I’ve had George Siemens’ “Pots, Kettles, and other small appliances of like appearance” post open in my tabs for what, three weeks now, and it’s been percolating in my brain as I keep mousing across it from time to time, rereading, rethinking. (As a side note, that’s an interesting little shift in my practice that the advent of tabbed browsing and sessions management in Firefox has brought, isn’t it?) George writes:
We are at a point of real change in education (k-12, university, even corporate training). We (the edublog community) still carry the baton of change, but if we are unable to conceive a broader vision of systemic change, we’ll find ourselves passing the baton to others.
So, that “conceive a broader vision of systemic change” line brought me back (once again) to the shift I think we’ve been trying to make in this conversation. The one that moves from being about tools and “flatness” to one that begins to really think about and, more importantly, articulate school models and systems in different ways. And even in that discussion, there seems to be two natural camps evolving, those who say reform is next to impossible without totally blowing out the model, and those who feel that we already have some inroads to reform within the current structures, that there are already progressive school models that might begin to point the way. I struggle to find my own way here, for a variety of reasons. I admit that I have little contextual knowledge of this whole debate to bring to the table. My understanding of progressive school reform movements is thin at best, and I’m in catch-up mode. Yet I have two children in a system (not just local) that is badly in need of reform in light of what’s coming. Blowing up the model will not work for them (unless we decide to remove them from the system) and, frankly, I don’t think there will be a critical mass of folks willing to do this to the system for decades to come. Yet I am equally negative on the prospects that schools can meaningfully change in some sort of timely way without starting over. As a good friend of mine who is planning to leave education after 15 years said recently, “I have no hope that the educational system as we know it will appreciably change in my lifetime.” He’s in his 30s, btw.
Look, I’m a writer. I list to my right. I think in metaphor. So when George says we need a broader vision of systemic change, my mind runs to find words that might begin to piece that vision together in my own brain that might make sense. And as I’ve been mulling over all of this, of how to best begin to perhaps reframe the way I think and talk about schools that might allow me to think and talk about a “broader vision” of schools, my brain keeps coming back to something that I heard Tom Carroll of NCTAF say last month at that Institute of the Future seminar I was at. And I’m not sure he even remembers that he said it because it was just a few words in a much longer response about the future of teaching, but in the middle of that response he said “…school as node…”
I wrote that down.
I think for most people, school is still seen as the (THE?) place where kids go to learn. I know that’s the way it was for me. Yeah, there was a lot of informal learning that took place on the playground, on Main Street, in the back of cars, etc. But the “real” learning, the important stuff happened at school. It was the center of learning in my life, though I never called it that, per se. But I know that’s how my mom saw it. You went to school to learn because that’s where the knowledge was. And if the teachers at the school were good, they helped you understand why that knowledge was important. And that “vision” worked pretty well for a lot of years. It was pretty easy and consistent.
Problem now is, it’s not working any longer. School isn’t the only place where the knowledge is. Knowledge is everywhere. You don’t have to go to school to get it. And now, because knowledge isn’t stuck to a time and a place any longer, knowledge is contextual. It’s not one size fits all. The whole idea that 30 kids in a classroom need to learn the same stuff at the same pace at the same time just makes no sense any longer. In this environment, we can’t keep thinking of schools as the center of knowledge and learning. Instead, we h
ave to start thinking of schools as a part of a much richer tapestry of an individual’s learning and education.
As a node.
Thinking seriously about schools as nodes in larger more expansive networks of personal learning changes the concept of what schools are for. It doesn’t diminish their role, but it does reframe it, and I think it places the emphasis where it more appropriately belongs these days: helping students create, edit, and participate in their own networks of learning. (What a concept.) What if we started seeing schools as the places where our students learn how to learn, where, when they are younger, the school may be at the center, but when they leave us, they have built a vast, effective network of learning of their own in which school and schooling is simply one node? Where we’ve helped them learn how to nurture and sustain those networks to serve them over the long term? Where we’ve shown them how to leverage those connections in safe, ethical and effective ways? Our roles as educators and systems would no doubt shift away from content delivery toward modeling and supporting each learner’s unique journey. And it would challenge us to rethink the ways in which we assess what our students have learned. But that would be crucial and important work, work that some semblance of traditional school structures might actually do pretty well.
But, as Hugh’s great, great drawing suggests, we’d have a lot of getting over ourselves to do for that to happen.
So anyway, just some thin early Thursday morning thinking thrown out for comment, pushback, hole-poking, name-calling, whatever from a node in the network… There is much, much more to consider here, but it is a reframing and some language that at this moment makes some sense to me at least.
(Just as an aside, after thinking about this for a while, I started imagining how school would look as just “a node” in my learning practice right now. As in following “school” on Twitter, or reading the “school” feed in my aggregator, or adding “school” as a friend on Facebook. All of those seem pretty bizarre at first blush, which either means this whole line of thinking is equally bizarre or it speaks to how inelegantly school currently fits into the personal learning network that I’m already a part of.)
Technorati Tags: networks, learning, education, schools, teaching, George_Siemens, connectivism, Hugh_McLeod, school_reform
Will,
I am fascinated by this concept, and you outline the struggle quite well.
I think in it’s own way, school is already a node in our lives which is doing that–providing connections, and yes, teaching students how to learn. But it’s often disconnected from the networks kids plug into when they leave school–the more virtual network with far flung connections and more open-ended learning journeys–“Independent Study,” so to speak.
Lots to think about here, but I think the analogy resonates.
Will, I think you’ve put your finger on the issue and what’s at stake right now – and I’d say that in addition to being a writer you are also an artist in the way that McLuhan talked about artists seeing the present and therefore charting the future: http://tinyurl.com/33txka And that the real answer is already being written right now on Web 2.0 – http://www.go2web20.net/ – by people in their 20’s who don’t know of a world without ubiquitous computing – and that they will really be charting the future.
I’m thinking that “school” as node may be too large of a concept to allow more personalized learning to emerge and take place. I think we need to look more at “classroom” as node or individual “personal learning network” as node. Looking at this more micro level will allow the learning to change. School as node? I’m not there.
Will, I think you are right on about the need to think outside the box (classroom walls) when it comes to authentic learning in today’s world. I am in awe of the way my three teenagers use Internet tools and environments to create and sustain their personal networks. Now they would not associate their networks, unfortunately, with school or education – however, my observation is that they have developed a solid set of what I would call 21st century skills. The problem is that we are still compartmentalizing what we view as education activities from entertainment/social activities. The value of online collaboration in any form has not been recognized by mainstream education (but arguably by many in the corporate sector!). I, too, am trying to figger out my role as early adopter in all of this. Most times I act as a conduit of information (a node?) to point to the great models of progressive educational activities that exist. It is an exciting time to be an educator and many innovators and early adopters are finding each other more than ever before.
I, too, was challenged and humbled by George’s post. In particular, it acted as a caution to me to be humble and sensitive to those educators who are trying their best in their context, but perhaps are not exposed to the same nodes and networks as ourselves.
You’re running in place, Will.
I think there are movements in education to attain this ideal, but they are rare. For example, my organization (eMINTS) trains teachers to use inquiry-based methodology through technology. However, only 2% of the classrooms in Misery…er…I mean Missouri are eMINTS classrooms. And even many of those classrooms have reverted back to a more traditional structure.
On a side note…I love Firefox but am a little put off by Microsoft’s version of the tabs on their browser.
I can so relate to your friend wanting to leave the educational system since the possibility for real change just seems so far away. I have been teaching for 18 years (also in my 30s…well, 39) and I am so frustrated with the educational system. Technology continues to be a back burner, or as I refer to it, an “extra credit” assignment of a child’s learning. It has yet, at least where I am, to become a real part of the learning. Then you have thos real pioneers in education… teachers on the front line trying to reach and accommodate each child’s unique learning journey, and conintually fighting that up hill battle. I guess I wonder, what do you say to those of us trying to make a real change and continually being reverted back to te traditional learning structure?
Again, because of my exposure to home schooling, I am struck by the similarities between your vision of what schools can be and parts of the home school movement. There’s often a knee-jerk reaction against home schooling which is verbalized as concerns about religious instruction. I wonder if that’s just an easy target for a hard-to-define discomfort–a deeper fear of a paradigm shift in learning which threatens established practices. I continue to believe that many of the themes of “personal learning networks” will benefit from work done in the home school arena.
Hello Will,
If you and Hugh are correct in assuming that the network is always more powerful than the node, then why have you chosen to limit the size of your Twitter network to include only those chosen few?
It seems to me like you’re missing out on an extremely powerful conversation.
For what it’s worth,
Darren
Was school ever the place where “knowledge is?”
Again, there is a great tradition of educational thought that rebelled against the inauthenticity of school learning, as well as the notion that learning is a consequence of being taught.
I’m not sure I share Pamela’s rosy optimism that a major sea-change is at work here.
It remains to be seen if the short-form, mashup, remix virtues of digital communication lead to the discipline, continuum and originality of artistic expression.
Thanks all for the comments. Some responses/thoughts:
@Clarence–yes to individual as node and classroom as node, but there is a curricular articulation piece to school as node that I think is crucial. Where do your students go when they leave you? Into another networked classroom like yours? Classroom nodes right now are silos, and I’m thinking that if we make that vision systemic, we have a better chance of teaching this stuff more deeply and more effectively.
@Tom–as always, thanks.
@Tricia–I say make keep learning and modeling your learning to your colleagues and your students or, make the choice as my friend did to pursue something different.
@Darren–Ouch. My “chosen few” are the people who I’ve grown closest to both online and off. Just as I can’t subscribe to every edublogger out there who is doing great work, I can’t expand my Twitter universe past what I can handle from a time and balance standpoint. And besides, there is more to networking than just Twitter. Am I missing a lot of good stuff? Absolutely. As are you. As is every single person who uses Twitter or reads blogs. I can’t consume it all, but that fact doesn’t diminish the power of my current network.
@Gary–Um…yeah, I think a lot of people think of school as where the knowledge is. And that’s what gets imparted to the students. Not saying that’s the best way of looking at it, mind you. And I’m hearing you about the virtues of tools that get so easy, so fast that they don’t require much in terms of complex thinking or writing. My kids did VoiceThread presentations about their trip to Australia which was fun, but they didn’t learn much in the process.
Wow. Will, you always do such a good job of articulating what I am thinking.
With regards to changing the schools and/or the school system, I’ve thought for a long time – and I might have even blogged about it, but I’m too lazy to go check :^) – is that schools need to change or become irrelevant. Or are they already? I tossed that thought out at a workshop for lead instructional technology integration teachers two days ago and there was a noticeable silence and sucking in of air in the room. These are the teachers who are going to be part of the revolution of schooling, if there is to be one.
If schools are only going to get changed by a revolution, we might have to get all the revolutionaries on side.
One other rambling thought – in self organizing systems there is a phenomenon called stigmergy, in which the individual parts of the system communicate indirectly by altering their environment. I tend to think of the educational blogging community as an example of stigmergy of a sort. We take ideas from other nodes (bloggers) then play with them, tweak them and wrestle with them before we pass them along to others via our RSS feeds. What your post is tweaking in my brain is that the notion of learning as anti-stigmergic. The students are the individual parts of the system. As they move through the network, they are changed – that is, they learn – by the nodes of that network. Once upon a time, there were only two nodes in a student’s life – school and family. Obviously that is no longer true, but a lot of schools keep acting like it is.
I’ve probably got many more thoughts about this, but thanks for letting me ramble on here as I tweak, play and wrestle with these ideas.
Will,
Would you mind sharing more insights into the Voicethread experience?
I KNOW that most people think school is the center of the learning universe. However, there have been thoughtful critics of that view for decades if not centuries.
Will. I agree and like your metaphor of “classroom as silo.” Its an interesting thought. I’m still stuck with school as node though. Maybe it has to do more with how I define node….? The idea of individual as node and classroom as node is intellectually easier I guess. A single person or a single space pushing in one direction. School as node… Lots of spaces and lots of groups pushing in various content based directions (by the simple fact of different grade levels and curricula). Almost like thinking about our ed-tech network as a single node. At the micro – level we are a network that consists of many learners, but at a more macro level, when our network is connecting with others (networked nurses, globally connected executives, etc.) our network becomes a single node in a global network or learners. Networks nested within nodes?
Nodes can be considered as ‘connection points’ or ‘processing locations’ (and probably a number of other things). For some, those definitions are synonymous – for me and how I view learning, there’s a large gap of development between connecting and processing. The depth of learning is not often accrued in the institution of school if for no other reason than the lack of personalized experience.
Though I would love to favor the “new building” concept over the “major remodeling/renovation project” in redesigning the educational system, I think there are too many factors that stand as barriers. Realistically, I would prioritize the little ‘baby steps’ that would, in Jim Collin’s words, get that flywheel moving. We continue to plug along in school reform and my optimism believes that it really is making a difference – though we certainly have much to accomplish!
I’m with you, Tricia. After 24 years in education, the road blocks you must knock down to forge into new thinking can be very tiring. However, keep forging . . . even if it is little baby steps at a time–somebody has to do it.
Knowledge is every where. The web, blogs, social networking, video sharing and other web 2.0 tools have transformed the way students find, produce and share knowledge on a daily basis. I don’t think anyone can argue that. Students from grade school to high school are connected to the web in their personal lives 24/7 communicating and socializing; multi-tasking is second nature to them. Life is stimulating, school work isn’t.
I am a proponent of inquiry- based instructional technology projects in education. I also work to train teachers in this methodology. Students who learn through inquiry become self directed learners who are better able to be productive citizens in a flat world.
Zak, from eMints said, “I think there are movements in education to attain this ideal, but they are rare. For example, my organization (eMINTS) trains teachers to use inquiry-based methodology through technology. However, only 2% of the classrooms in Misery…er…I mean Missouri are eMINTS classrooms. And even many of those classrooms have reverted back to a more traditional structure.â€
Why do you think there is so much resistance to change the methodology in the classroom? We are living in the 21st century. When will educators wake up?
I just joined Nova Southeastern University and they have become the sixth largest enrollment for grad students. Most of their work is online through compressed video, satellite locations, and distance students.
There are a bunch of people out there affecting change, but also a bunch of people who are stuck in the old traditions. I think that with time things will become better but maybe never fully change. Math teachers out there – how are you using technology? I am just getting started and would love some ideas.
http://www.21stmath.blogspot.com
As always, I love reading your thoughts and you never fail to get the gears grinding.
I’m not so sure I agree with the node analogy. If I were to compare student learning experience with the computer network, I would like to think of the ‘school’ as a router or maybe a switch – more of an aggregation point that manages the distribution of content and functions as an entity made up of organized subunits but resides as one organized locale upon the greater network. The switch manages the decisions that make the distribution of information to the end units more efficient and effective. The router filters out the noise. Yep…students and teachers are the nodes in this network. School is just a router. Now we just need a little more bandwidth.
I think Marshall McCluhan weighed in on some of this nearly fifty years ago when he wrote in “Understanding Media” that information in most homes was accessible to anyone or nearly anyone, but in schools it is compartmentalized and only doled out or shared in a very prescriptive fashion. I think we’re stuck with schools as they are until we can’t afford them anymore as they are. Then we’ll have systemic change but not until then.
I have been writing about “school as node” for several years.
The “anchor” article is “The Concept of the Networked Common School”, in E-Learning, Volume 1 (1) and reprinted in an anthology edited by Michael Peters entitled Edutopias, Sense Press, The Netherlands, 2006.
Would be glad to assist you and others in understandking the educational and social contexts of mainstream and networked schooling.
I have been writing about “school as node” for several years.
The “anchor” article is “The Concept of the Networked Common School”, in E-Learning, Volume 1 (2) in 2004 and reprinted in an anthology edited by Michael Peters entitled Edutopias, Sense Press, The Netherlands, 2006.
Would be glad to assist you and others in understandking the educational and social contexts of mainstream and networked schooling.
Your part of my node yet no one would know it.
Not one response to a comment, twitter, poke or what have you in 2 years?
Are you actually alive in there ?
🙂
I base these views partly on the success of a comparable approach to making models generally available in cognitive modeling (Google for “ACT-R cognitive architecture” for more details.) Good luck!