Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

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From Russia (and Finland) With Tradition

September 22, 2016 By Will Richardson Leave a Comment

Now that I’m home from my most excellent, whirlwind trip to Russia, Finland, and Sweden, I want to share a few reflections on what I heard and what I learned. I’ll talk about Russia here, and I’ll be posting my Finland reflections on our ChangeLeadership Facebook group. (Join us!)

Given the political conversation here in the States right now, it was an interesting time to go to Moscow. But to be honest, I never felt any sort of tension. The Russians who I got a chance to spend some time with were in a word, great. Sincere, curious, funny and really helpful to their international guests.

There’s no question that Russia employs a highly traditional approach to schooling despite a lot of discussion about technology, at least at the EdCrunch conference I spoke at. From what I could tell, the focus was around digital literacy, and everyone was excited about being able to “digitize” all aspects of the school curriculum. The speakers mentioned “flipped learning” a number of times, and I heard about a couple of huge roll outs of video curriculum to support it. They want to teach kids “critical thinking,” but they seemed to want to do so via explicit instruction rather than by putting kids in situation where they need to think critically in order to solve a problem or reach a goal they care about. Yet, my questions about how critical thinking or creativity or other skills and dispositions were to be assessed went pretty much unanswered. It’s too hard.

moscowkidsFrom the late night dinner discussions with other speakers, my take is that there is little in the way of a progressive, interesting approach to technology, and, not surprisingly, little coherence around what anyone meant by the word “learning.” (As a side note, I was shocked (but not really shocked) by one high profile speaker in particular who is having a huge influence on the conversation globally couldn’t really articulate a definition that he could actually apply to his own experience.) In general, like most other places I’ve been, the Russians seem to be playing with change. It’s surfacy, driven by tradition and global rankings, proffering a vision that’s grounded in little more than how to deal with the digitalization of the curriculum and the growing ubiquity of devices. 

To that end, one of the most ironic moments was when one of the cute school kids they brought on stage at the beginning of the conference answered “to get a good grade” when the emcee asked him what was the goal of learning. (That and when they gave the kids iPads to look up Newton’s First Law of Physics and the wifi wasn’t connecting. Oi.)

What I enjoyed most about my trip were two things: meeting some really interesting and well-meaning educators from around the world, and hanging out with the university students who were our guides at the conference. My guide, Olga, had never left her country but was dying to come to the United States. And another young man, Kyrril, who personally rushed me to the airport via subways and trains with like six minutes to spare, also aspired to make a visit and see what we were all about. They were nice kids who were very much awed by their foreign guests. (Lots of group selfies.) 

For my take on Finland, skip over to Facebook.

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind, Personal

My EduCon Conversation

January 6, 2010 By Will Richardson

My favorite conference of the year, Educon 2.2, is only a few weeks away, and I wanted to post my “conversation” here to see if there might be some…um…conversation about how to best make the, ah, conversation valuable at the conference. (NOTE: I had originally intended to lead a conversation on “Greening Education” but I’m switching this new topic in.) So if you have any thoughts about the topic or about how to add value to the live session (which will be streamed), please let me know.

Title: The “Decoupling” of Education and School: Where do We Begin?

Description: The next ten years promise to be hugely disruptive for the traditional idea of school as more and more alternative learning platforms are created and expanded. This conversation will focus not on technology but on the larger shifts that will have to occur for schools to evolve into a different role in our society. Driving the discussion will be these quotes from Allan Collins and Richard Halverson’s recent book Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology:

“If educators cannot successfully integrate new technologies into what it means to be a school, then the long identification of schooling with education, developed over the past 150 years, will dissolve into a world where the students with the means and the ability will pursue their learning outside of public school.”

“Schools were prevalent in the era of apprenticeship, and they will be prevalent in whatever new system of education comes into being. But the seeds of a new system are beginning to emerge, and they are already beginning to erode the identification of learning and schooling. As these new technologically driven seeds germinate, education will occur in many different, more adaptive venues, and schools will have a narrower role in learning.”

“Our generation faces a…radically new, design challenge. We are dealing with a mature, stable system of education designed to adapt to gradual change, but ill-suited to embrace radical change. The pace of technological change has outstripped the ability or school systems to adapt essential practices. Schools have fiddled with learning technologies on the margins of the system, in boutique innovations that leave core practices untouched. The emergence of new forms of teaching and learning outside of school threaten the identification of learning with formal schooling forged in the 19th Century.”

What does this new design look like? What are the big questions regarding learning, teaching and schooling that we need to begin to address? How will the roles of elementary schools and high schools begin to evolve? How will we address the divide issues that these opportunities outside of school create? And how do we personally plan for these changes as learners, parents and teachers? If we agree, perhaps we can create a concrete list of starting points for these conversations to begin and continue in schools.

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind Tagged With: educon, educon22

Constructing Modern Knowledge

March 14, 2009 By Will Richardson

Just wanted to put in a mention of Gary Stager’s summer conference “Constructing Modern Knowledge” coming up this summer in New Hampshire. I’ve cribbed Gary’s description from Dave’s blog below.

This highly-affordable, immersive, minds-on institute is my attempt to create a space in which educators can explore a wide range of ways in which computers may be used to make the learning environment richer and more creative. My goal is not for participants to leave able to say, “I heard Macarthur Genius and small schools pioneer Deborah Meier,” but rather, “I spent time with Deborah Meier.”

We don’t predict the future, but explore the ways in which we may use computers and creativity software today to dramatically increase learning opportunities.

Last year’s participants worked on personally meaningful projects involving robotics, music composition, animation, digital imaging, computer programming, video editing, simulation building, kinetic sculpture, scientific modeling and much more. Best of all, they had plenty of time, resources and support for bringing projects to life.

This year’s amazing guest speakers include:

• Deborah Meier – Veteran educational innovator, author, small schools pioneer, blogger and first K-12 educator named a Macarthur Genius
• Herbert Kohl – A giant of progressive education and author of more than 40 acclaimed books about teaching and learning
• Lesa Snider King – Expert in digital imaging and photography, author of Photoshop CS4, the Missing Manual
• Brian Silverman – If you’ve used Logo, LogoWriter, MicroWorlds, programmable LEGO or Scratch, Brian had a hand in creating those
• Peter Reynolds – Award-winning illustrator, illustrator, animator, software developer and children’s book author

Our faculty includes myself, Dr. Cynthia Solomon (one of Logo’s 3 creators), Sylvia Martinez of Generation YES and John Stetson who IMHO is the world’s best teacher.

There will be a special reception held at the legendary FableVision Studios to kickoff the Big Night in the Big City (Boston)

Registrants will also receive free creativity software from Tech4Learning, LCSI, Inspiration and FableVision!

Manchester is easy to reach, affordable and there are discounts for teams of three or more registrants.

Check out http://constructingmodernknowledge.com for more information.

Constructing Modern Knowledge is sponsored by the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation (aalf.org) and The Constructivist Consortium. CEUs are available.

Filed Under: Conference Stuff Tagged With: conferences

My Educon Moment

January 25, 2009 By Will Richardson

I love this conference more than any other for a variety of reasons, the conversations (instead of presentations), the level of understanding and “enlightenment” among the participants, the many friends who’ve I made over the years all in one place, the absence of vendors and agendas, and the emphasis on making the world of education a better one for our kids, to name just a few. But the absolute best part of this conference is being in a school where the teachers and the students and the leadership all share a common purpose and live learning every day. I know being in the moment here, still in the midst of these powerful interactions, colors my view a bit, and that some of the SLA edcrush will wear off as I head away in an hour or so. But I can honestly say that this is the one school that I know I would want my own kids to attend without reservation. Not to say there aren’t others that I don’t know about. But this is about as good as it gets right now. It’s all about kids learning, making them an important driver in the process, and supporting and celebrating their efforts at every turn.

And so this is my Educon moment, when in the middle of the stream of pictures and Tweets and blog posts and live video today, this Tweet from Kristen Hokanson ’bout knocked me over:

Whoa.

I wonder how many schools can even come close to understanding a) what that student is talking about and b) what a powerful description of a learning culture that is.

We’ve spent a lot of time these past couple of days talking about change and learning and kids and parents and schools and more. It’s been heady. In some ways, the conversation hasn’t changed that much from last year. I don’t get the sense we’re much closer to the goal or even identifying the goal or even figuring out whether there is only one goal or many. But the difference between Educon and all of the other places where these conversations happen is captured so simply in that Tweet.

Change is possible. It is real. It is happening here. It can happen and is happening elsewhere.

And most importantly, the conversations need to continue.

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind Tagged With: education, educon, educon21, learning

If You Are Going to EduCon 2.1…

December 30, 2008 By Will Richardson

…which I hope you are, the session/facilitator lineup/schedule has been posted, and there are some great topics for conversation and some equally great people leading them. It’s the edu place to be on January 23-25.

If you are at all interested in joining the session I’m leading on “What Will Classroom Learning Look Like?” please be sure to note that this is not a presentation as much as it is a conversation around some ideas posted on this Google Notebook page. It would be helpful to peruse them beforehand if you think you might sit in, and if you have any other texts that might stimulate the discussion, please let me know. My plan is to simply give a 10 minute framing, break us up into small groups to discuss and then work our way back into a whole group conversation using some modified protocols that will hopefully create a vision that answers the question. If we have time, we’ll steer the conversation to the how do we get there part.

Here again is the session description:

Inspired by recent studies and reflections on the evolution of online social media and its uses by teens, we’ll spend some time attempting to paint a picture (in some broad strokes) around what effective classroom learning might look like in schools that have chosen to evolve their models. We’ll frame the conversation around the questions posed in the conclusion of the “Living and Learning with New Media” study released in November by the MacArthur Foundation. Those questions, as well as some other salient and relevant quotes are included on a Google Notebook page at http://tinyurl.com/educonlearning.

Now, I gotta register and get a hotel room…

Filed Under: Conference Stuff Tagged With: educon21

Shameless Ad for EduCon 2.1

December 10, 2008 By Will Richardson

So, I’ve been telling everyone I see to come to EduCon 2.1 in Philly next month. After reading Chris’s info below, please register, and let me know if you’d like to help frame my discussion on “What Will Classroom Learning Look Like?”

Registration is now open for EduCon 2.1, the second annual conference and conversation on education and innovation hosted by Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy in conjunction with The Franklin Institute. We will be convening January 23-25, 2009. During the conference, educators from around the world will descend upon Philly to teach, to think and to learn how to improve their own practices and inform the larger dialogue on education as well. Aaron Sorkin wrote, “Decisions are made by those who show up.” It is time to show up.

EduCon is built on the Axioms:

1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members

2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen

3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.

David Jakes holding court at EduCon

4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate

5) Learning can — and must — be networked.

Visit the EduCon wiki to learn about the conversation schedule. Aside from the conversations, Friday night will feature a panel discussion where deep thinkers from various non-academic strata investigate the question, “What is the purpose of school?” While the need for a new educational course is clear, the path to that shift is not as obvious. Sunday’s panel will highlight those divergent paths as educational leaders for varying pedagogies engage each other in an attempt to make the case for how we should approach our educational evolution.

EduCon will also feature a pre-conference event on January 22nd this year – Constructing Modern Math/Science Knowledge – with participants Dr. David Thornburg, Dr. Gary Stager and more.

The stage is set for an amazing conference. No vendors. No sponsors. Simply – ideas, inquiry and pedagogy.

Show up.

General conference registration is $150 and $100 for School District of Philadelphia employees and includes Friday admittance to SLA’s partner museum The Franklin Institute and The National Constitution Center. Pre-Conference registration is $100.

If you have any questions, please contact Chris Lehmann.

What Chris said: Show up!

Filed Under: Conference Stuff Tagged With: educon21

Educon 2.1–Call for Conversations

October 16, 2008 By Will Richardson

Just back from New Zealand and still wondering what day it is, but I did want to make sure to post this before I got into one of the other 47 things on my list. The deadline for submissions is November 1, and if it’s anything like 2.0, this may be the best gathering of the year for those of us immersed in this conversation.

From Chris’s blog:

EduCon only happens when a community of educators come together to make it something special. With that in mind, we are announcing our Call for Conversations for EduCon 2.1 — January 23rd – 25th at Science Leadership Academy.

About EduCon 2.1:

EduCon 2.1 is both a conversation and a conference.
And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.

The Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.1

  1. Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members
  2. Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
  3. Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
  4. Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
  5. Learning can — and must — be networked.

We want people to share ideas, lead conversations, challenge each other and have conversations that can further our dreams of what schools can and should be. We want sessions that move past the traditional presentation style of conferences to create interactive and engaging moments of learning for all involved.

Please consider submitting a proposal. All proposals are due Nov. 1st. Feel free to examine last year’s sessions as a reference point.

Really hope to see you there.

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind Tagged With: educon21

NECC '08/NECC '09

July 7, 2008 By Will Richardson

Been trying to get my brain around last week’s NECC experience for a few days now, reading some of the other post mortems, thinking about what the lasting impressions are and will be for my own thinking and learning. For a variety of reasons, mostly personal, San Antonio was not a home run for me, not like last year in Atlanta when the energy and ideas seemed to be flowing more intently, more spontaneously. And before anyone starts throwing things at me, let me just say that was my experience; I’m sure that many, many others found this year’s event to be a celebration, perhaps a transformation in their thinking about teaching and learning and education. In that regard, I’m sincerely happy that more voices have been added to the chorus, and that more practitioners have entered the conversation. We need more voices. We need more good pedagogy and thinking.

I came to NECC in a bit of an edublogger funk, and that funk continues in some respects. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that’s not unusual. My interior monologue is fills with peaks and valleys, and right now, I’m once again struggling to define and focus where the best use of my time and thinking is. For the past two months, I have read very little from the education folder in my aggregator; simply, not much has been resonating. To be honest, very little in the last six months or so has felt new, a view that a couple of others at NECC seemed to share. I’ve been drawn to reading outside the usual suspects, thinking hard (once again) about the scope of this community and its reach. Thinking hard about change, about what is and isn’t changing, and how maddeningly slow it all seems.

The good news is that the level of passion among those that count themselves in this community is, in a word, amazing. It was evident from the conversations I eavesdropped on in the Blogger’s Cafe to the late night debates on the River Walk, to the back channel chats, the sessions on how to put the tools to good work, to the collective efforts to capture as much of NECC as possible for those who couldn’t attend. I don’t think it was possible to sit in on the sessions or walk by the Cafe and not simply admire the level of engagement of both long standing and relatively new participants in this conversation. All of us, whether evangelists or practitioners or even the naysayers, are deeply invested in trying to make sense of these giant shifts that are occurring, and that is all good.

And there was an international flavor to NECC this year that seemed stronger than in years’ past. (BTW, I don’t count the Canadian contingent as international, thought I know I should.) It was great to see folks from Australia and the UK and many, many other far flung spots around the globe. We need more of their perspectives as well, and that seems to be happening.

But for me, at least, at the end of the day, I’m still left wondering, “what’s really changed?” And, where will we be a year from now?

NECC is the echo chamber writ large and in living color; more than any other conference, it’s where we feel “big.” But the reality of it is, as Dean suggests, the powerful learning that most of us experience in these online communities is still little more than a blip on the radar screen. (I wonder what percentage of the 8 million+ educators in this country are aware of these shifts on a basic level.) And this is a tech conference. As I read through some of the back channel conversations, some were asking about presenting to school boards or parents or even town councils. Others were talking about getting out to non-edtech conferences. Some were, again, searching for that elusive tipping point that will get the conversation jump started outside the chamber.

And I think it’s time we get serious about all of that. No doubt, the vendor floor in Washington will be filled with “Web 2.0 in a Box” and “Safe Social Networking” and control, control, control. And I’m going to guess that, like this year, “Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts” will be “Hot Topics” as well as a few other new tools. And we’ll be talking once again about new standards and 21st Century Literacies and all of that. But while we as a community have no control over some of that, is that what we aspire to? Is that what we want the emphasis on NECC 09 to be, once again? Or do we want it to be more?

I hope it’s more. More about learning and figuring out what it means to be connected. More about what we can do to begin systemic change. More tangible, non-toolsy, results oriented thinking. More models that work, models that provide realistic options for educators to wrap their brains around.

More like what Chris Lehmann presented in his session, a session that since it had a “specific pedagogical focus” felt like it was “high stakes,” in an of itself a comment that should get us thinking. More like the conversations on leadership that Scott McLeod and Chris and others tried to have at EduBloggerCon on Saturday. More about ideas and connections.

And in general, without speaking for others, I again think I need to do more to try to get these ideas and these questions outside the walls of my learning community. I’m afraid we’re stalling because without some larger force or lever, these ideas have no where (or very limited routes) to go in a comprehensive discussion about what schools need to be and to do in response to the scale of change that is upon us. (That thinking is influenced heavily by Sir Ken Robinson’s latest presentation to the RSA, btw.) For me, at least, I think it’s time to start writing. (I know; I’ve said that before.)

Change on any level is not easy, and I’m not suggesting that there is one way to change or one thing that needs to be changed or that we all need to change in one particular way. It’s all incremental and personal, I know, but it’s also about doing what will create the most change, do the most good. I’ve been thinking about Lessig a lot and his attempt to attack the root cause of the smaller problems. I wonder what the root impediment for school change is? And, reffing Sir Ken again, we are at a moment where we all must change if we’re to sustain this existence. Along those lines, I’ve also, strangely, been thinking about all of the devoted carnivores that I hung around with last week in steak and barbecue land, thinking about how much healthier they would be and how much better off we’d all be if they and everyone else, for that matter, ate lower to the ground. But that is tough change as well.

Anyway, proposals for NECC ’09 are only a couple of months away…

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind Tagged With: education, necc08, schools

The Ultimate Conference Attendee

February 29, 2008 By Will Richardson

I’ve been watching the flow of content coming out of Illinois, and it’s obvious we have officially jumped the shark (my bad use of phrase) reached a tipping point in terms of distributing ideas once held only in ballroom walls to the rest of the world. Wondering what future conference organizer is gonna get smart and only allow attendees who:

  • Have their own Ustream channels and broadcast live facial reactions of attendees as the session is in progress
  • Can Tweet out the best quotes, engage in lively back channel repartee, and live blog the session to their own sites at the same time
  • Create a VoiceThread story of the presentation within 10 minutes of finish by incorporating photos taken during the session and uploaded to Flickr, adding voice over narration to contextualize the event, and soliciting video comments from virtual attendees
  • Put together a wiki page for the session that collects dozens of various RSS feeds compiled from keyword and tag searches on the presenter’s name, the general topic, del.icio.us bookmarks, YouTube videos and more
  • Create a Google Map that identifies where all of the virtual attendees live and helps them upload photos of themselves watching the UStreamed, Tweeted, VoiceThreaded, wikied presentation in progress.
  • Conduct a live Skype call with other experts who challenge the ideas being presented and scream out provocative and borderline insulting questions
  • Have their own conference space in Second Life where live video and audio of presentation is being streamed and where they have organized a post session social featuring virtual local microbrews and coffees

What am I missing?

(Photo “Multi Monitor Mahem” by totalAido.)

Technorati Tags: confernces, multitasking

Filed Under: Conference Stuff

Local Connections and Global Connections

January 27, 2008 By Will Richardson

There’s much to write about EduCon Day 1, but here are just some quick thoughts before heading over for the final sessions:

*Science Leadership Academy is a special place. There are tons of schools out there that have more technology, better facilities, etc., but I think we’d all be hard pressed to find a school that has a more positive, deeply connected culture than this school. You talk to the teachers here and they tell you they feel like the luckiest teachers in the city of Philadelphia. They are passionate and committed to the principles that they have developed together. When the students talk, they talk with empowered voices. They don’t just attend this school; they live this school when they are here and when they are not. This culture of caring and respect is sticky in their lives, and they too seem to sense the uniqueness of what’s happening here, at the school and at the conference. And then there is Chris, who is just one of those unique individuals who is smart enough, charismatic enough, caring enough and invested enough to pull it off. I don’t know about the rest, but he’s coming closer to hero status in my eyes, someone who embodies totally what educational leadership is all about and has no agenda, none, other than to do well by his students, his teachers and his community. And, by us.

*I sat in on Tom’s session that made the case that School 2.0 is not far afield from the principles set forth by the Coalition of Essential Schools. We didn’t even mention the word “technology” for the first 45 minutes, and I was struck by how problematic, in my mind at least, the whole “2.0” piece is because of the obvious ties to technology. (Does that make sense?) As the second sentence in the description about this conference says, “This is not a technology conference.” But it is, because in large measure, technology is what is driving the conversation that schools must change. Tom talked about how in the 70s and 80s, we were discussing these same ideas, and now, after an interlude where school reform has been beaten down by NCLB and standardized assessments, there seems to be some heat building under that reform fire again. It is, I think, because of what is now possible in large measure to these tools. As Chris says often, “Technology is not additive; technology is transformative.” So the question becomes, how do we square great principles with great technology to make great schools as SLA? And the bigger question, the more frustrating question that many of us kept coming back to throughout the day, is does it scale? I asked Chris last night if Philadelphia is now looking at SLA as a continuing experiment or a model. Without hesitating he said “Oh, god, I hope it’s not a model.” Grrrr… I understand why not, but I think there are a lot of folks here who are looking for those concrete takeaways that help them get from where they are closer to here. And, that are at their core hoping the answer is that it’s just not possible to do without building from ground up.

*Finally, the one real head twister that I got yesterday was during Chris’s own session when he was talking about how his thinking is moving away from the “having kids publish globally to the world” product piece of all of this a “let’s focus on the process of community building and publishing within the walls” approach. (Not his quotes btw, just my attempts at paraphrase. You can always go to the videotape.) Using Moodle, SLA has established a vibrant, important ongoing discussion that extends not only what happens in the classroom but also deepens the sense of connectedness that these students and teachers feel. The culture of sharing and participation that is created within the local community is more important almost that making those connections outside. (I asked one of the students in my session about how connected he felt outside of the school, and his answer was all about his connections inside the school…interesting.) On some level, this is an “a ha” moment for me that I’m going to be writing more about at some point.

What a cool world it is when you can bring a couple hundred passionate educators together in a special place like this for two days of really rich conversation without ever printing up a flyer, buying an ad, creating a marketing piece or making a poster. In all of our conversations about Twitter and blogs and Second Life and whatever else, the pure power of network connections that can make face to face connections like this happen is never far from our minds, at least, certainly, not mine…

Technorati Tags: educon20, educon, learning, educaton, SLA

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EduCon 2.0 Session

January 26, 2008 By Will Richardson

Just in case anyone might be interested in watching my EduCon session. Would love to have those of you who attended drop some of your comments in here if you like.

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EduCon Conversation Update

January 21, 2008 By Will Richardson

With an emphasis on “conversation.” For those who might be thinking of coming to my session on Saturday in Philadelphia, just know that I’m not planning on taking up too much of the time (10-15 mins or so) doing anything but contextualizing the rest of the discussion (the last 75 minutes or so), and that this will be an unconference session along the lines of what we did in Shanghai. The description reads

We’ll have a conversation about how best to leverage our own
understanding and practice of personal learning networks in ways that
can influence others’ professional practice and, ultimately, create
change in schools and classrooms.

It would be great if we could come out of the session with a “Strategy Wiki” that might serve as guide for those searching for a way to broaden the conversations at their own schools and districts. Or not.

And if you can’t be there in person, you can tune in and join the conversation (maybe even Skype in) at the EduCon UStream Channel 1 at 12:30 EST.

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Help Make the Network Real

January 14, 2008 By Will Richardson

Tomorrow at a gathering of independent school heads, tech directors and teachers just outside Philadelphia, I will have the distinct pleasure of presenting with Karl Fisch and Anne Smith of Arapahoe High School. It’s billed as  “21st Century Education: 20/20 Vision for Schools” and we’re planning on making it a global event, bringing in students and educators via Skype video to tell their stories live and in living color. In essence, we want them to walk away understanding the power of connections that can reach far beyond the classroom.

To help in that effort, we’ve created a wiki page that we’d love your contribution to. Just leave your name, your place in the world, your blog if you have one, and one link or resource or piece of advice that you feel will help these folks get their brains around some of the challenges and questions and opportunities we face right now. I’ll be tweeting this tonight and tomorrow morning, and we’ll share it with them at the workshop.

Thanks in advance.

Technorati Tags: advis learning, networks

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Two Weeks to EduCon 2.0

January 11, 2008 By Will Richardson

Just a reminder that the first ever EduCon 2.0 will be happening in Philadelphia at Chris Lehmann‘s Science Leadership Academy in two weeks starting on Friday, January 25th with a tour of the school and the Franklin Institute and running all day Saturday and Sunday with a wide ranging list of conversations. As Chris says:

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference. And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas — from the very practical to the big dreams.

Last I heard, registrations were nearing a couple of hundred, which means this is going to be an awesome opportunity to wrap our collective brains around some of the most important questions facing us as educators (and to carry those conversations late into the Philadelphia night.) For me, I’m going to get to cross a few more names of my blogging life list, people like Konrad Glogowski and Arthus Erea and I’m sure a few others, to see a lot of good friends who have been on this journey for many years, and to meet and talk to potential new friends and connections in my network.

Really hope to see you there. (Oh…and don’t forget to bring your own refillable water bottles…)

Technorati Tags: educon20, sla, education, learning

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EduCon 2.0–A Call for Conversations

October 18, 2007 By Will Richardson

I’m just reposting this from Chris’s blog and urging everyone to think about spending a weekend in January in Philly on the cheap engaging in what promises to be some important conversations about what schools can and must become…

“From January 25-27, we’re going to attempt something really quite exciting at SLA. We’re going to host EduCon 2.0.

About EduCon 2.0

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.

And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas, facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:
1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can — and must — be networked

We are now making our call for conversations — these are the sessions where people present ideas, lead conversations, engage with people and find a way to update the conference-style presentation in a way that is more interactive, more progressive and — hopefully — takes advantage of all of the ways we’ve found to engage a wider audience.

Proposals are due Nov 1st. Please consider creating a conversation.

(Feel free to link to this post and/or to the conference wiki!)”

Technorati Tags: educon2.0, learning, education

Filed Under: Conference Stuff

K-12 Online Conference Starts Tomorrow

October 7, 2007 By Will Richardson

Just a reminder…

“Breaking free of traditional conferences, the upcoming K-12 Online Conference: Playing with Boundaries (October 15-19th & October 22-26th) provides educators with an engaging, ongoing learning experience without time constraints. The K12 Online Conference is a unique professional development opportunity for teachers to engage with ideas and technologies that are having a real impact on 21st century classrooms.

The entire conference will be delivered as downloadable digital media via the Internet with over 40 sessions presented in four strands: Classroom 2.0, New Tools, Professional Learning Networks, and Obstacles to Opportunities. The conference launches with a keynote address on October 8th from respected blogger and author David Warlick and concludes with a global 24 hour live event, As Night Falls.

For more information, please visit http://www.k12onlineconference.org.”

See you there!

Technorati Tags: k12online, k12online2008, teaching, learning

Filed Under: Conference Stuff

Thinking Disruptively About Conference Presentations

September 24, 2007 By Will Richardson

One of the things I asked Jeff early on in planning for Learning 2.0 in Shanghai last week was whether or not I could do something a bit different in my sessions. I just did not want to “prepare” a 45-minute presentation to “deliver” to the people in the room for a variety of reasons. I’m sure the genesis of this feeling was because of the “unconference” format we used at Edbloggercon last summer in Atlanta, but I find myself more and more questioning the “get up in the front of the room and impart knowledge” model that is so thick with irony in the context of this conversation that it just doesn’t feel quite right anymore. So, anyway, what I decided to do for my five sessions was to simply offer up a topic, prep 10-15 minutes of discussion starting context, and then sit down and try to facilitate a conversation. Happily, Jeff was all for it.

For the most part, that’s how it worked out. Sheryl and I decided to combine one of our sessions, and we basically ran a discussion on overcoming obstacles around some key questions. And two of the sessions ended up being slated as “unconference” sessions where I prepped even less and just tried to let the conversation fly. But the other two had me talking for about 15 minutes on the topic and then just opening it up. And from my standpoint, at least, some fascinating discussion ensued. And what was great was that Jamie McKenzie sat in on one, Gary Stager on another, and Wes on a third. And they all contributed to the conversation. I just played the good group therapist and tried to reflect and deflect, prod and probe, without giving too much of my own bias away. (I will say that someone who I least expected came up later and heaped on some genuine love on what transpired conversation-wise in one of the sessions. It was a nice moment.)

On a number of different levels, I guess this could be seen as selfish. For one thing, I didn’t have to do as much work, and for another, I got to hear and learn about other people’s ideas and experiences instead of simply conveying my own. That’s not to say that there wasn’t some work and deftness that went into leading a worthwhile discussion. But it is a much different beast from nailing together that PowerPoint or that wiki page and then going through it step by step, filling up the allotted time. And my bottom line takeaways were that a) for me at least, it was a much more fulfilling experience, and b) for the participants, I think, it served a more effective purpose. (If anyone was in the rooms with me for those sessions, I’d love to hear your feedback.)

So here I sit, as do many of us right now, I’m sure, thinking about NECC 2008 and the looming deadline for proposals about a week away. And I am seriously struggling. Because I want to do something really different. Something disruptive…not in a bad way, but to push the envelope a bit. I want to bring the unconference to the conference, not just have it on it’s own separate day, and I’m wondering how to best do that.

Without totally cutting my throat here, it’s becoming obvious that traditional conference formats just aren’t as needed as they used to be. That’s not to say that there still won’t be 14,000 people (not including you) in San Antonio trudging from room to room, getting a look at the latest tools or ideas and learning just enough to make them dangerous, and wallowing in the multi-gajillion dollar vendor floor picking up huge Best Buy bags that will end up in the nearest landfill a day or two after. (My, how many laptops we could buy for kids and teachers with the money getting thrown around down there.) And it’s not to say that getting together face to face is no longer important. (K-12 Online is an amazing undertaking, but the totally virtual conference leaves something to be desired as well.)

In this world, every moment can be a conference session, one that’s much better than watching some slide show. I mean seriously…throw a dart at any conference session list and see if you hit one that can’t be done better through the network. (Ok…there are some, I know. But what percentage? 10? 20 percent that would be worth traveling the distance to see?) Somebody somewhere of late talked about this new, on demand, speed learning a la Twitter that’s cropping up, and it is pretty powerful. Tweet that you want to learn something and voila…instant classroom. The other day, John Pederson and I decided to learn Yugma (worked for him…I still can’t get it to see my Skype list.) And then Jeff tweets that he’s trying WiZiQ and all of a sudden I’m in a room with about 10 other people from like 10 other continents and we’re all chipping away at it, trying to figure out what works and how. And after you read Jeff’s post on the topic, tell me he woulda’ walked out of a conference session able to write that.

Point is, I think, that there is a better way today than sitting in that room facing forward doing what all of our kids do. (And look, I’m guilty as charged here too in terms of most of what I do when I present.) And that’s why Edubloggercon left us all in a daze. Because it wasn’t that. It was participatory (if you wanted it to be.) It was passion, not passivity. And, I don’t know, but yeah…I want my kids teachers to be learning the way I do rather than spending my tax money to sit in those sessions. If that comes across as hubris, my apologies. But I’ll gladly pay their way to the next Edubloggercon, wherever that might be.

So, I’m askin’…how do we bring the unconference into the conference?

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind, The Shifts

Learning at Learning 2.0 in Shanghai

September 15, 2007 By Will Richardson

So what am I learning at Learning 2.0? This is a bit of a very tired brain dump, but, I’m learning that…
 
…the teachers everywhere struggle with many of the same challenges and pressures that teachers in the States struggle with, by and large. The one big thing they don’t struggle with is NCLB.

…that teaching at an international school can be an amazing and rewarding experience. I’ve been struck by how many of the people I’ve met here have parents who taught abroad, and how many of them can’t imagine teaching in the US again (though many of them did.) That’s not to say that they are all expats, but it is interesting to hear them talk about how “hard” it is to come back to the States, for any number of reasons.

…that for the first time, if I had it to do over again, I would seriously consider taking my kids abroad for a year or two to give them a more global perspective. That’s not to say that they still don’t have the chance to immerse themselves in another culture before they get out to their real lives (and I think now I’m going to give them a lot of encouragement to do that), but as I flipped the pages of the yearbook in the office at the Concordia International School where the conference is being held, I saw a bunch of kids from all over the place who were getting a pretty amazing experience. For some reason, I’m really loving the sense of adventure that seemed to jump off of those pages.

…that Susan Sedro, Clay Burrell, Kim Cofino and others are just as compelling and interesting as their blogs suggest, and that they are doing some really fantastic things in their classrooms with these technologies. It’s been great to get a chance to talk with them and hear their contributions in my sessions.

…that things are cheap, really, really cheap here. And on some level that conflicts me. I am really looking forward to this afternoon and the next two days when the conference has ended and Jeff (pictured here) takes us around to where the “real” China is. (Where we are right now is kind of an upscale expat village where mostly corporations house their workers.) But I’m also somewhat put off by the zeal for buying knock off Rolex watches and designer clothes. China is a huge contributor to the environmental problems of the world, (the air here is just not right) not to mention all sorts of human rights violations and poor working conditions that I have not doubt surround the production of all that junk. And while I’m no saint, consumerism in general will be the death of us all. I keep wondering, how are we going to help our kids navigate the looming environmental crisis if we ourselves can’t do it. So, downtown Shanghai will either blow my mind or make me more depressed. Maybe both.

–that Gary Stager is a really good guy, which I already knew, btw. We may not agree on everything, but more than most, Gary wants kids to learn in engaging and meaningful ways.

We wrap up at noon today…that’s midnight EST, as my body is still well aware. Photos, I have a feeling, are going to be scarce as Flickr is blocked here and while the Firefox plugin seems to be working, the upload isn’t working. I’m going to have to get my brain around how to do it.

Technorati Tags: learn2cn, china, shanghai, learning, education

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, Connectivism

Greetings From China

September 13, 2007 By Will Richardson

So it may seem strange to start my first blog post ever from China with a picture of my daughter, but the reason I’m feeling so giddy at the moment (aside from about seven hours of sleep after a 27-hour travel day) is because I am just loving my Skype, Skitch, connected from wherever I am in the world life. It’s about 9 am here in Shanghai and I just got off an hour Skype video call with my kids (where it’s about 9 pm) where I, like I normally try to do, helped them with their homework (Tess and I had an interesting conversation about “bartering”) and asked about Tucker‘s soccer practice and talked baseball. (My Cubbies are hangin’ in.) I know it’s not the same as being there, but I have to tell you it’s pretty darn cool to be half a world away and still be able to see them and interact with them. And I loved snapping pictures of them on my end with Skitch and then giving them the link so they could see what I just posted and watch their faces break into huge smiles, all within, literally, 45 seconds start to finish. In five years, I know, that’ll seem like nothing, but right now, it’s a big deal.

Sheryl and Wes and I arrived about 9 last night and Wes was by far the most productive on the trip, writing about 37 blog posts, doing a couple of podcasts, and getting yelled at by the Chinese authorities at the airport for taking pictures in the  customs line. (I’m sure they are on Flickr by now, which, btw, is blocked here.) Jeff picked us up and brought us to the hotel where I crashed hard after flipping through the dials and seeing almost nothing but English and American sporting events and something that looked strangely like “Chinese Idol.” Could that be? With my very limited first impression, I guess I’m almost disappointed at how Westernized it all feels. But Jeff is promising to show us the real Shanghai on Monday and Tuesday after the conference which I am looking forward to greatly. And, my own personal angst was about the air quality here…on the drive last night, you could only see about a mile or two ahead the haze was so thick. And Jeff said that was a great improvement over the last three years…they’re gearing up for the Olympics next year, you know.

So now I’ve got an afternoon to get my brain in gear for what promises to be a pretty interesting unconference-y conference with folks from around Asia. It will be really interesting to see what their take is on all of this. I feel pretty much out of my element, and in those cases I usually end up learning more than anyone, especially with the focus that Jeff and the organizers have put on the conversations. I’m leading five sessions, two of them are going to be totally unconference, one to discuss the Cult of the Amateur as it relates to Learning 2.0 and the other titled “Teachers as Learners; Learners as Teachers.” The other sessions I’m going to “present” for about 10-15 minutes and then hopefully use the rest of the time to talk about “The Big Shifts in Learning,” problem technologies in schools, and our own personal learning practice as educators. There will be a lot of Twittering going on, so if you want to follow that conversation just tap into the Learn2cn feed. And don’t forget the almost mandatory Ning site for the conference that has, I think, the coolest Ning banner to date. Hope to see you in the mix.

Technorati Tags: learn2cn, shanghai, learning, education, China

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, Connectivism

Learnin' at BLC

July 20, 2007 By Will Richardson

So something shifted a little bit more for me this week at Building Learning Communities. Or maybe it solidified. Whatever it did, it’s feeling pretty powerful at this moment.

I think a lingering hangover from Edubloggercon in NECC had something to do with it, but having another chance to spend quality time talking to people like David Jakes, Dean Shareski, Darren Kuropatwa, Ewan McIntosh, Barbara Barreda, Marco Torres, Chris Lehmann, Joyce Valenza,  Christian Long and many others was just such a kick. And as I left this morning, I felt really sad on some levels, because even though I know the learning will continue, the conversations and connections we were making were just…just…scintillating for me. What was so cool was that 80% of my waking hours were spent in some sort of immersion in this conversation among people who ooze passion for it. I mean, read through some of the chatcasts on Dave’s blog. Good lord that’s some intense back channel chat. And it’s not so much a love for the tools as it is a love for what the tools allow us to do, to experience. It was just one pretty raw learning moment after the next, and it’s a feeling you don’t want to lose.

And that is where some of my thinking really solidified, that passion part. I know this sounds corny, but I was really wishing that every one at that conference could have experienced the same connection that I felt to this community. The one here where we’re just all talking about how we figure out what needs to happen, what we can do, what the world is going to look like, and how we can help shape it. Where, yeah, we ooohhh and ahhh over someone’s iPhone, but a minute later we’re back to talking about where all of this is headed.

And what shifted for me was walking into two of my presentations and basically chucking the script because it just didn’t feel relevant. I mean how ironic is it to talk about school transformation in a setting that looks like a…um…school? And I just got tired of it. I desperately wanted to hear other people’s voices in my sessions, and so starting with the one I wrote about on Wednesday and the morning session yesterday, I just decided to try to facilitate a conversation and see where it took us. And, I don’t know about anyone else in the room, but for me, it was pretty powerful.

Last night on the dinner cruise, I had the honor of being interviewed by some of Marco’s former students who were there to capture snippets of the conference in snippets of video. After they finished, we started talking, and I asked them what they thought of the conference. In a word, they were incredulous that teachers would come to an event like this and sit in long rows of chairs dutifully listening to whoever was in the front presenting. They talked about how people were coming up to them asking them for technical assistance, and how, in general, they were awestruck at how far ahead of everyone else they seemed to be. It was an amazing moment for me, to hear their reflections, because I found them so powerful. They just couldn’t understand it.

It was great.

One more story. Ewan was everywhere at this conference, and no one created more and published more content than he did. He’s amazing. I was looking at his pictures on Flickr and yearning to understand how I could make my own 35mm Nikon do what his 35mm Canon was doing. Believe me, it wasn’t the camera. So I snagged him and made him sit down with me on the bus to Boston Wednesday night and started picking his brain. My camera was different from his, so he had to experiment a bit with it to figure it out…learning in action, right? But he did, and then he took literally two minutes to show me how to begin to play. Not how to take a certain picture in a certain way. Not how to prepare for every shot. But how to play and experiment and take a picture, look at it, make an adjustment, try it again, reflect, reshoot, etc. until I finally got what I wanted. And if you look at my photostream, I think you can begin to see pretty quickly when that bus ride took place.

I learned just enough to teach myself. Pretty cool.

This was a great week. Really. I mean it.

Can’t wait for the next one.

 

Technorati Tags: blc07, learning, education

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind

BLC Day 1 Brain Dump

July 18, 2007 By Will Richardson

Some random reflections and thoughts from Building Learning Communities Day 1:

–In a lot of ways, I can’t believe this is my fourth BLC conference, and if nothing else, the one thing that really stands out is that there is very extensive intellectual (if not practical) understanding of the Read/Write Web as compared to my first year here when a lot of people looked at me funny as I talked about blogs and RSS and the like. Yesterday at a session that Tim Tyson was running about leadership, just about everyone said they wanted to learn more about Web 2.0 stuff, and in a weird way, it was a moment of some validation. Another signal that the train has left the station. But still, the fact that I am still doing a lot of talking on an introductory level speaks volumes, especially about RSS.

–Although the conference has doubled in size this year, from 300 to over 600, it so far has retained its feeling of intimacy. And I just never go to conferences where there are so many people from outside the US. One really funny moment today was sitting down for lunch with a contingent from Northern Ireland and asking them what they thought of the workshops and presentations. They all said they hadn’t learned a thing, and they were serious. It seems they’ve been talking about this stuff for a long time over there. After a little prodding, they admitted their thinking was getting tweaked, but it was fascinating to listen to them talk about the ways in which they were already rethinking their schools.

–There is one technology director here who brought two kids from his school to attend the conference. What a concept. Can you imagine a conference where really high level ideas about schools and education were being discussed where there were just as many students in the rooms and in the discussions as adults? Whoa.

–For some reason, I decided to get pretty edgy in my “New Literacies” presentation and I basically started by saying the whole concept of having people get up and give a presentation at conferences like this is really becoming ironic amidst all of this talk about conversation and collaboration. And so it was nice in that about 15 minutes of the hour (at least) was taken up with discussion. While Tim’s keynote this morning made plain the power of publishing, I wanted to push past the feeling that the product was the end of the process, and I tried to move the concept of what we can do now into the realm of building sustained, trusted, relevant, safe learning communities and networks in which the products nurture the conversation and the learning. That creating and sharing a movie or a podcast or blog post is important, but it is the connections we make around those artifacts, the discussions and interactions that surround them from the community where the most powerful learning takes place. It’s where the “meta” stuff happens, where the true potential lies.

—Ewan McIntosh is a rock star. Plain and simple. “The Italian mafia makes you an offer you can’t refuse. The Scottish mafia makes you an offer you can’t understand.” Priceless. David Jakes and Dean Shareski came back from Ewan’s second session awestruck, and I was truly sorry I was presenting opposite. (That is one of the personal frustrations of this conference…so much I want to learn and see.) Waiting for Jakes to post the “Chat Cast.”

–For reasons yet unclear, I am falling more in like with Twitter. Oy. Jakes put up a reflection on his blog that really resonated.

With Twitter and Skype, I have access to immediacy. My aggregator and my del.icio.us network (18 people I follow, 80 who follow me) are more asynchronous, and not as immediate. I need both types of networks.

Amen.

–I found this quote this morning via Stephen Downes and used it in my presentation.

 “We have been seduced by our inability to imagine ourselves as superfluous to student learning.”

Now I’m serious…that wins the “Best Sentence in a Blog Post of 2007” award (so far at least.) Amen. Amen

–Warning: We’re all heading downtown tonight…Tweets ahead.

(Photo “chatcast” by jutecht.)

Technorati Tags: blc07, learning, education

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, Read/Write Web, The Shifts

Why is it so Hard for Educators to Focus on Their Own Learning?

July 17, 2007 By Will Richardson

That’s a question that I’m really trying to get my brain around of late. In the past few weeks, I have really ramped up my rhetoric to teachers in terms of trying to get them to examine how these technologies challenge their own personal learning. How can the connections we make with these tools affect their own learning practice? How can they begin to understand what the implications for learning are for their students until they at some level understand them for themselves? And so on. And for the most part, heads nod politely in agreement.

But, here’s the thing. By and large, most of the questions that come up during the workshop or the presentation run along the lines of “how do we keep our kids safe with this stuff?” or “if I want to put up my homework for my kids is it better to use a blog or a wiki?” or “so parents could subscribe to these RSS feeds, right?” All good, useful, legitimate questions. But very far removed from the personal learning focus I’ve been trying to articulate. In fact, when I stand by these teachers and hear their questions, when I look at them directly and say “well, that’s a great question, but I really want you to focus on your own practice here, your own learning,” more often than not what I get is a scrunched up face, a biting of the lower lip, a feeling that their brains are saying “AAARRRGGGHHH.”

And even as I sit in this session with Tim Tyson at Building Learning Communities, one principal says “I want to learn more about these tools so I can help my teachers use them in the classroom.”  I want to jump up and say “No! You are missing a step! You want to learn more about these tools for yourself so you can help your teachers learn from them too.”

So what’s that all about? Is it just habit? Is it just such a focus on curriculum delivery that “learning” is all about how to do that job better? Is changing the way we do our own business just too darn hard? Or is this such a huge shift, this idea that we can actually learn through the use of technology that most people just don’t think they have to go there, that they can just keep using it as a way to communicate without the surrounding connective tissue where the real learning takes place?

Or, maybe it’s just me…

(Photo “Having to read the old books again” by Edublogger aka Ewan McIntosh.)

Technorati Tags: blc07, learning, education, read/writeweb

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, The Shifts

NECC 2008 in San Antonio–"Remember the Bloggers!"

June 28, 2007 By Will Richardson

Plain and simple, despite some down moments, this was the best NECC I’ve attended. It was, for the most part, a fun, creative, good space to be in, and I learned a great deal even though I realized yesterday that I hadn’t attended a formal session. (That is actually kind of bizarre, isn’t it? And now of course I realize I missed a great deal.) But it just felt like I was getting so much from the conversations in the Blogger Cafe/Camp and at the other meet-ups throughout the five days that the sessions felt kind of unappetizing. And when I was prepping for my spotlight yesterday, I kept struggling with the same thing…the feeling that that model of someone standing on a stage talking for an hour paled as compared to just having a conversation. The whole experience has challenged my thinking a great deal.

And one other thing that kind of blossomed out of this whole thing was the Twitterish, synchronous conversation that started popping out everywhere. Jeff posted the Skypechat transcript that a bunch of people were having during my presentation. Many of them were in the room, but Clarence Fisher was supervising a science exam in Manitoba and Dean Shareski was out in Moose Jaw. And as Jeff Twittered out the fact that the chat was taking place, more people joined in along the way. It reminded me of ILaw at Harvard a couple of years ago where they actually projected the back channel IRC chat onto the screen as the presenter was presenting. (Now THAT was chaos.) For me, the benefit of tracking the reaction and thinking as I read through it a day later is really fascinating. The learning continues.

So I’m leaving NECC with a lot more optimism, not necessarily that things are going to move any faster or that the challenges are any smaller. But with a real sense of glue. We may not have succeeded at EdBloggerCon at crafting the elevator pitch or figuring out what the new story is, but there is now a sense, at least to me, of more of a collective mission. One that we can already start thinking about for next year in San Antonio. What are our goals? What do we want to have accomplished by then? What are the benchmarks? I took the liberty of adding a new page to the EBC site.

There is an election next year, you know…

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to my learning this year. Hope I added something useful to the conversation.

Technorati Tags: necc07, necc2007, education, learning, blogging

Filed Under: Conference Stuff

The Problem in a Nutshell…The UnProblem in a Nutshell

June 27, 2007 By Will Richardson

Yesterday at NECC was one of those yin/yang experiences, with one of my worst conference moments ever, which, as these things go, preceded probably the best conference feel good ever.

The Yin: I was on a panel with two other featured speakers that I thought was supposed to be a discussion about how Web 2.0 and School 2.0 are playing out and what it all means for the public education system. What it ended up being was about a total of 15 minutes total of actual conversation and 45 minutes of attempting to coax the audience into submitting best practices for the panel leaders’ new book about Web 2.0 tools in schools. Not to say that the ideas that many of the people submitted weren’t interesting and of value and worth listening to. But I have to say, I felt pretty used. And the total irony of the moment was that in this “Web 2.0” and “School 2.0” session that was supposed to celebrate the uses of the tools, the random notes were being taken on screen in a very un Web 2.0 tool called Microsoft Word. No transparency. No collaboration. No thought to sharing.

And no surprise.

I’m sure this is going to come across as conceit, but as much as there are many sessions about 2.0 this and 2.0 that, as much as the exhibitors are trumpeting all this great 21st Century learning stuff (all labeled “Safe for Your Students!” btw) there is still very little real “getting it,” real understanding of how these tools change everything, real appreciation for the transformation that so many folks at EduBloggerCon expressed on Saturday. Yep, everyone is on the train, but hardly anyone still knows what’s feeding the engine.

But the folks at the Blogger Cafe do. And that’s the yang. I don’t know how many of them will blog about it, (probably most) but the cafe is turning more into camp as people basically say “forget the sessions…this is SO much better.” And so we linger and talk and teach and learn and bond and I swear this is the best experience I have ever had at a conference (and I’ve been to a lot of conferences.) It’s just too much fun sticking around all of these people who share this itch and want to continually keep scratching it. (Check out Jeff’s Twitter feed to see what I mean.) The passion is palpable. In some ways it’s extended what started on Saturday, and it feels like more of a classroom of the future than most of the other models being bandied about.

The important thing for me is that even though we’re all heading out today, class is still in session. We’re just moving over to the virtual cafe where the pace slows down a bit and the laughter isn’t as loud. And just like the physical space, we drop by, hang out, speak up or listen when we’re able. And the learning continues. That’s what’s so powerful about all of this. That’s what I keep hoping more people will experience.

Technorati Tags: necc07, necc2007, learning, blogging, education

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, On My Mind

Open Source Blogging Session and Other Early NECC Reflections

June 25, 2007 By Will Richardson

Pretty amazing that the 40 computers in my open source session at 8:30 were claimed by 7:45 and that a good 150 people (if not more) crammed into the room by the start time. (The photo was taken at about 8:15.) And even more amazing that the Internet connection basically went dead but I think the presentation went pretty well anyway. I’d guess about 40% of the people raised hands when I asked how many were bloggers or used blogs. And some really good questions saved me from tap dancing too much.

But what was really amazing was that totally unannounced, the superintendent at my own kids’ school up in New Jersey showed up. (And Laura, if you’re reading this, it was great of you to come.)

The Blogger’s Cafe has been the place to hang this morning, and yes, it’s official…”we” have “arrived.” At least on the surface. Maybe David has already done it but I wonder how many Read/Write Web sessions there are going this year. Must be close to if not over 100. And “2.0” is everywhere on the exhibit floor, where I did my annual 30-minute walk just to see all the stuff I wouldn’t buy. (A couple of exceptions, but once again, if you totaled up all the money being spent on displays and schwag and the carbon footprint for getting it all here, you could easily buy a laptop for every kid in the country who needs one. And I’m sorry, but from the “let’s see how much junk we can give away that will end up in a landfill” category, Best Buy needs to be outlawed next year. This sound eerily familiar to a post I wrote last year, I think.)

Not to be cynical, (just can’t shake it) I’ve been wondering (and having great discussion with Cafe-ers) about just what station we have “arrived” at, however. It’s feeling like “I Can Blogville” which I guess is somewhere on the route to “I Can Help My Students Build Their Own Learning Communitiesville” or something like that. At the Google booth, I watched a line 10 deep snake up to take a turn at trying out Blogger. One after another, the Google guide showed people how to post. One after another, you could see the “Gosh, that was easy!” reaction. It was pretty cool just lurking, watching it. But again, I wonder to what extent that will somehow lead to an understanding of what changes in a network, where the real power is.

It’s not in the publishing. But I guess we have to get there first.

At any rate, if anyone from the session is reading, thanks so much for coming…would love to hear what your reactions are, and welcome to the blogosphere.

You’re halfway there.

Technorati Tags: necc07, necc2007, blogging, education, learning

Filed Under: Conference Stuff, EdBlogger, Weblog Theory

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