Tag Archives: Modeling Behavior

Conduit to Reality

I noticed that my last post is dated September 10th. To say I had a busy September would be a gross understatement. I traveled three out of four weeks, first to lead a cohort, deliver workshops and present a keynote in Shanghai at Learning 2.011. The following week, I was back to Shanghai for Category 2 Language A MYP training, and finally off to Bukit Lawang for a school trip in which I took 45 kids into the Sumatran jungle to see, amongst other thing, semi-wild Orangutans in their natural habitat.

Upon my return, I organized and participated in our school’s, mini-conference called Learning 2.011.1. A successful event in which 65 members of staff voluntarily came in on a Friday between 4-6pm to learn about technology. Saturday after that, I received some training on how to present an IB workshop for a conference coming up in Jakarta. Oh, yeah, I have been having a blast teaching my classes. I could go on and on, but I am sure you are busy too and do not want to waste your time reading about how busy I am. I wanted to write about a Facebook status a friend of mine posted a few days ago and its connection to my recent thoughts upon returning from Sumatra.

Take a look:

I had planned to go to Sumatra completely disconnected. After my hyper-connected month of September, I needed a break to detangle the wires both literally and figuratively. I agree with Kenny in saying that, “ We have a need for mental, social, physical, spiritual, and emotional fulfillment.” I will comment later on how many of those needs my laptop fulfills, but for now I will agree that we need time away. We need time in the mud. We need time connected to the earth and the sky.

Unfortunately, (careful what you wish for) blog fever is strong at our school, and our AP asked that I create a Week Without Walls blog to help document each of our trips. I was against the live blogging of these trips, but relented and said that I would add limited content while I was away and decompressing. The blog has actually been a great organic place to document the trips. We are now working on a syndication system that will agrregate all the reflective blog posts written by staff and students. We hope it will act as a great resource of personal testimonials and photos for students going on trips next year.

I guess the point I am trying to make is why does it have to be so black and white? Why do we always create these false dichotomies between technology and the real world? Why do techies insist that things must be tech all the time, while luddites wax-poetic about features of an analogue past that is quickly fading? We can have natural experiences. We can use technology to help connect us to others who share our love of life. I argue that we can have the best of both worlds. I remember the warm feeling of absolute mental, social, physical, spiritual, and emotional fulfillment, as I sat on the edge of a river; the sun was setting as I watched a community of children come to life. I had many such experiences during my time in the jungle; the value of these experiences is incalculable. There is no doubt that we need to engage the world from out behind the screen.

As an adult, I am able to wrestle with my need to experience reality and my need to document and record it. It is a struggle no doubt, but I enjoy the challenge of finding a balance to my desires and needs. Kenny asks if we need more tech in schools and if that is what students need.

I say that we need to help students understand how to find that balance. We need to guide them in learning how to use tech to feel comfortable in their own skins and how to express what they find. Demonizing or glorifying technology will not help our students. We must help them use it to meet their needs. So often these digital natives use tech only to alleviate boredom, and to be fair many of the students I work with have very little experience in an non-urban, disconnected environment. While I agree with Kenny, that perhaps more tech is not the answer, I would argue that we need to expose kids to nature and see how they choose to use tech to document experience. Take’em to the woods. Get’em dirty. Sing around fires. Then come home and use tech to create, connect, and communicate experiences to others. Technology is not a substitute for reality it is a conduit to it.

I think it is shortsighted to forcibly separate the tangible and the virtual. You are right Kenny! Technology will not substitute our biological needs, but I disagree that it cannot help us connected to social groups. Online relationship are as valid as “real” ones- for me often times they are more rewarding.

The people I have met online help complete me. They are becoming my closets friends. You can read more here, and I suggest you watch the presentation about the power of online communities, but before you begin to say that we need face-to-face interactions as well, let me stop you. Yes! Of course we do. Again it is about the balance.

I understand your frustration Kenny. After all, you and I have spent lots of quality time in the jungle, fishing, and playing music together. We get the value of the organic. It may appear that schools are chasing a technological dream in hopes that it will make them more relevant, but we know that is not the case. More computers and an emphasis on technology will not make a better school.

We need teachers, guides, and mentors dedicated to understanding what it means to be human being in the 21st century. We need to be open to exploring ideas and technologies that make us uncomfortable and challenge our very humanity. We need to help our students gain a diverse range of experiences, equip them with the skills and wisdom to know how to find a balance. There is value in mud, in the sun, in the clouds, but there is also value in the “cloud,” online communities, and the power of connectivity afforded us by technology.
I didn’t need technology to appreciate these moments, but the tech is helping me share them with you and others.

What do you guys think? How do you find a balance in your lives? How do approach the people who force you to choose between nature and technology?

Interested In Us

3 Replies

I can’t believe we have only been in school for a week. I often feel like a tornado, who touches down occasionally to stir up some dust, only to take flight again. Lost in the clouds, in an adrenaline infused buzz that is nothing if not invigorating.

image by RaGardner4

I am shuffling several To-Do list at the moment. This from a guy who has always mentally calculated his tasks. I will not bore you with the litany of items populating said lists, but I will briefly mention that the only thing that is calming me down is the current loud guitar in my headphones and the ease with which I am writing these words.

Let’s do some stream of consciousness and see where we end up: Rolling out this blogging platform is great, exciting, perfect. Tedious, painful, time consuming. It is one thing to be given a blog and told to sell it to kids, but it is another to create a system-wide platform from scratch. Dealing with back-end issues, teachers doing too much, others not doing enough is proving to be exhausting. I have never been a type-A systems guy. I can do ideas. Give me design and inspiration, artistic management and I will deliver, but organization? Action plans? Timetables have never been my forte.

I am learning. I am stretching. I am growing. I love it. Everyday is another set of problems that I am somehow instrumental in solving (Or am I creating them?) Honestly, I haven’t felt this jazzed and energetic about a project in years. I have already mentioned the stress and the problems, but that is not where I want to dwell. Simply put, I am dealing with a massive year long roll out that I am trying to get out the door the first month back to school. Simple solution: Slow down. Breathe. It will get done. Look back at what has already been done and take pride in that. Is my oft forgotten mantra.

In addition to all the tech-coach stuff, there is of course my classes this year. Grade 6 Language B, a grade 7 Language A, and a grade 10 Language A class. I have met with them all at least once, and I have decided to start the year by focusing on two main ideas: Community and self as writer/artist.

I am emphasizing that English class need not be a den of grammar death and academic boredom. It is not all spelling tests and essays. We have been talking about what makes community: shared goals, trust, honesty, communication, love (at least respect), connections. I have brainstormed community with all my classes and they have all come up with basically the same things. Apparently identifying components of a community is much easier that creating one. We have discussed the value of building a safe place built on trust to help foster creativity and expression.

Which brings me to the second big idea for the year: What does it mean to use writing as a tool for expression? I am a firm believer that people who do not understand the power of writing will never be great writers. I want to create writers in my class. I am not interested in students who can write an essay or pass an IB exam. I want to create artists. My thinking, obviously, is that once you tap into a persons creative core, the rest will follow. Anyone who understand writing, can jump through the hoops, but it is difficult to do it the other way around.

We have spoken about the tender fragility of our creativity and imaginations. We have thought about how most adults we know don’t actually write. Create art. Take photographs. Get silly. Open up and play. The consensus was that there aren’t too many of these adults in their lives. They have few artistic role models. I made a promise to help them see that we exist. That there are people who write books for the fun of it. People who juggle several art projects at a time because it feeds their soul. We also discussed the fact that once you allow your creativity to wane, worrying about grades and school, jobs and bills and life, that it is difficult to bring an imagination back to life.

Yeah, the tech stuff is stressful. Yes, I am also now also thinking about my cohort in Shanghai, but I am smart enough to know, that it is in my classroom having conversations with kids that I feel the most alive. Want proof? A fellow teacher’s daughter is in my grade 10 class. I just received the following email:

Hiya,

just thought i’d let you know what ________ told me about her first English class today….. and i quote…..”he’s amazing! You can just tell that he really loves teaching and he was actually interested in us”She came home really excited about learning and spent time telling me about the class. A good start to the year!!

So thanks!

And really, is there nothing else that matters more than a student realizing that after one meeting?

Wagon Wheel

7 Replies

Last week, upon my return from an extended holiday in Thailand, I had an urge to sing a song that I had discovered while vacationing. Throughout my break, I had missed my guitar terribly, and the first thing I wanted to do was see if I could strum the chords and sing the lyrics in the same reckless and carefree manner as this amazing band called Old Crow Medicine Show.

Once home, I tuned my guitar and sang it to the best of my ability. It felt good. Natural. Raw, yes, but comfortable. At this point I know that Leslie (@onepercentyello) is always good for a little Ukulele and harmonies that can take my out-of-tune voice and make it sound presentable. I uploaded it to Soundcloud, sent a few tweets and linked it to Facebook, asking anyone to:

Download this file add some banjo, fiddle, harmonica, gazoo, whatever you want, then upload YOUR part to soundcloud and send me the link. The timing should be right, but DO NOT send me a file with your part on top of my part. It will get muddled. Send me your part only. I will layer and arrange what I get back into a song.

A few minutes later @bryanjack from Vancouver sent me a lead guitar track, a few hours after that @joebire from Australia sent me a Mandolin track, a day later @drgarcia from Monterey (Where are you now?) sent me some awesome Patti Smith style backing vocals, Leslie had a crazy weekend, but she did not disappoint, finally @joelbirch from Paris sent me some wicked electric guitar tracks. Every morning I would wake up to a new thread for my sonic tapestry.

Tonight, I played with the sound levels and am ready to present the final piece. Maybe not final, but where it stands now:

Wagon Wheel Collab by intrepidflame

I have only ever met Leslie and only briefly. We have made music together several times in the past. Bryan and I have played together on a few projects too, but I have never met or worked with the others. We are a loose network of learners interested in seeing what these tools can do to bring people together.

image By giulia.forsythe

What does it mean that a group of people spanning the globe find the time to create music just for the sake of it? How are our relationships and connections strengthen by the bound of music, however, splintered and artificial? I understand that this is not a collaborative project, seeing that everything came through me and the others were not able to hear what anyone but me had recorded, but that is not the point. The point is that this was a spontaneous idea that had little to no planning. What could we produce if we explored other tools, planned together, exchanged ideas, or played live. Practiced. Edited. Well you get the idea.

I am a big fan of spontaneous, loose, free flowing projects. They open our ideas to what is possible. Not only for our own enjoyment, but they can help us consider the implications these sessions or ones like it can have for our students. I would love to hear from the participants of this project in the comments. Why is this important? Is it? What did you get out of this? Why did you participate?

I am hoping that the real beauty of what we have done will come out in the ideas we share in the subsequent conversations. Furthermore, I would like to invite anyone reading to help take this project a step further. How about if someone or a group of people created a video for it! I would love to be involved and take direction, but don’t want to lead the video. I love to see how far we can push ideas. The song is public, creative commons, and waiting for anyone to do more with it. Find another group and create something else with it. Please share what you do. I will send this post to the band and see what they think as well.

Thanks everyone for playing along.

Vision 2011

8 Replies

Exciting things are happening at our school. Big changes. Changing roles. I can feel a big shift on the horizon, and I am lucky enough to be part of a team involved with reshaping how our school views not only technology, but what our school should look like as a learning community in general. For the last few months, we have been busy self-examining what it is we want from IT, but more importantly we have been looking closely at what kind of institution we hope to be in the near future. After all the discussions and meetings, we came up with a draft proposal for our new vision, a statement and subsequent document that would guide the direction of our school. Because it is still in draft form, I will not share it here.

We have identified a few key first steps, but know that we must have a larger more encompassing vision of who we are. Nonetheless at this point, I was asked to present some of the major ideas to our staff in hopes that it would excite them to become more involved and offer their input. Given that task last Wednesday, I hunkered down and got to work!

I will stop here and share the presentation, but if you are interested in my reflection on the process continue reading after the clip. Unfortunately, no one at our school was switched on enough to record it live, so I added some music and did a narration at home. Enjoy:

I am proud of it. Let me get that out there first. Some comments from people around school

That was like a Tedtalk!
That’s as good as any professional presentation I have ever seen.
Loved how you told it like a story.
Great script. You really seemed to know what you were talking about.

Like I said I am proud of it. I worked hard. I learned a lot and it shows. It is this process of working hard, stumbling, learning, sweating, and growing about which I want to talk about further in this post. As I mentioned in the clip, I had never really worked with Keynote before, and all told I must have spent two or three hours a night for about four nights putting this together. That is roughly twelve hours of time on the machine, not to mention the many hours I stayed up at night conceptualizing and thinking about how it would all look!

I can already see the heads shaking, “TWELVE hours on a presentation? Who has that kind of time?” Most teachers have too much on their plate to sit home at night and go through every single build in and build out of a Keynote, or to practice layering slides, or to come up with work-arounds for unforeseeable problems. Most teachers want someone to come in and show them what to do. I see this as a fundamental problem with the concept of teacher training versus professional development.

Learning takes time. It takes energy. Passion. Determination and desire. And most importantly it takes time. Unfortunately time is the one thing teachers have little of, but if we, as professionals really want to learn new things we have to make the time, or demand from our institutions not only to set expectations, but to give us time to learn, grow, play. There are no easy fixes. I am not saying that every teachers needs to sit at home every night and agonize over the perfection of every slide for a presentation, but if we are truly serious about learning how technology can help our teaching, we must make the time to learn something. We must set goals and find people who can help us grow. We can no longer expect to have others show us what buttons to push or what tools to use. I see teachers determining what they want to learn and my job is to help them get there. I am a firm believer in the concept that we learn tech tools to help us learn other things. For example, I did not spend twelve hours learning how to use Keynote. I spent that time learning how to use Keynote to give a presentation- how to tell a story. Next I will spend twelve more hours presenting a Pecha Kucha for Learning 2.011. Which brings me to my next point: the coaching model.

I have been so lucky this year to be working with an amazing grassroots team of teachers determined to push our school into cutting edge territory. We have an extremely supportive and excited administrative team, and we are doing some great things well. I mentioned some of the changes in the presentation, but we are also rethinking the role of the tech facilitator and looking toward a more mentor/coach style of developing teacher confidence. I am sure I will write much more on that soon, but for now let me say that I am learning everyday about what it means to work with others and help them activate and become excited by their learning.

In closing, I wrote this post to share the fruits of not only mine, but our whole team’s labor, with you-our fellow learners, in hopes that it might prove useful to you. I will also share it with our staff in hopes that perhaps it can be a starting point for a bigger conversation about what it means to admit that we are all learners and what to do once we have admitted that.

If you are a member of staff, please take the time to share some thoughts. Remember the point is not all accolades and back patting. I’ve already mentioned that I am proud of what I created. The point is to start conversations and share ideas. What do you think about all of this? What stuck out about the vision? What excites you? What scares you?Let’s begin to have these discussions out here on the open web. Leave a comment. Take the first step.

Feel free to answer these questions even if you are not at our school and are reading and watching from some place else.

Flat Landscapes

1 Reply

Here is a conversation I am having with my friend Ari on Facebook about the nature of…well lots of things really. Feel free to jump in on either side. Please excuse all grammar gaffs and typos. Thoughts were written in the haste of FB commentary:

Ari : i love the internet (meta comment, i know), but i also feel more than a bit unsettled in the landscape of the internet…maybe it’s the virtual-ness or that it’s screen dependant (and thus 1-D)…i dont know. MAYBE IT’S A SPATIAL THING…maybe i dont do well in the 1-D world??

Jabiz : I know we have been having this conversation a lot lately, and that is great, but I guess I don’t see the web as 1-D, but more as 4-D. The screen is just an entry to a world that is very rich and full of depth if you are open to it and explore the people that populate it. People tell us it is shallow but I have learned it really is not if you look beyond the 1 D surfaces.

Ari : with love, jabiz, i find your argument beautiful (and vaguely utopian), but i dont believe it holds up to even the most facile scrutiny. from any objective point of view (that is what we are trying to work from, no?), the internet is 1D. we argue about its FIGURATIVE 4D-ness…but not without our language going on holiday. the internet is consumerd via a screen. screens are 1D. now, moving on: my bigger point was that i dont work well in virtual 1D spaces…like TV, etc…the internet flattens the 3D world into 1D. and thats not an inherent problem. hell, it’s probabaly a good thing. but i just dont well with in virtual 1D environments

Jabiz :I know you would like to simply move on from one point to the next, but when having a conversation you have to wait till both sides can have their say. So i would graciously ask that before we “move on” from the semantics of the screen bein…g the 1Dness, you re-read my earlier point, because either you skimmed it, didn’t understand it or simply chose to ignore what I said. The Internet is not any one thing. So therefore to give to dimensions seems futile. Much like literature, art, and consciousness the Internet is a reflection of the human story. It is about people. Our world wide web of thought and creativity. How can we call that 1-D? As for 1D things like TV that you don’t do well with , I seem to recall you enjoyed books another 1D tool used to explore the human story. The Internet like a mirror is what you see in it. It’s shape and dimensions what you produce not just consume. Going back to your original point of being unsettled, I would recommend an inventory of the self, before assigning blame on the mirror (Internet or screens)

Ari : ha! nice zingers, jabiz! very zesty, indeed. now for some housekeeping: i think you, also, didnt truly read my point–which was a description–okay, fine, a critique–of the “landscape” of the internet…and how we “consume” it (note well ……the two words in quotes…which if you trace back to my earlier comments you will find conspicuously foregrounded). …so: okay, yes, the Internet gestures as a trans-social/historical/political dynamic. i concede the point. but that’s neither here nor there in how we both understand the Internet proper (note the word, proper–i.e., the thing one logs on to, that needs electricity, a screen, some sort of computer-y thing, zeros and ones, et. al). simply put: the internet proper is a virtual landscape. …now, of course, that doesnt mean EVERYTHING that goes into producing, sharing, consuming (insert your own gerund here!) is virtual (e.g., the fingers depressing the letters on my computer’s keyboard–how’s THAT for meta, jabiz?)…but…it DOES mean that, quite simply, the CONTENT–for good or ill–is virtual. maybe it’s for good…but thats neither here nor there, at least for me. it’s not value judgment; it’s an neutral observation: the content of the Net is virtual…and therefore so is the landscape. …and how we consume…strictly speaking…the virtual internet proper is screen-dependent…thus all 3D is FLATTENED into 1D. …why all this matters (if any of it matters)…is that i, personally, dont do well in this flat landscape where all cognitive maps and kinesthetic cues are virtual and flat (in the strictest terms of which ive just spent far too long adumbrating). …now jabiz, you are free to take an oppositional stance toward my argument. and no doubt you will. but as you are an educator and deep thinker, why retreat in an automatic defensive crouch? (have i fired any pejorative shots across the sacred bow of the Internet? no. i’ve conceded your points re: the Net as a social, living phenomena, etc.) and perhaps even more important, as a technology teacher/learner, you will, no doubt, encounter many students who also feel a sense of dislocation in this virtual space that lacks tactile kinesthetic cues and traditional cognitive maps…and i just hope that while you may blithely dismiss my points out of hand…you wont be so eager to pounce on their hesitations so lustily.

Jabiz : I will keep my retort shorter and less snappy. I will start with a concession: Yes the content on the Internet is virtual. My point is that there is more to the Internet than content. I see it as a portal to people. What I am exploring is …the creation and fostering of these relationships in a 3d as possible manner as possible. You are right again that these relationships are flattened to an extent online, but they can be amplified as well. I can understand what you say that you are nor well-equipped in this environment, hence your hesitance to use Skype after five years! I am not arguing for the sake of arguing, but because in a sense understanding the Internet in what ever dimensionality we choose has becomes my career in ways. I am trying to understand how it will works to …help my students and my own kids navigate this new landscape to get the most they can from it. Of course you are right that many things are better when done in real life. I think of swimming in the ocean as one, but finding ways to penetrate these relationships with other people (who are very 3d) seems very important. Final note, books are also an entry way into a 1D landscape that represents a broader deeper world. No? Isn’t prose also a, “flat landscape where all cognitive maps and kinesthetic cues are virtual and flat?” So to wrap up: Internet is not just about content to be consumed, but a place to meet people. Also there is other media that is 1D, but we have been able to imply meaning and depth to it. So the Internet can be what we make it. Yes, the wor…ld is too much for the the Internet to handle and that os a GREAT thing. Go our run yoga, hug, hike, swim, breathe long and deep, log-out and don’t sign back in, but what I am saying is that the Internet is filled with real live people trying to represent those joys and fears and life into this weird new landscape. The web is our collective ongoing novel. Meet the authors, be one, or ignore it all. Final, final point: I am not dismissing your points blithely or in any other way, simply engaging in discussion. As I am having this discussion with people on blogs, Skype, real life and conferences- it is my job. And yes there will be or a…re students who feel as you do, and I am having these talks to try and find ways to help them. I don;t see this as fight, but as a conversation. Maybe if we were together or at least on Skype there would be some cognitive maps and kinesthetic cues, till then I have to rely on my writing skills and hope that I can convey tone and mood though my word choice. Maybe an emotican will help 😉 (Winking face to denote snarky toungue in cheek reply to an online exchange)