Home vs School: The best 21st Century Learning Environment

I was thinking about a comment I heard on Rocketboom from an Intel employee discussing the release of their classmatePC designed for the classroom. His comment was something to the effect that since students have broadband and computers at home, they are set back 20 years when they enter the classroom. (I am paraphrasing). This is an interesting idea on a couple of levels.

At School

From Flickr

The school technology experience often looks like working on a document, creating a presentation, researching a planet, or maybe even blogging if you are lucky.  Most technology at school is limited to controlled weekly or maybe even daily time slots working in locked computing environments on very structured lessons.  All for seemingly good reasons - equal access, meeting learning standards, protection from harmful content. These types of situations are a good start, but they just don't support the kind of deeper learning that happens in a more open online environment.

Compare this to Home.

I think it is certainly true that the majority of our youth now has internet access at home. Many have multiple devices that are connected to broadband access, including the traditional desktop that is typically in the home office area, at least one parent as a laptop from work (if not both), they may have a netbook that maybe a grandparent got them for Christmas, an ipod touch for their birthday, many have iphones, and then many have game consoles like the xBox360, Wii, or Playstation that are connected. (not to mention the PSP and iPad).  Soon, we will be able to add AppleTV and GoogleTV connecting our TVs throughout the house.  So, while a few homes have all these things, most have at least one.


We are beginning to see that students have more open access to the web at home then they do in the school. With this in place, the home learning environment looks a little different then what kids see at school. This open learning platform is more like having a constant feedback loop with repeated opportunities for reading, listening, and watching content and on-going collaboration.

Of course, this more open approach can be in conflict with the more controlled school environment, particularly when access to technology is limited and lessons are focused on specific outcomes and I think some of that tension represents an important value that educators bring to the process.

When our youth are given more freedom to work through a reinforcement loop that happens when you surf the web, they are able to accelerate their own, self-driven learning.

Now I don't want to create a stereotype that somehow our youth are in this constant mode of multi-tasking and can somehow manage all these things simultaneously for hours on end, because that is not really what I am seeing.  What it looks like to me, is that my 11 year old is switching among these various activities, waiting for feedback from a particular activity and filling the down time with content consumption or some other engaging activity.

So, it might be that he is maintaining an on-going chat session with a couple of friends online, while he switches back and forth with the realtime stats feed of an NBA game that is on the TV. When the announcer mentions something that is happening in the sports world, he jumps over and reads an online article about that event. Then after the chat has ended or at least paused he will launch an online game and play for ten minutes or launch a YouTube video to checkout.  If it is funny or compelling in some way he will send the link to a friend.


Each of these activities are in their own way a feedback loop and must be compelling for the young learner to stay engaged or they will simply move on and try something different. If the activity is compelling enough they will engage at a deeper level, reading it completely, making a comment, sharing it with a friend.

The determination of what is compelling is made on the fly based on a variety of factors including the topic, who is involved, and the emotional component of the content. (think baby laughing on YouTube). My son is a frequent online visitor of a guy who makes up parody songs about the NFL and it is really an emotional connection with that content and he always wants to share the with me.  

Provided with enough "free time" learners will begin to build reading and collaboration skills and hopefully at some point start to take the role of creator. If you want to really help today's youth, encourage them to be creators on the web. Post a video, write a song and post it, blog, and even engage in Facebook and Twitter (Note: I won't let me 11 yr old on Facebook and his Twitter stream is private to friends).  These are great skills they will use for the rest of their life.

Some Early Programs

So there may be some interesting things with the way kids use technology at school vs the way the use them at home. I have been fortunate enough to have been involved in two programs that are changing this reality for school kids.

The Globaloria program that has been implemented throughout West Virginia (I was the Program Manager for a year) and promotes this more open exploration of learning and extend computer use.

The second program, is a program that I am involved in is a 1 to 1 computer to student program at a local elementary school that will be entering it's second year this fall. Students each have a netbook computer to use for the entire school day, everyday and get to take the technology home for homework assignments and hopefully to explore additional content.

What do you Think?

I think that next question is, if the above is actually happening at some level, what impact will that have on our youth?  Who will thrive in this new environment? Is a single computer with internet access equal to many devices, or does having a mobile device at an early age give you an advantage?  Maybe you completely disagree with this assessment of what is happening?

Google TV for Education

Earlier, Google showed their new Google TV solution. Some pundits dismissed it due to the fact that much of this technology exists, but I think that Google has a pretty good feel for timing. I think the timing feels right for integrating television programming with web-browsing. There are so many factors that play into how TV is consumed and how people use the Internet in that same environment. The Google solution may address that many people are trying to find a comfortable way to jump between the internet and TV in a simple way.  In addition the physical considerations, Google has taken a search-centric approach to content. I think that this represents a shift in culture that many won't "get" for some time, but eventually, they will really come to appreciate the simplicity of the Google approach. True, Microsoft Media Center tried to pull this off and was able to do some cool things, but it just seems to be a completely different environment from the web, that it just doesn't always feel right.

Of course for me, I immediately started thinking about the learning implications of GoogleTV.  Can you imagine every student with a tablet at their desk and the teacher controlling the large flat panel TV at the front of the room? Then have the students push their work to the front of the room or the teacher by selecting it.  Seth Godin's Blog post: iPad killer app #2: fixing meetings  talks about making meetings better by suppling every attendee with an tablet with certain functionality, most of these ideas would work in the classroom as well. Then, having GoogleTV integrated in for the instructor would be awesome. The ability to search for rich video content, bookmark it, and pull it just at the right time during the lesson or presentation. Have students respond to the video by answering the 10 questions on their Google Site.

I know, there is a lot of infrastructure required for such a scenario, but it is a lot closer then it was before.  Google continues to work to bring things to consumers to drive technology use. Yes, they want to sell advertising and we have to monitor what our learners are exposed to, but if GoogleTV turns out to serve as a centralized search tool connecting content on television with content on the web, our world probably just got a little more integrated.

If you are not familiar with what Google is proposing, check it out here.

Cursive Writing Meme

Tony picked up on a meme that I wrote about last year, Why Teach Cursive writing. It is interesting because the article has been one of my most visited posts. I think this topic really effects everyone in some way, because almost all of us have gone through the process of learning to write in cursive. I am still not sure the exact answer on whether to teach it in schools, but I can tell you that most parents I talk to don't value it as high as they once did.

Instructional Technology Job Opening in Utah

Smart guy and West Virginia native David Wiley posted about a new position at his school and asked others to give it a mention. So here goes...

Come Work at USU!

Published January 15, 2008 open contentTags: cosl, employment, jobs, usu

The Instructional Technology Department at Utah State University (my academic home and the home of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning) has a faculty opening. We’re not looking for expertise in a specific area of instructional technology - just a super smart, hard working, great-to-get-along-with colleague to help move the field forward.The job description is online, and the first steps of the application process are all electronic.

Personally, I’m excited by the follow excerpt from the job description: Applicants must be able to teach courses in one or more of the following general areas: 1. learning sciences, 2. instructional design, 3. research methods, 4. e-learning/distance education, 5. open education, 6. multimedia design and development, 7. performance improvement and training, 8. learning theory, 9. school library media, 10. assessment/evaluation.

Come Work at USU! « iterating toward openness

Anthony Salcito on Innovative Schools

Anthony Salcito, the General Manager of US Education for Microsoft is presenting on innovative schools. I am just going to blog my notes as he goes.

Series of slides...
Students today can't prepare bark 1703
Students depend too much on paper 1815
Students depend too much on ink 1907
Students depend too much on store-bought ink 1928
Students depend too much on ball point pens 1950

This generation...
6 apps running on pc
4-5 email addresses
26% use foreign news service
fastest growing segment is 5 to 7 year olds
....

Transformation in Skills
Agrarian
Industrial
....

Trends in the Workplace
Companies like Microsoft hire based on your ability to change

Global

25% of population of China with highest IQ is great then population of North America

China has labor surplus and is number one English speaking country soon.

Top 10 jobs in demand today didn't exist in 2004.

Our Collective Challenge

produce highly educated and technologically capable people

US Workforce Crisis

300,000 skilled IT jobs have gone unfilled

Education is Everything

(all slide material is available)

Technology is not the issue

"Still in the acquisition-age in technology" - I like this one.
We have to take it off the table. Ask questions first. How do you want to engage students on new content? How do you want to use assessment to drive a real learning experience? Typically the answer is allow the technology to support that process.

School of the Future
Initially was that is was going to look like a "classroom" of the future, but then they changed the conversation. District built the building and Microsoft only guided the process.

SOF Project Principles
Learning first, technology later
Language is Paramount...
Lack of process impedes success...
Be comfortable not knowing...
Identify the questions and answers will come...

Success factors.... (5 total)

It was built on a public park.

Thinking of schools as assets for economic development. School buildings as community hubs. School becomes a destination.

Showing a video. The facility is awesome.

Class start at 9:30am but the kids show up early, application to college is a requirement for graduation.

Use competency wheel for everyone. Administrators, Teachers, Parents, and Students.













We don't embrace how to scale innovation of education. They have a tool for how to scale innovation.

Many of the kids were at a 3rd or 4th grade level and their "seriousness of purpose" has changed.

Question from audience... when will you invest in WV? Microsoft did not fund the building. Many examples take the best of the best, this project used existing teachers and the cost was less then refurbishment of other schools. MS invested in human capital and technology. Their are many ways to move forward.

Question... can this work without a new facility. Yes... the reality is that all text are online and teachers use a virtual teaching assistant. SOF used feedback all throughout the class (student response from group) the tool created an individualized lesson plan. Used it for a year and pulled it out. Now MS is going to release it as a product soon.

Question... competency wheel. MS hires on capacity to learn... trying to introduce competency-based learning, success is more broad. The wheel is the same for everyone, just have different levels. Idea is that by reinforcing this creates more agile learning. That's the hope. There are a lot of educational resources that support this model, but they are very open to failure. Look at the tools and adjust them to what you most need.

Thank you.

Too Much Social Networks?

Ryan provides a little pushback on the use of Facebook for high school students. His comments...

... it’s bothersome to think of avoiding human interaction with the teacher as
being a solution. It seems like that would harm social skills and the
developing personalities of young minds. While I’m sure everyone
has neglected a question due to fear of how other students might react,
a habitual “always ask online” method may prove to be even
worse.

to some extent he has a point. If you push the model to extremes and all your interactions go online then it would certainly be a problem. However, I was thinking that if the students aren't asking at all in the classroom, then maybe facilitating a discussion online might be a powerful tool. Then of course a really skilled teacher (unlike the ones I was refering to in my high school experience) would tackfully work online conversations into classroom conversations and encourage participation and collaboration. Clarifying assignments, individualizing and adapting instruction, and providing alternative views, ideas, and approaches seem like good activities to do in a digital, collaborative environment. Facebook, MySpace, and SecondLife seem like popular platforms already being used for collaboration so it sounds like a good idea to offer these extensions.

The point that

... high school students spending 3-6 hours on MySpace as it is, promoting even more of this stuff just may be a little too much.

might also be looked at from a different perspective. If it is that motivating, then there maybe some way that it can support the learning process. Maybe part of that 3-6 hours could be spent solving problems, engaged in learning new ideas, or doing collabortive projects as homework assignments. I am sure a response to that is that they are making mix tapes and posting pictures of themselves during obscene things, but hey I like to think positive.

Cursive Writing? Why teach it?

OK So I was having a conversation with my wife this morning about the things we teach in second and third grade. With young children and my wife about to start a new teaching position after being home for 8 years with the kids, this is the primary topic of conversation. (I sneak a quick comment in on Second Life or podcasting or Facebook from time to time, but they are generally ignored.) One issue that came up was teaching cursive writing.

Why do we still teach it?

I said that maybe we still need it to be able to read letters from our mothers, but my wife will certainly be emailing our kids. Our daughter is the only one in the family without a laptop now. So I really can't think of a compelling reason to teach it, except maybe for speed of writing. Most of us use some combination of print and cursive writing anyway.

I am guessing this has been a well hashed out topic on the blogosphere, but I though it was interesting. I was also wondering that if we didn't teach kids to read cursive writing as children, would they be able to easily pick it up (at least reading it) as an adult?

Come to think of it I can't remember the last time I wrote a whole paragraph with a pen.

Apple offers Consumer Training

Apple computer is offering subscription-based training to it's customers for $99 a year at it retail stores. Steve Jobs, Apples CEO, mentioned this program in his interview at D5. I loved my trip to the Apple store in San Francisco and I think that this is a very interesting program. The core idea is that you can sign up for 1 hour blocks of one-on-one training in a number of areas such as digital photography, podcasting, and moviemaking.

The one to one program is something that most companies might have a difficult time pulling off. Apple is uniquely positioned to have a core of technologies and retail locations to offer knowledge and support through scheduled sessions.

Current Drivers of the Future of Education

I am hoping to attend a few sessions of the virtual conference with the title "The Future of Education." First, I am assuming that most of the conference is related to how technology is improving our ability to support and implement educational activities and learning. I'm not sure exactly what they are presenting, but I would probably address the changes in content development, content publishing, and content consumption as drivers in the future of education. I would also talk about how new social networking characteristics of web technology has brought new engagement opportunities to mainstream web users.

Changes in Content Development

The past few years have brought radical change to our ability to create digital content. Software enhancements, increased computer power, and increased broadband have empowered anyone to have the ability to create content and they have done it. The educational community has taken full advantage of these new technologies and have engaged in content creation, however because millions of others have also engaged in creating blogs, videos, and podcasts, there has been an explosion of content on the web. Examples of this explosion are everywhere and in every category. Without digging into the the details, just surf the web and you will encounter the explosion of content creation.

Another key characteristic is content remixing. Because duplication of digital assets is so easy, many people are able to take existing work and adopt it for new context. This will continue to evolve and the remixing of content will become both driven by content creators like educators and trainers and will start to happen dynamically through "mash-ups" within personal learning environments.

Changes in Content Publishing
Two key drivers that have changed the publication of digital content is Really Simple Syndication (RSS). This defacto web standard has allowed web content to transform from a static destination model (visiting a web site) to a dynamic "pull" model that allows content to be published to individuals who choose to read it. By subscribing to an RSS "feed" the learner can have content come to them.

The second change in content publishing is Embedded Scripts. Allowing users to embed HTML-based scripts that will pull content from other sources, like embedding a YouTube video within a blog, has allowed content to be passed around the web through a very simple "cut and paste." The functionality allows the content component to interact or even continue to live with the original site that originally published the content. Slideshare was enabled presentation sharing in this fashion and we will continue to see this model be implemented as a way to embed educational content.

Changes in Content Consumption
Another area that is currently changing is that of content consumption. Learners are now pulling feeds of information and content through aggregators like Google Reader to quickly scan content throughout the day. This new approach allows learners to filter information quickly and gain many varied perspectives on a single topic. This has also changed the way the content is managed and used. Content is now quickly archived and stored for later retrieval and detailed analysis. Learners have come to trust that content will come from a variety of sources and evolve over time. This new model has also changed views on accuracy and authority, increasing the importance of skills such as critical thinking and rapid decision making.

The Social Web
While from the beginning the web as been a social phenomenon, new techniques and technologies have continued to enable increasingly engaging interaction among learners on the web. In my experience, improvements in Instant Messaging and email (through Gmail) have been significant drivers, and now applications are starting to build collaboration into them to allow teams to work in realtime on tasking and content development. The creation of social bookmarking services and online communities that allow for groups to collaborate asynchronously and tag, review, and share content have also driven increased interaction. Now, new services that apply analysis and feedback within the social networking tools have added additional opportunity to engage on the Internet.

The Future
With these drivers I think the future holds some interesting things for education. The creation of learning content will become very collaborative, dynamic, and innovative. Content will come from everywhere and everything and there will be new tools for personalization. Social networks will emerge as a leading filter of learning content. The educator's role will become increasingly more about assessment and evaluation and they will serve as mavens within the social networks. These leading educators will have a much greater influence on a much larger audience, while educators, along with experts within knowledge domains, unwilling to engage online will become less and less relevant.

It will be interesting times.

Instructional Video for Google Search

Check out this really interesting video on improving your ability to search within Google. It really works and I think the model for teaching is really interesting.

Two Views of Marriott Blog from Long Time Bloggers

When Robert Scoble of PodTech, formerly of Microsoft posted about Bill Marriott's blog post praising education, I had to take note. It seems to me that Jay Cross of the learning world posted about Bill Marriott as well. Jay's initial reaction to the blog.

Your blog is not authentic. For shame. The comments to your firstposting are ludicrous. It’s odd that your comments are writiten infully formed, grammatically correct sentences. And they all appear tocome from Americans. And that they throw only soft punches.

The timing of comment submissions more or less prove they are fake.You first posting is dated 12:01 am, January 16. Comments are dated:

16/01/2007 6:31:14 AM

16/01/2007 7:30:50 AM

16/01/2007 8:21:00 AM

16/01/2007 9:53:15 AM

16/01/2007 10:25:51 AM

16/01/2007 10:32:09 AM

16/01/2007 10:36:45 AM

16/01/2007 10:50:21 AM

16/01/2007 10:52:20 AM

16/01/2007 11:00:02 AM

16/01/2007 11:37:38 AM

16/01/2007 12:06:04 PM

16/01/2007 12:29:08 PM

16/01/2007 12:42:43 PM

16/01/2007 12:59:47 PM

No, Bill, the world doesn’t work this way. As Steve Jobs has famously said, “Life is random.”

You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool someof the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all of the peopleall of the time. Was your first comment really made by someone named Abraham Lincoln?

Scoble's Comments

You might have heard about Marriott. The hotel chain. It all happened because a kid went to college and gotenough confidence to try something new, Bill Marriott wrote on his blog.

Every day I’m thankful that my dad went to college at a communitycollege in New York (on the GI Bill), later got a PhD from Rutgers, andgot moved to Silicon Valley to work at Ampex. Everytime I pass theAmpex sign I thank them cause without that I wouldn’t have been in themiddle of the tech industry.

Marriott’s blog is really good, by the way, and I thank James Governor for bringing this post to my attention. The other post that James brought to our attention made a tear come to my eye.

A great corporate blog points the light toward other people. Subscribed!

The great thing about the internet, many views but You decide.

Jon Udell has been Focused on Education

Jon Udell has been focused on education and has produced some great ideas and information about on-demand education. This is an area that I have thought a lot about, here in my blog. There really is a need to better pull together the supply side (training content) and the demand side (people who want to learn certain things).

In the public education arena, we need to "mash-up" of content objectives from the classroom (West Virginia calls the Content Standards and Objectives), teachers lessons (like MathCasts.org, or audio lectures or just comments on how to teach 9th grade Algebra), and the learner profiles/portfolios (along with other stakeholders - the parents). This would/will really provide an incredible support network that will allow for common language, understanding, and feeback loop that just doesn't exist in today's K12 education.

We have also thought about this concept of the professional side. The company I work for has created a new web application that brings together demand and supply, in a totally learner-centric model. It is called LearningFlow. We have just made it available and we are looking for early adopters to give us feedback.

I think there is a lot of thought going on and applications are starting to emerge. On-demand education is not far away.


[on-demand education]

Setting in Education

I have been reading a book from the Disney Institute which discusses the great lengths at which Disney goes to provide incredible service. One issue discussed is "setting". I think we may really overlook setting in education or at least take it for granted. In my training as an elementary school teacher we would spend long hours laboring of bulletin boards and murals that would add color and interactivity to our classroom. It might be interesting to consider how this translates to elearning. I think that if we consider the setting of the training it would probably enhance the context of the content being presented.

This could shoot off in so many different directions, including how the content is presented in a module, can the setting be described or shown through a series of images or is that really the setting. Must we consider that people will have total control of the setting, accessing the content in a living room, on a plane, or at a public library. There are many issues to consider, but as we build learning opportunities it is something to consider.

Clark Aldrich addresses this in is books explaining that as developers of content we must understand that the interface is the learning environment (I'm not sure exactly how he explained it, but he references the importance the gaming industry has placed on the user interface). We should probably consider this a training issue as well.