Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It’s for creative, resourceful people of
all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things.

- Maker Faire website

Maker Faire was attended by kids of all ages this weekend. And this year, for the first time since it began in 2006, Maker Faire offered a sneak preview to 500 teachers, students, and homeschool families during Education Day on Friday [my preview post].

Maker Faire embodies a few Map trends besides Do-It-Yourself. The homegrown, grassroots aspect of many of the projects point to both A New Localism and Distributed Innovation. One of the themes of Maker Faire is that if you can’t open it up and change it, it’s not yours - there’s a definite preference for open-source software and the ability to open everything up for tinkering and modification, suggesting Open Economy Principles and Deep Personalization.

And the Unbundled Education, Visible Community Learning, Kinetic Learning in Context, and Personalized Learning Plans opportunities at Maker Faire are endless! This event is all about participation and exploration and self-discovery of physical, tangible, eye-opening experiences.

I took a video camera to Education Day and went back for more fun and learning on Saturday. Here are a few videos and photos of events and exhibits:

In this video, kids play with a walking, talking robot that really loves their attentions:

This quick video shows an example of one of the homemade costumes on display by attendees:

In these two videos, several hundred spectators gathered to watch a pair of labcoated Makers drop a whole bunch of Mentos candies into a whole bunch of 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke to create a beautiful and messy display of physics in action. Part I includes the introduction and explanation, and Part II is the demonstration.

Part I:

Part II:

Every corner of the San Mateo fairgrounds held some new, weird, clever surprise - from the steampunk tractor and house on wheels to power tool drag races to robot wars to giant tesla coils and homemade musical instruments. And everywhere I looked, kids were running, skating, pedaling, and motoring from one wonder to the next.

Unfortunately, the same kids (and adults) that eagerly spent their weekend engaged in experiential learning are the same kids that are bored at school studying some of the same topics. With money channeled towards satisfying standardized experiences, few schools are able to provide learning experiences that are personalized, creative, engaging, and interactive.

The founders of Maker Faire recognize this problem. From the press release:

With budget cuts hitting schools nationwide, classes like shop, art and home economics are sadly disappearing,” lamented Maker Faire founder Dale Dougherty. “As a result, today’s students are less capable of working with their hands. These hands-on skills are absolutely vital to engineers, scientists, mechanics, chefs, and hundreds of other essential professions.”

Maker Faire combines the best elements of science fairs and live demonstrations, and invites spectators to get hands-on and become Makers - creators and shapers of their world and of their learning. These are the children that will flourish in a future of VUCA Communities and Extreme Diversity, and successful in the future that no child passed through our industrial press of education can hope to match.

As one high school student asked, “This is so much fun. Why can’t we do this kind of stuff every day?”

Hang in there, kid. You can do this kind of stuff every day - but you’ll have to wait until after you take that test and get out of class. Or until Maker Faire 2009.

I attended Maker Faire Education Day today! I’ll post more about this event on Monday, with more images and photos of students engaged in messy, loud, hands-on learning. For now, here’s an interview I shot with Sherry Huss, Director of Maker Faire:

Maker Faire 2008 Bay Area is this weekend, and comes to Austin, Texas in October. It’s fun for all ages.

Three weeks ago, I was in New York for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). AERA is the largest gathering of academics in the field of education. Many members of foundations and other nonprofits attend as well.

My primary reason in attending was to connect with organizations and individuals interested in two main interests of the Foundation: social media’s applications to teaching and learning, and student voice / student empowerment.

Since my conversion to twitter a few months ago, I’ve tried to do my part by posting real-time updates of events and meetings to other people using it. It’s also an interactive way to take notes because people can respond! So I’ve included a few posts from my “twitterstream” for you.

Session 28.024. Learning, Meaning, and Civic Engagement in the Digital Age: The MacArthur Digital Media Initiative
Tuesday, March 25th, 12:25pm to 1:55pm

Chair:

• Constance Yowell, JD and CT MacArthur Foundation

Participants:

• Henry Jenkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Howard E Gardner, Harvard University
• James Paul Gee, Arizona State University
• Nichole D Pinkard, University of Chicago

This was MacArthur’s first sponsored panel. It was star-studded, and many notables were in the audience. Henry Jenkins and Howard Gardner got into a few friendly debates over issues of access and equity, which all agreed were amplified by technology (or lack of technology). One memorable moment came when Nichole Pinkard showed an example of a student-created rap video; many of the academics in the audience looked truly mystified.

tweets:

#aera topic of discussion: the concept of the nation-state is breaking down; our digital natives are crossing borders regularly 09:34 AM March 25, 2008 from Snitter

#aera nichole pinkard is playing homemade hiphop from the iremix project to a room of academics. visible confusion. 09:50 AM March 25, 2008 from Snitter

#aera henry jenkins: we don’t need adults looking over students’ shoulders, we need them watching their backs. zing. 10:05 AM March 25, 2008 from Snitter

#aera jim gee wants to use serious games to teach complex systems. this will motivate civic participation. 10:15 AM March 25, 2008 from Snitter

#aera howard gardner reminds us that howard dean was made and broken by new media 10:53 AM March 25, 2008 from Snitter

Session 33.012. The Future of Learning: New Paradigms for the 21st Century (Presidential Session)
Tuesday, March 25th, 4:05pm to 5:35pm

Chair:

• Constance Yowell, JD and CT MacArthur Foundation

Participants:

• Mizuko (Mimi) Ito
• Marshall S Smith, WF Hewlett Foundation
• Diana Rhoten, NSF (replacing Daniel Atkins, NSF)

Discussant:

• John Seely Brown, Xerox PARC

This was the second session sponsored by MacArthur. It was in the largest room and was packed; audience members were jammed into the doorway, probably to see Mimi Ito and John Seely Brown.

tweets:

#aera mimi: 2 big things right now: new tools that youth have already adopted into ecology, and public sharing 01:14 PM March 25, 2008 from Snitter

#aera mimi polls audience: who knows what an rpg is? very few hands. i think we’re in trouble here. 01:20 PM March 25, 2008 from web

#aera next up, marshall smith of hewlett foundation on open educational resources 01:25 PM March 25, 2008 from web

#aera diana rhoten up next on virtual environments 01:42 PM March 25, 2008 from web

#aera diana: with early adoption comes a mix of hysteria and hope 01:46 PM March 25, 2008 from web

#aera lots of hype, lots of hope, lots of doubt about efficacy of virtual worlds for impact on learning 01:50 PM March 25, 2008 from web

#aera virtual environments are no exception 01:46 PM March 25, 2008 from web

#aera jsb closes with herb simon quote: it’s not what you know, it’s how you know it 02:10 PM March 25, 2008 from web

Session 39.022. Digital Literacies and the Future of Schools
Wednesday, March 26th, 10:35am to 12:05pm

Chair:

• Richard R Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Participants:

• Erica Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Allan M Collins, Northwestern University
• Katie Salen, Parsons School of Design
• Lauren B Resnick, University of Pittsburgh
• Louis M Gomez, Northwestern University
• Anthony S Bryk, Stanford University

Discussant:

• Richard R Halverson, University of Wisconsin - Madison

All of the speakers for this session were interesting, but the most exciting was Katie Salen, who is launching a new gaming for learning program at Parsons The New School of Design. Many of the consequences for education hinted at by our Map – disconnect between school and students, lack of integration of technology, bored students, aging model – were discussed. The projects presented all attempt to educate students in basic digital literacy and then scaffold on top of that knowledge.

tweets:

#aera halverson opens by holding up an iphone, praising it, and saying that it’s banned from most schools 07:39 AM March 26, 2008 from Snitter

#aera school is becoming less important as venue for learning; industrial rev led to universal schooling, knowledge rev leads to lifelong 07:46 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera seeds of new system: home schooling, workplace, distance, adult, tv/video, virtual environments, tech certifications, internet cafes 07:48 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera halverson names three imperatives: customization, interaction, learner control. calls for new horace mann to step up and be visionary 07:54 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera giving henry jenkins’ def of particip cultures. low barriers to entry, support built in, informal mentorship, valued contributions 07:57 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera now showing a screenshot of gamestar mechanic. it’s come a long way since i last played with it. 08:21 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera next up: someone who does not introduce herself and does not show slides. 08:42 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera that must mean she knows what she’s talking about 08:42 AM March 26, 2008 from web

#aera wish you all were here. resnick is pretty funny. but nothing i can really repeat here. habermas, dewey, democracy… 08:54 AM March 26, 2008 from web

Session 53.014. Girls and Information Technology: Innovative Approaches to Narrowing the Gender Gap
Thursday, March 27th, 10:35am to 12:05pm

Chair:

• Jill Denner, Education, Training, and Research Associates

Participants:

• Deborah Muscella, Simmons College
• Zakiyyah Kareem and Audrey Warren, Girlstart
• Melissa J Koch, William R Penuel, Torie Gorges, SRI International
• Karen A Peterson and Karen J Manuel, Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology
• Steven Bean and Jacob Martinez, ETR Associates

Discussant:

• Cornelia Brunner, Education Development Center / Center for Children and Technology

I attended this session with KWF VP of Education Strategy Monica Martinez. It was a good source of some interesting student / gaming organizations: BuildIT (which marries IT fluency with STEM,) GirlStart (a computer club for girls,) TechReach (an alignment of school, community, local business, and mentors for at-risk girls,) and the Girl Game Company (a gaming company managed by high school girls that build games for girls). The somewhat weak conclusion was that these projects work because they are interesting to girls.

tweets:

#aera girls often feel that they are consumers of tech but not empowered to create it 07:53 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

#aera BuildIT marries IT fluency with STEM education. 08:08 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

#aera girls participating in Girl Game Company are employees with roles and get paid in virtual currency called clams. 08:37 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

#aera key seems to be in designing learning experiences that actually interest girls. that’s a bit obvious. 08:49 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

Session 55.047. From Practice to Practice: What Novice Teachers and Teacher Educators Can Learn From One Another.
Thursday, March 27th, 12:25pm to 1:55pm

Chair:

• Thomas C Hatch, Teachers College

Participants:

• Pamela L Grossman, Stanford University
• Christa M Compton, Stanford University
• Emily Venson, School of the Future
• Travis Bristol, Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice

Discussant:

• Magdalene Lampert, University of Michigan

This was a very interesting session. A group of teacher educators at various schools of education all tried to emulate the work of one star teacher, Yvonne Divans Hutchinson in Los Angeles, as a means of training new teachers. Hutchinson teaches literature and literary theory to primarily African-American and Latino students, using techniques that engage learners in the context of their own lives. The teacher educators discovered that Hutchinson is very difficult to emulate, but her work is great material for potential teachers to discuss and study.

tweets:

#aera persistent theme: all tried to teach hutchinson’s methods; her high school kids outperfomed teachers in training at stanford, tc. 10:01 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

#aera interesting point from audience member: teacher prof dev in schools is usually not connected with teacher education in higher ed 10:41 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

#aera why does every question from audience come with a lengthy personal background? oh yeah, because i’m at an academic conference. 10:47 AM March 27, 2008 from twhirl

Session 64.012. Contexts of Power: The Role of Youth-Led Action, Research, Evaluation, and Planning in Generating Social Change in Schools
Friday, March 28th, 8:15am to 9:45am

Chair:

• Jennifer M Gong, Youth in Focus

Participants:

• Jann Murrary-Garcia, University of California - Davis
• Dana Wright, Harvard University
• Jesus Sanchez and Lucia Kimble, Youth in Focus
• Patrick Lee, Stupski Foundation

Discussant:

• Pedro A Noguera

[note: presenters also included a whole bunch of students from Oakland Unified School District and Davis High School]

This was the most interesting session I attended; it was entirely focused on student-led efforts to gain power and voice in the (local) education system. And most of the presenting was done by the students themselves. There were two projects represented: a district-wide effort at the Oakland Unified School District called All City Council (ACC,) and a school-wide effort at Davis High School.

tweets:

#aera we just did the hokey pokey. good idea for a wakeup. let the students lead the way. 05:31 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera new student presenting on qualitative results: students perceived that administrators expected diff performance out of diff races 05:50 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera and students gradually come to meet those expectations 05:50 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera now up: students from oakland unified school district, starting with tony robinson. he’s opening in with a poem he wrote. 06:00 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera spoken word called “reflection”. “now i can see. the reflection in my eyes is a reflection of me” 06:01 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera ousd has now institutionalized youth voice into planning cycle, incl research funds 06:14 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera student research closed with funny story about hopping the school fence to avoid truancy officer to get *inside* 06:31 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

#aera robert from surdna foundation just used the term “adultist” to describe most funders and the general public. 06:52 AM March 28, 2008 from twhirl

Technorati Tags: knowledgeworks, future, education, aera, aera2008

I and two colleagues from the Foundation attended the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies, or ETech, conference this week in San Diego. This conference focuses on technology products, services, and research projects that are in the early stages of adoption or recognition.

I won’t detail every session that we attended, but here are some of the highlights that can apply to education, teaching, and learning:

Use Your Head: The Future of Mind Hacks
David Pescovitz (BoingBoing.net, Institute for the Future, MAKE:), Daniel Marcus (Washington University School of Medicine), Alvaro Fernandez (SharpBrains.com), Timo Hannay (Nature Publishing Group)

and

I Sing the Body Electric: How Our Bodies Are Changing Society, and Vice Versa
Quinn Norton (n/a)

These two sessions explored tools, exercises, and pharmaceuticals for enhancement to our physical and cognitive abilities. Both discussed effects and ethics. Quinn Norton likened adoption of attention drugs like Adderall and Provigil to the adoption of coffee, which was widely debated, sometimes outlawed, and initially only available to the rich in every country that encountered it. Today, it is second only to oil as a commodity. Will enhancements like these become the norm?

This topic fits well with the Map trend of Extended Child. Today’s students feel pressure to perform and are punished for making mistakes in school, and those that can afford them use whatever means they can to get ahead - extra tutoring, extracurricular classes, study aids, drugs, and who knows what else as it becomes available.

Projecting Surveillance Entertainment
Merci Victoria Grace (GameLayers), Justin Hall (GameLayers)

This presentation detailed some of the effects of games that know who you are and where you are at all times and can use that information. The speakers demonstrated a game they’ve created that they dub PMOG, or Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Their intention is to change your gaming habits; instead of spending hours of time away from the “real” world in World of Warcraft or Second Life, players can get their gaming fix from their everyday websurfing. It’s a fairly clever system - players get achievement badges for visiting, for example, the EFF website or Google. But there are more difficult badges to earn, such as one for *not* visiting Google for a month, which forces players to adopt new behaviors. Players can also plant mines and treasure chests on other sites for the next player that visits it.

This has enormous potential for a whole bunch of Map trends, as well as offering an interesting way to incite learning in a fairly behavioral way - setting rewards for desired actions. The badge for not visiting Google for a month, for example, forced players to discover new tools and methods for search instead of relying on the accepted best product. Imagine a system that guides and assesses learning in this fashion.

Futuretainment: The Asian Media Revolution
Mike Walsh (Tomorrow)

This session was about emerging technologies - at least not in the United States. Instead, it was about massively adopted technologies - and trends - in Asia (and India) that are just emerging here. Social networks, multifunction mobile phones, and high bandwidth have generated fantastic network effects and caused transformations in the social fabric.

The Map trends of Urban Computing, Social Cities, Cheap Mobile Devices, and Lightweight Infrastructures could lead to more Agile, Smart Schools and Kinetic Learning in Context,

DIY Survival: Projects for the Apocalypse
Bre Pettis (I Make Things)

This presentation showcased inexpensive tools and tips for survival in the event of a natural disaster, robot uprising, plague, war or terror attack, etc.

OK, there isn’t much of a direct connection to education for this topic, but projects are always fun! If the apocalypse is too depressing a topic, find some other reason to look through Instructables and Makezine and come up with a few projects that students can do in class. Build a solar array while learning about energy! Empower plants to send a text message [botanicalls] when they need water while learning about biology and photosynthesis. The possibilities for a more fun and engaging learning experience are endless.

Technorati Tags: education, learning, technology, knowledgeworks, etech2008, etech, future

I spent this past weekend at Educon2.0, a conference about learning and web 2.0 technology.

The conference was held at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. The model is similar to the New Tech model I wrote about last week. The setting gave the conference a feeling of authenticity; we were sitting in a learning environment talking about learning environments.

The technologies used at the conference also helped to set the tone. twitter was the crowd favorite for new and useful classroom technologies; it makes personal learning networks easy to create and maintain. ustream.tv was used to broadcast all of the sessions live; about 800 remote participants watched and chatted and submitted questions. During concurrent sessions, the local attendees tuned into twitter and ustream to find out what was happening all over the building. All of the content was (and is) available through educon wiki. It was a fairly tidy pile of technologies that worked well.

There are plenty of other posts that talk about the proceedings, the wonderful conversations, the technology, and the resources generated. Here’s a partial list (I’ll update it as I can):

• David Warlick liveblogging about the expert panel and Konrad Glogowski’s session on the role of the teacher
• Will Richardson, who coined the term “twitterialize” to describe the effects of twitter
• Clarence Fisher commenting on a remark made by Gary Stager about putting words to action

Leadership and Vision

Most of the participants were classroom teachers or instructional technologists, the people working or supporting our students every day. These are the kinds of educators every student should experience: progressive, open to new ideas, experimental. They believe in technology as a transformative tool for education, and embrace the power of Grassroots Economics and Smart Networking.

They are also unafraid to put the needs of learners above the rules and culture of the system when they conflict. What was most interesting to me about this conference was how every participant acknowledges the barriers to change and moves right past them. Chris Lehmann, principal of the school, opened the show by creating a feeling of vision and leadership that echoed and rebounded throughout the halls for the entire two days.

Educon was a wonderful opportunity to get together, support each other, and refresh our energy so that we may continue the fight.

Power to the People. We Deserve It.

Note: KnowledgeWorks is committed to, as Gary Stager said, “Get off [our] box and show us something in reality,” and we’re planning some projects that will turn words into actions. More information will be posted here soon.

Update 01/29: Kevin Jarrett also believes Leadership was the most important takeaway
Update 02/01:Lucie delaBruere has a great post over on Infinite Thinking Machine

Technorati Tags: future, education, knowledgeworks, educon, educon20

Last week, I and a few colleagues from KnowledgeWorks took a tour of the Sacramento New Technology High School [site] to see an example of an innovative and inspiring model of learning.

The New Tech Model

The New Technology Foundation is the fee-for-service school development organization that works with states or districts to design, launch, and coach New Tech schools (there are now 35). New Tech high schools are based upon project-based learning and team teaching, 21st Century skills, a strong ethos and mission, personalized learning outcomes, and a locally-developed curriculum. The technology component is a well-designed platform that supports the other elements; it includes 1-1 computing and a web-based portal that students, teachers, and parents use to record and check grades, maintain portfolios of work, view and complete assignments, and schedule classes. The model seamlessly integrates all of these components to produce a transparent, explicit, and authentic pedagogy.

The truly remarkable aspect of the New Tech model is its students. At the Sacramento school, which is 70 percent minority and 62% free/reduced lunch, there’s a 96% attendance rate. The students are engaged in the process, empowered to make decisions, and actually learning - and they are fully aware of that fact. They can explain their activities using terms like “rubrics” and “soft skills” and are versed in identifying for themselves what they want to learn and how to do so. The project-based approach and teamwork make them think deeply about group dynamics and organization. “We know what needs to be done,” and “you can’t just get by” said one student during the tour. And they feel personally responsible for success; another student told me, “At this school there’s no way you can tell your parents ‘the teacher didn’t teach me anything’”.

An example of this model in action was seen in the Physical Education / Health class, in which teachers from each of those subjects led students in analyzing their diet and exercise habits. Students were researching caloric content and burn rates in class and conferring with each other; the Health teacher noted that some of these students don’t get to eat breakfast regularly, so they all take turns bringing different foods to class to share. In the Physics and Math class, students were testing gravity and acceleration using inclined planes and meters, and plotting the results. The History and Government class was working towards a debate in which each student on a team would assume the role of a candidate for president.

The students and administrators admit that this model doesn’t work for everyone, but it only needs to work for those students that want it. As an option within a larger school district, students quickly learn whether it suits them and can return to a traditional comprehensive high school if it doesn’t.

Assessment

The proof, of course, is in the learning outcomes. New Tech students take the same standardized tests as any other public school student, and they do well, with tremendous improvements over the students in the same geographic areas attending the comprehensive schools. For example, in 2005, the Jefferson Parish High School in Los Angeles, CA, was one of the worst schools in California. In 2006, Los Angeles Unified School District launched four New Tech schools. Its 2007 report showed improvements at all schools across multiple measurements, including attendance, suspension rates, dropout rates, parent involvement, and state standardized tests - after just one year. This included Jefferson High School, one of the worst-performing schools in California; the New Tech school, Student Empowerment Academy at Jefferson High School, is considered a huge success story by the state and the local community.

Another measure of success is equity and access. The School Redesign Network [SRN], led by Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, published a report in November entitled High Schools for Equity: Policy Supports for Student Learning in Communities of Color. It included the Sacramento school in its list of 5 outstanding examples of schools that work.

“These schools break the conventional links between race, poverty, and academic failure,” says Darling-Hammond. “Not only do their students receive an academically rigorous curriculum that prepares them for college and careers, they also experience learning opportunities that are culturally rich, socially and practically relevant, and responsive to their needs and interests.”

Analysis and Caveats

My own analysis of the model is that it’s a wonderful option and should be replicated widely wherever it can be supported.

Pros:

• It’s not a prescriptive model; it allows for localization and tailoring and adaptation.
• The New Tech Foundation provides heavy technical (implementation, coaching, etc) support for at least 3 years.
• It offers very authentic assessment.
• It allow failing schools to start fresh easily.
• Students are aware of, and involved in, school philosophy, pedagogy, practices, etc.
• There is seamless integration of model with pedagogy.

Cons:

• It can be expensive. The computing technology and facilities remodeling (the model works best with double-sized classrooms) has to come from somewhere, either from grants or from public funding. States like Indiana and North Carolina and possibly New York are stepping up to fund them at the district level.
• Technology refresh can be costly, (but the technology in use is nothing extravagent, and schools can easily survive 5 or 6 years without buying new equipment).
• It often require MOUs with teachers, which can be difficult to get.
• It can be difficult to scale; requires small schools and incredible concensus and relationship building (this isn’t really a fault of the model but of the American educational system).

This last point is perhaps the most difficult to address. Bob Pearlman, Director of Strategic Planning for the New Technology Foundation, told me, “If there’s the right climate, then we can get into the right set of partnerships”. Many states and districts are ready for change, but must corral all of the interested parties into agreement, and obtain funding.

Possibilities for the Future

I believe in the future forecasted by the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education. Therefore I believe in the New Technology model, because the students we met were prepared for it better than any other students I have ever met. At present, they are flourishing in Feral Cities and VUCA Communities. They are well-versed in Personal Digital Media and Media-Rich Pervasive Learning. And they live and breathe Personalized Learning Plans - in a sense, they partner with their teachers to become their own Learning Agents. They take all of these skills into a future of globalization, cooperation, collaboration, and rapid evolution, and I have no doubt that they will adapt and succeed in the world.

Conclusion

There is no one-size fits all model of learning that meet the needs of our students. But if we can embrace a learning economy that offers options and values meaningful, personalized learning over mass market education, the New Technology model could be a big piece of the puzzle. The systemic change is the toughest part of the problem, but it is clear that there are solutions that work if we have the courage to try them.

I and my colleagues at the KnowledgeWorks Foundation would like to thank the following people for our wonderful tour:

• Bob Pearlman and Mark Morrison of the New Technology Foundation
• Paula Hanzel and Kris Williams of the Sacramento New Tech HS
• our three student Ambassador tour guides
• and the amazing student Ambassadors on the panel that gave us their time and insights

Technorati Tags: future, education, knowledgeworks, newtechnology, highschool

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Last week, KnowledgeWorks hosted the last of our four Innovation Convenings on teaching practices at our offices in Cincinnati. This last meeting focused on the ways in which we must select, educate, and support our future educators.

During the last convening on Reimagining Teaching for the Future [blog] we used a process of scenario planning to create and describe four possible futures. We thought that process worked very well, so we invited Laura Lefkowitz of MCREL to facilitate again.

This time we started with four futures, modified to fit our new focal question of teacher preparation. The two critical uncertainties were the purpose of education (public good vs private benefit) and the delivery of curriculum (standardized vs. individualized). The four futures created at the intersections of these axes of are:

Public Good and Standardized: schoolopoly.gov, a.k.a. All for One, One for All
In this scenario, education is delivered from a centralized source that defines curricula and content for all learners at defined levels of proficiency. This future includes national training and certification, is highly data-driven, and aims to educate all members of society.

Public good and Individualized: Think Nationally, Learn Locally
This scenario forecasts an alignment between community, school, and government to ensure high-quality opportunities for all students, with community participation and civic education as a common theme. Beyond those areas, the interests and needs of each student are paramount; pacing, learning style, and content are all determined by the student and advisors. Assessment is based upon portfolios of work that can be transferred to any learning environment.

Private Benefit and Standardized: All Work and No Play
In this scenario, education is entirely tailored to the needs of the workforce, and heavily influenced by the needs of corporations, which often sponsor centers of learning or run corporate universities. Educational opportunities are plentiful for anyone that wants a job from those offered, if the students can qualify for the training programs.

Private Benefit and Individualized: To Each His Own
In this scenario, government is minimally involved in the education process; instead a market economy flourishes. Private and public providers of learning offer a variety of options to those that can afford them. Every student must determine their own path, and some learning agents specialize in advising and guiding learners with those choices.

The accompanying chart summarizes participants feelings about the various scenarios:

The blue dots indicate where they believe we are now.
The light green dots indicate which scenario they believe is most likely in 2020.
The dark green dots show preferred scenarios.
The red dots show least preferred scenarios.

Conclusions

Market forces - defined on the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education [Map] as the Growth of the Learning Economy - played a heavy role in how the participants refined the scenarios and developed their plans for preparation. All of the teams saw growth in the consumer-driven market for options and diversification of product offerings. Similarly, all participants forecasted new and diverse roles to complement or replace what we think of today as a teacher - described by the Map as An Explosion of Learning Agents.

Also worth noting is the treatment of access and equity in these scenarios. Today, we have a mix of government mandate, charitable organizations, and community support for special needs students; each of these scenarios includes this mix but in different blends. In All For One, for example, federal dollars and federally-run schools are the answer, while the To Each His Own Group acknowledged that some governmental requirements might be needed to ensure that fringe elements get some access to market opportunities.

The final list of elements of effective teacher preparation includes both items the group liked about our current system, as well as areas of improvement:

Keep:
Project-based learning
Exposure to career early on
University-based preparation
Safeguards to labor force
Selection process (active identification of highly qualified/effective teachers)
Site-based training models

Change / Improve:
Courses
Entrenched interests
Current tenure and reward structure
Data management systems
Barriers to teachers feeling empowered
Method of measuring highly qualified/effective teachers
Benefits of teacher turnover
Make teaching enticing
Marketing of the profession
Disconnect between teachers and students
Portability

This list will be a great lens for KnowledgeWorks going forward as we look for great ideas for teachers to investigate.

We’re glad we could offer new perspective on this issue, and we thank our participants very much for helping us to think differently about the future.

Technorati Tags: future, education, knowledgeworks

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On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, KnowledgeWorks held the third of four convenings on topics addressed by the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education [map]. The topic of this meeting was Reimagining Teaching for the Future; we are interested in how the role of learning agents (teachers and other designers/deliverers of learning) will change in response to a changing educational landscape.

The Map hotspot of An Explosion of Learning Agents is the most relevant, and many supporting trends are applicable. Institutions for Collective Action and the Urban Learning Commons both posit a more communal, peer-to-peer learning environment. Unbundled Education and Participatory Pedagogy address the increasing number of options in the education market.

In this convening we employed scenario-planning methodology to reach a group vision of possible futures, and we plan to leverage these scenarios in our final convening in January on Preparing Highly-Effective Teachers. Laura Lefkowitz of our host organization in Denver, McREL, facilitated the scenario development.

What’s the Scenario?

Scenarios are a common tool of futurists. They can be created in a quick and dirty fashion by one person or they can be developed over months by large teams. The basic methodology is:

1. Choose a Focal Question. We had the benefit of a predetermined question:

   What will learning agents need to know and be able to do in order to be effective in the year 2020 and beyond?

2. Choose a few Critical Uncertainties. These are elements for which we cannot assume a known state in the future, and can be described in terms of extreme polar opposites. Usually it is best not to bias the scenarios with positive or negative language.

   The group generated several excellent critical uncertainties, including:

   • purpose of education (individual development vs societal development)
   • standardization (standards-based learning vs completely open)
   • student voice (participatory pedagogy and governance vs expert-designed pedagogy and systems)
   • role of network technology (open and agnostic vs closed and controlled)
   • dominant market force (consumer demand vs provider supply)

3. Pick Two That Can Be Combined. If we take any two variables and create a 2×2 grid out of them, we end up with 4 quadrants, each with a potential story. We chose to juxtapose market force and purpose of education, with the resulting grid:

   
   
   
   2×2 Grid
   
   Originally uploaded by SteveHargadon
   

4. Make Up Stories For Each Intersection. Usually it’s most useful and interesting to talk about the extreme cases and take either an optimistic or pessimistic view, because this generates the most interesting stories.

The point of scenario planning is not to predict the future, because we can never be right. However, these stories offer insight into the possibilities, and allow organizations to plan for those possibilities.

The participants jumped into scenario planning eagerly and in 12 hours created the outlines of 4 potential futures:

1. Quadrant A: the purpose of education is to develop society, and the dominant market force is the consumer. In this scenario, the education system is highly participatory, technology-rich, and collaborative. All members of the local community and the larger society, including the young learners, come together to determine how tax dollars are distributed towards education, the goals of schooling, and the curricula to meet those goals. Various disciplinary subjects are often taught under the umbrella of a larger societal theme, such as sustainability, and the local community is often the site of learning. Learning agents help structure the content, guide the students, and facilitate projects.
2. Quadrant D: the purpose of education is to develop society, and the dominant market force is the provider. This is the scenario closest to what we have at the end of 2007, so the interesting story element here is what might drive a much better version of this scenario. The group members imagined a growing discontent, fueled by increasing globalization and increasing collaboration, between the haves and the have-nots of the education system, and a rebellion led by teacher mobs and teacher unions to force the system to become relevant again. The central government utilizes one learning technology platform, with learning agents operating at the nodes of that platform to shape pedagogy and specialize in complementary disciplines.
3. Quadrant B: the purpose of education is to develop individuals, and the consumers are the dominant market force. In this scenario, the education system is based upon unbundled offerings available at any time and in any place, and students often learn in social networks based upon affinity. There is no single delivery mechanism. Learning agents act as social networking specialists and as personal learning coaches, and are valued for their individual contributions to learning.
4. Quadrant C: the purpose of education is to develop individuals, and the providers are the dominant market force. If Quadrant B posited a bunch of short-order cooks, this scenario can best be thought of as a mall food court. In this future, the education system of 2020 is highly centralized, technology-rich, data-driven, and finely attuned to the needs of its learners. Learning agents at the school level analyze performance data, form one-on-one relationships with students and their parents, and guide learners through personalized learning plans that cater to optimal learning styles. Learners work at their own pace to achieve predetermined levels of proficiency.

Conclusions

The group developed optimistic stories in which the federal government
increases flexibility of standards and gives more power to states,
schools, and teachers, but the undercurrent in the room was one of
dissatisfaction with the current system and doubt that change can happen without major upheaval. The focus of the convening was on the role of teachers; therefore, several of the quadrants forecasted a rebellion led by teachers as the major driver of change.

In each of these scenarios, teachers gain more agency and develop closer relationships with students. The scenarios also involve more choices for learners, either in the form of predetermined learning plans or participatory pedagogy.

KnowledgeWorks hopes to use these four scenarios, and perhaps develop them more fully, in the next convening on Preparing Highly Effective Teachers.

12/18/2007 Update: Steve Hargadon posts about the convening here.

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On Tuesday and Wednesday, KnowledgeWorks held the second of four convenings on topics addressed by the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education [map]. The topic of this meeting was Modernizing Teaching Tools; we are interested in technologies that educators use for teaching and learning. Like the last convening in Denver, we sought to explore a range of ideas, not to build consensus.

The Map contains many relevant trends: Participatory Pedagogy, which offers the challenges, frustrations, and rewards of collaborative design to both the teachers and the students. Technologies of Cooperation are out there and in use, including instant messaging, social networks, telepresence, blogs and wikis, and massively multi-player games. Media-Savvy Youth and Personal Digital Media both reflect the growing competence with, and willingness to create, rich content. And the hotspot of Media-Rich Pervasive Learning perhaps best sums up the focus of this convening: anytime, anyplace learning is here.

Barriers to Adoption

During the last convening on Professional Learning Communities, I observed that all participants took for granted that technology can and will take a role in forming communities. This time around, in spite of an overall theme of technology, the crowd was again uninterested in the specific whats and far more interested in the whys and hows; they want to:

• find the good ideas
• figure out which ones are appropriate under what circumstances
• get other educators to use them

Of those tasks, finding the good ideas is the least difficult; if anything, there are too many libraries and repositories and directories for educators. Market forces and tools for personalization will probably consolidate these resources soon.

Figuring out which approaches are appropriate for a given educational challenge is difficult, especially in the current policy framework. No Child Left Behind emphasizes system-wide standards over localization and personalization.

Getting other educators to use new tools and techniques is possibly the biggest challenge identified by this group. A mix of personal attitudes towards technology, and policies that usually favor the status quo over innovation and the system over the students, combine to put up huge systemic barriers to adoption and make everyone - students, teachers, parents, administrators, etc. - averse to risk.

One other observation is worth mentioning in connection with that last task: There were several participants that would rather go around the system than work within it. The most outspoken was Robert Clegg of Tabula Digita, who envisions a pure manifestation of Open Economy Principles and Unbundled Education: a world without schools. This vocal minority demonstrate a growing belief that our educational system is set up to fail learners.

Conclusions

The challenges to innovation are many, but there are immediate and long-term strategies that can work.

In the near-term, Rick Beach of Classroom of the Future offered an excellent technique for adoption on a local level: assume that 25% of your fellow educators are interested, 50% will become interested if results are obvious, and 25% would rather die than change. That offers a starting point for right here and now: you can promote innovation in education by modeling good tools and techniques, and sharing them with like-minded folks (both locally and through online communities). As these ideas take root, the fence-sitters will join of their own accord, or because broad-minded administrators see the value and force the change.

The long-term strategy is two-pronged: keep pushing on the open economy principles that allow innovation to take place, and push hard on policy-makers to create a level playing field for students. And let’s not forget, as Karl Fisch put it during one of the final sessions:

We are the system, and therefore we have a responsibility. — Karl Fisch

The KWF site for the convenings is live; the MTT site will be updated with more detailed information about this convening, as well as the final paper.

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Last night I attended a town hall event at Stanford entitled American Innovation and the Future of Education [stanfordevents]. It was a panel discussion on how to improve America’s math, sciences, and engineering education. The event was sponsored by Intel and The Atlantic.

The panelists included some amazing experts on innovation: Tina Seelig of Stanford University, Carl Guardino of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Ted Mitchell of the New Schools Venture Fund, and Jack O’Connell, the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Clive Crook of The Atlantic moderated.

The panelists had fairly diverse viewpoints on the central question of how to achieve excellence in schools. Jack O’Connell was put on the defensive right away about the performance of California’s public schools, and countered with statistics showing improvement over the five years of his tenure. Ted Mitchell believes that our nation has no clear definition of excellence and that we are failing to educate our students in what matters: experience. Carl Guardino argues that we fail to meet the needs of minorities and the diversity of our students. Tina Seelig had the most enthusiasm and suggestions, all in the vein of Ted’s bias: change the experience of students to one of experimentation, opportunity for failure, and both breadth and depth of knowledge.

We don’t teach our kids anything. They learn by themselves. Our job is to inspire them.

- Tina Seelig

Conclusions

Last week at the Commonwealth Club, Randy Nelson touted the benefits of experiential learning, much as Tina Seelig did last night; this view was echoed by one of the audience members, who asked why we bother to teach using methods we know don’t work.

Also at the Commonwealth Club, Milton Goldberg and Monica Martinez called for a dialog that pulls in all segments of our society to shape our vision of the future. At the town hall meeting, Ted Mitchell said that our nation has no clear definition of excellence in education, and cited the split at the beginning of this century over how our schools should be designed. On one side was the structured, academic model espoused by Edward Thorndike that was widely adopted by our schools and led to the testing and measurement system we have today. On the other hand was the experiential, communal, and Platonic model championed by John Dewey that is often cited as a vision for change today.

Whatever your philosophy on learning and teaching, there are plenty of good thinkers, from all corners, ready to talk about real solutions. Companies like Intel put millions of dollars into educational initiatives; education reformers like Ted Mitchell try new models; teachers like Tina Seelig try innovation in the classroom; business leaders like Carl Guardino have the experience and the connections to bridge boundaries; government leaders like Jack O’Connell have the power to implement large-scale solutions. We have the power to make changes. The discussion is overdue.

10/28/07 Update: BusinessWeek just published this article on a report by the Urban Institute that claims that we’re doing quite well in producing science and engineering graduates, thank you very much. The report blames “The Science Education Myth” on misinterpretation of the data. Is there a statistician out there?

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