EdTechTrek

The concept of creativity and the great opportunities for problem solving that present themselves when individuals are given the luxury to be creative in schools has been on my mind for the past few days. I have been watching my son “play” with the design game, Phun, and it has been very interesting. If you are not familiar with Phun, it is a free, cross-platform creative design environment where the  user can draw what he/she conceives and watch it work. David Perkins would describe this type of software as a “construction kit“. David Jonassen would define it as a “mindtool“. Physical attributes like gravity, wind, water, slope, motor speed and direction… and so much more can all be manipulated. The Phun website describes it in this way:

“The playful synergy of science and art is novel, and makes Phun as educational as it is entertaining.”

and

“Phun is a fantastic toy for children, where they can learn and appreciate physics, science and simulations in an open ended gameplay with rich creative and artistic freedom, including colorful freehand drawing.”

But, the name is so well chosen because it is just so much fun! My son has now spent a great deal of time trying to design creations that work according to his ideas. Because he has had no formal lessons in how to use Phun, it is all trial-and-error and studying some of the predesigned scenes that come with Phun. Through his creative exploration and problem-solving, he is wrestling with concepts that drive the physical world, like gravity, surface tension of water, how water takes the shape of it’s container, how motors can drive actions that get work done, cause and effect - and I could never list them all. We have also been working at things together because I have been so engaged with it as well and want to figure out how to design things that I can conceive in my mind. The social and collaborative aspect of this has been fantastic as we learn together. He shows me as much as I show him. However, my knowledge and experience allows me to ask him the questions he need to be thinking about and considering as he builds… a perfect scaffolding opportunity and chance to make metacognition explicit.

So, how much will happen like this in school this year? How much room is there in the tightly controlled curriculum with preparation for the myriad of tests he will have to take this year for creative problem-solving and strategic opportunities for social, collaborative metacognitive problem-solving and scaffolding? I like the following quoation found on NCREL’s website:

“Recognizing what you do know in a problem, as well as what you don’t yet understand, are aspects of metacognition in problem solving that are similar to a scaffolding approach. Perkins & Solomon (1989) point out that an expert’s behavior appears to be strongly driven by prior knowledge. When faced with an unfamiliar problem, he or she may construct a similar but simpler problem. In this way, the expert learner manages his/her own gradual self-regulation and enables him/herself to grow to meet the new task successfully.”

So, watch the video below, and, if you can indulge yourself, download it and have some Phun. Challenge your students, your children, your neighbors… to have some Phun. It may be the only opportunity for this type of learning they get all year.

I have been thinking lately of the onslaught of new tools and related learning potential that they hold. Over the past few years there has just been an onslaught of new tools and services out there. Some are still around, some have fallen by the wayside. Many of these tools fall in the Web 2.0 category. (here and here, to list a “few”). The discussions and implementations with EdTech folks have been just as numerous. I totally understand the desire to find those “perfect” tools and tools to transform “same-old” learning into learning that is culturally relevant and personally meaningful. I get that. I think about these things all the time. However, there is something innate in the tech “geek” that drives us on to try every new thing coming down the pike and to abandon tools that worked just fine for newer, shinier, cooler tools that have that one (or 100) extra feature that just makes it superior. Yet, often they are not advantages that the average teacher would take advantage of - or would even care about. Sometimes I think we are doing the typical teacher a disservice with our insatiable appetite for new tools. And, I do get the need in this time to be able to quickly adapt to new tools as old ones become extinct. However, many teachers need simple tools tied to powerful learning opportunities. I think that they feel the same inundation of innovation and simply shut down. We need to sell them on the pedagogical, not the technical. On the true learning innovation, not the innovative tools. On the passion and excitement of being in control of learning, not on controlling learning. On the power of creative production of meaningful learning artifacts, not on glitzy but empty products.

Here is a iPhone product called FriendBook that caught my eye and drove me on to write this post. I used this example in one of my comments on Will Richardson’s latest blog posts titled, “What I Hate About Twitter“. It is an interesting conversation on the value of a tool like Twitter. It is interesting to the the diversity of responses to Will’s initial thoughts. But back to my point - Friendbook allows iPhone users to “beam” to each other their contact information/address book cards.
The headline of the promo states “Business cards are so last year.” There will always be new (communication) tools out there that have advantages and disadvantages. However, we all need to get past those and seek after what is important - not simply cast aside old tools in search of the latest greatest ones. It’s not the business card per se, but the message it conveys and the audience it reaches. I think it is the same with Twitter. It is not the tool per se, but the messages that get conveyed and the audiences who choose to listen and participate.

No tool will do it all FOR us. There is no “Holy Grail” of tools that will make good teaching easy. It takes sweat, tears, devotion, passion, dedication, intelligence, skill, professionalism, continued learning and growth, collaboration, risk-taking, networking, wide reading, deep reading,… and you could add many attributes to this list as well. It does not require a trendy approach to computer applications. There is nothing wrong with the traditional business card if it gets desired results. I fear we are communicating too much that “traditional” = bad and that “cutting edge” = good. This is so wrong, so distorted, so deceptive. My previous post on Good Vs. Effective relates to this a great deal here.

So, let’s get more passionate about learning and less passionate about needing to be “up” on every new tool that gets churned out. Let’s help reading teachers become more effective and passionate about teaching the language arts in powerful and relevant ways. Let’s help math and science teachers become more effective and passionate about teaching and reaching kids in effective ways - in realistic ways. Yes - these ways should include relevant technologies. Don’t abandon digital microscopes or data probes just because they don’t carry a Web 2.0 label. Don’t ignore programming just because it is not your thing. And, don’t get so hung up on tools like Twitter. Get hung up on powerful learning.

To quote Mariana Umaschi Bers who cites Seymour Papert:

“The power of computers for education lies in their potential to assist children in encountering powerful ideas and to engage them in experimenting with and testing these ideas”.

“…creativity is not universally valued. Many cultures and communities prefer training students to accept existing structures rather than training them to form new ones; they prefer memorization and copying to research and creative writing. These conflicts are likely to remain controversial.” (B. Schneiderman: Leonardo’s Laptop)

So which students are really most “at risk”? We must be educating ALL students to ask questions, who are curious, who challenge “authority” (ie. Joe Blo’s webpage, Wikipedia, conventional wisdom, bias, …), and who create new ideas and express knowledge and evidenced learning in new ways… ways that are personal, relevant, meaningful, powerful… creative.

Or, we can continue to educate students for a world that no longer exists.

Are these ideas controversial in your world?

Creativity is important, but neglected in schools, the headline reads.

Tell us something that we don’t know. Imagine, a general conclusion was that it is best to foster creativity among students at school, “not only to produce a competitive workforce, but also to help all students succeed in life”. This report is yet one more example of not doing what we know is best - about obstacles that get in the way of best practices, solid learning theory, and curriculum. What will it take to bring about real change… and I emphasize “real” - no window dressing or politically charged policies.

During candidate interviews of employers seeking creative employees, characteristics were ranked as follows, from highest to lowest:

1. candidate’s ability to look spontaneously beyond the specifics of a question (78%)

2. responses to hypothetical scenarios (70 %)

3. elaboration on extracurricular activities or volunteer work (40 %)

4. appearance (27 %).

Also, employers noted that “problem identification or articulation” was of paramount importance in creative employees. Even with problem-based learning, teachers can’t resist defining the problems for their students and guiding them to solve pre-established problems with pre-determined solutions - Neither what employers see as all that valuable… nor realistic in real-world problem-solving contexts. Perhaps the solution is to test creativity (can you see the sarcasm dripping here?).
So, where do these types of reports leave educators. Where to they leave policy makers?

Where do they leave you?

Maybe it’s just me, but I have seen one too many of these videos now that depict the learning divide (or digital disconnect) that is occurring in this country soley due to the lack of technology’s use in the classroom. But it’s more than that. What is being depicted is a negative view of any learning that does not include technology. I just watched this remix of A Vision of Students Today by Mike Wesch, Did You Know; Shift Happens and Did You Know 2.0 by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod titled, A Vision of K-12 Students Today. In it are unhappy student learners communicating that they simply cannot learn… can not be happy learning, demanding digital learning with the exclusion of any other form of learning. What follows is the script of the video (in italics) and some of my frustration. Please exucse the high degree of sarcasm in places.

Students will use engaging technologies in collaborative, inquiry-based learning environments with teachers who are willing and able to use technology’s power to assist them in transforming knowledge and skills into products, solutions, and new information.

• I am a 21st century learner
• I game 3/5 hours a week
• I will spend 16.5 hours watching TV this week
• 5.5 hours on the computer
• 2 hours reading a book
• I listened to 5 hours of Harry Potter on my ipod this week
• We expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share information with each other
• My parents us email
• I text, instant message, blog

Well, we know that many kids are not reading books much (Books are what my parents read, not me! What good can come out of reading a book?), still watch a lot of television, and spend more time than ever with the computer and other media-rich devices. It used to be that good teachers expected students to create and share information with each other. Now, suddenly it is the student that is expecting this - but only with technology, of course. There is no way that they could create and share meaningful learning artifacts without technology, right? Here is part of the problem, I think. It is that schools became too passive in their pedagogy, too textbook driven, too teacher centered and too assessment driven. And, in the end, the result is boring classrooms and lessons, seemingly irrelevant learning, and disconnected students.

• 76% of my teachers have never used wikis, blogs, podcasts
• At least once a week 14% of my teachers let me create something new with technology. 63 % never do.
• 61% of my reading teachers never use digital storytelling software
• If we learn by doing, what are we learning sitting here?
• How do you learn?

According to this video, it really doesn’t matter how I learn. But this I do know. The concept of learning by doing is nothing new! The true crime here is that teachers and educational systems are making it hard to allow students to learn through the creation of relevant and meaningful artifacts. To imply that students today are incapable of learning anything while sitting and listening to someone else is just irresponsible. Perhaps 61% of reading teachers never use digital storytelling software, but does this mean that these same 61% are terrible reading teachers? What is the percentage of reading teachers who do very little at all with storytelling? I would guess it is also up there.

• What kind of education would you want me to have if I were your son, your daughter,
• By the year 2016, the largest English speaking country will be China.
• There are more honor students in China than there are people in North America
• But only 1/2 of us will graduate from high school. Will I?
• I will have 14 jobs before I am 38 years old.
• Most of those jobs do not exist today
• How will this (referring sullenly to a notebook with writing in it) help me?
• How could this help me? (holding and iPod or laptop in hand)

Yes, the state of US education is in trouble. But to imply that a book and pencil has no use in the learning process flies directly in the face of countries like China and India who are still learning with books, pencils, pens, and excellent listening and thinking skills, and disciplined minds. Of course, they also use newer technologies, as so should we all. But the tone here is such that unless we are using these newer technologies all the time, we are failing as teachers, that unless we are blogging or using wikis and creating digital stories, we are hopelessly defunct.

• Teach me to think, to create, to analyze, to evaluate, to apply. Teach me to think.
• Let me use the WWW… Whatever, Whenever, Wherever
• Let me tell a story… digitally
• Engage me! (repeated by 15 different bored students)
• We are digital learners.

Once again, engaging students and teaching them to think, to create, to analyze, to evaluate, to applly… is nothing new! But to imply that the solution alone here is to let students use technology and the internet whenever, whereve, for whatever,… is just plain nutty. The bigger failure here is that we, as educators, have often failed at helping students think, analyze, evaluate, apply, and create meaningful and relevant learning artifacts. Of couse, technology today can play a powerful role. Of course we need to embrace new cultural tools and new forms of learning. But the mere act of doing so does not guarantee improved thinking, analytic, and evaluatory skills. Excellent teachers are still required. This video discounts the power of an excellent teacher, with or without the use of newer technologies. It attributes all learning power to new technologies. Just let kids have at it with all the tools that they love to use, and learning will result (and in some cases, it certainly can).

This video implies quite strongly that learners today (“digital natives”) are ONLY digital learners and that learning any other way (meaning without new technology) is simply a waste of time… it doesn’t work any more. To embrace such a view that throws away books, pencils and othe more traditional learning technologies, and discounts the ability to listen and process relevant information, that writing in an analog world is not writing and has no value, that the only form of social learning is the digital form, that public speaking is a dying artform,… is a huge mistake. To buy into this idea that this digital generation cannot learn unless digitally connected is wrong. The learning community in general would be much better served by videos that depict best practices and strong rationales for any technologies rather than gloom-and-doom, woe is me, China is going to take over the world types of messages. For, I think, these types of messages as in this particular video serve only to “preach to the choir” and get played mostly by the very communities that aspouse the inherent values and ideas presented in the video. Yes, this generation thinks, socializes, and learns in new ways. Yes, we need to harness these new forms of learning in a very digital world. Learning networks. Social learning. Creation tools. Creative tools. Tools to facilitate collaboration beyond physical space…. There are so many fantastic learning tools and opportunities out here like never before. We should be using them in the classroom. But, at no point should we be communicating to both kids and the educational community at large that unless we are using ALL of these tools ALL the time, we are somehow flawed…. educational fuddy duddies. And, there is no reason why kids cannot and should not learn by listening to a developmentally appropriate “lecture”, from reading a book or textbook, by writing with a pen or pencil… on paper, by participating in a community project or apprenticeship,… The heart of the issue really is engaging students in meaningful learning, both with and without technology. Be a great teacher! And yes,  to be relevant and meaningful today, technology must be used to a new level. Teachers must stay fresh and current in all that they do - not only with technology.

Just please stop making and promoting these kinds of videos that portray a distorted and flawed view of learning.