21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong

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Now is as good of a time as any to round up any wandering ideas from the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong. Since I returned my colleagues and administrators have been asking,

How was it? What did you learn?

I have not been in the Ed-tech game long enough to become completely jaded, but I have been around long enough to understand that sometimes conferences can feel more depressing than inspiring. I try not to become weighed down by my cynicism, but it seems that every conference leaves more underwhelmed than the last. Don’t get me wrong the organizers did a good job of organizing the sessions, keynotes, and getting people together but I cannot think of anything that really blew me away. In the age of Professional Learning Networks what can we learn from conference that we cannot learn from our Twitter and RSS feeds?

What is the purpose of a conference in the age of online learning? I feel I should have an answer if I ever want to get approval from my school to attend another conference. I have to go with the cliché response I heard everyone say throughout the conference:

The best part of this conference is meeting my existing network face to face.

I couldn’t agree more. It was so exciting to eat dinner with people I had only known online. At every conference there are a group of people who do not blog or use Twitter who end up looking on amazed that their peers could be so connected. There is always the confused question, “How do you guys know each other again? Really? You have never met. ”

A network is only as strong as it’s connections and these face-to-face meetings really help create authentic communities. I loved chatting with Robert about the great work he and Gary are doing at their school with WordPress and Scratch. It was a pleasure to share ideas with Dana and Stacey, or to meet Tim for the first time after the many RT’s. Suddenly Ben was more than an avatar, but a living breathing person who helped my session not fall apart. He is headed to Jakarta next month to visit Hugo and I hope we can meet up again, maybe with Rod who I already know in Jakarta. I finally met Colin, but couldn’t pin him down for an actual meal. And of course I started conversations with Neil, John, Jason, Justin, Greg (already started a great chat on his blog), Jamie, Gary, Philip, Lynn, and Makky. So what did I learn from this conference? I learned that there are people across the region who are doing great work and they are ready to connect and learn. I may have crossed paths with these people eventually, but a conference is like a crucible to strengthen relationships quickly. It is  because of this human connection that I go to conferences.  We meet. We chat. We eat. We connect. As for the sessions…

I am embarrassed that it is 2011 and we are still trying to convince teachers and administrators who run schools to use technology in their classrooms, as if we still have a choice.  I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration of the educators who have been involved with the use of technology for longer than me. How do you sit through, or worse present another Keynote explaining that learning is changing and that the internet and our connections to it can be a powerful learning too?  I find it embarrassing that we are still stumbling about wondering how or why to use laptops in classrooms, that we still have beginner sessions on blogs, or that we need to be inspired to teach differently.

Do we really need to have the discussion telling teachers that it is the pedagogy and not the tools? Do we really need to tell them not to be afraid and move toward a more student-based approach? Do we really need to warn them that soon they will be irrelevant? I am ready for that threat to simply be a goodbye. Sorry, sir but our school simply will not hire teachers who are not connected and familiar with terms like PLN, blogs, Twitter, and connected learning, perhaps you can find a job at a school where technology is not considered a valuable teaching approach. What’s that? You don’t know what any of that means but you are curious and want to learn. Come on in.

I understand the need to look closely at the various issues surrounding technology and the use of laptops in schools, but there is also something to be said about simply moving forward and taking the training wheels off to see what will happen. I am tired of going to conferences and backtracking to the beginning. I am tired of slowing down the pace of my learning to bring others up to speed. I want to move forward. I want to sit in rooms with teachers who are working at the edge of possibility and connect our learning, our skills, our students, our schools. I want to cloister myself with a group of teachers who are pushing the boundaries and doing amazing work in their classrooms despite their school policies not because of them. Where are the sessions for us? Where are the times that connected teachers can move forward instead of looking back?

Woah! That train of thought went down a few dark tunnels. Let’s turn things around a bit and drive into the light. Yes it is true that many teachers, administrators and schools are terrified to move forward and are mired in fear and paralysis, but there are pockets of teachers worldwide who seem to get it. We often work in isolation at our schools, pushing the envelope, and forcing our schools to look more closely at the use of technology. The ironic part is that we are already connected. Through conversations on our blogs, twitter, connected classrooms, skype and other tools we are constantly learning from each other. We do not really need conferences because we are teaching in an environment that resembles an ongoing global conference.

Some final thoughts to share with your administrators:

  1. Schools who are truly invested in the use of technology and a successful 1:1 program achieve buy in from students, teachers and parents. They recruit and train teachers who are open to teaching in student driven environments and help them understand not just the skills necessary to teach using technology, but also help them achieve a firm understanding behind the philosophy of this new pedagogy through the use of an effective and well-staffed technology integration team. They make learning fun and exciting for everyone and they do not accept teachers who are not willing to learn. They offer training, support and time for all teachers to learn new ways of teaching.
  2. Time and training is vital. If you want your staff to do amazing things you have to hire the right people and give them an opportunity to play, experiment and grow. You must give them time to play, experiment and grow. You must give them money to play, experiment and grow. You must give them room to play, experiment and grow.
  3. If you want your school to move forward you must take off the training wheels and move forward. You cannot wait for everyone to get it. You must set up expectations, hire the right people to get the staff moving forward and hold people accountable.
  4. If you want your school to move forward you cannot continue to appease the members of your staff who don’t get it. You cannot steer your professional development to the members of staff who are the furthest behind and most resistant to change. If you need to convince your teachers to use technology you have hired the wrong teachers, or it is time to ask those people to move on.
  5. If you want your school to move forward, you as an administrator must get it. You must be involved in the conversations and foster them in your school. You need to ask your staff questions about how technology is changing their teaching and if they do not have an answer you need to ask why. You must create an environment that fosters passion about learning in your teachers. You can no longer accept “I am too busy”, or “they expect so much of me.” You must demand your teachers question their pedagogy and share their thoughts. You must train your staff to share their learning with each other and the parent community. You must give your staff support and time to learn.  You must lead the way and model the behavior.
  6. If you want your school to move forward you must turn your teachers into learners.

Education as Opression

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I just read William Chamberlain’s post and subsequent comments about Education Reform and Technology, in which he ponders this idea:

There are not enough teachers in my community with a large enough audience to drive education reform toward student-centered learning and away from high-stakes test driven curriculum.

and I feel a like a bit of a hypocrite because much of the conversation revolves around the inability of the Ed-tech community through their (our?) involvement in conferences to make much of a difference. And here I am in Hong Kong getting ready to give a workshop at an international school conference. I am reading through the comments, by people I respect and agree with on many issues, and wondering if my session is too focused on sharing tools or if it is based in pedagogy. I ask myself if David Wees would cross my session off his list. Am I focusing too much on tools or actually sharing student led ideas? More importantly am I presenting this information in a learner focused manner or am I like John said, “Acting like the expert.” All very important questions for sure, but not important when it comes to the question of what the Ed-Tech community is doing to reform education.

There is no doubt that there are thousands of passionate teachers working tirelessly worldwide to create new educational environments, but I agree with Will, “So why is nothing happening?” My answer is that  reform is not an educational issue, but a political one. We do not need Ed-Reform, we need an educational revolution. Before you shake your head, and brand me an idealist ineffectual revolutionay clad in a Che Guevara shirt, let me explain.

I think we need to shift the question from what or how do we educate people to why do we educate them. What is the purpose of compulsory education for most of the world? Do we want kids to take over and control society or to be passive participants? I think there is a great gap between what we say and what we do. We have known for a century what we should do: John Dewey, and Paulo Freire believed:

A strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.

Education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change

Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption

The oppressors must also be willing to rethink their way of life and to examine their own role in the oppression if true liberation is to occur; “those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly”

Freire believed education to be a political act that could not be divorced from pedagogy. Freire defined this as a main tenet of critical pedagogy. Teachers and students must be made aware of the “politics” that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are taught serves a political agenda. Teachers, themselves, have political notions, they bring into the classroom.

Now read most missions statements from schools around the world and you will see terms like: global citizen, critical thinker, change makers, caring, collaborative etc…This all sounds well and good, I think most teachers participating in the Ed-tech movement would agree that they got into education as way a to help move the world forward in some way. To help arm the next generation with the tools to be more kind, responsive and responsible than past generations have been. To guide students to understand these values we must understand that, “Teachers and students must be made aware of the “politics” that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are taught serves a political agenda. Teachers, themselves, have political notions, they bring into the classroom.” So what is going on? Dewey was saying these things a hundred years ago, we still can’t educate children to educate themselves? With all the “tools” and community creators, why are we sill left asking them say questions? Why are we no closer than Dewey was a century ago? I think this is the crux of Will’s question, and the answer is that Ed-Reform is not yet a political movement anywhere in the world.

We need to ask ourself who would suffer from such a truly educated society? Who would lose power should poor kids from Missouri connect to Mexican immigrants in Arizona, to young people in Egypt, to Iran, to Africa, to The Bronx? Who has the most to lose should the oppressed gain a voice, have a vote, get a piece of the power? Another question: who has gained the most from the traditional educational system? Who controls the wealth, the media, the arms, the airwaves, the text books, the technology, your school boards, the lobbies, our congress? Would these forces gain from a generation of educated revolutionaries with a collaborative, empathetic awareness? Next time you are at a conference ask the corporate sponsors what they think? Email your textbook companies and ask them? Next time you are at a school board meeting ask the chair of the meeting? Ask the people bankrupting schools systems so they can sell your gym to Coca-Cola and privatize your school? Ask the people deconstructing your teacher’s union? Ask the Secretary of Education if he is truly ready for the oppressed to be educated. To storm the streets and demand a piece of them pie. Tell them to look to Egypt if they are still not convinced that things will change soon enough. Ask your students if they would prefer to wait another hundred years while we go to Tech conferences, or if maybe organizing themselves and taking to the streets may be more effective?

Power never relinquishes power and educational reform is no different. Education is the most powerful tool of oppression and the people who have the most to lose will not give it up without a fight. We can go to conferences till our faces turn blue, we can blog and tweet, and struggle in our individual classrooms, but until we educate ourselves, our peers and most importantly our students to  stand up and be heard, nothing will change.

But I am sitting in a nice corporate hotel room in Hong Kong wearing a plush white robe as I type on my shiny MacBook getting ready to share how Google Docs is “revolutionizing” my classroom , which happens to be in a for-profit school run by a corporation in Indonesia. So what the hell do I know?

A Learner On My Hands

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We’ve been doing a lot of work with images, media and language in our classroom lately, and I while really should be writing up those projects and getting my workshop (which will be on language acquisition and digital tools) for the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong ready, I have chosen to quickly jot down one of those, “this is why we teach moments.”


We were out in Peace Park, a stunning area on our campus, taking photos today. By we, I mean my 7th grade ESL class and me. They are working on a short image based slideshow which highlights verbs. More on that in coming posts. For now, all you need to know is that they will be asked to take several pictures of their everyday habits (we are studying present tense verbs) of things they do on any given day. But rather than have them take a series of thoughtless, average, and poorly lit snapshots, I took a lesson to talk about what makes a photograph interesting. We spoke of light and angles and subjects and basically concluded that to take a nice shot, we simply need to look closely, pay attention, and tell a story with our photos. Much like poetry I reminded them, but instead of words we use images. (Again this flip-flopping is the gist of my session: Language is about expression and the vocabulary of digital media is beyond words.)

After our brief chat on how to take a decent photo verses taking a million snapshots, we headed outside. I watched them crouch down under tables, get up close to flowers, walk around and really look around them. I gave them bits of advice, but tried to stay out of their way. I came across one girl who was taking an extremely close-up shot of a flower. I quickly showed told her about and showed her the Macro setting on her camera and explained that should help with the focus.

As I was walking away, she started to jump up and down and shouted something enthusiastically in Bahasa. What? What is it? I asked. She quickly became shy and said nothing. I asked again, pleading to know. One of her friends told me that she had said, “I am really starting to love photography!”

That was it! That is why I teach, because from that excitement we will make the connection to poetry and language and a love of learning. I am no longer dealing with a student; I have a learner on my hands, and there is very little you cannot do with one of those!

Minimalist Movie Poster

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Description: Create a minimalistic poster for a  film, TV series, etc. Look at these awesome examples using the various locations in the original Star Wars trilogy.

McMurphy: Which one of you nuts has got any guts?

McMurphy: I can’t take it no more. I gotta get outta here.
Chief Bromden: I can’t. I just can’t.
McMurphy: It’s easier than you think, Chief.
Chief Bromden: For you, maybe. You’re a lot bigger than me.

I’ve been thinking of various ideas for this assignment for a few days now, but  I knew it had to be this film. It is one of my all time favorites. The themes from the book about rebellion, society, and authority strike a strong chord with me, and I love the acting and direction by Milos Forman.

I was a bit worried it wasn’t minimal enough, but I think I nailed two of the big ideas of the film. Would love to hear your thoughts on the poster, the book, or the film. Never a bad time to discuss the rebel and society.