It’s Literacy, Not Technology

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This post originally appeared on eTech Ohio’s eTech Connect Blog.  eTech Ohio has played a fundamental role in my growth as a connected educator, and I really hope that our state administrators will come to see the value of the work they do and give it the financial and institutional support it needs.  A link to the the original post can be found here, and please be sure to check out the other great posts at eTech Connect.  
 

“Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the 21st century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies.”

These opening lines of The NCTE’s Definition of 21st Century Literacies provide a framework by which we can understand the real and immediate need that confronts every educator teaching today.  We need to become literate.  All of us.  Now.

Nobody ever argues about the need for literacy.  It’s odd, isn’t it?  The need for literacy is a universal given.  I’m sure literacy is one of the main goals of every learning institution in the world.  I bet even the staunchest opponent of technology would agree that literacy is fundamental to learning.  We love literacy because we believe that through communication we can come to learn about and understand our world and each other.

According to the NCTE, “Active, successful participants in this 21st century global society must be able to:

  • Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology;
  • Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;
  • Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;
  • Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information;
  • Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts;
  • Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.”

If we were to take an honest look at this list, and not apply it to our students but our educators and administrators, I’m not sure that we’d fully qualify as being literate ourselves.  And if we’re not literate, how can we expect to teach and support literacy?  Is this our fault?  Are we to blame?

Luckily, and for everyone, no.  It is not our fault; we are not to blame, and our illiteracy is only to be expected.  The relatively sudden emergence of the internet and digital technology has shifted the worldwide landscape so significantly that everyone on earth is scrambling to explore the new potential for learning, communication, and teaching that seems to grow exponentially every year.  Wikipedia has only been around for 12 years,  Facebook nine, and Twitter seven.  Smart phones have been in existence a whopping six years, and the iPad wasn’t a thing four years ago.  The landscape of literacy has shifted beneath the feet of the world, and we have been thrust into an age of exploration in regards to the tools of learning and communication.  This happened to everyone in the world at once, and educators bear the dual weight of not only having to  learn these new literacies, but figure out how to teach at the same time.

It’s a shame that the zenith of the data-obsessed accountability movement coincides with a tremendous need to shift education in light of the new requirements of literacy.  In an age that demands exploration and a culture that supports such exploration, we now find ourselves in an unprecedented system of measurement.  We suffer from maintaining a hierarchical institution in a time of massive networking and new models for learning and communication.  Those educators who have already begun to explore our new digital tools and connectivity are reporting back wondrous things, yet, as in all early efforts at exploration, there are too few willing to push into new frontiers, too few resources devoted to mount the expedition, and too little attention being paid to the drastic need for innovation if we are to achieve the goal of a literate society.In closing, I’d like to revisit the bullet-pointed list above and offer a few suggestions as to how we might begin to achieve the level of literacy that will empower our teachers in service of our students and communities.

“Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology”

The first thing we need is the tools.  Too many of us have yet to gain reliable access to connected teaching and learning.  We need to work with policy makers, board members, faculties, and parents to prioritize access to 21st Century tools.  As for developing proficiency and fluency, once we have the tools, we need to use them, and the best use for literacy tools is conversation.

“Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought”

Before we do this with the kids, let’s make sure we’re doing it amongst ourselves.  Connected teachers quickly find that being involved in a community of teachers who are all fellow explorers on our new literary landscape is a powerful experience.  There are whole communities of educators who are building these connections and relationships, as well sharing what they are learning along the way.  This Pinterest board, from Eric Sheninger is a great on-ramp for anyone looking to begin.

“Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes”

We have an unprecedented capability to reach an infinite variety of audiences, and it would greatly benefit our education system if we would participate in the open-source sharing of content and products of learning.  Our school districts should be engaging our communities, both local and global.  We should be forming new partnerships, launching new projects, and participating in the development of our profession and professional organizations.

“Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information”

This is a tough one.  It’s very intimidating to be faced with all of this wide open space and all of these new tools and know where to begin.  I’m a big believer that this kind of learning is empirical.  We all know some basics.  We know email, Office, most of us are on Facebook, we’ve all used Google at some point.  That’s actually not a bad foundation.  I’ve probably learned the most from Twitter.  You can dive right in, or start with a blog post like this.

“Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts”

There’s a big difference between this and this.  As learners of a new literacy, it’s important to engage in the various forms.  This, too, takes time.  It would be helpful if our professional development time could be devoted to learning these new literacies with a more 21st century approach.  Teacher’s don’t like the sit-and-get any more than the students do.  Teachers need to be trusted and supported in their exploration of these new literacies.  There’s a lot to learn, and our educators would surely appreciate a bit of differentiated and individualized instruction.

“Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments”

This is the one that scares us the most, and rightfully so.  In an environment as open as the internet, we, like all people, are having to negotiate a very complex set of new identities, relationships, and rules.  Much of it is confusing, some of it is burdensome, and we feel a need to tread carefully.  It would be great if we could work towards outlining very clear agreements between labor associations and school boards that define acceptable and ethical participation in these complex learning environments.  This probably involves getting the lawyers together, but it’s something that would help.

Let’s admit we’re learning.  Let’s not only admit it.  Let’s insist on it.  Let’s get belligerently honest about how quickly the world became connected, and then get good at it.

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5 Thoughts on Education’s Hierarchy In An Age of Networks

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CC Some rights reserved by flickr user opensourceway

CC Some rights reserved by flickr user opensourceway

Institutional hierarchy, particularly in the field of education, is a structural model that fails to support teaching and learning in a networked age.  Many of the problems that plague our institutions stem from an inability to identify, engage, and benefit from the capacity and ease of digital and physical connectivity.  As an educator at the bottom of our system’s hierarchy, I’d like to share the limitations of that structure from my perspective, and offer a framework by which we may more fully realize the possibility and potential at our fingertips.

#1 The Wizard of Oz Problem

There’s a fundamental flaw with the basic way we do business in education, and it’s the cause of many of our other problems.  At the very end of education’s content/skill machine is a teacher in a classroom with the door closed.  All of the implementation initiatives, all of the roll outs, all of the professional development boils down to that single point of contact, and everyone is pretty much in the dark, aside from the kids, as to what happens  next.

What intrigues me most is that tons of it is great, and none of us have ever seen it, heard it, or read about it.

Most importantly, and unfortunately due to our institutional model, everyone up the chain has to wait in anticipation for some evidence as to whether things have worked or not.  And since the hierarchy has no other way to gain access to information like engagement level, retainment, and application skills, they hunger for numbers because that’s something they can chew on.  Data fuels the machine that is education.

#2 Sharing Is a Resource.

The best examples of connected teaching and learning I’ve seen exist in districts that are  digitally aligned from superintendent down to the students.  Amazing things happen when local educators at all levels start talking directly to one another on their own terms.  Currently, and all too often, networked teachers don’t have administrative support.  Or, conversely, networked administrators struggle to get buy-in on a meaningful level amongst the staff.   This means that what is being gained by some, is not being shared with all.  Sounds pretty lefty, right?  The difference is that online, when one teacher shares a rubric, they don’t run out of rubrics.  Scarcity isn’t a thing online.  Our connectivity is an abundant resource that can only be fully realized when the whole hierarchy joins the network.

#3  I Have a Noon on the Sixteenth.

The upper end of the hierarchy meet a whole bunch.  That’s why they have assistants.  They’re always having meetings because the upper parts of the pyramid are designed to be a network.  They are smart people who know a great deal about how education works, but not if the education is working.  They mainly only deal with one another.  No kids are involved, well, hardly ever.

#4 Messages in Broken Bottles

On the lower end of the pyramid, we have teachers stranded on islands.  They rarely meet.  However, there are kids everywhere.  If we’re talking about teaching the kids, (that’s the mission, right?), there’s only one real point of contact.  The teachers have all of the information, but no voice in the meetings at the top (unless as a labor rep, usually).  Therefore, education is a sieve.  We have all of this institutional knowledge at the teacher level, all of this real data about teaching and learning, and we let it drive away at 3 o’clock when the teachers hit the highways for home.

#5 Why I Like #ohedchat .

We should be considering the possibility that the real shift in education is at least as much connectivity as content.  The upper end of the pyramid, well-meaning people, are trying to get us the tools and acquire (buy) the content they think the bottom end needs.  They’re mainly guessing, and though well-intentioned, every teacher knows a roll-out of someone else’s miracle fix when they see it.  But if we are connected, educators making full use of the most expansive shift in communication ever seen, we can very easily, and inexpensively, have our voices heard.  I regularly talk to teachers and administrators at all levels of the pyramid, and we have great conversations.  A network isn’t a hierarchy, it’s a meritocracy.  The best voices in education are fewer key strokes away than it takes most of us to log-in to our email.  Many of those voices are teachers, and for the first time in the history of education, the point of contact extends well beyond an audience of one.  There’s a whole bunch of excellent administrators online that are redefining educational leadership, and they are discovering how easy it is to share the good things happening in our schools everyday.

Let’s leverage our new ability to talk directly to one another and let’s quit the telephone game of best intentions.

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The One WikiSeat Documentary Post To Rule Them All

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The WikiSeat Project 2013 is nearly finished, with only our gallery night at The Beck Center for the Arts left to go, and I’d like to share what I’ve been looking at for the past week.  I asked the students to document their process and present what they learned in any digital and visual format they’d like. I didn’t provide much scaffolding, or any examples for them to follow, as I just wanted to see what the students came up with on their own. Like with any project, there were successes, failures, and lessons learned for next time.  I think, though, what my students have to say for themselves and their learning is powerful and speaks to the dignity with which they approached the whole project. There’s a goldmine of awesomeness here for anyone willing to dig through it.   As a teacher, I really appreciate all that I am learning about what assessment really means.  It’s more in the observation than the measurement. – Sean 

Abigail X. / Adam F. / Adrianna L. / Airren R. / Alex M. / Angel G. / Ashley P. / Augustine S. Catherine K. / Chad G. / Connor E. / Darrian H. / Desmond R. / D’Nautica D. / Emily K. Eric W. / Ghadeer D. / Grace D. / Hailey J. / Haris H. / Ian D. / Jack M. / Jaime P. / Jesse R. / Jordan F. / Joe Y. / Kaitlin K. / Katya T. / Kristina K. / Kyle M. / Marriyam I. / Matthew G. / Mercedes L. / Michael J. / Monica T. / Morgan R. / Nathaniel M. / Parker K. / Rachel K. / Rachelle M. / Raney P. / Samar S. / Sara T. / Sarah S. / Sierra H. / Sommer W. / Tera R. / Tommy T. / Victor S. / Viktor K. / Xavier P. / Yacoub H.

(If you are one of my students and do not see your documentary here, it is because there was either a format or link problem.  Please contact me on Moodle about this, as I’d love to feature your work here with the work of everyone else.  Thanks. – Mr. W)

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The WikiSeat Project: A Student Shares Her Mistakes

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The students have been making their WikiSeats at home for the past three weeks.  They are blogging about their experiences and documenting their process via twitter and other social networks.  Each student is building a WikiSeat to solve a problem that they identified over a month ago, and they are in their final days before the due date.  In writing the following post, Alexis is not only showing us the valuable things she is learning, she is also sharing a story about relationships, and how they help us to grow as well.  Her story is one of many I’m hearing from my students.  Thank you for taking the time to read her work and for checking out her blog, Accept the Challenge.

Mistakes – by Alexis Hubany

When thinking about how I was going to build my WikiSeat it seemed so simple and easy. It was not what I expected. When we started working on it we thought we had it and the catalyst was attached to three wooden legs. We placed it on the seat but it didn’t fit, so we tried again. This time it was crooked. We had at least three different sets of holes drilled into each leg. We cut some of each leg off to see if that would help. It did. We then completed getting the legs attached to the chair. We messed up quite a lot in just this one process, but I learned from it. I learned that measuring the wood and where to drill the hole is key in this process. I also became closer to my dad and grandpa. We laughed and made jokes about messing up because we knew, we had hope, that we would figure it out. We did. Who knew that mistakes could bring you closer to the people you love?

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An Audience of One

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Some rights reserved by absoblogginlutely

Some rights reserved by absoblogginlutely

Everybody who has ever been on stage loves a packed house.  As a recovering theater freak, I can still clearly recall opening night of my first show peeking out from behind the stage curtains ten minutes before the stage manager called “places”, taking in the pre-show buzz of a crowd anticipating the moment when the lights dimmed and what can only be described as some kind of magic started.  Knowing that there was an audience of people waiting to see something that my friends and I had worked at for weeks was one of the greatest thrills, and most terrifying moments, of my entire life.

And if you’ve ever performed the Sunday matinee, “the blue hair show”, to a mainly empty auditorium, you know very well the difference between being engaged in something incredible and half-hearted performances relying more on habit than passion. Performer’s instinctively know their own law of inverse proportion: It’s doubly hard to win over half an audience.

And then there’s the actor’s worst nightmare, the one we all dream at night during production week, waking up in cold sweats and a deep need for some kind of approval from who cares where.  What if only one person showed up?  What if that curtain lifted and all that was there was my 8th grade teacher, the one who didn’t learn my name until 2nd semester?  In my dreams it’s always that teacher, and it always winds up a nightmare.

Wake up.  Our classrooms could be filled with students performing for real audiences.  In a sense, the internet is a packed house, always there to be won over, impressed, and engaged.  I’ve quit being an audience of one for my students’ work.  My students publish directly to the whole world, to the biggest audience that anyone would have ever dare imagined, and they are giving the performance of their lives.

I am so proud of the way that my students are performing right now.  I have the director’s role in this production, so I’m getting to see all the work, warts and all.  I’m watching students toil over a sentence, grasp for the best word, the best phrasing, in their writing.  They surprise me with their talent and inspire me in their struggles.  And so much of what they are doing, they are doing as an actual performance for not only me, but all of you.

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The WikiSeat Project: Dear Family

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Sketch by Chad Goff

Sketch by Viktor Koromyslichenko

Dear Family,

Thank you for taking a few minutes to learn a bit more about The WikiSeat Project.  I’m sure you are wondering what building a chair has to do with studying American Literature, and why in the world I would send students home with hunks of angle-iron and the assignment to build a chair during the next three weeks.  I’d like to provide a bit of explanation, and ask for your assistance in helping your student do their very best on the project.

On one level, this project is asking your student to show mastery of the skills and standards put forth in The 10th Grade Common Core Language Arts Standards.  Your student is reading and analyzing Ralph Waldo Emerson’s The American Scholar and Self-Reliance.  These texts, foundational in their cultural significance, examine the themes of individuality and learning.  Your students are writing responses to these texts on their class blogs, but as importantly, they are finding that these literary works have resonance in their lives.

I’m asking your student to build a chair because none of them have ever done it before.  It’s one thing to study what other people, like Emerson, have learned.  It’s quite another to be put in a situation that requires one to learn how to learn, and to do so with a spirit of confidence in their individuality and ability to overcome obstacles and constraints.  In building the WikiSeat, your student is acquiring valuable skills that can’t be measured on a multiple-choice test, but are crucial to success in college, work, and life.  Your student is learning how to identify problems and examine them closely, imagine possible solutions, prototype, make a working product, and share the results of their work with others.  Along the way they will encounter frustration and failure, and hopefully increase their tenacity and perseverance.  But at the end, when your student stands in an art gallery explaining everything they learned to everyone gathered to see their work, these students will have been transformed by the experience.

These next three weeks are going to be interesting, as the students have to figure out how to design and build an object that solves an actual problem that they’ve identified.  Please know that it’s fine to help your student, and that I encourage co-operation with the student’s entire network of available help, just so long as the student remains at the center of the learning experience, doing and making something of their own.  I’ve also asked that the students be extra mindful of using what is around them and available as far as materials go, and that they should not spend much money, if any, on materials.  This isn’t about what we buy, but what we make from what we have.

Thank you so much for your understanding, and for supporting my efforts to bring your student an engaging, relevant, and meaningful public school education.  As always, feel free to email me at school with any questions or concerns.

Sean Wheeler

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The WikiSeat Project: A Student Discusses Beliefs and Intentions

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individuality chairs

Image by Flickr user stephanielfry

The students and I spent two days going through sections of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s, “Self-Reliance”.  These were also the last two days of class before the students left the classroom, Catalysts in hand, to actually start building their WikiSeats.  At this point in teaching the project, I wanted to see if my students could see any application of Emerson’s text to their thoughts heading into their separate maker spaces at home and in the community.  I asked them to write a manifesto, a statement of beliefs and intentions.  The students were to analyze the ideas that Emerson put forth in the essay, discuss their own ideas about Emerson’s assertions, and theorize as to how these beliefs will influence their intentions as they begin making.  This is what Sommer, one of our students, had to say in her blog. – Sean Wheeler

WikiSeat Manifesto

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;”

I’ve always envied people, everyone has, but I’ve never realized how foolish it is to want to be someone other than yourself.  Everyone has their weaknesses and their strengths because everyone is so different. You can’t go around longing to be someone else just because you think somehow they have it better than you. After all, everyone has something they have to deal with everyday. Just because you can’t physically see it doesn’t mean their problems don’t exist. When we were reading Emerson’s Self Reliance I was affected deeply by the meaning of the text because it finally hit me that wanting to be someone else or trying to be someone else is only hurting yourself.

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude…”

It’s easy to follow the crowd and blend in with everyone around you, instead of being who you truly are and showing people your individualism. Everyone struggles with fitting in and trying to please people. That’s the way society is, it’s very demanding about how you should and shouldn’t be. Emerson was trying to say that the “great man” is one who does not follow the crowd and fall into the pressures of society but, in fact, stands out and continues to be themselves as they would if they were alone.  Sometimes people think it might just be easier to do what everyone else is doing because they don’t want to get ridiculed or teased, but if you are truly a great person, you would just forget the “sour faces” and continue to be you. Emerson was saying that to be different from the norm is to be misunderstood and that just because you’re misunderstood, doesn’t mean you’re not great. “Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

While I’m constructing my WikiSeat, I plan on using Emerson’s principles to help me along the way. I’m making my chair to solve a problem, my problem. I’m not going to waste my time worrying about other people’s problems or trying to compare to other people’s problems, because my problems are the ones I need to solve. I need to worry about my own problems and constraints and grow from there. I’m not going to compare my chair to other people’s or wish that my chair could have came out like theirs did because my chair is going to be an individual just like me and it’s going to stand out. I’m not going to try to imitate other people’s chairs because then, in fact, I will be, metaphorically speaking, killing my chair because it won’t be an original idea from me. I’m not going to let people’s rude or displeased comments effect me because I don’t want my chair to be like anyone’s. I want it to be a symbol of my independence. If people do not like my chair, it’s only because they don’t understand it, and “to be great is to be misunderstood.”

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