I do every semester, I gave one of those “dreaded” shout-out requests, hoping folks were still yet not too weary of responding to them… and was so encouraged at the response. But even better, my students were also quite amazed at the response. It wasn’t just me, the guy standing at the front of the room, telling them how great it was; it was YOU.

And that made all the difference.

Using Storify, I compiled the responses which you can see here. Alec Couros (@courosa on Twitter) teaches preservice teachers as I do and is well known for his shout-out requests. In fact, he did one just the other night as well and the great responses are also captured here by him with Storify.

So, I’d like to take this moment to exhort all of you to listen for and respond to this type of shout-out request. They happen often and it can be so easy to tire of them and stop responding. Let me use this post to encourage you in the fact that your response can really make an impact… a difference as educators new to Twitter and other types of social learning tools and spaces struggle to see why it is worth there time and energy to learn yet one more tool for learning – especially when they are fighting all of the misconceptions and one-sided media messages that they have stored since Twitter’s inception.

Here’s to the shout-out.

So today is Leadership Day, 2011.

by antwelm, Flickr

As I thought long and hard about something new to write, something fresh and inspiring, it crossed my mind that in our every-changing world – in our fast-paced quest for the next new thing, the next big idea – that we don’t spend nearly enough time reflecting on the existing good ideas that have simply been passed by because they are “old” or “worn” – or forgotten. Lately, I’ve had the sense that there are so many good ideas… sound ideas that we have chosen to ignore. Voices that we no longer listen to. People that we have never even read or heard of. As Jon Becker and I bantered back and forth on Twitter about our ideas for Leadership Day, I jested that I was going to share something fresh… from 1897.

Actually, since I work primarily in teacher education with a focus on educational technologies, I thought the following ideas about infusing technologies into teacher education programs, across all courses and disciplines, was still particularly relevant today, even though written in 1999. A comment I often hear from my students while enrolled in the single required course on education technologies is that they wish the things they were learning in my classes were integrated into their other coursework. They also wish that I didn’t cram so many things into this single course. My response is mostly the same – that they are correct. So many things shouldn’t be crammed into this single course and should be introduced, used, and applied in their other coursework. The problem is, that it mostly isn’t happening. Sure, there are glimmers of light here and there – pockets of innovation – but by and large they are being prepared to teach in a a 1980s world.

Since this is Leadership Day, the following ideas from at the discussion section of this 1999 study by Neal Strudler and Keith Wetzel on technology integration seem quite relevant:

“Research literature on technology integration clearly addresses the need for providing adequate support for users. As Fullan suggests, however, pressure can also be a critical variable. Pressure, in this case, refers to expectations, both implicit and explicit, that faculty will integrate technology into their classes. While pressure without support leads to resistance and alienation, Fullan asserts that support without pressure can lead to drift and waste. Findings of the present study suggest that a major function of effective leadership is to obtain a good balance of pressure and support for faculty integration efforts. Pressure, in the form of expectations, fosters a sense of accountability that increases the likelihood that funding for faculty support will lead to technology-based learning opportunities and desired outcomes for students.”

“Pressure for technology implementation, however, does not appear to be effective when it comes in the form of a mandate. Rather, as a faculty leader at the University of Virginia, stated, the pressure for change should be like the “wind at your back.” Cooper (1999), former Dean of the University of Virginia’s School of Education, counsels that we should be patient and not use mandates. Rather, it makes sense to tend to the complex web of enabling factors, use national standards for systematic planning, and continue to communicate appropriate expectations. A commonality among the exemplary institutions in this study is their ongoing, systematic effort to encourage and support faculty to use technology in their teaching.”

I love the ideas about the importance of balance between pressure and support. I suspect that many in leadership roles struggle to get this right. Mandates we have. Pressures abound. How many would agree that they feel the pressures but also experience resistance and alienation due to lack of support? Conversely, in many cases, support systems are in place, but severely underused due to lack of pressure (as Fullan uses pressure) and leadership to use them. Technology resource centers, learning centers, whatever they may be called in higher education, are often underused (or used greatly by a few) and lead to “drift and waste”. Just as one can’t sail a boat with sail full of wind and a broken mast, neither can one sail with a state of the art sail and mast… with no wind.

So, let’s have more leadership that can be described as “the wind at your back” that pushes innovation, risk-taking, new ideas while supporting these things at the same time. We need leadership in the area of technology & learning. Our preservice teachers need frequent and relevant experiences with effective, content-specific uses of technology in all of their coursework. It can’t be just tacked on; a single experience to satisfy pressures and program approval. It can’t just be a set of skills or experiences that get checked off a list. We must stop telling them how it should be done while not doing it ourselves (we know they do as we do, not as we say). It can’t just be a standalone

course. We’re living in a world where technology permeates all that we do. We need new teachers who understand this and know how to leverage technologies for [powerful] learning with their students in their own classrooms. If faculty feel unprepared for this pressure, let’s support them in their desire to be relevant. If they have no interest in being relevant and preparing teachers for today and the future, they should be encouraged seek employment elsewhere. If relevancy isn’t a priority in our teaching, there’s something terribly wrong.

Let’s expect teachers at all levels to effectively integrate technologies with learning and support them in every way possible to make it happen. Anything less just won’t do.

But, will this post, along with the posts of others this Leadership Day go unread and unheard of by the very ones who need to read it, just like John Dewey’s work of 1897, My Pedagogic Creed?

“But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.

I believe that when society once recognizes the possibilities in this direction, and the obligations which these possibilities impose, it is impossible to conceive of the resources of time, attention, and money which will be put at the disposal of the educator.

I believe it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective instrument of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task.”
-John Dewey, 1897

Read more posts from Leadership Day 2011

As I watched this new Apple commercial the other day, it struck me just how much knowledge creating, collaborating and sharing tools have changed over the years, with formal schooling contexts being one of the slowest contexts to exhibit such change.

• We’ll never stop sharing our memories… but must they always be shared in those ugly black and white marbled notebooks that are requested year after year… and are thrown away once the year is over?
• We’ll never stop getting lost in a good book… but must that dog eared book come out of those cheesy plastic bins on the shelf in the classroom?
• We’ll still go to meetings, but must they be limited to physical space and a single, standardized agenda for all?
• We’ll still make movies… well, for many kids, they’re still waiting to unleash their creativity and great ideas with this medium
• And the final statement from this commercial: “And we’ll still learn new things”… yes, kids are always learning new things, but must their learning be limited to an inflexible agenda, limited largely by the resources in the classroom, limited by an “everybody must be on the same page” approach, limited by the sole “expert” standing at the front of the classroom, limited by a rigid and scripted curriculum, limited by preparing for a ridiculous number of local, state, and national standardized assessments, limited by scare resources, or even limited by a standardized and uniform 1:1 device implementation…

The commercial concludes by the statement,

…but how we do all this will never be the same.”

Really?

Just ask a student about going back to school in the fall and see what he/she is most looking forward to. Dollars to donuts the reply will be lunch, recess, band/orchestra/chorus, art, phys. ed., drama, clubs, field trips … if those things aren’t already stripped from the school experience to make more time and free up more resources for…

More of the same.

Watch the commercial. The platform doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be limited by or to,  the iPad. But will students’ learning at school this fall be any different (and more meaningful, relevant, powerful…) than it was from the last? From 5 years ago? From 10? From 20? What will you do to make sure that it is? Don’t let your classroom live and breathe the concluding part of this post’s title,

The more things change,_______________.”

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“No blogging allowed.”

Credit: Krysten Newby, Flickr

This recent issue shared by a previous student of mine has continued to weigh heavily on my mind. Rather than an informed and proactive approach to blogging, it has been discouraged altogether, seemingly on the basis of fear and caution.

This morning I picked up the *most recent issue of the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education and my curiosity was piqued by the first article: Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on Clinical Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments. Without deconstructing the article in great detail, I found the findings particularly relevant and compelling.

The authors compared preservice teachers’ depth of reflection (DoR) on undergraduate clinical experiences. One group completed the traditional-end-of-semester reflective paper while the other group reflected in regular blog posts over the course of the clinical experiences. (note: bloggers self-selected their topics for reflection; paper writers were assigned topics to reflect on.)

Significant findings were as follows:

• Students who regularly blogged had a significantly higher depth of reflection over those who wrote the end-of-semester reflective paper.
• Student bloggers wrote significantly less (by about 1,000 words) than the end-of-semester paper writers
• Negative correlation for bloggers between the DoR and the number of instructor comments (with no significant correlation between DoR and number of peer comments)

So, it was observed that “not only do preservice teachers reach a greater DoR in blogs, but they do so by writing fewer words” (p. 131) when compared to those writing end-of-semester reflective papers.

Qualifiers:

• More regular, frequent reflection (practice) can be more effective (paper-based or electronic)
• Choice of topics to reflect on may be important
• Blogs may be more preferable for the following reasons:
  • wide, authentic audience
  • greater efficiency and immediacy in sharing/commenting/feedback
  • personalization

The authors note that no group achieved the highest level of reflection (level 4 of a 4 level scale) and emphasize the importance of teaching how to be reflective, “providing preservice teachers with opportunities to reflect systematically and publicly among their peers via blogs” (p. 132). They also note that “if the sole purpose of the assignment is to create a record of accountability, then writing at a nonreflective level is acceptable ” (p. 131) I believe that this statement is extremely important here, as so much of what is done in education is about accountability rather than depth and power of learning. Learners of all ages are quite able to recognize when they are having to do things simply because they are assigned them rather than being personally invested in them and passionate about the learning tasks and opportunities.

Credit: Ben Grey, Flickr

There is no doubt that we are living in a time where [over]sharing has become the norm (latest example I came across). Just spend some time on the many blogging and video sharing services if you have any doubt. However, when it comes to the sharing of learning within school contexts, we find a drastic decrease. Yes, there are issues of privacy, ethics, and legality that must be reconciled within many school contexts. However, these issues should not and must not be obstacles to meaningful learning within open and public online learning spaces. The authors note that online learning spaces may indeed offer preservice teachers a place “where they feel comfortable admitting their weaknesses and insecurities.” (p. 132)

This study and my student’s experience both highlight the importance of moving forward in this highly digital and connected learning landscape. Uninformed fear or misconception has no place in any educational context… at least when it goes unchallenged and unresolved. We must continue to push, move forward, learn, innovate, take risks… Ivory Towers may well become the place where learners go to stagnate rather than go to thrive unless we are willing to truly meet the needs of learners in relevant, effective, and compelling ways.

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*Harland, Darci J., Wondra, Joshua D. (2011). Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on Clinical Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 27(4), 128-133.

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