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Tag Archive for 'education'

The Why and How of Change

1 year, 4 months ago 8 Comments

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Wave of Change

Breaking out of the blog penalty box (next hiatus is a red card), I’m ready to hit a few more words through the goal of change strategy. Since I last wrote about creating meaningful change through the bureaucracy of school, my project has been moving forward very well, both within and outside the walls of school. After identifying and collaborating with an ally, I have begun on the next step of creating any meaningful change: assessing the need and possibility for change.

This critical step is what keeps you from working going through tons of effort to get a new program adopted district-wide with administrative support, only to see the program flop. Recently, there has been a rash of articles about unsuccessful change, whether through 1:1 laptop programs or web 2.0 tools. By analyzing the need for change, you can keep your fragile idea of the list of broken failures.

Assessing the need for change involves turning off distractions and thinking about why this change needs to happen. Though your mileage may vary, I highly recommend you set pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and set your thoughts down on “paper.” When doing so, your goal is twofold: look inside yourself to see why you want this change and look inside the system and see why it needs this change. Use these questions as starting points:

  1. How are things done currently? (before the change)
  2. What is wrong with how things are done currently? (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it)
  3. Why is this an important change? You only have so much time, spend it wisely Sure, you could advocate for all school meals to be virtually tracked, but wouldn’t it be a better use of focus to get a computer in every classroom?
  4. How do you want things to be done? When everything is done, what will things look like?
  5. How will this change fix the current problems?

If you have good answers to all the questions and are confident that this change is needed, you are ready to move forward in your change process. Plus, these answers have you prepared for the kind of questions which will come from the naysayers in your cause.

Once you have established the need for change, you must asses the possibility for change. Here, you need to ask yourself if the change will be adopted. You’ll need to take a look at the obstacles in your way and how you want students to use the new system, whether it will work or not. These guiding questions can help you along the way:

  1. How can this change be accomplished? (step-by-step list of who you need to talk to, what needs to happen)
  2. How much money will this change cost the system? (Write a negative sum if it will save money)
  3. How much time will it take me and my allies to affect this change?
  4. What obstacles stand in the way of this change being affected?
  5. What problems might there be in the changed system?
  6. What will opponents of this change have to say against it?

These can be hard questions to answer, but they help you in the long run. (Better safe than sorry) By knowing the obstacles, you can avoid them. I have put together the questions on a simple worksheet for you to fill out for your project, which you can download below.

Download the worksheet, including pdf, .doc, and .pages.

My Project

I am working on getting my school district to adopt system-wide Google Apps for Education. Primarily, I want this to be adopted so students can easily use Google Docs for collaboration. Far too often, we have network and file format issues which keep effective collaboration from happening. If you would like to follow along with my project, I regularly post updates to Twitter along with blog posts about the subject. Not wanting to be a hypocrite, I have filled out my own worksheet to come up with these answers:

Download my answers as a pdf.

Why

  1. How are things done currently? Students work on documents using Microsoft Office on school computers. To work on files at home, they email the documents to themselves. Documents must be converted to older formats for most students. Collaboration is done by emailing documents.
  2. What is wrong with how things are done currently?
    • Students need MS Office at home to work on files
    • Conversion to older formats is hard
    • Students often have wrong version of file for collaborative projects
    • Network storage crashes, meaning students canʼt access documents to work on them
  3. Why is this an important change? Word processing is critical to almost every class in school. Everything from short paragraphs to grad challenge papers are done with documents. The network storage failures inconvenience many students, causing them to lose critical time and turn in papers late. Collaboration is hard because group members need to sync changes.
  4. How do you want things to be done? Students should be encouraged to create, edit, and share documents using Google Docs. Every student would be given a Google Apps account when they enroll.
  5. How will this change fix the current problems?
    • Students will not need any special software, just a web browser
    • No filer conversions will be needed
    • A single copy of each project will be stored on a web server, which all group members work on
    • Storage is backed by Google’s network expertise and backups

How?

  1. How can this change be accomplished?
    1. Roll out a beta test to selected students.
    2. Convince key decision makers of the need for change.
    3. Present at a board meeting and secure vote of confidence.
    4. Work with techies to set up Google Apps
    5. Train students and teachers
  2. How much money will this change cost the system? savings of 1,000+ dollars
  3. How much time will it take me and my allies to affect this change? ~25 hours
  4. What obstacles stand in the way of this change being affected?
    • fear of new technologies/web 2.0
    • ignorance of need for change
    • reluctance of support from techies
    • filtering/access/privacy issues
  5. What problems might there be in the changed system? Students without internet access can’t access documents. Admins could lose some control over content.
  6. What will opponents of this change have to say against it? We cannot trust an external company with student data. We will not be abled to control students access. Students won’t have access. The service could go down, causing data loss.

What strategies have you found to be successful in creating change? What did you discover by answering these questions?

This is part 2 of a series on how to affect change within school systems. Part 1 was about finding an ally in change.

Amateur Education

1 year, 6 months ago 0 Comments

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This has been cross-posted from the Students 2.0 blog. Please write your comments there, not here.

Locking doors
Public School, Rural America; 12:30 pm

One by one, we file past the teacher-turned-prison-guard. As each of us passed, she engages us in a confirmation ritual. “Work?” “Check.” “Book?” “Check.” That is the last word uttered for one and a half hours. For this period, we must sit silently with heads in books and work, where our mouths are conveniently positioned to be incapable of questioning. We cannot leave—even to seek the help of a teacher. In the only time during the day when most students actually work, we are treated like convicts. We must work (not learn) in the most efficient way possible. We are widgets in the machine of school. We are unwillingly being conscripted into a hostile intervention.

Interventions also happen behind other closed doors—in the justice system:

Intervention: Programs or services that are intended to disrupt the delinquency process and prevent a youth from penetrating further into the juvenile justice system. ~Kentucky Juvenile Justice Advisory Board

For me, this represents the epitome of what it is wrong in public school education—learning is seen as a laborious activity which students must literally be locked into doing. When one intervenes in something, one alters the direction it is heading in. Therefore, the assumption when students are put into intervention is that their learning direction must be altered. This would be fine (many of my peers do need to have intervention in their life/learning direction), except the course is required. No matter the direction of your learning or how well you are doing, you are forced into a silent study period. See where I am going with this? Before I even start school, I am scheduled for an intervention in my learning. The equivalent would be signing up your baby girl for drug rehab 16 years in advance.

Rows of chairs

Step back and consider the way education is approached in the majority of classrooms: as a dreaded task. Complicated assessment patterns are devised to be carrots for students to do their work. Meanwhile, sticks of punishment are given to those who do not do their job. Forced study halls are created in order to ensure we all keep our noses in books, where our voices are conveniently stifled. Of course, this is all done under the principal that students need to be forced to learn.

Wait. There is something wrong with the picture here. Frankly, I think schools are becoming far too business-like. Many of my peers often think of school as unpaid work. Of course, professionalism is continually emphasized as the highest principle for which students must strive. Schools even use the same reward/punishment system as the workplace: good grades = good job = $$$ and failing school = unemployment ≠ $$$. I think this is the core of what is wrong with schools: all students are expected to be professional students. That is, it is expected that we will only learn if we are forced to do so either because we desire the reward (grades) or fear the punishment (failing). In fact, this is setting up students to hate learning.

That might be a dangerous accusation, but I think it is an ultimately true one. After all, students are treated as if they already do hate learning. Grades, forced study times, detentions, and graduation requirements are all safeguards built to force students into learning. My philosophy is that if you treat a problem, there will soon be a problem; this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. By treating students as if we hate and will avoid learning at all costs, we will hate and avoid learning at all costs.

Naturally, the alternative is to encourage amateur learning: learning which is done for the love of it rather than for some distant paycheck. The argument against this is that students will not learn the skills they need to be successful citizens. I vastly disagree for the simple reason that every young child wants to grow up to be a successful citizen. Nobody is born hating learning—they grow to hate it through successively being treated as if they should hate it. No child is born thinking I am bad at math—they think that after being told it many times (in different words). Think of it like this: there is only so much education which can be packed into 12 years of school. What if instead of trying to build students the perfect toolbox, schools taught students to make their own tools? If students are never taught to hate/fear learning, they will not shy away from learning opportunities. The teachers and resources are available for life-long, anytime learning; students must simply have their original love of learning preserved.

Curiosity

Imagine: Peter is a student in a self-directed learning environment. In the primary grades, he takes a wide mix of classes, primarily due to peer pressure and recommendations from friends/family. In these classes, he learns the basics: reading, mathematics fundamentals, grammar, and how to research. As he moves up in the grades, he narrows his focus upon writing, eventually phasing out mathematics classes. Throughout the process, no class or work is forced upon him: he is given the options and selects the choices for himself. Consequently, since learning is never treated as a hated activity, he never learns to hate learning but instead preserves the innate love of it. Down the line, Peter has written a best-selling novel and is trying to invest the money he earned. As any intelligent person would, he is trying to figure out the best option from the choices banks have presented him with. To be clear, Peter never learned about exponential equations or compound interest in school. However, because he still loves to learn he simply taps into Google and finds the resources necessary for him to evaluate the choices. Due to Peter being an amateur learner, he actively seeks out opportunities to learn, even though nobody is forcing him to.

The rational for not encouraging self directed learning is that simply packing students with as much knowledge possible (no matter the cost) is most efficient. However, the problem arises with the information that students do not get into their memory: since most of them will end up fearing/despising learning they will not add anything to it after school. Meanwhile, students who pursue learning on their own terms may well know less information on their exit from formal schooling. However, that information is not static: they are readily adding to it through additional learning. The traditional model has been to treat students like hard drives: packing them with 12 TB of knowledge before all cables are cut. I’d rather get out of school with only 1 GB of knowledge and a connection to the internet&mdashl;at least then I can continually add to that store. Schools must make a choice: do they want to try to stuff as much learning as possible down students’ throats or do they want to give students a hunger for learning?

I don’t want to be a professional student; I want to be an amateur learner.

  1. Photo by Still Burning on Flickr
  2. Photo by smallestbones on Flickr
  3. Photo by Marcus Vegas on Flickr

EduCon 2.0: Learning is a Conversation

1 year, 7 months ago 7 Comments

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EduCon logo

As I write this, I am traveling at 70 mph along the highway on my return from EduCon 2.0. My thoughts are speeding even faster. For me, EduCon 2.0 has been a great experience on so many levels. Right now, it is hard to even begin to grasp the individual components of the sessions when I am still reeling from the experience in general. I am sure the conversations will continue in the weeks ahead and I look forward to participating in them. For now, I want to keep track of some of my initial reflections.

Giving faces to the voices

One of my primary reasons for wanting to attend an education technology conference was to connect faces to the people. Somehow, the 32 by 32 pixel icons on Twitter just don’t do people justice. Thankfully, I got the opportunity to connect with many people from my Twitter network. Whenever I read those 140 characters, I will now hear people’s voices behind them.

Of the individuals I met, some especially stand out to me. George Mayo seemed to have passion emanating from him throughout. After spending just 5 minutes with him, I could really tell how much he cares about what he is doing. That passion he brings with him really makes him an engaging character to be with. I sincerely look forward to collaborating with him upon more projects.

It really takes meeting or listening to Will Richardson to understand who the man is. Previously, I had thought of him as just another talking head, an intellectual. After meeting him, I can see how much strength he brings to projects: strength of character & intellectual strength. (He also has huge hands.)

Tyrone was a great companion throughout the conference. He brought some strong ideas to the sessions he was in, and was unapologetic in stating them. Others from my twitterverse who I finally had a chance to meet were Konrad Glogowski, Joyce Valenza, Margo, Cathy Nelson, Karen Janowski, David Jakes, Carolyn Foote, Sylvia Martinez, Kristin Hokanson, Liz Davis, Lucie deLaBruere, Patrick Higgins, Christian Long, and many others (I’d better stop before Google tags me as a linkblog).

The value of a conversation

EduCon was really about the conversations—the discussions and occasional debates. This is what real learning looks like; real learning is not a single individual lecturing or presenting upon a subject. Real learning is an individual getting the ball rolling, then sitting back and watching where the conversation goes. As much as I try to think of blogging as a conversation, a 5 minute authentic conversation is truly worth 1,000 posts.

I think this is what we need to capture in schools. I wish my classes looked like the sessions at EduCon, infused with informal conversational learning. Often, this is an issue we run into when implementing technology in the classroom: teachers do not change their pedagogy based upon the technology. Having a blog is marginally better than having a weekly newsletter if you do the same thing with it. In the same way, an authentic conversation can be had without technology. No matter the medium, these asynchronous and synchronous conversations need to be happening in our schools.

Change uses the Socratic Method

I came to EduCon with a lot of questions. I left with even more. If I learned anything this weekend, it is that Socrates was the best teacher and learner in the world. He understood the importance of asking questions, and that is the soul of learning. A good learner, whether they be given the title of student or teacher, is not afraid to question anything and everything.

I do not think that I even know the questions, let alone the answers. Too often, technologists are quick to propose technology is the solution to everything. This makes me think of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. When asked what the answer to “Life, the Universe, and Everything” was, the most intelligent system in the world answered 42. This is not a flaw in the machine—it is a flaw in the user. Until we understand the question, we cannot know the answer.

I leave you to ponder what EduCon was for you. What was your most interesting conversation? What new questions do you have? Let’s practice the art of conversation.