Eh-synchronous

ReadWriteWeb in 90 minutes or less

I am speaking with a group of elementary-middle school teachers about the ReadWriteWeb on Tuesday. I’ve been given 90 minutes to give them an overview.

Where to start? Here are some keywords, tags and phrases that come to mind; engage, motivate, collaborate, create community, solve problems, build understanding, write stories, arrange teacher-student collaboration, create meaning, write, search, read, think critically, be a digital citizen, practice, tinker with tools, with dashboards, social media, video, audio, contribute value to the community.

As the phrase ReadWriteWeb implies, our methods of communication are changing. There is an explosion of free and low-cost tools available to organize our knowledge, learning goals and interests. I believe we need to prepare students to expand their learning through new literacies. These literacies do not replace reading and writing but broaden and extend them into different modes and activities.

Literacy in the ReadWriteWeb includes opportunities for personalizing our learning, becoming more independent even as we collaborate. Beyond the functional benefit of developing these literacies, technology provides tools that are attractive and engaging to students. While this attraction is undeniable, we need to lead our students to apply them in the creation as well as consumption of knowledge and edutainment. They can use the tools for communication-collaboration-creation through reading, writing, speaking, drawing, singing… all forms of expression and perception.

Some of the fears I sense from teachers;

• The kids know this stuff better than I do.
• I don’t know where to start.
• The class will turn to chaos.
• There’s no evidence that technology improves learning.
• I don’t know how to measure outcomes.
• The Internet is a dangerous place.

It is my hope that through experience teachers will find ways address or let go of these fears. Most important, I hope they will blend technology with their personal experience and understanding of teaching and learning. We all need time to familiarize ourselves with new processes and tools. We can and should use our professional judgment to evolve not replace our experience and professional judgment with new stuff. The ReadWriteWeb extends traditional reading and writing and can support the teacher’s pedagogy. In simplest terms the digital tools and the web, become a super-notebook. The advantage is that this notebook can be connected to other notebooks, other sources of information. It can be illustrated with photos, audio recordings or films created or shared on the web. This notebook can be shared with parents, other students, and the general community. Managed well, this notebook can be stored as persistent evidence of learning. After all ReadWriteTechnology is ‘just’ a medium. It just happens to be a very powerful and flexible one. It is often said that technology cannot make a poor teacher, a better teacher. Conversely, technology will not ruin a great teacher but it might transform their approach.

In the spirit of connecting these tools to tradition, it is helpful to remember that approaches to cooperation and collaboration predate our fascination with computers and software. While this should be obvious, activities for communication, collaboration, and creation were developed, implemented and evaluated in classrooms long before the advent of electronic social networks. Johnson and Johnson have studied and published ideas in the field of cooperative education since the 1980s and continue today. In the field of business and government, organizational theories have evolved alongside various methods of production and management. One such approach Total Quality Management (TQM) is a collaboration aimed at getting everyone involved in improving and insuring product quality. These ideas can benefit our ReadWriteWeb endeavors. Technology simply provides more avenues to organize and collaborate. It is a kind of lubricant, providing greater access to information, to individuals and communities of experts. When we recognize these traditions, we will build more effective experience for students.

Following is a list of tools for ReadWriteLearning. These tools can be merged with your existing curriculum. This is a process not a destination. When we merge learning objectives with student interest and with digital reading-writing tools, we will advance the integration of technology, instruction and learning.

• Blog for publishing reflections and having conversations.
• Wiki for gathering, editing and organizing knowledge from a group. Write a class book!
• Word processors / spreadsheet for notes. Google Apps recommended. Choose to share or store your work on the web.
• Search engines for finding information. With critical thinking strategies, you can learn how to determine the authority of work.
• RSS feeds for up to the minute information. Have a site you like? You can get updates as they are published.
• Audio recording. What should I say? How do I sound? Who is my audience? Multi-modal learning can improve retention.
• Skype conversations. Real time connections. Find friends, partner classrooms, experts in a field to talk to.
• Video recording. Start with a script and create a multimedia story.
• Photography. A picture is worth a thousand words.
• Graphic organizers. Organize your thoughts, clarify your purpose, visualize your ideas.

Some Specific Resources:

• Google Apps – mail, calendar, chat, documents, readers, iGoogle dashboard, web site.
• Diigo – Social Bookmarking. Bookmarks are always available. They can be shared, grouped, tagged and annotated.
• de-lic-ious. More social bookmarking.
• Blogger. Free and easy to create a site for your self or your class.
• Netvibes. This dashboard can be your one stop shop for Facebook, Twitter, News, and more.

Consider starting small:

• Share documents with Google Apps.
• Classroom Google Calendar
• Classroom blog – authored by students. Daily entry.
• Join community for Global projects; ePals Project, iEarn
• Join community to pusue your own professional interest. Use this as an oppotunity for learning about the ReadWriteWeb.

How do I start? All of these suggestions are well and good. How can you get started? What are the most important points for experimenting with these methods and tools? While these suggestions should be adapted for age, here are some general guidelines.

• Learning Objectives. Start with your learning objectives. Take time to consider the relationship of the objectives to one another and how they might be integrated in a learning experience or project.
• Classroom Climate. Consider the social emotional health of your classroom. Take time to read your students as a team. What roles do your students take easily? What roles are difficult for them? How do they resolve conflict and work together? As you prepare to use technology for collaboration and cooperation, ask how students interact on other familiar task.
• Find meaningful work. If we hope to create enthusiasm and engagement among students, it makes sense to engage them in the process of forming the work. While the content of a project is important, different learning objectives can be practiced under different content headings. Michael Wesch describes his process for engaging students. While his students are in college the same principles apply to K12 education.

Why do I write

Image via Wikipedia

With all this talk about purpose in this blog, it makes sense to consider what drives me to choose particular activities. Writing happens to be an activity I struggle with but enjoy very much. I find it difficult to find time to practice as much as I’d like and it doesn’t always flow as easily as I hope. If I am ‘serious’ in my desire to develop this skill and want to overcome these barriers (real and imagined) it would be helpful to explore my purpose… the big WHY – why do I write. What makes writing worth the effort?

• An exploration of ideas. My writing invariably involves the aggregation of ideas from different sources. This requires/provides opportunities to read and listen to people who I respect and value (learn from). As I listen to them I make connections between their work, the work of other innovators and what I experience in my work.
• An opportunity to contribute. I would like to contribute to the conversations, the stories that I’m hearing. Sometimes I wonder if the web isn’t one big echo chamber of people repeating what they have heard. This would be true if no one was adding some value to the conversation. This can be done by connecting our stories. I have my own experience at work and in my personal life. I want to bring value to other people on a similar path. Perhaps I can clarify some idea, define terms in practical language and make connections between fields of understanding and experience. To what do I want to contribute? Keep reading.
• An exercise of my search and aggregation muscles. Writing with the web involves many different skills, literacies and tools. Learning about learning (digital and print) is an ongoing process. Interestingly, you can use the tools to learn about the tools and about learning. Computers and programming are ‘just’ aids – tools for thinking. As such they have been used to develop and improve themselves.  There is an overwhelming number of ReadWrite applications to choose from that help me to structure my searches, follow trends and tag information. Dashboards feeding RSS subscriptions, social bookmarking (I like Diigo), google alerts, twitter, all have much to offer. I am learning to use PersonalBrain for graphical representations of my ideas. I have much to learn about these tools. Using them often, developing habits of mind is my goal.
• Discovering and appreciating the masters of the learning revolution. Within my limited and often stream-of-thought search for the masters (the visionaries and the sculptors of the digital information age) I  try to expose myself to information that enhances my understanding. I revisit their writing and follow people who have well reasoned approaches to school reform and learning. My writing helps me to engage with their thinking, bring their ideas together and to appreciate their effort.

Speaking of people worth reading… On August 4th, Larry Cuban posted a thank you to readers of his blog. Celebrating one year of writing to the web, he shared three rules that he follows in writing:

1. Write less than 800 words.
2. Write clearly on school reform and classroom practice.
3. Take a position and back it up with evidence.

His rule of 800 is one that I noted months ago and have been trying to emulate. It gives me boundaries for focusing on a few ideas. I find Larry’s blog inviting because I know exactly how long his message will be. His clarity, position and evidence help me to walk away with a new thought, a complete idea to ponder.

Now to the question of purpose. Larry states that his focus is school reform and classroom practice. I can’t say that I am quite so focused in my writing interest. While I have heard that a blog should be focused in order to attract a regular audience, audience has not been my primary goal to this point. At the same time I would benefit from setting some priorities. There’s just too much territory to cover and too little time to write.

School reform and classroom practice are certainly interests of mine. I have worked in education since 1979. Granted my experience has not been within main stream education. For a time I thought my outsider status disqualified me from offering an opinion on schools. The culture of schools sometime discounts an outsiders opinions as lacking practice. I was steeped in practice but it wasn’t classroom practice. I started my career as a Psychiatric Technician in a psychiatric hopital. The children’s unit had a school, recreation and occupational therapy programs. I accompanied kids to all their activities. Following this I worked in summer work camps, and in outdoor wilderness adventures with children.  All of these were “teaching” roles in the sense that I was in charge of structuring children’s learning.

My first introduction to the mainstream was in 1984 when I worked as the counselor for schools in Saratoga and Encampment, Wyoming. Five years later, when I went to work at Yampa Mountain (alternative) High School I began to study school reform directly as I participated in the creation of a school from scratch. As I went to work in the “mainstream” my jobs have remained “support” roles. This designation (and my own limited perspective) have reinforced my sense of being an outsider. But in the last few years I have developed a new perspective. I have realized that my various roles give me something to offer; another way to look at learning. Everyone in the educational enterprise has a perspective to offer. My recent responsibilities; social worker, therapist, behavior consultant, and now technology director are just other perspectives. I see the classroom, cooperation, structure, freedom, motivation, standards, assessment and learning from the vantage point of children who struggle to fit in and learn, who’s families struggle to make ends meet.

While (and perhaps because) I have played the role of an outsider for most of my years, I have a different story to tell about school reform and classroom practice. My job as technology director has led me to new interests. My interest in technology coupled with my experiential background drive me to question the social-emotional considerations of learning (with and without technology). I wonder about providing more real world application experience. I want to understand what technology can do for us, and how we can make it work FOR us. My interest in brain science and conciousness research leads me to wonder how we can develop conscious and mindful control over our selves and our tools for thought. I want to simplify and make practical suggestions to teachers and administrators, as they integrate technology into the mainstream.

In the process of writing, perhaps I’ll refine these interests. I’m way over my 800 words so that’s all for now.

A Good Place to Start: Motivation -> Learning

How important is motivation to learning? Should our understanding of motivation influence the way we structure education; how we build learning environments? With the intense emphasis on standards in our schools we have spent a lot of time concerned with what students should know. Certainly it is important to know the content of instruction but just as important is how to structure a school so that students are motivated to learn that content.

On July 8th Steve Hargadon interviewed Ted Kolderie and Kim Farris-Berg from Education|Evolving. Based in Minnesota, these folks have been working to reform education beyond simply setting standards and they have great ideas for bringing motivation back in the picture.

E|E works to convince people that the effort to improve American education should focus on motivating students and teachers, by creating radically different ways for young people to learn and for teachers to work.

In the interview Ted talked about Jack Frymier, a man who devoted his working life to education and who recognized an important fact: you can’t make people learn. Rather he emphasized the simple but essential idea that:

• Students learn when they’re motivated to learn. If they want to learn, they will. If they don’t, you can’t make ‘em. Any successful effort to improve learning will therefore be fundamentally about improving students’ motivation.
• Motivation is an individual matter. Kids differ; in personality, in background and experience, in sociability, in creativity, in intelligence, in their interests. Different kids are motivated by different things. No effort at motivation will succeed unless it works with these differences.

Frymier’s words flashed me back to my work as a behavior consultant. My job was to help behaviorally challenged students adapt to the classroom. Said another way, I tried to help students see/find a good reason (motivation) to be in class and get his/her needs met without alienating (or injuring) other students and the teacher.

An important concept in my work was motivation. I was a detective of motivational intentions. Through conversations with teachers and observations of students, I tried to understand what students were trying to avoid or approach. Understanding what drove (motivated) the student gave us a better shot at anticipating what the student would seek next or in similar situations. I hope to write more about my experiences as a child whisperer some day as it a major source for my understanding of education, school reform and pedagogy.

Frymier’s statement about motivation run parallel to my observations and conversations with teachers and students. Students don’t act (constructively or destructively) without some motivation. Without motivation, students will not engage in learning and will lack depth of experience. They will respond to other stimulation (motivating to them) but not learning. They will fail to embrace learning as a source of energy and enthusiasm. And the most important fact is “you can’t make ‘em”.

The students I worked with had physical needs that were difficult to satisfy. Many of them could not stop moving, tapping, talking, touching. They were inquisitive for sure but not in a way that 28 students, one adult and one room could tolerate without support.

The teachers I worked with were incredible and willing (with few exceptions) to individualize as much as they could. But it was evident that they were overwhelmed with demands. There was little time left to individualize. We had a great number of successes (I wish I had data). Prevention is a tough thing to prove. Most important we kept students in the mainstream and learning while keeping everyone safe. Whenever possible we worked with the entire class to talk about behavior. And despite these successes we failed to engage the student academically.

The students that I worked with were just the tip of the iceberg – perhaps the canary in the cage. Their peers also face challenges; with reading, writing, remembering, and engaging. The difference between these “normal” students is their ability  and socialization to keep hands to self, sit in chair, raise hand, speak when asked. While these students are compliant and appear “motivated” to stay in their seats and go with the flow they are quietly desperate. At least achievement in it’s highest sense doesn’t appear to be happening.

Given all the dissatisfaction with our current models of education and the variety of theories and approaches to change, it makes sense to start by understanding the needs and motivations of our students and teachers. We can begin with conversations that build relationships and increase our understanding of their needs. I have seen this work. We may know what constitutes a complete curriculum, we have an understanding of pedagogy but we can’t ignore the needs of our students – if we intend to succeed.

Tomorrow evening Dan Pink will speak in Aspen, 40 miles from my house. Tickets are sold out so I will be unable to attend. Interesting that his message is on motivation. Obviously people are motivated to hear him

He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

While his set of motivators are different than other lists I’ve seen, it is noteworthy that motivation is drawing crowds. It’s time to pay attention to what drives us – in all our endeavors.

If you are interested, I posted another entry on motivation about a year ago.

Parenting: Digital and Social Media Literacy

There is no question that human communication has been turned on it’s head in the last 25 years. The advent of the Internet has radically shifted our modes of communication and information gathering. The evolution from oral tradition, through cave painting, print, printing press, books, newspaper, telegraphy, photography, telephony, radio, television were certainly significant. But the Internet has multiplied these developments, making communication personal and yet readable by anyone, anytime, anywhere (coming soon). It has expanded the number of sources of information and spawned a number of methods and tools for communication. The Internet and the digital media tools that have emerged as a result, provide us with increased facility to formulate, publish, sift, consume, organize and share information. Our capacity for communication is multiplied, for now anyone can become a publisher of their own original work at basically no cost (besides intellectual capital). And the tools just keep on evolving and spreading.

This evolution been described by various media experts (they are actively using the tools), who describe various angles of the “digital revolution” finding favor, fervor, and flap within various developments. Meanwhile the “man on the street” simply experiments and ponders the potential that this brave new world provides. Some of us look at the convenience of the change, some at learning, some at business application, some look at the potential for entertainment, some don’t want to be bothered. No matter what our preference and predilection the world of communication, creation and collaboration is a-changing.

How do these changes affect the man on the street. How has it changed our relationships at home, work and with friends? What parent doesn’t face the decision of when and how to provide cell phone access to their teenager? It is just as much a right of passage as driving a car used to be and is perhaps as great a convenience for parents as kids. At work it is getting more and more difficult to “get along” without email. Many complain about the overload of email and the time wasted sorting through SPAM. For personal use; Who hasn’t found themselves discussing the pros and cons of smart phones, Macs vs Windows, GPS devices, Facebook, Twitter and the like in social and family gatherings. There is no doubt that we are swimming in a milieu of social-electronic fascination, frustration and frenzy.

As adults we maintain some choice in the way we adapt, adopt, avoid, or embrace these new devices. But our children seem to take it all in stride, adapting with much less thought or angst. Observers have marveled at the young “digital natives”, and the ease with which they adapt to digital devices. While it is popular to think that kids “just get it”, a little observation and interaction with kids and their digital tools, deflates this theory. Certainly kids have no fear. They have appropriated digital tools to their own ends with abandon. Many are fearless playing around and trying new things. They quickly find the piece of the tool that connects them to their friends and addresses their social status. But despite their enthusiasm for certain aspects of social-digital devices, they appear as mis-informed and overwhelmed as adults in the greater picture. While some suggest that kids should teach us about this digital world, this would be as grave as having us teach them. The most appropriate solution to this either/or proposition is that it is time for parents, teachers, students, technical and non-technical people to have a conversation – to teach one another. It is time for us to make “common sense” of all this uncommon stuff.

Recently I had the opportunity of hearing danah boyd and Howard Rheingold discuss digital literacy and it’s influence on parents and kids. danah recently announced the rough draft of “Risky Behavior and Online Safety; A 2010 Literature Review”.  The report covers a lot of ground with regard to Internet safety, cyberbullying, exposure and expression of sexual and violent images, and the like. Without getting deep into it here (I recommend you read the report), I was most impressed (and not surprised) with the (preliminary) evidence that the Internet hasn’t necessarily made the world a more risky place. Rather it has elevated age old issues related to child safety, delinquency, violence, bullying, and abuse to public view. Surprise, surprise, the Internet is a reflection of US! Not only are the same issues at play as we move into the new media and medium of the Internet, but the same solutions are called for – human touch and human conversation.

Digital literacy isn’t just about risky behavior online. It encompasses all aspects of coding and decoding. That said, addressing risky behavior is a great place to start, especially if you are in the k12 education business. As we adopt more “stuff” and move toward integrating technology into teaching and learning, it makes sense that we begin with a conversation about what positive Internet behavior consists of. It also makes sense to connect this conversation to the other pro-social conversations we have already begun and demystify the “new” risky behavior.

It begins at home and on the playground. We can either ignore the risky behavior we observe or we can address it with thoughtful conversation and intervention. We need to help our youth develop the language for keeping themselves safe from threats of abuse and exploitation, whether it is happening in their own home, on the street, on the playground or on the Internet.

More literacy talk to come…

ISTE 2010 – EduBloggerCon / Howard Rheingold

I just dropped Howard Rheingold and Betsy Aoki at the airport. ISTE 2010 has come to a close. I’m pretty exhausted but full of energy generated from the discussions. I expect it will take me many hours of reflection to unpack all the ideas that we explored.

EdubloggerCon was a very new experience for me. I had never sat in a large group of people and batted about the big ideas of social and digital networks and learning. I had spent hours reading, listening and writing about these things, but never participated in a real time – large group – discussion. Clearly, many of the people in attendance had been there before. Their ideas flowed fast and furious.

One of the highlights of the conference was an evening with Howard Rheingold, Steve Hargadon, Angela Maiers, Adora Svitak and family and a teacher (Monica) from St. Vrain in Colorado. We spend almost 4 hours eating and talking about the future of education, social networking, and how to engage people with learning. Here’s a short video of everyone in the act of sharing. Wow!

Collaboration – Problem Solving… an incredible team

Today I met with my staff to discuss our summer plans for improving our network services and preparing for the fall. As anyone who works in k12 education knows, the beginning of a school year is full of intensity and people rushing to get their classrooms and curriculum in gear. Teachers come back from summer break full of optimism and enthusiasm – that’s a great thing. They also come back expecting everything to be in place and working. Trouble is that weeks have past. Floors, furniture and walls have been cleaned, and inevitably things are out of place and equipment has been unplugged.

Our job (in technology support) is to use the summer break to upgrade software and network systems, purchase and image new computers, manage construction and cleaning and ultimately make the fall transition easy for everyone. Computers, phones, wireless-wired networks, projectors, printers, email, file servers – all of these things need to work. New staff have to be oriented and trained to some of the systems that we use and how to get questions answered. The upshot of this is that my staff and I begin planning in the spring for the fall semester to go smoothly. It means that we have to look through our telescope, pull together and sift through mountains of minutia and detail and make sure that we are prepared.

Fortunately for me, I have the most incredible staff on the planet. Not only do they maintain a good sense of humor in the face of chaos and last minute demands, they take great pride in insuring that all the pieces of the puzzle are arranged and fit. They care about our teachers and students and do their best to provide the best service possible. And best of all they work well together. In our team meetings they listen, reflect, offer feedback, bounce ideas, clarify, and problem solve. Despite the pressures from outside, they work the problem and not each other. When someone is stuck and frustrated, another person lends an ear or a hand to get them over the hump. It is a beautiful thing to watch.

Our teams ability and willingness to work together is a great example of collaboration and problem solving at a high level. I read and listen to people talk about problem based learning and teaching collaboration and think of our team. My “guys” are the real deal, beyond theory and hype, they are true collaborators. There is no way we could survive the demands of implementing new and complex technology without the glue of teamwork. All jobs are “our job”. While we all have different roles and responsibilities, we don’t place artificial boundaries around our projects. Consequently we don’t have the feeling of isolation that I have experienced in other jobs.

In our meeting today I was amazed at the way we moved through our “summer priority list”. To give you a flavor, here are some of the topics we rolled through:

• Upgrade all xServers to  to Snow Leopard
  • Goal: get it done before July 1st.
  • 8 licenses -
  • Upgrade
    • backup the Open Directory, note share points,
    • Might be able to bring OD backup to the Snow Leopard.
    • Make an image of the machine with Carbon Copy Cloner.
    • Do fresh install to avoid old gremlins
    • Redo library servers ssh keys and such

• Move servers from Qwest IP address space to CBN IP space.
  • Go host by host
  • reconfigure Firewall
  • reconfigure DNS
  • Arachne will be multi-homed – will need to fix computers that are statically addressed (pointing to Arachne).
• Upgrade LTSP servers to Lucid – replace power supply at CMS?
  • Can do this almost anytime.
• Upgrade Library Servers Alexandria to v6  - Begin on June 7th.

• Put Proxy server in place – do it on June 1st.

• DOX – Install new drive and copy data from /Volumes/Data to new drive.

• Mobile accounts – working for some staff already.
  • we need to do this on our own computers to understand the process
  • create a how to for teachers that describes – best (our suggested) practice.
    • Do you have data saved on the server
    • is this data also on your laptop
  • Are we asking teachers to clean everything off the server OR just the stuff that you don’t want.
  • What about teachers who are no longer here?

• Order Admin Computers
  • make the master list in prep for purchase.
  • Talk to staff as needed.
• Make sure that ALL Servers are attached to a working, good UPS

• Image Computer Labs (make sure sophos on golden image)

• Order and image new teacher computers.

• Image and Maintain Macbooks for teachers who are leaving

The take home message

This is all very technical work but we manage to keep our humanity as we sift through the details. I am very fortunate to work with people who give and take, contribute and celebrate one another’s success, catch mistakes without blame, and who laugh easily and with heart. How did we create this? I think it grew from a focus on client service, sense of personal responsibility, freedom to explore and experiment, and a desire to be kind to each other.

An Attitude for Critical Thinking

Embedded into this post is a Livescribe session that I recorded a few weeks ago. Livescribe is an electronic pen and paper system that allows you to record voice while you take notes. I think that it is predominately used to take notes of other people talking. But I find it helpful to talk and draw my ideas at the same time. I am looking for systems that allow me to effectively express ideas and get them in a form that is available and useful to others.

I created this session in landscape mode without considering the issues that might be related to doing so. Thankfully I found that landscape can be used when people view this online. This brainstorm is about 10 minutes long. Here is a basic summary:

Critcal thinking is an important literacy. It is becoming especially important in this age of information explosion. At the same time, it has always been an important (though overlooked) literacy for civilized democracy. It is important that we practice and teach an attitude of critical thinking that encompasses all our senses and modes of communication. While it could be considered to be a collection of skills, critical thinking begins with an attitude of questioning (perhaps skeptical eye toward) information. In considering this attitude, it is helpful to consider:

• Our community. Our family, friend, neighbors, teachers, media we consume, and typical sources of information to name a few. This context influences and biases our perceptions for better or worse. Some we choose, some we tolerate.
• Our senses. All the avenues through which we touch the world. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin are windows to the world. We vary in our strength to use these. We favor some senses over others.
• Our consciousness. As we grow and experience the world we try to make sense of it, create models for influencing it. This world inside our heads – our subjective experience – represents what we make of the world. We create a picture of the world that we continually test against our experience.
• Our communication. Communication gives us the power to test our theories about the world, to express ideas through speech, writing and action. By explaining what we think and asking questions we can clarify our understanding of the world. We can experiment with behavior and see what it brings us.

What I am trying to describe here is a systems view of critical thinking. Critical thinking is not some tool that you pull out of your pocket when something suspicious appears. Rather it is a mindset, literacy, or habitude that is always with you and active. As we become socialized, use our senses, make meaning and share meaning through various means of communication, we exercise our critical/discriminating faculties.

To watch this, click on the link, then when the page loads click on full screen and then rotate to landscape view using the rotate icon.

Critical Thinking, Crap Detection and Information Literacy

I’m swimming in the waters of Information Literacy and Critical Thinking (Crap Detection)… This is a broad topic with a variety of aspects. When I think of critical thinking, a different set of skills come to mind. Critical thinking is more active in my mind; a process of sorting through a message, weighing the ingredients of a story or concept. Problem solving also comes to mind. When my team and I are faced with  a problem (something breaks, a new project is presented to us, communication breaks down) we have to sort through the details, discuss we know and come up with a plan of action. We generally isolate a few options and try to execute the idea. It seems like it all flows from the conversation we have. Each of us brings out a different idea. We dance with the ideas (incorporate them into our work), revisit them in other discussions, and over and over.

Crap Detection evokes it’s own set of ideas. Clearly a more pejorative phrase than critical thinking, I picture a kernal of dis-information; a kind of treasure hunt. A programmer takes time to remove bugs from the program that make it throw errors or misbehave. Bad information, while it doesn’t provide us with immediate feedback, will lead us astray where we will develop new and erroneous assumptions. Just like bad programming, inaccuracies and false information will sit in the code of our assumptions, ready to throw an error.

Information Literacy brings up a picture of research. From what I have gathered it has much to do with a research process. That said, information literacy is in need of new attention as we have new sources and quantities of information available. Questions of authority are dealt with more specifically in information literacy. While I don’t generally do academic-like research, I realize how information literacy is a regular part of my quest for information. I spend hours on my computer every day, looking for solutions and documentation to do my work. When a teacher asks me a question I take time to sift through my personal knowledge and generally reach for a browser and search engine to refine my understanding. While I am not an academician doing research and publishing formal work, I have become a student of digital culture where I’m trying to understand the latest information, trends and opportunities. In this process I am trying to find authoritative people; people who know what they are talking about, who contribute constructively and who have a facility to provide a concise view of this changing landscape. The web is making itself up as we go. While we should question the authority of books and magazines, the shifting, linking and creation that is happening on the web makes the exchange of ideas more predominate and the need to weigh the source more important.

These literacies fit together. While my main emphasis is the critical thinking, I don’t think it can be isolated from the other two.

An Attitude (Habitude?)

Critical thinking is a attitude supported by skills and practice. I started thinking about this after my skype call with Howard Rheingold, as I poured over the multitude of web sites on this topic and discussed the concept with my staff and teachers. While we need the skills to support the attitude, it is important that we have the imperative to be skillful in our consumption of information. For me this imperative grows from the current political climate (divisive and indecisive) and from the changing structure of our sources of information. Information and linkages are exploding on the web. Institutions of learning will likely become more decentralized and social connections increase. All of these “advances” put a great responsibility on the individual. Just because an email tells me I have a virus and should click on a link for help, doesn’t mean I should. Just because someone says they knew me in high school, doesn’t mean they did.

One of our district librarians (media specialists) describes her attempts to infuse these literacies into the lessons she teaches on research. While she said she doesn’t generally have canned exercises for students to do, she tries to keep the concept of critical thinking and information literacy in her mind in the process of delivering the lessons on research and interjects it whenever she can. Without a sense of the importance of critical thinking, we will not take time to apply it to ourselves, our students and our networks. We have to have a willingness to suspend judgement and conclusions until we have all the information (or some body of evidence). Group think, indoctrination, social pressure, and all the other psychological predispositions we have for avoiding facts in favor of acceptance and feeling good must be considered.

In his book “On Being Certain“, Robert Burton describes the neurological physiology of “being right”. He describes how we get satisfaction from our conclusions; a jolt of endorphins when we experience being right. He traces the evolution of this feeling and it’s benefits for our survival. It appears to be the emotional anchor that we have used to remember high payoff decisions – like the best way to avoid being eaten by a lion. For all it’s survival value, feeling that we are right when we have bogus information is detrimental to our survival.

If it is so satisfying to be right (whether we are or not), we should take care to earn the satisfaction.

Collaborating with Howard Rheingold

Today I will be meeting with Howard Rheingold to discuss a project on Information Literacy. I have already volunteered and prepared a bit for the work; I have been reading some of his work, have signed up and been granted admin privileges on a wiki where information is being gathered (http://critical-thinking.iste.wikispaces.net/). I have been doing a little bit of research on my own to find various sources of information literacy and have interview one of our media specialists to learn a little bit about what she is doing to teach this to her high school students. On top of it all, I’ve been contemplating the importance of Information Literacy for our children, ourselves as adults and the survival of our democracy.

So today I will meet Howard in a video skype session – not exactly like sitting down for coffee but pretty darn close. I’m excited.

While I’m not sure exactly what we will talk about or what part of this project he will need help with, I am open and ready to work with him just for the experience and exposure I might get to his ideas and methods. He appears to be a pretty transparent fellow; sharing his ideas, his struggle with cancer, and person views of himself on camera (in the back yard, working on projects and in interviews). I am curious as to how our interview will go and how well our ideas might flow and whether he is as personable in a 1:1 skype as he appears in his work.

What is user friendly?

In my last post “Shaping Tools for Education” I considered the connection between people and their “Tools for Thought”. I am curious about what it takes to make constructive use of tools from both sides of the equation – the interface (how it is designed) and the human side (how we accommodate ourselves to the tool).

Accommodation is a process and includes how we practice, experiment, use and investigate the various features of a tool. As I watch people at the keyboard of various devices – the keyboard being the predominate input device at this moment in time – I see many levels of comfort and persistence, fear and experimentation. Distinctions have been made between digital immigrants and natives. While some people are pioneers and others play it safe, the idea of immigrants vs. natives conjures up an innate ability of one group vs. another. I think this talent is a result of our persistence in accommodating ourselves. This persistence is directly related to our motivation. I guess I’m more of a nurture guy

During my quest to find concrete examples of people interacting with tools, my friend Ben Griffith shared some great ones. I think these examples provide an interesting views.

The first is an experiment discussed in a TED talk by Sugata Mitra where he describes his “hole in the wall” experiment.

“Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own — and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?”

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

The ability to “teach ourselves” technology is often attributed to children in the “digital native” argument. The children in this video certainly weren’t raised in a digital culture so don’t qualify as “digital natives”. I would call them “curiosity natives”. I believe their success can be attributed to their motivation and curiosity to inquire, their willingness to experiment, and their lack of self-consciousness for success or failure.

The second example is a video of a 2 and a half year old girl using an iPad for the first time. This child appears to have some background experience with an iPhone (that’s my guess). At any rate her enthusiasm is evident.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a great proponent of expensive technology in the hands of preschool children. There are many other things that preschoolers are ripe to learn. And with the rapid evolution of input and output devices, thinking and social skills would be more valued learning targets. All that aside, the video illustrates the easy accommodation of this child into the interface of the iPad.

To provide some perspective for the evolution of user interfaces, I have provided a third example. This example is not about children but an adult with a fresh outlook and a new way interact with information. This video, taken in 1968, shows a digital pioneer, Doug Engelbart, demonstrating the work of his team at the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA.

This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface.

This 90 minute video illustrates just how far we’ve come. Clearly, the device that Mr. Engelbart is demonstrating would not attract the modern day computer (“consumer”) user. At the same time it represents the foundation upon which all our current devices rest. This video is divided into 35 separate sections. While all of them are well worth watching, I would suggest that you watch clip 12 as it provides the most concrete illustration of the input devices.

Clip 12: This segment discusses control devices, the keyboard and mouse. “I don’t know why we call it a mouse. It started that way and we never changed it.” The operation principles of the mouse are explained with Bill Paxton being video patched in from SRI in Menlo Park. Doug discusses the tracking spot on the screen and relation between mouse movements and attention focused on the tracking spot.

Engelbart clearly is not a novice to the tool he is using like the preceding examples. Rather he is a master of the device that he and his team have assembled. Engelbart’s vision and passion for extending human thinking through this interaction is evident. While the device is complex by today’s standards it illustrates the interaction of human and computer. Due to it’s complexity any user would have to be highly motivated to use it.

So what is user friendly? I believe friendly lives in the eyes of the user. If I have a compelling reason to use a device, I will be more likely to invest my time and energy in making it work for me. Sounds like common sense but it seems to get clouded in the mystique of electronics.

This leads me to wonder what attracts people to a device. It’s a question I have been asking in my day to day work as a Technology Director. I will keep my eyes open to clues in the coming weeks, as I attend the technology planning meetings for our 12 schools.