A word of thanks to the folks over at WhippleHill Communications for streaming my keynote at the edSocialMedia Bootcamp at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, MA. Over 20 independent school professionals in all areas of advancement came together to learn and discuss the power and potential of social media in our schools. Enjoy!
A few weeks back I was contacted by Michael Stoner, one of the partners at mStoner, a leading edge marketing and communications firm based out of Chicago. Michael was researching and writing an article for the January 2010 issue of CASE Currents Magazine. We spent part of a late afternoon on the phone talking about topics ranging from social media, to marketing and communications and trends in these areas with respect to the independent school world.
I really enjoyed getting the chance to speak with Michael and encourage you to consider reading the post he wrote about WA Mash.
I was recently asked to make a presentation to the Academy’s Board of Visitors on Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century. The focus of the presentation was to provide a context of how has the purpose of school changed, what skills, attributes and experiences do students need to be successful and how do we better understand these digital natives as unique learners. It is my firm belief that schools should focus on fostering creativity, collaboration and courage in our students and provide ways for them to demonstrate what they know and understand beyond the traditional assessments and sources we use today. I also looked at how we can learn from innovative companies as well as better understand how to create 21st century learning spaces that better reflect the skills and attributes that our students will require in order to address and solve many of the global issues we face today.
I want to acknowledge the work of colleagues Wendy Drexler, Alec Couros and Kim Cofino whose work influenced me greatly.
I hope you enjoy watching the slide show and feel free to email me with questions.
I was recently inteviewed by members of Worcester Academy’s Board of Visitors regarding 1 to 1 laptop learning.
I came across this great quote by Daisaku Ikeda, who is president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Buddhist association which claims 12 million members in 192 countries and territories, and founder of several educational, cultural and research institutions. I was searching this past weekend for some inspiration around the idea that change in schools is not a “revolution” but an “evolution.” I think those of us who work in schools often struggle with helping create change. I have heard educators describe schools as “change adverse” and I struggle with idea that we are making an assumption that schools are unable or unwilling to embrace the idea of change. That is where Mr. Ikeda’s quote inspires me.
“A great revolution in just one single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind.”
Good Morning. I am Mr. Viva, the Associate Head of School here at Worcester Academy. And I know for a fact that many of you recognize me more from my voice than anything else. Does this sound familiar? “Good Morning, This is Mr. Viva, due to dangerous weather conditions, Worcester Academy will be closed today.” Your personal 5:45 am wake up call on a cold and snowy February morning telling you that school is cancelled and that you can go back to sleep. For some of you, this may be the first time you are putting a face to that voice.
Mr. Morse couldn’t be here today so he asked me to step in on his behalf, and welcome all of you to the start of the 176th year here on the Hilltop. 176 years. Have you ever stopped for a moment and thought about what it means to be a part of a place that has been around that long? Go back in time with me for a moment and think about how much our world has changed in that time. Consider for a moment, that back then, in the early to mid-1800’s there were a group of creative thinkers, some would call them rebels, who were pushing the envelope by rebelling against what they saw as the current situation and what they were trying to be different from. They were call the Transcendentalists and another way to look at them is to see them as a generation of people who were struggling to define spirituality and religion (our words, not necessarily theirs) in a way that took into account the new understandings that the time they were living in made available to them. This movement brought us some of the most important and influential thinkers of their time. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. And while this moment in history was unfolding, in real time, Worcester Academy students were taking classes and learning from one another and their teachers. It was all happening right around them. Read the rest of this entry »
For those of you follow me regularly on Twitter or Facebook, you know that for me, yoga is the “zen” part in zen daddio. I was first introduced to yoga 6 years ago at the UMass Center for Mindfullness training I participated in. Specifically the stress reduction course they offer which is fantastic. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I began to engage in a more serious and committed yoga practice, at a studio, with excellent teachers. In the year that I have been on this personal yogic journey of moving meditation, the transformation to both my body, mind and spirit have been significant and tangible. So needless to say, yoga plays an important part in my personal and at times professional life. The style of yoga I practice is called Vinyasa which is a flow yoga that is usually practiced in a heated room, usually between 92 and 98 degrees and has you moving and flowing from one posture to the next, using your breath as the core of the practice.
So today involved a variety of Sunday morning rituals one of which included attending a 10 am class with one of my favorite instructors, Shawn Shaw of Metrowest Yoga in Westborough, MA. Shawn is one of those teachers who infuses into her teaching a way for you to connect your practice to your daily life. Today she made a statement during class that stuck with me. She said “Those of you who are paying attention to the person in front of you or behind you and trying to make their practice your own, need to remember that your neighbor has his or her own story to tell.” Think about it. The person next to me has a story inside them that only they know. It might be an injury, a tramatic experience, a personal goal, triumph or victory. But it is their story to tell. For those of us who study and practice yoga, it would be misguided of us to try and make their yoga practice our own. So, the take away lesson is that for students of yoga, you should make your yoga practice your OWN practice.
Now think about this for a moment. How often to you hear people in schools say “Did you hear what they are doing over at Xyz Academy?” or “Such&Such Day School has this new program in _________, we should really look into that for our school.” It’s common. It happens all the time. How quick was your school to set up a Facebook or Twitter because the school across town did it? Or rush into a new 1 to 1 laptop, service learning or multicultural education initative because they had heard about some other school having achieved some success because of their journey in a new and exciting direction? So let’s stop there and let me take you back to my yoga metaphor. Vinyasa yoga is a breathing exercise, which incorporates a style of breathing called Ujjayi breathing, and requires that you take deep and long breathes in and out of your noise, making an ocean sound while you inhale and exhale. It is said that Ujjayi breathing is a balancing and calming breath, and having experienced it, I for one can attest to its calming power.
In looking back at my last post, I am sure it may have appeared that I was on mission to wake schools up. A rant so to speak to bring attention to the need for schools to stop talking and start doing. And I was and still am. So the point of this Sunday afternoon’s post/reflection? Schools should consider taking a deep, long, cleansing and calming institutional breath, and remember that they cannot and should not try to replicate their “neighbor’s” story. They should instead, realize that they have their own journey to make and that the end result will be an amazing story of their own, unique, personal and very much rooted in who they are.
It really is a simple question, isn’t it? Are we ready? Are our schools, teachers, administrators truly ready to stop talking about teaching and learning in the 21st century and instead, start actually doing IT? I have been thinking about this quite a bit recently, and an email from a colleague prompted me to revisit Wordpress and finish my reflection on this question. He claims he is on a personal mission to “Get folks to re-think the use of the word technology as it is currently applied in school.” He says “Here at Urban, it’s all about how to improve the learning experience/learning community and NOT about learning to use technology.” Powerful right? And I can see where he is coming from when he says that his “given title is NOT Technology Director, rather Director of Digital Tools and Practices that Support, Enhance, and Extend the Teaching and Learning Process.” Brilliant. There is a paradigm shift for you. Put that job title in your ad in the newspaper or on Carney Sandoe next time you are looking to fill a technology leadership position. For those of you who know or have had the opportunity to work with Howard Levin over at Urban, you know that he means it and is actually delivering on it.
I blogged earlier in the summer that the warm (albeiet not so warm this summer) months are where I find the best time to refuel the creative tank and get my own brain thinking and churning in new ways. It’s when I find the time to try new ways of working personally like my recent re-adoption of Evernote, which is fantastic by the way! To spending time reading, researching and engaging with my extended network of colleagues through a variety of social networks online and in person. And as the summer starts to turn the corner, it dawned on me that through all of these conversations, it isn’t that we can’t engage in new models of teaching and learning, and it isn’t even that some of us haven’t, with success. I have come to believe that the issue is that as institutions and living organizations, the reality is that unless the critical mass is ready, we will have but small and modest success in rethinking how our schools should look. By critical mass I mean a majority of the people in our schools must embrace a new way of looking at themselves as teachers and professionals. They need to embrace the notion that their roles have changed. As Wendy Drexler put it in her wonderful video “The Networked Student” are teachers going to start seeing themselves as synthesizers of knowledge, connected learning incubators, modelers and information sherpas? Or will they continue to see themselves as content driven authorities who must cover material in order to reach the “end” of the book?
If you take Howard’s comment that his role is NOT about integrating technology but about leading the use of digital tools and practices that enhance, extend AND support the teaching and learning process, you need to be ready to rethink what technology means in your school. You need to be looking at resources like Creative Commons so that you can reassess how students understand the use and remixing of content. You need to be engaged in the conversation about how your graduates obtain and demonstrate the skills needed for our “new media culture” and the media literacies that will be required to not only be successful in the workplace, but to become thoughtful, creative citizens. Your curriculum committees need to be reading the work of Henry Jenkins and his work in New Media Literacies and your humanities departments need to see themselves as HUMANITIES departments and not isolated islands. They must engage in a rethinking of what the New Humanties are and explore the work of Richard Miller at Rutgers University.
It is simply not enough for us to sit back and start having conversations about this brave new world. It’s here and we better start doing something, because I for one don’t think we have the luxury to wait around and keep talking about it.
Photo Credit: Pete Ashton
If you own either an iPhone or iPod touch, you can now download the mobile application for FirstClass from the iTunes store.
http://bit.ly/tnlWL(note this link will open your iTunes Application)
A colleague recently posted a discussion on the ISENET Ning urging others to push Apple to release the FirstClass iPhone app. While I share the frustration of the group, I find myself more puzzled by the strategy FC has employed. Rather than have to go through the process of getting a proprietary app approved, why not make FC more easily integrated with the iPhone as well as other mobile devices. This has been one of my biggest frustrations and criticisms of FC since the Palm conduits stopped syncing my calendar back in 2006! Since then I have have had limited success with Blackberry and moderate success with email on my iPhone. I have since been forced to use iCal, which I like better for my calendaring option. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week I attended the “Meaningful Faculty Evaluation” workshop given by ISM in Philadelphia. For those of you who are not familiar with MFE, it is a process of engaging faculty through conversations and personal growth that is intended to strip away the focus and obsession with weaknesses and focus on what teachers are good at. Now I know that many of my administrator colleagues are thinking “Wait a minute, what about those teachers that need to improve on X, Y or Z?” It’s all there, trust me. And if you haven’t had a chance to check it out, you should. Read the rest of this entry »