Novelty, Huh?

by Shelly Blake-Plock

A reader writes:

There was an interesting article in the New York Times regarding the use of iPads in schools. Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University is quoted: “IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning.” Cuban also believes that rather than spending money on new technology it should be used to train, keep, and find the best teachers available (Hu, 2011). Would you agree with Cuban’s statement that the novelty of technology will wear out sooner or later? 

 I would somewhat agree with Prof. Cuban. If we were living in 1983.

In those heady early days of educational technology and computers-in-schools, it was all about hardware and software. Technology was a matter of spending enormous amounts of money to create a relatively weak digital facsimile of the analog/physical world.

And so kids like me who were fortunate enough to have a small computer lab in our school learned quickly that a math game that was lame on paper was just as lame on the computer. Especially when we could go home and play Atari.

As for the specific case of the iPad, it's hardly an ideal device if you are looking for a catch-all. I'm especially concerned about the closed nature of the system and the emphasis on sales at the app store and on iBooks. But it is a device that speaks to several of the important features of our time, most importantly: mobile and accessible instant Internet connectivity. And I would argue that to see the iPad as a fad is to miss the bigger picture: the iPad only exists within the context of a mobile-connected world. That mobile-connected world is not a novelty; that's a paradigm and a reality.

Furthermore, the paradigm and reality of a mobile-connected world has nothing to do with the institution of education, per se. The mobile-connected world isn't a new ed tech gimmick. It's a cross-cultural societal shift. And I'm not blind to the fact that that shift itself has got a lot of money riding on it; but our personal feelings about how culture is changed don't change the fact that culture is changed. Too often we try to raise a barrier between the classroom and the world; I think that defeats the potential of either to grow.

Now, I certainly think Larry Cuban realizes that the world has changed with the coming of the Internet, smartphones, and myriad social technologies. I think his point was that it's silly to think of the iPad as a singular tool which will change education. Instead, he wants us to focus on teacher training and retention. And I completely agree with him. Furthermore, Larry Cuban obviously realizes that there are differing values derived from differing technologies and there are also going to be many tech dollars wasted on schools that don't have teachers trained and qualified in the use of those technologies for learning purposes.

In fact, I see the whole issue of teacher preparation tied to a bigger reality of creating a new educational paradigm to meet the needs of a new societal and global paradigm. In other words, we've got to up-end the way we prepare and support teachers if we ever want to change the results in our schools.

I don't want to spend money "training" teachers how to do the things that educational institutions are currently doing. Rather, I want to develop teachers who are comfortable and savvy moving education forward into a future where the physical and the digital are augmented in a variety of ways; where schools themselves are mobile and hybridized environments merging the digital and the f2f in teaching things relevant to the lives and futures of their students' potential and authentic experience in a globalized world; and where the point of education is not simply to pass a test or get a job, but to empower individuals and community in celebrating creativity, innovation, beauty, and human capacity.

All of us want our students to succeed. And we should learn from and develop our pedagogy based  on the experiences and research of the past. But we should not do so with a blind eye to the realities of the present. Barring catastrophe, the new connections are not going away; even given a catastrophe, the seed of instant global connection has already been planted in the human psyche. It is now part of us. And it won't be long [IT WON'T BE LONG] before every student -- regardless of the neighborhood they live in or the employment status of their parents -- will be connected. We have to live up to that reality as educators. That means that we need teachers to engage in a relevant way with the digital reality -- to bring their humor and compassion and expertise to it; we need to support teachers in making this move -- above all they need time and they need to feel like they can explore and experiment without fear of being 'wrong'; and we may have to look with a keener eye at just what it is that we call 'novelty' -- because in every innovation (and every failure) there lies a deeper context.

Making Connections: A Little Soda-Pop Story

Generic Names for Soft Drinks by County
http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html

A note here to folks getting this via a reader, you definitely want to check this out on the site: www.teachpaperless.com so that you are sure to get all of the pictures; this just won't make sense without the pics. 

The map here is pretty amazing. Color-coded, it shows the national distribution of terminology used to describe soft drinks. You'll notice some telling facts. For example, the thin swath of yellow running down an otherwise red Florida's coast. That's East Coast migrants (aka retirees) bringing their slang to Florida. And notice which state seems most pluralistic? Yup, that's all those military folks from across the country huddled together in New Mexico.

Maps tell a story. And that's what my Human Geography students and I talked about today. We talked about how you could lay a map of something as seemingly innocuous as how people describe soft drinks over the context of patterns of human habitation and find a telling correlation.

They were pretty blown away.

Until somebody said, "But how do we know that's accurate?"

So we decided to do a little informal test. The 9th graders and I tweeted out the following:

Question from Freshman class: Hey world, what is the generic name you use for a softdrink? Please give name & yr location. THX! #JCHUMANGEO

And then we started chatting about the accents and dialects of different folks in different parts of the country. Had a nice discussion. And then I remembered to check to see what had come in via Twitter.

And I saw this:

Tweets 9/9/10

How's that for a little confirmation?

In real-time, sitting in a classroom in semi-rural Maryland, my 9th grade Human Geography students reached out to the world, asked it a question, and got a response.

We looked through the responses -- many of which included little stories of people's own lives and migrations -- and compared them to the map. The map proved most accurate.

Now that's what I call 21st century education: analyse information, check it against the real world in real time, and evaluate what it all means.

A Paperless Survival Guide to Managing the Occasional Tech Snafu

Things go wrong. So it's always best to be prepared when they do.

One of the things I've found, especially with teachers new to working in a live social tech environment, is the fear of the tech breaking down and said teacher being stuck twiddling the proverbial thumbs.

So here's a shortlist of things you can do (or should think about) when broken tech brings the pain.

1. Prepare tabs of all sites you plan to lead students through in advance; this way, should your network go down, you can still manage through the majority of your web content. Students should also save offline syncs of info-style pages regularly accessed -- like e-books, encyclopedia entries, etc. In fact, tab-prep can suffice as a pre-classtime requirement for students.

2. If you have both wired and wi-fi networks available, consider setting up a small local hub in your room to connect computers should the latter go down. Or if you have your own portable 3G hotspot, share it.

3. Should the network fail while using Google Docs or while writing blog posts, have students dump their work into a word program and work there until the connection is re-established (this is what Gears should have been able to do). Anyway, make sure that your students know to do this from day one, it will save a lot of headaches.

4. I realize this could be considered a controversial one, so I won't tell you what to do, but I'll make a suggestion that you think about making "educational fair use" temp downloads of those YouTube videos you want to show. While I don't publicly condone hacking, there are plenty of easy-to-use and easily-Google-able resources that will help you do what you need to in a pinch.

5. Find alts. If you need a backchannel and Twitter gets scrambled, try TodaysMeet. There are plenty of Web 2.0 sites made specifically for education, as well; search through Richard Byrne's site for ideas.

6. Design assessments based on students both collaborating and playing to their individual strengths. If your network is shaky, you might be able to have a few kids online while others are working offline. Rotate it up, let kids share tech, for the sake of argument consider the parameters of a shaky network an opportunity to experiment with group dynamics and new forms of collaboration.

7. Let kids access the Net via their phones and personal Internet devices.

8. Have students create any and all new accounts -- i.e. Twitter, Google, YouTube, Jing -- from home or from the library. All new account registrations basically work the same these days, so just give the students the info they need and have them set up their resources as homework. This gets rid of the problem you often encounter in a classroom when trying to make multiple accounts simultaneously under the same IP address. There's nothing more frustrating than having an entire classroom of kids fail at trying to set up online accounts just because of security and redirect issues. It's a waste of time; so save time and have them do it on their own time.

9. Be prepared to improvise. And I'm not talking about flying by the seat of your pants. I'm talking jazz. You've got to practice the skill and hone the craft of improvisation everyday in every class so that when things do go haywire you're not completely screwed. If it were up to me, I'd make "Authentic Improvisation" -- as opposed to "B.S. Improvisation" -- a required class in ed school.

10. Know your students. I'm convinced that at least part of the fear of tech going down in flames in one's classroom is really a manifestation of a deeper issue: teachers not really getting to know their students and therefore not having the trust, conversational faculties, and mutual understanding of learning goals to get past a rough spot. If you and your students trust one another, you should be able to teach each other using nothing more than voices and gestures. And that's not some newfangled idea: that's what teachers have/had done for thousands of years.

11. Take a nature walk. Every classroom community benefits from mutual engaged experience. So you lose the wireless and your lesson is shot? Use it as an opportunity to go out and experience something with your students. Take 'em out for fresh air and conversation. Take 'em to the cafe for a snack and a chit-chat. See if the gym is open and shoot a few baskets with 'em. Don't dwell on what didn't work; rather, use the opportunity presented by a snafu to look at the world in a different way.

Now, if that wi-fi keeps going out or those computer batteries keep drying up after a half-hour of use, you're obviously going to have to deal with that problem. No one can integrate tech and education in those conditions. But with a good network in place, on those relatively rare occasions when things do fall apart, you should be able to manage without losing your hair. Consider the tips I've offered (all of which I've used at one time or another) and please leave some of your own ideas in the comments. Good luck!

Question of the Day: Hey Kid... Got Tech?

Some interesting conversations on Twitter this morning got me thinking about the following question:


Does your school have any tech hardware/access requirements for students that are NOT provided for by the school?


Flashdrives? Laptops? MP3 players? 


Are you requiring students without home access to access after school via public libraries?


Are you in a 1:1 school allowing machines that students choose on their own as opposed to machines recommended by the school? 


Are there technologies your school is uniformly BANNING?


I'm interested in both public and private schools and whether (and how) you've seen expectations change over the last few years.

Guest Post at Edutopia: Increase Student Engagement by Getting Rid of Textbooks

Guest post published today at Edutopia. Came out of a recent #edchat and the comments many of you all made here about the pros and cons of textbooks.

Follow this link, head on over to Edutopia, and dig it: Increase Student Engagement by Getting Rid of Textbooks.

And thanks to Elana and Betty for the guest gig.

2010 Reform Symposium

The 2010 Reform Symposium starts today. Many exciting presenters on today's schedule including George Couros, Steve Hargadon, Mary Beth Hertz, Kevin Jarrett, and Sue Waters. There will also be a panel on Effective Leadership featuring moderator Lisa Dabbs along with Patrick Larkin, John Carver, and Janet Avery.

I'm happy to have been asked to present today. I'll be stepping to the plate at 10PM EST to offer what's billed as a keynote, but I hope will turn into more of a conversation:

Keynote: What We Do
Description: A view from the classroom and a conversation about what 21C learning looks like on the ground level. There will be many examples of the practical and everyday use of Twitter, Jing, Wave, Blogs, Wikis, and more as used by students and teachers alike as well as a look at how to transform the physical space of the classroom into a 21C learning environment conducive to collaboration, mobile computing, and tech-integrated differentiated instruction.

Date & Times: Fri. July 30th 7pm-8pm LA/ 10pm NYC/ 3am, Sat. 7/31, London/ 4am, Sat. Paris/ 12noon, Sat., Sydney/ 11am, Sat., Tokyo
Click here for more time zones!

Click here to join the Keynote: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.3A2AF29E985C9DD57501D645EE19D0

Click here to see today's schedule, and see you there!

Rethinking Leadership

Join Will Richardson and I this evening at 8PM EST for the weekly Ed Open Mic!
 
On the heels of last week's discussion on redefining teaching, tonight's topic is: "Rethinking Leadership". Join in the conversation -- it's sure to be lively this eve! Click here to enter the Elluminate room at 8 EDT.
 
Ed Open Mic: No talking heads... just you talking.

Get Real

An anonymous reader commented recently on my earlier post '21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020':

OMG - The one weak link in this person's position is that they have no understanding of human nature.

1. No desks - until Jimmy cheats or copies off the others in the group.
2. Language labs - People have been talking different langauages for thousands of years. I suspect that won't end any time soon.
3. Computers - size and location doesn't matter. Until they can be hid inside a student's personal space.
4. Homework - Homework is for practice. AND kids lack the self-discipline to do otherwise. That's why they are kids.
5. Portfolios - Should go hand in hand with standardized tests. Do you think smart kids really fail these tests?
6. Tech and Differentiation - Technology alone does not differentiate instruction - people do.
7. Wikipedia - What ever happened to research? Do you think Harvard lets their students use Wikipedia. Get real.
8. Paperbacks - who is going to buy each kid an ipad?
9. Bio scan - just plain scary.
10. Lockers - Hello! Kids don't and many won't carry books. Again, who is going to pay for the ipads?
12. Centralized schools - Are you kidding? Does anyone understand the immaturity of teens AND many of their parents?

I could go on and on...

Now it could be that the commenter is right and I just have very little understanding of human nature. But I'll at least try to address each of his or her points.

1. Desks -- especially desks in long straight rows -- are not only detrimentally conditioning and hierarchical, but they breed an "us vs. them" mentality between students and teachers. As far as cheating goes, I wouldn't blame that on seating arrangements; I'd suggest it has more to do with assessments that are so removed from individual and personalized learning that they are ripe for standardized cheating.

2. Language Labs -- I'm not talking about getting rid of foreign language study, I'm talking about getting rid of outdated language labs. Any kid with an iPod Touch and wi-fi can learn a foreign language.

3. Computers -- I actually don't understand the comment here. But the gist of the original post was that computing devices are going to change in ways we can't expect -- therefore we can't expect what we think of when we think of a computer today to be necessarily the same thing as what a computer will be tomorrow.

4. I really don't know exactly what homework is for. I've been frustrated with myself over this issue, as I tend to think that I give too much homework (generally in the form of writing, which of course in and of itself isn't a bad thing; but I often have difficulty striking a balance). The key is in having kids do things outside of class that will complement or drive things within class; problem is that too often homework not only fails to do this, but in fact instills bad habits and resentment towards school in general. As the school-day itself is gradually redefined over the course of the next decade, I do think however that our concept of what exactly homework is will change.

5. Yes. Smart kids perform poorly on standardized tests all the time.

6. Tech and Differentiation: Agreed. But social tech that allows for individualized instruction -- like using Google Wave to track individual contributions to group work -- are of such an amazing benefit. Takes a lot of the guess work out of trying to figure out who understands what at any given time. I do stand by what I suggested in the initial post, as well: the teacher who in ten year's time can't figure out how to differentiate instruction will be the teacher looking for a new career.

7. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Would you rather we not let students read an encyclopedia? As far as "research" goes, no encyclopedia has ever been primary source material for a thesis. That is unless your thesis is about the encyclopedia. You teach kids to back up an academic argument with primary sources and direct observation; but that doesn't mean you don't "let" students read an encyclopedia. As for Harvard students: they read Wikipedia all the time; many of them edit it, as well (just like millions of other people).

8. As for paperbacks, I don't think this will be as "school-driven" as it is "culture-driven". With the advent of really nice e-bookreaders, I could see the majority of the paperback market going the way of cassettes and CDs. As for the allocation of resources, we already spend much more on textbooks over the course of a student's schooling than we would on wi-fi based e-readers.

9. We've been using optional fingerprint scans in our school for laptop access since back when Vista came out. Not that scary.

10. Lockers: see #8.

11. ?

12. The conversion to hybrid school models mixing face-to-face learning with online and mobile learning is already happening. I see no reason to think that might slow down over the next ten years and I see no reason given the budget shortfalls so many districts and archdioceses have found themselves in that the larger centralized bureaucratic model would remain desired.

Thanks for your comments. I hope you understand that I take them very seriously and I welcome the opportunity to debate. And believe me, as a teacher and a parent of three kids, I know exactly what it means to "get real"; it's what I try to do in the classroom, in parenthood, and on this blog everyday.

Q. What Do You Think? A. This Is What I Think.

Got together recently with folks at our local public radio station to talk about education.

And so, here's pretty much my thoughts on education in the 21C: http://mdmorn.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/614102-teaching-paperless/ (45 minute interview on local Baltimore public radio.)

Thanks to the folks at 88.1 WYPR for inviting me over to chat -- especially everyone at Maryland Morning.

Question of the Day: Revolution

Today's question of the day has to do with vision-thinking this thing we do called education.

There has been a lot of talk over past few years about the changes necessary to make education relevant in the 21st century. Seems like the basic dichotomy comes down to: do we fix/rebuild/re-work the present system or do we have a revolution and start something new?

Well, the former position has had its fair share of commentary over the years; so just for the sake of today's question, I'd like to concentrate on the latter.

Say we did have a total revolution in education; say we could start anew. What would be your vision for education and schools if given the chance to start fresh right now? (Think big).

Question of the Day: Term Limits

Today's question is pretty straightforward: Should school administrators serve term limits and return to classroom teaching once their term is up?

Thanks to @dpeter, @AndrewBWatt, @tmsaue1, and @daveandcori for inspiring this conversation on Twitter this morning. 

Planning Lessons

@paulrwood posted a tweet this morning that really got me thinking:

how is it that teachers continue to pull out the same lesson plans when they have not met their students yet? Just a thought. 

It's true. As teachers, we're trained to prepare. We've got arsenals of prepared lessons, assessments, schedules. But there's one thing we can't prepare for: we can't prepare for which students are going to walk in our door.

Sure, we might know some of their names in advance. We may have heard stories of their prowess on the softball diamond or their antics in Ms. Jones' chemistry class. But we can't really know who those kids are until they've come through that door, sat down in our classroom, and opened their mouths and told us who they are and what matters to them.

This is why the ability to 'differentiate' shouldn't be the mark of a good teacher, but rather the expectation of anyone who calls his or herself a teacher: because if you don't understand your kids, how can you expect them to understand you?

And so next year, I'm trying out something new. As I tweeted earlier today:

I'm making it a goal next year to not plan out my courses until I've first met my students.

My plan going in is to meet the first two days of class with the students to learn the interests of each and to help them start PLNs on Twitter to extend their interests into a broader real-time conversation. Then I'd like each of them to explain the ups-and-downs of their prior experiences learning -- both in the classroom and out in that zone of experience the education folks call "informal learning". We're gonna spend some serious time getting to know how each other like to learn from the very beginning before we ever even touch on course material.

They won't be getting a syllabus, either.

Rather, we'll take a look at the general themes of the course -- next year I'll be teaching West Civ and Modern Euro History -- and we'll start constructing a wiki to structure where we want to go. I'll guide them by adding some historical context and then help them use Twitter to start crowdsourcing the essential questions we'll use to guide our study.

I'm also teaching a Human Geography course and my co-teacher and I have been swapping ideas back and forth. The one we are gravitating towards is not having a curriculum at all, but rather having students listen daily to PRI's The World each night and write daily blogposts about what they hear. Classtime will be spent discussing the previous night's episode and helping students to fill in details and to learn how to access more information about subjects talked about on the program.

We as teachers will constantly be learning new stuff at the same time as our students. Rather than thinking of this as being perpetually 'unprepared', it'll actually be more a situation where everyone involved will bring to the table whatever they've got with them. Classtime will be a matter of sorting things out and making connections; and of course, we'll have our PLNs to turn to for help, ideas, and advice. And by the end of the semester, each student will have a complete digital portfolio of their own responses and comments to their responses to daily world events.

I think both approaches emphasize dealing with the real-time world in real-time. And that's where I think my students and I need to be.

Things Changed

Read Write Web ran a story on the Real Time Web and K-12 Education yesterday. Educators the likes of Steven Anderson, Silvia Tolisano, and Kyle Pace all have interesting things to say in the piece; and Audrey Watters, the reporter on the piece, included one of my Google Wave classroom Jings -- which is way cool: thanks!

As for the article itself, Pace, in particular, voiced an issue that I think admins need to pay attention to. Namely, as illustrated in the article by the fact that

78% of teachers responding to the NCES study said that they found independent learning the best way to learn about new technologies (as opposed to 61% who said that in-district training was the best way to gain new tech skills).

Pace is quoted on his feelings about #edchat noting: "You cannot buy this kind of professional development."

And he is absolutely right. From #edchat to the daily links to research and best practices to compendiums of crowdsourced reference libraries to instant cross-cultural communication with education professionals the world over, no admin could ever have afforded this kind of professional development pre-Real Time Web.

Last month I sat on a panel in front of the heads of independent schools throughout the Baltimore area. Asked what I thought was the best way to prepare teachers for the new paradigm, I replied: "Twitter is the best vehicle for professional development our profession has ever known. Stop spending money bringing 'experts' into your schools for in-service days and instead give teachers the tools and time to explore what's happening in real-time as thousands of teachers throughout the Twitterverse take it upon themselves professionally to experiment, share, and develop as a new community of teachers."


The room went silent except for audible gasps.


Those were gasps of realization. Realization that the old system of training and development is hopefully outdated. And a new way of doing things developed among engaged teachers while most of the folks in charge didn't even realize there was a problem with the status quo.

No Excuses: A Student's Point of View

Here are year-end comments from a student in my Latin III class about her feelings as a student in a paperless classroom:

For the past two years, our Latin class has experienced what it's like to learn without paper. When we first started to depend solely on our computers for class, I was a bit skeptical; I didn't think that it would be efficient or practical to rely on an internet connection for everything we need. But after working in a paperless environment for so long, it's kind of become a part of my life. The programs and websites that we use on a daily basis and so much more extensive and current than any textbook a class could offer. We've only scratched the surface of the millions of resources that the internet has to offer, and it's reassuring and sort of empowering to know that my options are virtually endless in class.

In my opinion, the entire school needs to go paperless. People who have refused to catch up with the time by now are not going to be able survive in this world which is becoming more and more wireless every day. I don't think there's an excuse for not going paperless, or at least trying to use the programs that our computers and the internet have to offer.

I think it's really important to notice that she thinks there's "no excuse" anymore. Whether you have a 1:1 program or whether your school doesn't even have a computer lab, the message is clear from the kids: there is no excuse.

School boards -- whether urban, suburban, or rural -- need to reallocate funds and bring access, devices, and wi-fi into their buildings. No excuses.

Schools with 1:1 programs implemented need to helps their faculties implement the best the web has to offer in their classrooms with no filters, no blocks, no excuses.

Teachers working in schools that deny ed tech need to stand up and protest the divide schools are helping to perpetuate, find grants, and seek alternatives. No excuses.

Teachers in 1:1 schools who have let tech slip them by either purposefully or not: get with it -- no excuses.

And all those folks who make decisions on independent school boards, public school boards, and educational policy institutions at the local, state, and federal level have to stop giving lip-service to 21C education and start finding the money, start identifying solutions, and stop making excuses.

No excuses.

This is 2010. Let's rethink, reallocate, and revolutionize.

No excuses.

A Reading Suggestion: Concrete Classroom

Check out @concretekax's recent post and the comment discussion revolving around the 'Education Lobbyist Platform'.

Thoughtful stuff. Would love to see your comments over there on Michael's blog. Where do you stand on his proposed education platform?

A Short Presentation on Using Google Wave in the Foreign Language Classroom

We've been using Google Wave quite a bit in Latin class. Here's a short Jing presentation to show you the different things we've found helpful about Wave. The majority of the tricks were figured out by the kids.



(Watch in Full Screen Mode)

I love to hear from other teachers using Wave in class. I am finding it a great tool for collaboration in the foreign language classroom; and with the ability to run gadgets inside Waves as well as the ability to export Waves to Google Docs and track student participation, it's becoming an indispensable tool for gauging formative learning in group projects.

A 21C Education... for Teachers.

Here's the question: If you had the opportunity to create your own graduate program in education for 21st century teachers, what would it look like?

I've started a brainstorming wiki: http://21cedgrad.wikispaces.com/ and I'd love folks to contribute ideas. The wiki is open and may be edited by anybody, please share among friends and colleagues and don't be afraid to think way outside the box!

Distinctions

Had the pleasure yesterday of sharing a lunch -- via Skype -- with teachers in Sparta Township Public Schools thanks to the work of @pjhiggins.


Patrick was kind enough to post a write-up of our conversation that includes some Tweets sent out during the session.


One of the things I walked away from the meeting with was an agreement that things have already changed and that we as teachers now aren't on the van-guard of technology, but rather the front-line of relevancy for our kids.


That's an important distinction.


For all we talk about ed tech, that's not really the point; any more than the point of a rally car race is to enjoy the scenery. The point of all our talk is ultimately to engage our students in meaningful and relevant learning. And in a dynamic and authentic 21C environment, that means -- by default -- using the tools of the social web and the materials of participatory media to make learning happen.


A question came up during the discussion about whether our kids spend too much time in front of the computer. And to paraphrase what I suggested in response: that question itself will soon be obsolete. Because the walls between the online world and the physical world are quickly disintegrating. Mobile and handheld computing, personal projection, Augmented Reality, ubiquitous wireless access, and public surface computing are changing the game. As the technology becomes less expensive and more options are created for public access, this will amount to a complete break from the "screen centered" world of personal computing and usher in an age of direct experiential computing where the digital will be as much a part of our physical reality as bricks and mortar.


Naturally, we tend to think about things in bricks and mortar ways. That's what we know. We tend to think of computers in terms of a "connection" -- i.e. you sit at a computer or carry an iPhone so that you have a device with which to connect to the digital world. I see a future where computing is not a matter of machines and connections, but environments and "being".


That's another important distinction.


And I'll stand by what I said yesterday: "We are probably the last generation that will make the distinction between being online and not being online."


Thanks to Patrick and all the teachers for a great conversation yesterday.

What Is an Educator?

So, Ning is planning to remain free for educators.

Which begs the question: what's an educator?

I guess in the past it's been easy enough to say that an educator is a classroom teacher. But, as the role of both classrooms and teachers are finding themselves caught in the upheaval of change, we might ask if that definition really cuts it anymore.

Is a homeschooler an educator?

Is a private tutor an educator? (Isn't that what Aristotle did?)

Is a private online teacher/mentor/guru an educator?

What about school librarians?

Coaches?

Enrichment coordinators?

Folks working in the education departments of museums? archives? new media and digital collections?

DIY teachers who post how-to videos on YouTube?

What is an educator? How do we define this role? And not just so that we can score (or maintain) free Ning accounts, but so that we know more about what we are talking about when we are talking about education.

Open Blog: What Device is it that Students and Teachers are Looking For?

So, the Google Tablet is imminent.

And so it's time to open up the bloglines to some reader opinion and comments.

For you iPad-wielding folks, based on your experience so far, what's needed to make these types of devices more applicable for students and teachers? Or is the 'right' device something entirely different?

Can/Would education benefit from a ubiquitous device? And let's just talk devices for a moment.

What do we teachers 'need' in terms of a device? What do our students need? What exactly is it that we 'need' to get to -- and use -- all our stuff out there on the Web?

Lot's of questions. Let's hear what you've got to say.