All this change ….

How many blocks tall are you now?

For adults like me who work in schools September means being confronted with a world of change.  There are new faces of course, and names to learn. There are new courses, fresh paint on the walls and sometimes new structures and renovations to get used to.

And the familiar is unfamiliar too. Children have grown taller, and they return to school full of stories of summer adventures and new experiences. They are changed by the time spent playing in the yard, their new friends, their summer jobs and community service. They return with new interests and passions, revised dreams and aspirations.  Now they can swim, have a passion for photography or physics, improv theater or mountain trekking, found new depths of empathy, tested themselves, joined a life-changing cause, know what they want to study in college.

And, disconcertingly, we realize that we are back at the beginning. Here are small children just beginning their adventures in school, learning new routines for the first time. And teachers start at the beginning the all important work of building community norms and routines they took for granted in June. And gosh! Yes – we did teach beginning algebra last year and here we are again doing the same thing.

And most of these changes we welcome.

This is the circle of life in school. It has its seasons and its ever-evolving inevitability of change that we adjust to, welcome and celebrate.

Like the coming of autumn – we miss the days of summer but look forward to crisp mornings, the fall foliage, the first fire and wearing that favorite sweater again.

I read recently that 92% of two year olds have an online presence. (All those sonogram pics and baby photos posted on line and sent to the grandparents.) And that by the time many children are in elementary school they are googlable and already have a digital footprint. This is a new kind of change for most of us. And it has significance for us and the children we teach.

This is the other world of change that comes at us with a relentless and accelerating pace.  And it has implications for how we conduct ourselves in school.

If we are serious as educators then it means we have to be serious about our proficiency with digital tools.  If we want to protect our students and if we want to equip them for their futures then we have to be talking about it in school as well as modeling and building and sharing our own digital impact.

Some things are no longer acceptable in schools. Just as we no longer seek to tether children to their desks for hours on end (some schools like PDS never did) we also have to accept the hands-on responsibility for learning in the digital era. No more indulgent chuckles about those darn digital kids.

But it’s not about keeping up with the bewildering array of new tools that come at us wave after wave

It is rather a focus on how we teach – on pedagogy – and on the purpose of it all. And when we do that we open up the possibility for embracing change. This is a truly exciting time to be in education.  We now have the tools and resources for learning and collaboration that earlier educators could only dream about.

When we replace the fear of the unknown with the awareness of possibility – when we are driven by curiosity – then the new world of learning is an adventure.

This is the world our students inhabit. And so do we.

4th and 5th grade Reading CircleAnd here is just one example from 4th and 5th grade of how change can work.

Children  have been reading and writing about Natalie Babbitt’s fantasy novel Tuck Everlasting since it was first published in 1975.

But now – they can connect with readers within and beyond the confines of the classroom walls. In this Global Read-Aloud blog children join the community of readers who reflect, speculate, anticipate and comment on their reading.

This is a whole new and powerful way  for children to join what psycho-linguist Frank Smith once called “The Literacy Club”.

In another example from the summer, four girls used the publishing and collaborating tools available on line to create Have you Heard? – a magazine centered Have You Heard? A Magazine for the PDS Communityon change and school.

Some children are notoriously averse to change. They are nostalgic for the way things were notwithstanding they complained bitterly about them at the time.  Emotional connections endure. And learning about the past and knowing what once was is more important than ever. In times of change we need even more ties to history to serve as anchors, platforms and stabilizers.

And so – to accommodate these change-resistant children I say we should insist that these kids stop changing too.

All that growing and learning that they do….Stop it! We liked you the way you were.  It’s too stressful for us poor adults to deal with.  Not to mention the expense of all those new shoes

“Children will learn to do…

…what children want to learn to do.”  Take a look at this from  Sugata Mitra. There are some really important lessons here. Which one resonates with you?

The Shift in New Brunswick

This video was produced by the New Brunswick, Canada, Department of Education. It reflects their thinking about our rapidly changing world, the future of education and the needs of their students.

At PDS we are always thinking about our students and how to serve them best. As you watch the film – what are your thoughts about education, our children, their future and what matters most?

Digital literacy across the curriculum

It’s not about the tools and the testing, it’s about the learning and the thinking.

Digital literacy is an important entitlement for all young people in an increasingly digital culture.

Every school should have an organized policy for language across the curriculum…

Two documents, two eras. The first from FutureLab (UK) – a wonderful introduction to, and handbook for, digital technology and learning.

The second from the influential  UK government report – “A language for life” – the Bullock Report HMSO 1975.

I was a teacher in London when the Bullock Report was published – an orange-mustard colored compendium of review, research and government recommendations for schools. Word came down from on high that we were to develop a school-wide language policy.

Bullock gave the official push that launched the “language across the curriculum” (LAC) movement in the English speaking world.  In retrospect, it and the work it engendered are beacons of enlightenment.

It was, and is still, a movement with intellectual roots in a wide range of disciplines – psychology, anthropology, linguistics and philosophy.

These disciplines lent perspectives on learning as a set of complex and personal interactions by means of which the individual makes sense of the world.

But teachers were the real heart and origins of LAC. Secondary English teachers were the prime movers but soon teachers from all disciplines were involved.

They grappled with the issues of language, thought and learning and the implications for teaching, language assessment  and school.

James Britton’s Language and Learning was the influential founding text. It was followed by the groundbreaking research of Britton and his colleagues at the London University Institute of Education: The Development of Writing Abilities 11-18 (1975) and a focus on the role of talk in constructing understanding and making meaning.

With that intellectual framework and research in hand, teachers of all subjects saw the connections between language, thinking and learning. If talk and writing were heuristic – meaning that children used them to uncover meaning and make knowledge their own – then the implications were enormous.

Children’s language – writing and talk – was not something to be policed and corrected, taught and tested,  but an all-powerful intellectual tool for thinking and learning.

This was about language as a means of thinking. It placed learning at the center, not the teaching of  discrete skills and functions of writing. Correct use and mastery of certain language forms are not the goal; learning is the goal and language is the tool.

When the emphasis shifted to “writing the curriculum” – rather than the broader context of learning and thinking – the movement shrank in scope. And writing across the curriculum sometimes became grammar and spelling across the curriculum.

Talk and writing in math and science became opportunities for assigning word problems and essay tests rather than a means to understanding concepts. And  everyone got back into the act of being judge, jury and executioner of children s language.

LAC is essentially a set of principles focused on how children think and learn. It is not a set of teaching practices that lead to easily measurable language outcomes.

With the theoretical understanding in place it is left to actual practitioners i.e. teachers to create the environment within which learning and thinking can flourish.

So this is the personal context within which I read Digital Teaching across the Curriculum.

It doesn’t have Bullock’s heft and stamp of officialdom (My copy  cost £5 from the HMSO – it’s now available free online) It is not a government document and arrived free, weightless and digital.

It is however, a wonderfully helpful introduction to the world of digital media and education.

It begins with the cultural context and the why. And while it focuses on the learning not the tools it contains many useful starting points for professional discussion, training and development. There’s a really helpful digital literacy planning tool.

It is not prescriptive and does not pre-empt the role of the teacher in determining how to harness the technology in the service of what actually matters – learning.

It is teachers that are expert in their own school context, in the needs of their students and in the pedagogical techniques required to support learning.

This is a complicated area for schools and professional development. Many teachers feel fearful or inadequate in the face of rapidly shifting technology. But learners need their teachers. And they need their teachers to be learners.

The handbook does not shy from this issue and nor does it scold or become prescriptive. In fact, it includes important thinking on just why – for all their apparent confidence – the digital generation needs its teachers.

Rather – it begins with the context and makes suggestions for ways forward.

It starts – like the thinkers who gave us LAC – with the why, not the how and the what.

But read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Let’s start with the why.  (Nicely captured in the graphic below.)  And let the rest follow from that.

Digital literacy is an important entitlement for all young people in an increasingly digital culture. It furnishes children and young people with the skills, knowledge and understanding that will help them to take a full and active part in social, cultural, economic, civic and intellectual life now and in the future.

from the introduction

Education systems need to help young people to understand and benefit from their engagement with digital technology and digital cultures. Fostering digital literacy in the classroom provides one way in which to make subject learning relevant to a society in which growing technology use is changing the way that both adults and children represent and communicate information and meaning and participate in cultural life.

Developing digital literacy in subjects of the curriculum is not about being fashionable or simply about trying to engage students in learning. It is about addressing the changing nature of subject knowledge and acknowledging that young people will need different kinds of skills, knowledge and understanding in order to develop their expertise in subjects. Developing digital literacy in subject teaching supports young people to be effective, competent, critical students of that subject in the digital age.

The Extra Mile

The Art History class took off for Italy last week.

It’s well over 4,000 miles from Poughkeepsie to Zurich and on to Florence but here’s the extra mile: Wayne created these books – in Florentine red – one for every student. It’s for notes,sketches and reference on the trip.

The sleeve at the back has a map of the city with their hotel marked. On the very European squared paper is a brief guide to the city’s art and architecture.

The group left on Thursday. By Saturday Bernadette had posted  pictures of the first day. And, as you can see, the notebooks are being put to work.

“What ails thee Jock?”

By now you have probably been sent a link to, or have even read, Playing to Learn – Susan Engel’s oped in the NYTimes last week. In addition to the fluttering  in my twittersphere, I received notice from a teacher, an alumna, and an administrator at PDS as well as the head of a neighboring school. And no surprise:  Engel outlines a research-based curriculum recipe for success that you can find in many good schools and certainly at PDS.

And if you haven’t read it, now is a good time. It’s short, to the point and important.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is set to pour money into a renewed focus on school success, failure and assessment in the well-intentioned but misdirected “race to the top”. It’s an unfortunate metaphor. A race means winners and losers when what we really need is for all children to be educated and to succeed.  We need a “team effort to the top” to make a collective climb to higher levels of literacy and numeracy not a sharper elbows scramble for scarce rations.

This No Child Left Untested policy suggests that test scores are the desired and final outcome of education. It will ensure that teachers increasingly teach to the tests, and that assessment and measuring become the focus of the curriculum and time in school. The truth is that improving test scores can never take the place of actually educating children.

Also last week New York Magazine had a cover story The Myth of the Gifted Child that excoriates the notion that four year olds can be tested effectively for giftedness, intellectual ability and potential.  This is a magazine that relishes the opportunity to tweak the obsessions of the elite and its The Junior Meritocracy did just that asking:  “Should a child’s fate be sealed by an exam he takes at the age of 4? Why kindergarten-admission tests are worthless, at best.”

Reading about the testers’ interactions with small children I wondered what they would have made of Thomas Babington Macauley, the eminent and erudite 19th century scholar, writer, barrister and politician. The story is probably apocryphal but here is one version:

Legends surround the first words of Macauley…. He famously did not utter a word until around age 4 when he turned to a wailing baby and asked, “What ails thee Jock?”

In another version the four year old Macauley soon speaks again, and in characteristic style:

While he was dining one day with his father and mother at the house of a neighbor the servant upset a cup of coffee on his legs. On his hostess’s inquiry as to whether he was hurt, the young Thomas immediately replied: “Madam, the agony is somewhat abated.”

The British humorist Frank Muir is said to have commented, rather uncharitably, “I think the temptation to spill coffee on such a child must have been quite strong.”

Annoying brat, child prodigy, neither or both, I don’t think Macauley would have impressed the testing psychologists.

The Children’s Machine

A second grader needed a place to hang out and my office was available. The conversation went somewhat like this:

“Make yourself at home. I’ve not got much for you to do but there are a few toys and books if you want.”

“Do you have a spare laptop?”

“No sorry, I don’t.  But what a good idea.”

“What sort of laptop do you use? I’ve got my own website. I made it.”

“You did? What have you got on it?”

“It’s about comics. Have you got videos on your website? I just learned how to add You Tube. Want me to show you? You can’t search for it on a search engine but I can tell you the address. I can put it into your browser. What one do you use?”

Nimble one handed fingers fly over the keyboard of my laptop and up it comes: A website with several pages and some embedded videos.

“Which is your favorite video. Would you show me?’

We watched Charlie the Unicorn 2 where, among other things, Charlie is urged to put a banana in his ear. Pretty funny.

“I’ve got a laptop at home. I use it to find stuff out and sometimes play some games. I also write documents. What browser do you use. I use Safari. Want to see?’

Agile fingers again, pulling up links and programs with confident ease

“Do you know how to use the webcam.”

“I don’t.

“Want me to show you. Let me look in the list. Here it is.” Cursor now pointing to Integrated Camera.

“You have itunes?  Do you have an ipod? What sort of ipod do you have?

“I don’t know what sort. It’s about the size of this iphone.”

“Does it have a touch screen. Sounds like it’s a mini What apps do you have on your phone?  Let me see. You’ve got Safari.  My mom has a droid and it goes ‘droid’ like a robot when it comes on. It’s really cool. Do you know how to make a slide show with music?

“Yes”

“I want to do that. Can you show me? I have a gmail account. Can you send me the link to the program you use?  You can go on my website to send me a message.”

At that point the conversation veered off to the technicalities of the rivalries between the Yankees and the Red Sox and why Phillies fans don’t like Mets fans and what it’s like at the new stadium. And then it was time to go back to class.

Centuries ago (well 1993) Seymour Papert called the computer The Children’s Machine.

He was right.

State of play

So the debate on the purpose of play in early childhood simmers on. It popped up on my Facebook page yesterday with this from the ASCD: Play is problem solving

That then led me to the The Playtime’s the Thing from the Washington Post.

The pressure is on to raise achievement scores and this puts the squeeze on time for play.

“If we are to prevent the achievement gap and develop a cradle-to-career educational pipeline, early learning programs are going to have to be better integrated with the K-12 system,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday at a convention of the nation’s largest early childhood organization, the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

With school districts targeting student achievement the focus has been on literacy – especially reading and math skills for children at ever-younger ages.  No Child Left Behind requires schools to ensure that all children are proficient in math, reading and writing by 2014. What could be wrong with that? Well – quite a lot as it happens. With a society that actually needs a wide range of aptitudes and abilities – with the route to actual success in school being more than the narrow gateway of test scores – we are in danger of leaving many children behind.

Furthermore – it appears that while certain measures of proficiency show up in test results the far reaching effects of lack of play do not.  According to the article lost playtime shows up in life.  And with devastating, costly consequences – delinquency, school failure, emotional disturbance and delayed social development.

It’s with dismay, then, that I read the statistic of the amount of play allowed quote story:

“… in kindergarten, children are playing for fewer than 30 minutes a day, according to a study of full-day kindergartens in New York City and Los Angeles published in the spring by the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit group based in College Park. They spend four to six times more time on literacy, math and test-taking than they do on play.

What it signals to me is a false dichotomy of play and work. Perhaps adults can distinguish between the two – although meaningful work often has a playful aspect. But for small children the two are one and the same.

If play is the work of the child then why are we keeping these children from their essential work for a short-term bump in test scores? And at what price?  Evidence seems to suggest that this educational dead end short circuits the very activity – the industry and intellectual activity of active play – that children need to grow academically and socially.

I’m with Friedrich Froebel on this one:

Play is the highest level of child development…It gives…joy, freedom, contentment, inner and outer rest, peace with the world…The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life.

The new literacy ladder. What rung are you on?

The world is moving at a tremendous rate. Going no one knows where. We must prepare our children, not for the world of the past. Not for our world. But for their world. The world of the future.  – John Dewey

PDS graduates students who…

  • possess a rich academic knowledge base and know how to think as creative, flexible, independent, resourceful learners for life
  • are intellectually curious, active seekers, users and creators of knowledge – from our mission

Fullscreen capture 11142009 15021 PMTake a look at this The Social Technographics ladder.  It’s from  Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernofff .

At the top of the ladder are the Creators. At the bottom rung are the Inactives  who do not engage at any level either by choice or lack of opportunity.  Seems to me that we want all our students to climb on that ladder and ascend to the top rung of this groundswell that the authors define as:

A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.

Think of the world of the web and interactive technology as a new ecosystem – one in which any person, in any place, at any time can participate, contribute, communicate, produce, and share. It’s an ecosystem that has the potential to make prosumers of us all. That is producers and not just consumers of information and media content.

That top rung is small in the wider world (you can see the stats by rung and  country at the link) but in schools with students beyond the early elementary years it should be 100%. In school – at PDS at least – getting engaged, being creative and collaborating is not an optional activity. And technological innovation makes it possible  to engage with a global reach.  And if we believe in the importance of innovation and creativity,  making a positive contribution and changing the world – there is the purpose. It brings a whole new meaning to the eduspeak catch phrases of problem-solving and ethical and creative thinking. It makes our mission possible in effective, dynamic and inclusive ways.

Good schools have always developed prosumers:  Students read novels, poetry and essays;  solved puzzles and problems;  consumed charts and graphs, and watched videos and film. But they also wrote, posed  and created them. Now they can produce them, share them and test their quality with a wider audience. (Authentic assessment.) It’s one big intellectual sandbox and  showcase where everything can be interactive and collaborative. The lines between producer and consumer have blurred. So have the lines between learner and teacher. Both can learn and both can teach. That has always been possible. Now it is closer to essential. Given the pace of change students and learners are in the sandbox together. (Teacher as coach, guide at the side not sage on the stage.)

Once we grasp the concept of the groundswell and see its potential for learning the more we will enter this new ecosystem and learn and teach the skills of navigation.  It a whole new set of literacy skills to be understood and brought into the classroom. And by incorporating these tools and this potential we are preparing students to function constructively in the world where this groundswell is becoming a tide.

What does the ladder look like?

Top Rung: Creators
This is the group who regularly – at least once a month – publish a blog, put an article online, maintain a website, contribute to a wiki, or upload music or videos. They engage, create and contribute online. In the United States it’s about 25% of people. We have top rung students. They all should be top rung. Our job is to move them up the ladder with what we teach, how we teach and what we expect. We need to systematically seek the next level with what we require of students.

Second Rung: Critics
These are the reactors who comment on and critique the work of others. In writing classes it’s a common best practice for students to comment on and respond to the work of classmates. This takes that good practice to a wider world. Our students are growing up in a world where this kind of interactivity is usual practice. How do we prepare them for it in the academic arena and beyond the world of social networking? Everyone’s a critic these days and the online ecosphere is full of commentary. How are we helping students engage in this world by commenting on and contributing to the work of others??

Third Rung: Collectors
These are people who collect bookmarks, RSS feeds, vote for sites on Reddit and Digg, who StumbleUpon, use Diigo or Delicious and amass all manner of digital media from their travels online.

So, what are the best ways to do that effectively? How do we teach how to find, evaluate, filter and store our collected material, bookmarks, feeds and links. Where do we teach that literacy?

Fourth Rung: Joiners
These are the people who have profiles on social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn etc. It was students who gave these sites their initial boost but they are becoming ubiquitous among all age groups of computer users. Teachers are apparently among the most rapidly increasing user group together with the middle aged and elderly. But what are the skills students need to maintain effective sites and use them to promote themselves in a professional or scholarly way? How do they protect their on-line identity and leave the digital trail that accurately represents them?

Fifth Rung: Spectators
Consumers. This is the largest segment because it includes everyone in all the rungs above.  And given just how much is available participation in this rung is all about the choices we make online. Where do we go for what and how and why?  To “develop educated citizens” we need selective spectatorship.

The bottom rung: Inactives
Out of the loop and off the grid. These are the people who have no access to the technology or the web or who choose not to participate. This is not an option at PDS. Although it does provide an opportunity to help others start climbing the ladder.

Do we have a choice?

Getting on the ladder and starting the climb is a literacy and survival  issue for the 21st century.

Non participation is not optional for educators who want to educate children for their futures   I began with quotations from John Dewey and our mission.  I did that because I believe that this work is consonant with a progressive approach to education.  I believe that the tools of the online world bring exciting new possibilities for finally making the ideals of progressive education a reality. The question for me is not why? But how? In what ways? With whom? And to which mission-consistent ends?  Teaching these skills and engaging in the ecosystem is an outgrowth of our mission and is what our students need and deserve.

How do we get started?

We already have. Take a look at what is required of students at every level and every subject and you will see students using technology  (remember – a crayon is technology) to engage in the information and social ecosystem. It may look different at various grade levels and subject areas but students are already on the ladder in school and at home. And there are so many examples throughout the school. And it starts with what good teaching at PDS has always looked like – active, engaged students and teachers  learning by doing.

“Each step on the ladder represents a group of consumers more involved in the groundswell than the previous steps. To join the group on a step, a consumer need only participate in one of the listed activities at least monthly.”

Each rung of the ladder represents a literacy challenge for us and our students. We need to climb the ladder and we need to help our students climb the ladder. And what an opportunity for community learning! I used to teach English. We have middle school students at PDS who have published more short stories than I have in all my years of teaching writing (none).

Our job  is to help students build the skills they will need to understand and thrive in the ecosystem in which they must swim.

Here are the presentation slides of the ladder:

Are you phobic?

How many words are there in the English language? Estimates vary but most agree there are quite a few.  And how many do you know, or own and  have a personal relationship with?

Meet Wordia – a visual dictionary where people famous and otherwise upload their personal definitions. Brigham tried it out in the high school this year.
Check out phobia:

New media literacies

An interesting video on the new media literacies:

Warning: Reading level alert

Proceed with caution. According to this readability analysis this blog may be below your reading level. Click the pic to enter your url and get your level.

blog readability test

An amazing new periodic table

Take a look at this fantastic tool.

How many of these skills do you have at your mousetip?

Since 1996 I’ve worked in schools where laptops are ubiquitous for older students. Back in that day we had lots of conversations about visual literacy. I think we may have had in mind an illustration here, a graph there and lots of photographs.

It’s now a whole new world. The ability to evaluate, apply, or create conceptual visual representations is a key skill. Just take a look at this “periodic table” of presentation possibilities from Visual Literacy.org

How many of these skills do you have at your mousetip? And which ones are suited to which projects and presentations? Click on the picture and roll your mouse over the “elements” to get a sample image of that visualization method.

And to answer the question of how many for myself…very few.

Are you digitally literate?

Doug Belshaw has been working on what it means. What’s your version of digital literacy?

Social networking and education

“Social Networking: does it bring positive change to education?”

This is one of the questions posed by The Economist magazine. Here is a link if you have a view, or if you want to understand more about the issues, or participate in the debate.

Their first debate focused on technology and education, the second on university recruiting, and the third and final debate is on social networking .

Is this a new frontier for technology literacy? Is it something educators should ignore? Do they have a choice? And what does it all mean and portend for our future?

Do you have a view?