What if I look up more and inward less?

Woodstock is a now a vintage soundtrack.

NOTHING stays the same it seems, yet education follows familiar annual cycles. There are signals of change in  Australia and schools will see a flood tide of new technologies and values appear in classrooms in 2010/11. These are likely to be tampered by continued frustration around filters, opaque policy, premium-economy schools, inequity in funding,  new curriculum, league tables and professional development. We are all somewhere on the continuum between ‘nothing will change’ and ‘everything could change’ from in-active observers to critics, enthusiasts, explorers, followers and leaders.

In 1963, Dylan sang about not “standing in doorways and blocking the halls” but today the Hill Top Hoods urge us to “stand tall above ridiculous under-achievers and constant non-believers”.

Woodstock was a signal of social change 40 years ago; and today it is signaled by the rise of YouTube; remixing; gaming and social networks. Parents and students are increasingly interested in more post-modern if not post-materialist attributes. We want our children to value social commitments, digital citizenship, environment and safety as well as academic attainment. We know that school can only only one part and place of learning if all it offers is a formal activity driven by provision of required formal qualifications. We know that we are more than ever involved in informal learning and networks online – and this represents a change in social values. What happens when qualifications are no longer the predominant indicators of creativity, potential and employability? What will drive the change that makes your LinkedIn profile more important that your graduate exam scores? What were the drivers that placed Bored of Studies as being more important to students than Board of Studies?

Right now, to me,  it matters little that one teacher is solely active in exploring ‘read/write technology in a community of in-actives. What matters is that they spend time looking up into the cloud noticing signals and patterns with their students. That is the skill I hope my kids are able to activate through education. Not all the time; as novices I want them to feel comfortable with learning under-pinning knowledge, but also hope their teacher will take the time to engage them though shared exploration of alternative scenarios.

“What if I tried to use a game and not another Ning”, “What if I spend a week teaching outside with no technology”, “what if I make that phone call to ask why that site is blocked”. Being able to conceptualize and explore ‘what if’ scenarios to me is a key student attribute. Rather than “what if it doesn’t work”, explore more “what if it did?”.  What if students who feel unsafe in school can learn in an online school that is entirely safe. What if un-engaged kids can learn social commitments from Lily Allen videos. What if the text books is wrong, what if project based learning is not the best solution for everyone, what if I am wrong … what if no one agrees with me.

In planning the school year; it is well worth exploring the continuum of ‘what if’ scenarious with staff at the outset. What if you explored new possibilities as a community before you explore new tools?

Breathing Earth – Visualisation of our world

VISUALISING information is something that today’s online generation recognises as ‘feedback’. The interface is not so much a ‘tool’ to intereact; but a system from which they gather information about the ‘world’ and their impact though the cycle of decision/outcome that occurs. Breathing Earth is a stunning example of what ‘good design’ beings to statistical information and how colour, layout and typographic information helps create a more engaging shared reality. There are numerous uses for this; not least in playful learning, and well worth checking out.

End of Web #2

“active, critical learning should lead to learners becoming designers, either by physically designing extensions to the game or by cognitively extending the game design and using that to inform their play.”

Gee, J.P. 2003. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

A few days into this; and I’m thinking about an overall learning framework for the game that will allow professional development; on-going development of shared-lesson activities though an alternate reality game.

In essence, if you want teachers to learn about enquiry/technology then use this as something to ground it.

They are then adding to an authentic project; contributing ideas and resources in a safe-fail supportive learning community – bigger than one school or system – and driven by a web-group, not individuals in a school. Over 6 months … a project to call home, and a place to learn and sandbox ideas about 21st Century Learning.

The alternate reality for this of course is that no one will participate; and that in 2010, we’ll have no more answers than we have now. But you get that with social media types. This is a community of task, interest and vocation – using social media.

It begins by asking questions (we’re great at that)

• How to engage teachers in the development of their own professional practice and skills?
• How to get them to develop these in an authentic, supporting personal learning network?
• How to allow students to assist teachers in shaping the learning activities and not be ‘creepy treehouse’?
• How to allow ‘expert’ tech savvy teachers – to use the project as a professional learning environment?
• How to allow rote/didactic skill development activities (how to, tutorials) with in overall constructavist approaches?
• How to allow off-line and low access to technology students/teachers to develop and create activities in full participation?
• What are the  assessment and evaluation resources needed to work out if this worked?

Why choose an alternate reality game as a model for professional learning?

They have a number of advantages over commercial games or developing fully online games from scratch. They are lo-fi, in that they can use a range of web technologies that are accessible in the local context so, while they do require some expertise and creativity to design, they are far cheaper and faster to create than developing high-end software, and can ensure that specific learning outcomes are met. A this point, I’m thinking that a central platform is needed as a hub, and in that I’m leaning toward Grou.ps - which is open source, social and seems to have connections to a range of services that even the Twitterati would be soothed by. The alternative is Ning, but open to other offers.