Today at work I heard several administrators say something to the effect:

What we need to do is have more teachers teach actively… we need more active learning at [insert school name].

I assume what this means is an education experience taken from the following sundry list:

• student-centered,
• project-based,
• problem-based,
• hands-on,
• students are continuously engaged,
• practice of the myriad, so-called 21st century skills.

The more I think about all of those concepts above, I come to the conclusion that I think I recognize teaching and learning in this class. This approach might be labeled progressive, after the ideas of John Dewey, or even constructivist after Piaget or constructionist after Papert. Those who know their education history realize these concepts of learning are not new. Yet, it is refreshing that they are continuing to be heralded in discussions of education reform.

Unless, of course, you’re A. Duncan.

So the problem is… where is this type or style of pedagogy (in some cases you wouldn’t even label it pedagogy, but perhaps self-pedagogy or anti-pedagogy) effectively being championed? The reason I ask, and the crux of the problem, is because making this succeed in schools today is a taxing enterprise for the aspiring trainer or professional developer.

There are all these little camps, of course, which aim to attack the problem from their various viewpoints and angles. Let me list just a few:

• 21st century learning,
• Constructivist learning,
• habits of the mind,
• brain-based learning,
• the Montessori method,
• inquiry-based learning,
• challenge-based learning,
• game-based learning,
• Children’s Engineering.

A real challenge for me (or any education student) might be to construct a diagram that somehow showed the overlaps and differences between all these approaches. One of the problems is that some are better-defined than others. Another problem is that one methodology may look or work very differently between different subject areas.

And, of course, some may not very well stay within the bounds of one subject area. And we can’t have that. High school English teachers know English. We don’t expect them to know geography or Earth science as well. The solution to that old problem is teacher collaboration. Sometimes that works towards great ends. Other times it is far too inconvenient to be realistic.

We might also call collective goodies between these approaches “hot” learning. One system of measuring “hot” learning is the LoTI HEAT scale. A giant amalgamation of letters standing-in for bigger concepts, it’s a model by which one can measure the quality of learning, perhaps how “active” it is, by taking a “temperature” along four criteria.

I find all of this theoretically fascinating. But when you walk into a school classroom today, despite the cute posters on the walls that may profess “We learn by doing,” or “An active mind makes a wise man,” or any other similar polemic, we’re going to see examples of (for lack of a better word) inactive learning.

For those of us who belong in departments with the word “technology” included, many of us have already resigned ourselves to the fact that doing anything meaningful with technology requires some take on active learning strategies. To make them succeed, everyone has to be on board. It tends not to work out as well when:

• state assessments reward memorized facts,
• you’re out on your own trying the active “thing,”
• when there’s a lack of instructional support for active pedagogy, and
• administrative reviews or oversight make no reference to an active style of learning.

So, granted, the education system has a lot of challenges towards a more progressive approach to learning, at least here in public schools in America. But it’s a good sign, right, when administrators are calling for more active learning experiences to be taking place in their schools? But is that change possible?

I’ll say I think it is. Last school year I designed an activity where by teachers did some “active” learning together. Granted, it was a 3.5 hour professional development activity that didn’t depend heavily on their subject area or grade level, but it got them working together. They had to solve problems. They had to make mini-presentations for feedback. And, with multiple modes of popcorn poppery going, we tried our best at making the experience hands-on and multi-sensory.

So what holds us back from day to day?

Two things, I think. A freedom to fail and the so-called luxury of time. Creating active learning experiences for students, I firmly believe, requires creative educators. Creativity takes time. Lots of it! Unfortunately, teacher training programs fill young teachers-to-be with a lot of theory, some methods for getting-by, and then some practice before pushing them into a profession where they’ll be under-valued, stifled against attempting change, and asked to work miracles in unreasonable spans of time.

I’ve found in working with folks that “freedom to fail” is never a popular term. No one wants to fail. So, let’s re-word it. How about… incentives to innovate? And giving professionals enough time to complete an important task is just that… professional.

So, I think that’s the formula for starting a professional development program geared towards more “active learning” in a public school: incentives to innovate and ample professional time for planning and preparation. The question is, how do you make active learning experiences work in your school(s)?

This past week quite a few educators I follow online attended the Educon (search #educon in Twitter) conference in Philadelphia. Even more attended virtually from their computers using their slick website and Elluminate. I found just watching the folks I know already via Twitter was a cool enough way to see what was going on. Among the things that popped out was this diagram from David Warlick.

Picture it: a bunch of educators are in a room trying to define what “smart” is. No, not the boards, but the concept as it relates to school. One of the suggestions that really pops-out for me is the concept of smart being “specialization” and something you follow because you are “passionate.” When you think about it, successful people (also something that appears in the diagram) are also passionate. I am sure one is likely to find exceptions to this, but generally speaking, people who find success in life find something they are passionate about.

Which, of course, brings up some good questions.

1. Should school be organized in the “liberal arts” tradition where students can experience a variety of learning experiences in the spirit of becoming well-rounded?
2. Should school be specialized so that students can gain fast expertise in one area they show early interest?

It seems to me that American schools better embrace the first option, despite the fact that almost all the learning experiences we have in school are very similar, i.e., we learn about the world passively in rows of chairs, guided by a expert-mentor. While the second one scares me, because I can’t imagine a fourth grader, let’s say, know what area of specialization he/she needs, it is the model prevalent in other cultures. My good friend who attended school in China through college didn’t choose his area of study. His schooling filtered him through into a world of finance, then eventually economics. The two areas of employ he expressed interest in early on was a theatrical performer and a librarian. While a successful economist today, and generally referred to as “smart,” I can’t say he’s necessarily passionate about his field. One example, of course doesn’t make a rule.

I can only imagine why all these educators gathered together to discuss “smart”ness. As educators, we often use the term. “This is a smart group,” or “she’s a smart one!” Does it mean they earn good grades? Does it mean they seem to be successful at what they attempt to accomplish? Does it mean they exhibit a passion about their pursuit of knowledge?

I am not sure any of this matters. We can’t change what people think about the term smart anymore than changing their minds about big social issues. What does matter here is that we ought to be looking for students who haven’t found a passion in life and help guide them on a path to find it. It need not be a prescription for the rest of their schooling, but it may help them grow intellectually. I know kids who don’t find something they are interested in are often bored, over-challenged, or un-motivated in our schools. Whether or not we’re following path #1 or path #2 here in the U.S., we ought to be flexible enough to both provide more specialized instruction that caters to the interests of students and maintains the best facets of a liberal arts education.

Doing so will be expensive. Not doing so will be more expensive and detrimental.

My before-bed reading last night about Apple’s special announcement today must have been too intense. It was all I dreamed about, and it felt as if I didn’t even sleep, but rather was experiencing the “event” in real time. As I woke up and got into the shower, I was feverishly trying to go over all of the details in my head, as to not forget them.

By the time I got shampoo into my hair, the reality hit that “wait a minute!, you just had a dream… the Apple event is today, not last night!”

It wasn’t until I had washed the shampoo out that I finally believed it. “But it was all so real… Steve… the tablet… the software… the books… the magazines…”

Yeah, just a little too obsessed might be the operative word. In order to really know if I was channeled by Uncle Steve or simply wildly dreaming, let me provide the details:

• the name was never revealed,
• it was beautiful,
• the “product” was really just new software – it would seemingly run on Macs, iPhones, and a new slab;
• there was a lot of gray UI “chrome,” gunmetal and holes (like the Dashboard Dock in Mac OS X).

And yes, there were many “beautifuls,” and “bams!”, and “just swipe here, and…” from Steve.

If you haven’t seen the video about Apple’s slate and education, check it out, circa 1995.

I work in a great place where a lot of people are concerned about teaching kids the right skills relating to digital citizenship. But, these same people get upset from time to time (as do I) when we encounter the “easy way out” when it comes to treading with permission online. There’s a fundamental question that will divide us:

Is Google Images encouraged or loved at your school? Or is it loathed?

I’m in favor of the tool, don’t get me wrong; when I’m looking for a photo of something, it works. The reason I hate it, however, is because it works so well. The results are tangible things that we all want to play with. Nice shiny images. Teaching kids to check for copyright status, or to write the owner or creator of that image is just a drag. That’s why some people ignore it. Before you call me and other teachers lazy, think about it… the technology ought to make the process of finding content that’s being shared and other content that’s being “lent for viewing only” easy. In fact, search elsewhere, and you can do that, only looking at a cache of CreativeCommons-licensed goodness. But until the tools improve and CC ideas proliferate further…

One of the important ethical concerns in citizenship might be put this way:

What does it matter if no one catches me?

What teachers do in their own homes on their own computers over their own Internet connections I’m far less concerned with. I don’t think someone is a unholy sinner if they’ve downloaded a song or pirated a game. The temptation on that economic equation for delivery is too advantageous.

But almost anyone would agree that teaching kids to steal would go against the moral code invoked in the language of many teacher licensure documents. Whether or not we like copyright is another matter; that we we encourage good digital citizenship in everyone of our students is a matter we should care about.

Preview

In cooking up ways to deal with it, I’ve been busy this week formulating a new framework for our school division I will likely call “Citizenship21.” For upper elementary students, I’ve devised a worksheet that is designed to start instilling citizenship instruction. I know, a worksheet sounds pedestrian and so last-century, but take a look before you berate me.

This one sheet obviously doesn’t cover all the facets of digital citizenship, but it does, I think, address the concepts of ownership alongside my previous work on “Research 2.0″ skills. First, this would be used in a multimedia project where students would use media in the form of text, pictures, sound/music, or video. The form had to be flexible enough to be used in various ways. For some teachers, it may be the one and only planning project; for others, it may augment something else documenting more of the research process. Examples from this may include a presentation file, a video, a photo collage, a written report, a blog post, or even an audio-only podcast.

By asking students what media they will need forces the self-questioning about what they envision based on instructions provided by the teacher. Likely, the more open ended the project is, the better the experience.

In the second box, where will they get what they need? Will they take their own video? Pictures? Make their own music? Or will they go online? Might it be something re-mixed? The purpose for this screen is for making them more responsible for time spent on task. There’s a distinct reason for going online when you commit to the need to do so. If they plan on creating their own media, that’s great. Teachers may want something else that helps that process out, but I’ll need some feedback first on how that might go.

The third box is kind of open-ended. But it’s required. This reflection question not only can help re-enforce the learning objective for the project, but also get students to think about what success looks like and help them define a goal for their project.

The remainder of the space is for documenting what students want to use. Only space on the PDF limited the page to 5 slots; conceivably I could fit 10 on a single page if I find teachers encounter 5 is not enough. I made the form page sized so it could be printed, either to hand-in, or to be filled out. I hope students use the form online. Using Preview on Macs, they’ll able to write in the form and save it without any special software.

Filling in all the metadata for each piece of media might be a challenge, but it’s a good one. I want students to appreciate the time and effort creating good media takes; this appreciation I believe helps them define the concept of value for something that, when it comes down to it, is just worthless bits. This appreciation comes not only from the option of them creating their own media, but also in evaluating how good the resources are that they find. Using a simple tagging system of stars is a common yet powerful one for comparisons.

The keyword portion requires them to consider of a summary of the medium and building that skill of being able to summarize in the form a keyword tags I think will help them ultimately become better searchers.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions, praise, or criticism, I’m certainly interested in making this as useful as it can be for a letter-sized worksheet in helping students on the road to becoming better digital citizens.

This year has still a good week left in it, but it’s at that time that I begin to think about the 50 weeks that precede this time to consider what I’ve learned.

I’ve taught myself that my career should be far less about one of the things I love — the technology — and more about learning. It’s a theme that keeps hitting me in the face, day to day, either through personal experience, what I read from my colleagues the edubloggers via Twitter, or else it is the theme of some persuasive speaker who may have the fortune of standing before me at a conference or professional gathering.

Luckily, I have no fear of learning, so this is not bad news. But, when I look back not over the past weeks but the last day, I spent so much of it focused on tools rather than teaching. You’ll notice earlier I didn’t say teaching, but instead said learning. You might almost think of these concepts like the three blobs in a Venn diagram showing the TPACK theory.

I’m not saying we ignore teaching, because both teaching and learning are critical areas of focus for educators. But you can learn without a coach, a teacher, or even the warmth of another person on a given day. Learning is so much more than the short period of time a student sits in your classroom.

So let me just cut to it: I worked today on a “presentation” on Google Goodies. It doesn’t sound deep or particularly innovative, but I’m not ashamed, either. I’d been hacking away at it for days, but only managed to get 3 slides into it until today. The bottom line is,

• these “goodies” are cool tools,
• I know our teachers aren’t even aware they exist, or,
• they aren’t using them.

So, first, I had to deal with the fact that the tools existed, weren’t being used, and then as I began thinking about the tools, the inevitable question comes: Will adopting these tools allow students to learn any better than they already do?

I’m not stupid; I knew there was potential there before I started. But I before I could really get in there, and make something that someone could learn from, I needed to face the music: how would these tools “make a difference?” Let me have a few more words to detail what I eventually ended up putting into the presentation:

• Reader
• News Timeline
• FastFlip
• Search Options
• Moderator
• Squared, Docs
• City Tours, Maps
• Wave
• Sites
• Calendars

Most of the content would be of interest for personal reasons to elementary folks, and hopefully in addition, for student use at the secondary level. So, Google has a little tackle box of interesting tools. What about learning?

Trying to cover education applications of each tool would be paramount to writing a(nother) book, and that wasn’t something I was prepared to do. In fact, such an undertaking would be out-dated by the time I finished. But does that mean we should just give up and not move forward?

No. I’m better off showing my colleagues how to apply good instruction using any tools they have available or have ready access to.

I think teaching is important. I’ve said that before. But let’s focus on learning. How might these Google tools help us learn? I ended up using my time today to produce a “teaser” for teachers. Some teachers will have enough information by watching the video to be enticed to learn more and perhaps try these tools out. One of our assistant principals already identified a use for Google Wave.

For others, I hope I pique their interest enough to entice them to come to a session where they can learn more about these tools. And some may never bat an eye at these tools. It’s not personally insulting, it’s simply the reality that a) everyone has their own learning habits, and b) many folks already do a good enough job at teaching that “rocking the boat” with new tools or approaches isn’t on their radar.

So today was rather retrospective. As I forced myself to look at each of these tools independently and how they might get used in school, I held fast to a few of those things this year that I’d learned about…

1) Creating something is an incredibly educational experience, whether it’s a robot, a piece of art, or an extended conversation you have with another person through blog comments. 2) The tools and their capabilities are ever changing and for the most part, improving. From Craftsman wrenches to Web 2.0 tools. 3) We learn by attempting solutions to problems.

Simple stuff that I doubt you, reading this, would disagree with. I learned a great deal, creating my own Keynote template for this project, considering how to use the presentation, how best to organize the information, considering how much information was appropriate to share, making the presentation into a narrated video, and publishing the beast to the Web to share it.

The important part of the experience wasn’t then, the tools. It was the delivery and even above that, the comfortably challenging struggle in creating something that would raise awareness, convey facts, and hopefully weather more than one application. Questions of delivery were ultimately about pedagogy.

So, let me take one more stab at those “goodies” and tell you what I think you (or your students) could learn from them:

• Reader – you can of course skip this product entirely; but “technology” ought to make our lives easier, and save us time. This can be a critical tool for chomping through more content more quickly.
• News Timeline – do you value what’s taking place in the world around you? Anything that wraps some order around diverse content can make it easier to manage, consider, and utilize.
• FastFlip – I can’t say I’ve actively used this. But it reminded me of visiting the Newseum in Washington, D.C., and seeing all of the newspapers outside, front pages from around the world. That was an incredible experience. Perspective, bias, creativity, value… visually arranged… and here it is, for the Web.
• Search Options – sometimes just typing in what you want isn’t enough. Knowing how to access what you need or think you need is nearly critical in terms of a skill we require to be successful.
• Moderator – potential for brainstorming, a creativity engine.
• Squared, Docs – Once you being using these tools, the benefits present themselves. Dozens of projects where kids even more flexibility towards expressing ideas and observations.
• City Tours, Maps – Someone asked me earlier today: “How far is it from your house to…” With Maps, I knew right away. We can see the world around us from a laptop or a cell phone. Having your fingertips around the globe is powerful stuff.
• Wave – simply cutting edge. When you see others talk about Wave, you realize this really is the future of communication. I’m not sure it’s here yet, but the concepts are exciting to engage.
• Sites – so many teachers want something like this – a “home” on the Web for their classes. This will be a critical tool if we move towards a 1:1 initiative in the next 10 years.
• Calendars – time management, plain and simple. Take the burden off yourself of remembering when and where. Calendars are the way I do my job, and I know innovative calendaring should be among the skills we share with students. Oh, and because more than anything else, teachers want a class calendar to share with students.

So I can’t say for sure that learning using these tools over what we had available 5 years ago will make a huge impact. They seem, however, to be refinements (in news, in writing, in “spreadsheeting”, etc.) which could make good applications even easier or quicker. Plus, if they inspire discussion of more constructive ways of teaching, then we’re on to something.

One of my experiences today as I was working on this was reading the criticism of Dr. Gary Stager via Twitter about the whole notion of a “Google Teacher Academy.” I many times find his negativity off-putting (no more so than his own self-promotion), but I also find his critical eye enlightening (and occasionally amusing). Brian (@podpirate) I thought had a really good volley with Stager. Stager’s right to criticize the tools and the entity encouraging you to use them. But that Google Koolaid is sweet. For me the tools are powerful. But learning about them (even the ones in beta) are worth it, I feel, for a very basic reason: engaging these tools gets you thinking about what’s next, using them can test your notions about good teaching, and the experience expands your toolkit for learning opportunity.

Finally, I have to give some thanks to the other educators who came to share their passion for these tools earlier this month at the 2009 Google Teacher Academy in Washington, D.C. They overwhelmed us with tools, and we rarely talked about teaching. But that’s okay. We’re all teachers. So here’s my advice for each of you as we think about 2010. There will be cool new tools. But how might they help us learn? Let’s find out.

Ultimately, with my Google Goodies I’m not successful if teachers immediately begin using all of them starting in on the first week of January. That would be interesting, for sure. But the success comes from teachers creating, experiencing and challenging themselves with these tools. When they find better ways to learn (despite the tools) for their students, it’s a win.