MARC PRENSKY EVENT in American Conversations at Peninsula College, Port Angeles:

The presentation was powerful and frightening all at once. His focus on the next 50 years of technological progress is something most of us are not ready to stand up and face. If you watched any of the footage of the Japanese Tsunami, that is the scale of change that is coming in technology for us and our children.

Ironically, the few teachers that asked questions seemed to get lost in the “scale” of the issue. They wanted him to answer questions like: How to deal with privacy issues in the classroom around technology, or, what happens when a kid drops a technological tool and breaks it??? To me, that was like pointing at one car in the floodwaters of the tsunami and wondering if it was going to be salvageable…

I myself, wanted to know what I should pack in my kid’s jetpack as the techno tsunami washes over us (old school educated)… One thing he mentioned was programming.. He said our kids should already be starting that at a young age. Wow. Now I officially felt stupid. I didn’t even know what language was the primary programming language! From his perspective, that’s like not knowing that English is the primary language of the western world… Can I Google that????

I loved how he COMPLETELY dismissed the “old school learning standards” (that obscene list of blah blah blah that we are supposed to teach our children so no child gets left behind…) That reminded me of the debris wave engulfing the elevated highway upon which a few stranded motorists thought that they had found safety. The wave undercut the supports of the foundation within minutes…

His list of learning standards was way more productive and focused on finding individual passions. Passion is the one thing that he felt would survive the techno tsunami. As he sees it, finding passion (and encouraging the kids to use their techno tools to follow it) is the highest aspiration we should aim for as teachers,

So, just for your information, it seems that this American Conversations program through Peninsula College has scholarship opportunities for teachers. And, it was a very nice opportunity to rub elbows with the private individuals that support higher education… I would go again just to get that lovely global perspective from the speaker, as well as have the opportunity to meet the people who have the vision to make changes!

Your ideals would have resonated well with this group. I have to learn how to text, and get off emails. He told us that Dinosaurs use email! You are a step ahead of me with blogs. Perhaps you are a caveman??? Apparently our kids are all newly evolved animals called Digital Homo Sapien…
Since I want a capital “D” in front of my “Homo Sapien”, I will try to get Marc Prensky’s PowerPoint presentation posted here. This is my first blog ever.

My dilemma centers around this whole idea of making learning engaging, exciting, accessible, easy. Before I go on let me just say that I’m all for making learning engaging and relevant for my students. I’m the first to try a new tech tool if I feel it will make learning the same old content new and exciting. But I still worry that in this age of way too much tech, where even our words are finished for us so we barely have to learn to spell, that we might be giving our students the wrong message. That there’s an easy way to get through learning and life. That less effort is the way to go.

I could be wrong but in my limited experience it seems that the most successful people, the ones we all hear about and the ones we all know, work their collective butts off. Time and again I keep hearing, reading or watching that it’s not how much natural talent you have or how good you are at something but how hard you work at it. Thinking of this I had to watch the movie Rudy again on Netflix because it’s so inspiring. How many great people, who have made incredible contributions to our world, did so in spite of repeated and consistent failure? It’s mind boggling.

So how do we inspire, convince, encourage or otherwise help our students realize that it’s their hard work, their effort, and not any notions of intelligence or talent or gift that will allow them to succeed and realize their full potential in life? Sir Ken Robinson writes and talks at length on this very topic. Finding our passions will help us enjoy what we do so that we will do it more so that we may realize our potential!

But is that enough? We need to encourage, not discourage, our students to explore so they can find their passions while not squashing any passion they have at the moment. We need to develop or nurture in ourselves a belief in the growth mindset (vs fixed mindset) so we don’t judge our students by their test scores and make up our minds about their abilities or intelligence. We also need to rethink how we assess our students, which is why I joined Joe Bower’s Grading Moratorium. In my PLN there has been so much talk about grades and assessment. What is truly great isn’t whether or not every teacher abolishes grading completely but that we are having these discussions, that we are challenging the way we do things and that we aren’t doing things just because it’s the way things have always been done or because that’s what way it was done to us. The fact that teacher’s are looking for ways to improve the way they help their students learn is what needs to be done.

We also need to watch what we praise when we work to encourage our students. Studies show that by praising achievement or intelligence students are less likely to take risks because they stand to lose more. They become unintelligent, which is too much to bear. While praising effort does the opposite. When it’s your hard work that is your goal then failure is just seen as a stepping stone to success. Risk taking is okay because the harder you work, the more effort you put in, the better you do. It has nothing to do with your intelligence or talent. You want to get better at basketball, practice every day. You want to learn more math, practice everyday. It makes so much sense. Nothing is more depressing to me than hearing a young 6th grader tell me that he or she is not good at math or not good at science. My thought is, “What? So soon? You’ve barely started your life and your educational career and you’ve already given up?” We all need to be lifelong learners so we can’t somehow convince our students that they can’t do something!

So yes, as an educator I am concerned that something I do might indicate that the easy road is the way to go. Is it okay to sometimes have to do unappealing work to later get good at something. I read somewhere that basics aren’t necessary anymore or shouldn’t be taught anymore. Is that true? Are we shying away from teaching kids certain things because they are “boring.” I tell my students that I’d rather not hear that word. I hate that word. It’s an excuse to not do something. I have students who it find it boring to read or write. It’s still a necessary way to learn so even if you have a hard time reading or writing you should still learn and practice to get better at it. I love my job but not all facets of it are engaging and exciting. And what ever happened to learning a discipline or being an apprentice or intern? They have to do the less appealing parts of their profession before they can be the one giving the orders. I guess I’m having a hard time defining what is truly 21st century and where 20th century (or 19th even) ideals need to give way.

Is it time for grunt work to go? Is it time for basics to give way entirely? Is it okay to sometimes do “boring” work? Wow, I guess I started ranting. It’s good to think about what we are having our students do. We have to look at what our students are doing and ask ourselves if it’s worth having then do so they can learn or get better at something. Sports have drills so why can’t content areas? Of course you can’t do drills all the time without actually using those skills. I guess it all boils down to balance. If our students are consistently doing engaging, relevant, fun work then they won’t be so turned off by having to do tedious work every once in a while.

Stream table exploring to learn about how streams flow and landforms form.

After July 20th’s #edchat on the Goal of Education (see archive here) I got to thinking about my goals for the children I help educate. It helped me, with my thinking, to read “Backwards Design and Integrating New Technology” because I integrate technology whenever I can. I need to continually ask myself if what I do with students is aligned with my goals and in line with what they need for their education. A lot of great ideas were brought up during the hour long #edchat but I remained fixated on three words that I took away: Create, Connect and Collaborate. Those three, little words pretty much summarize a lot of what I have my students do. I kept bringing up the idea that as teachers we should help our students find their passions. By encouraging our students to be critical thinkers and to be independent learners and to explore and keep their curiosity and joy of learning we can facilitate discovering of passions. This could take some kids until high school or beyond while some kids know what they want from a very young age. Our job is to NOT stifle our kids love of learning and discovering. We should foster their passions even if their passions change. That’s what it means to be a child.

I have been teaching Science for a while now. I have my students learn by reading, researching and doing labs. Hands on, minds on learning makes sense. My students also discuss and work in small groups to complete projects that can take weeks to complete. Why? In learning a Science concept I’d much rather spend more time on one or two concepts than rush through many concepts. Yeah, a mile deep and inch wide is my modus operandi. Besides, by using multiple methods, labs, reading, listening, observing, creating, and collaborating students stand a chance of getting it (whatever “it” is). I don’t know which method will work with which student. I had 150 students last year! But I stand a chance to helping more of my students learn if we spend time on concepts and learn those concepts in different ways.

With technology my students get to create, connect and collaborate. That doesn’t mean we use technology all the time. We don’t need to. Now I am guilty of trying anything new. If it works I will keep it, if it doesn’t work I drop it. How do I know if it works? I ask my students. If they like something and tell me it helps them learn, I’ll do it again. That happened last year when I set up a Moodle chat to have class discussions. I had a lot of students participate where before I’d be leading a whole class discussion interacting with one student at a time. I will do more of that and next year I will incorporate twitter because I will have enough machines for 1:1 access.

Here are some examples of what students can create with technology. By blogging or sharing their work via a blog or a wiki students connect with other students around the world. So why do I have my students use technology? To create, connect and collaborate so they will think further and hopefully deeply and meaningfully about our topics so they can form their own understandings. I’d much rather have my students creating, connecting and collaborating than sitting listening to me.

Stream table exploration to see how to save homes.

This teacher from Alberta, Canada, has been blogging about topics such as grading and student assessment for a while now. Here are a collection of his blogs on these subjects.

Etta Kralovec on The End of Homework – How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

Here’s an article on 21st Century Learning: Our Children Are Telling Us How They Want to Learn.

Here’s another good article on how students learn in the 21st Century: Reaching Digital Natives on Their Terms.

Why all the articles on 21st Century learning? Because education changes slower than society. The world has moved past the assembly line model but education is still stuck there for the most part. Read Assembly-line schools from a bygone era for an interesting look at this dilemma.

This is a must see Ted Talk, only 8 minutes, by this incredible young speaker: Adora Svitak: What Adults Can Learn from Kids.

Here’s a blog by a teacher written after a record number of attendees to a webinar with Sir Ken Robinson on his book The Element – Guest Blog: How Passion in Education Can Drive Change. Finding your passion is the not only the way to truly be successful and happy in life, but what I got from the webinar is that by finding our passions we can learn to enjoy the things in life that we must do but may not always want to do. Think of how that relates to education.

Here’s another teacher’s blog after the #edchat and the webinar (we had our regular #edchat on that day about passion in education): Passion in Education and How it can Drive Change.

A group of educators that make up my Twitter PLN (professional learning network) had a twitter discussion through #edchat on education reform. We’ve been discussing the changes that need to be made to our education system to best help our students be successful once they graduate. Tuesday night’s discussion via #edchat focused on what changes are most important in light of shrinking budgets and resources. Here’s an article about the need to change from ESchool News: eSN Special Report: Convergent Education.

And here’s an article with ideas on what can be cut from school budgets – Guest Blog: What Should We Cut?

Here are one principal’s thoughts on school reform: More Thoughts on School Reform.

Here are some things to think about: 21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020.

Enjoy!

Al González

My blog's word cloud via Tagxedo!