http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn SusanEinhorn's Blog in XML! http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=766 We at AALF have from our organizational start been guided by Professor Seymour Papert’s (considered by many as the ‘father of educational computing’) visions of learning in a technology rich world. Among these are that computers are not just for adult researchers but are the ‘children’s machine’ an idea that has been so thoroughly adopted, at least outside of schools, that it seems almost obvious (think of the popularity of the ‘digital native’ vs. ‘digital immigrant’ meme) Of course, Professor Papert didn’t predict it being the children’s machine for doing worksheets, but rather for learning in ways not possible before – providing learners with a rich environment that lets them explore and ‘mess around with’ ideas, and create, not just objects, but their understanding of the world. He often wrote and talked about ‘learning to learn’ that metacognitive ability to understand not just what we were studying, but how we approached learning, our strategies, abilities to debug our misconceptions, and new ways we devise to explore previously held beliefs. The use of programming environments, such as Logo, weren’t designed to create coders but to explore big ideas in mathematics by developing both mathematical and computational thinking, the latter an approach used to problem-solve while at the same time exploring the process of one’s own learning. Professor Papert believed the best way these explorations could happen was if students had sufficient access to computers – not once a week lab access, or access via a cart available when occasionally schedule, but by each child having his or her own personal, portable computer and anywhere, anytime learning. Professor Papert began working with children and computers in the late 1960’s – yes, almost 50 years ago. Although the term ‘computational thinking’ hadn’t yet been coined, his approach clearly defined it. He shared his vision of a portable ‘children’s machine’ with Alan Kay, who, in 1972 sketched out the Dynabook, very similar looking to many of today’s tablets. Laptops brought the possibility of bringing the vision of each child having a computer of his or her own to reality. The first school to implement 1:1 did so in 1989-90. While there is clearly a growth in the number of 1:1 initiatives, most students still only have limited access to technology. While we wait and debate over giving our students personal, portable, fully functional digital devices or even partially functional devices, the world is changing. Not only is information massively abundant and available in exponentially growing ways but it feels like no field is not being reinterpreted through the lenses created by big data and computational thinking. As schools somewhat cautiously begin to explore how technology connects to whatever discipline we teach, there is an explosion of examples to look to as inspiration. I’m not just talking about disciplines that seem to have a natural connection to technology, like, biology (Biology is the New Software) or chemistry (Chemistry on computers? Nobel Prize goes to scientists who led the way ), but to almost all disciplines that define our future and understanding of the world. For example, data analysis and computational methods are being used to predict insurgencies (Spreadsheets and Global Mayhem), to shape the thinking of journalists (Teaching Journalists to Think Computationally), to explore language and its development (Exhaustive Computer Research Shows Shift in English Language), and to get a new view of the Humanities (Humanities 2.0: Promise, Perils, Predictions). And beyond traditional academic disciplines, the arts are being radically changed by computation and technology – whether it’s architecture (How Technology is Changing Architecture), visual arts (DevArt: Google\'s ambitious project to program a new generation of artists), music (‘Algorave’ Is the Future of Dance Music (If You’re a Nerd) ), and even fashion (New Skins: Computational Design for Fashion Workshop – The Premise and Process behind the Verlan 3D-Printed Dress). As the latter article states, “Computation is now a medium that permeates popular culture.” So, if computation is becoming so key to some many disciplines and our very culture, what can schools do to not just prepare students in the future sense but to reflect this cultural reality? Some schools are beginning to rethink how they teach everything, for example, here’s how one school is linking not just technology but coding to all areas of the curriculum (Coding the Curriculum: How High Schools are Reprogramming Their Curriculum ). You may not be ready to code your curriculum in this way, but there’s a decided need to rethink what we’re teaching and why. Schools need to create learning environments that more accurately reflect our new digital culture as they prepare students for the world beyond school walls. Tue, 04 Oct 2016 15:46:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=916 How long does it take for a new idea to take hold in education? It was 25 years ago – a quarter century– that the first laptop program was started. We’ve talked about the beginning of 1-to-1 in earlier posts – started in one school in Australia – not only at an all girls school, but in those pre-internet days, the girls were spending their time programming (girls & programming – what a promising start). One-to-one spread to about 80 schools across Australia before the idea moved to North America in the mid ‘90’s, where a number of forward thinking schools took what was then a very daring step. With wires strung across classrooms as the internet entered schools, they began to explore new learning opportunities for their students. But, they were the exception, not the rule. One-to-one was seen as a boutique idea, like so many short-lived education fads. Today 1-to-1 is getting to be almost mainstream, with large districts, states, and even whole countries implementing or planning to implement some form of 1-to-1 for their schools and students. So 25 years - is that fast or slow for change? Since ideas don’t develop in a vacuum, it’s hard to gauge. Other changes have strongly influenced and enabled the spread of 1-to-1. The widespread use of cell phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and technology, in general, in all areas of our lives, massive amounts of new content and digital learning materials available, much of it free, social media and the growth of online learning communities, MOOCs, and other forms of collaborative learning have provided both the tools and rationale for ubiquitous technology in schools. They have contributed to the growth of 1-to-1 and the dawning recognition of the potentially significant value for learners to each have at least one device to use for learning at school, at home, virtually. But just having a device is only a start, the baseline for change. Necessary, but change shouldn’t stop there. Schools are only just beginning to explore how technology and its accompanying materials and communities let us rethink education, learning, and the role of school within this new learning environment. One-to-one isn’t and was never just about device deployment. It always is about providing unlimited opportunities for young people to learn anytime, anywhere. So, 25 years and counting as the real potential of 1-to-1 begins to be explored. Mon, 05 Jan 2015 14:37:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=795 When I went to school way, way back in the previous millennium, I would find there pencils, paper, crayons, and everything I needed to do my work. As I got older, sure, I had to bring a binder as well as pens and pencils, but everything else was there for me to use. Flash forward to when my kids first went to school. Someone had figured out a great way for schools to save money – have each child bring in his or her school supplies. Each year, starting from kindergarten, we parents received a list of all the items we needed to send in with our child – from pencils, to notebooks, to markers and glue, to boxes of tissue, hole punches, and cleaning supplies. Was this funding shift celebrated? No way. It was met with sadness and many an article bemoaning the sad state of public school funding now that public school was no longer ‘free’. For too many, ‘free’ public school was beginning to be costly. Funding organizations organized charity drives to collect donated supplies for children who couldn’t afford these ever-growing lists of essentials (and, no one denied that at least some of these items were essential). Yes, many people had pencils and paper at home already, it’s true, but the extensive list of what to bring to school was burdensome, and often incredibly detailed, including things like ‘1 box 184 count Kleenex and ‘Crayola 7 inch pre-sharpened colored pencils - 12 count’. And, although the pencils used at school didn’t impact any larger system or create added work for any technician, the type of pencil was clearly specified. No hard no. 5 pencils, no way. No. 2 Ticonderoga pencils, only, please. Unfortunately, no one coined a cute name for this practice. No catchy sound-bytes. No major BYOS (Bring Your Own Stuff) announcements. Big mistake. Flash forward to today. School supply lists continue to grow; no one is happy. But, then something else gets added. “You have some type of digital device lying around at home? Add it to the school supply list. Oh, you don’t? – come on, every child has some type of digital device in his/her pocket, even if it’s phone-sized. Type of device doesn’t matter as long as it can connect to the internet.” “But,” you ask, ‘If one kid has a Macbook Air and another a phone?” “Doesn’t matter. They’ll work it out (although the kid with the phone usually has more to ‘work out’.) Plus, now the kids have ‘voice and choice’ - they can ‘choose’ to use what they want to use and are already familiar with.” (While in reality, they ‘choose’ what they can afford, even, if given a real choice, they’d select something else.) But - instead of quietly adding this item to the already long supply list, some clever wordsmith decided to give this funding ploy a catchy name - BYOD - and make it a ‘thing.’ Now it’s no longer an old uncomfortable pattern of shifting the funding of certain items to parents, a pattern that we’ve learned to tolerate – it’s now the NEXT BIG THING. Really? Call me old-fashioned, but I’d like to believe that the next big thing will be, I don’t know – a BIG THING, something truly transformative. BYOD, a funding tactic, doesn’t seem to qualify and shouldn’t become an end in itself (or the topic of endless conference sessions). Talk of this ‘big thing’ is distracting too many people from focusing on the bigger, more challenging ideas, like what does all this technology make possible in terms of learning, what are the new roles of educators and students now that technology is permeating every aspect and fiber of our lives, and what does all this mean in terms of the meaning and role of school. Educators need to focus here – no one is better prepared than they to tackle these questions. Work these out and you’ll really have the Next Big Thing. Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:30:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=744 You may not have realized, but a few issues ago we changed the name of the AALF newsletter from One-to-One to the Anytime Anywhere Learning Report. This may not seem like such a huge change to you, but to us, it’s significant. First and foremost, as an organization, AALF has always been focused on rethinking where, when, what, and how our young people are learning and the role of school within their every day, everywhere learning environment. A cornerstone of this anywhere anytime learning is that learners have ubiquitous access to technology. Access - when it’s needed, how it’s needed, where it’s needed - is crucial, but it’s not the goal nor focus. The goal of shifting from the name One-to-One is to remove the emphasis that too often remains focused on the technology. Yes, baseline, students each need ubiquitous access, but the shift isn’t just about putting devices into students’ hands. Too many times one to one initiatives become deployment programs. And, although there’s an understanding teachers need professional development, often this ‘training’ is merely focused on gaining technical skills and an introductory knowledge of the hardware, and the how-to of some software, apps, and the web. The truth is deployment isn’t the end, it’s the beginning, and professional learning must be ongoing and centred on pedagogy and the design of learning in these technology-rich physical and virtual learning environments. If a school’s focus is on creating richer, deeper learning experiences for its students, the selection of the device, while not the most important decision in the implementation process, becomes an easier one. It becomes a decision connected to vision and goals, not a spur of the moment decision based on fads or misinformation. Whatever the device, it must not compromise learning. Each student should have a fully functional, personal portable device. What would this include? Clearly, laptops and some, but not all, tablets. Everything else, at least at this time, may be great as a secondary device, but shouldn’t be the only device. Otherwise, teachers and learners limit their options, making learning compromises based on device capability rather than pedagogical reasons. And, yes, we know, for some, ‘one to one isn’t the case anymore’, it’s two to one, or even three to one. It would be wonderful if this was the case for all students, but it isn’t. If you can supply your students with more than one device, or if they’re lucky enough to have a variety of additional options, Great! But one to one should be recognized as the minimum acceptable level, the baseline. And these devices need to be available not only when students are at school or in a specific class, or at home, or at the library, but 24/7, so they are available when (anytime) and where (anywhere) they are needed for learning. Fortunately, more and more schools are moving to one to one. But, often, an educational vision isn’t driving the decision. Which gets us back to the name change. We’re about learning – anytime, anywhere. Our work is centered on helping schools articulate compelling visions for learning from which they can begin to design learning experiences that aren’t limited by time or place or the numerous other barriers that exist. As Sister Suzanne Cooke says in our video The Compelling Case for Change, “This is always about learning.” Tue, 11 Feb 2014 12:24:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=674 I just returned from the Computer-based Math conference led by Conrad Wolfram. If you haven’t seen his TED talk, you really should check it out. It presents a new way to think about how we teach mathematics in this digital age. One idea that led the conference was that we need to help young people learn mathematics using the tools and learning environments of their time, not those from previous generations. These tools allow us to approach the subject in a very different way. Learners no longer need to learn all the steps and tricks of calculation before they can think mathematically about a question or problem. Computer-based mathematics, or computational mathematics, means we can extend our thinking by having computers handle the calculations – the learner’s task becomes less mechanical, more concept focused. It goes from techniques to big ideas. Yet, though this conference was focused on rethinking mathematics education, there were a number of attendees who confused computer-assisted math, in which the computer makes it easier to do what they’re already doing, with computational mathematics. To paraphrase an analogy Seymour Papert once made, this is like using a jet-engine to speed up a horse-drawn carriage (from Looking at Technology Through School-Colored Spectacles, an article definitely worth reading), rather than to think of travel from a completely new perspective. Not only is the gain in speed limited by the limitations of the carriage, the carriage most likely will explode. A whole new perspective is needed. So, what really are ‘the basics’ of mathematics, those core ideas and skills all people need? Is calculation really the most important skill? I realize that defining ‘the basics’ is not a simple task, but shouldn’t we feel the necessity of doing this in light of the tools that are currently available and that have re-shaped so many aspects of our lives? Skills that were deemed absolutely essential when the tools we had were different may no longer be the skills that are necessary today. As Sugata Mitra asks, how many of us need to know how to ride a horse, once an essential skill. Or to use a slide rule to determine logarithms or even how to really dial a phone. It may once have been important to have human calculators, but it would seem that this role has been usurped by an enormous array of technology. My guess is that we’d find at least some (many?) learners who do not excel at calculating, for whatever reason (eg, not fast or interested enough) who actually are very adept and engaged by mathematical thinking. Perhaps it would be that student who loves the logical challenges of a game or even analyzing the statistics of an issue (whether political or sports related) to predict an outcome, but thinks she is ‘bad’ at math. If we accept that helping learners think mathematically and understand the mathematical information with which we’re inundated regularly, especially with the avalanche of data we’re seeing, what really are ‘the basics’? Is long division more ‘basic’ than recognizing recursive patterns in nature or historical data? And it’s not just mathematics education that needs rethinking. It’s all areas of school and schooling and the role they play in a child’s education and total learning environment. Maybe we need to stop trying to hitch the technology engine to the horse cart of current education. New, ubiquitous technology calls for more than incremental change. Interested in your ideas of what you think today’s ‘basics’ are and how what these would look like in a classroom. Additional Note: For a very different view of what education ‘basics’ are, check out Hackschooling. Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:14:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=633 We hear so much about personalized learning – I even use the term myself, hoping that what I mean is what others understand, but knowing full well it isn’t. Once again, here’s a term that loses all meaning as it’s appropriated by every reform group to describe all types of learning, from providing students with a choice of book to read from a limited selection to letting a student pursue her personal interest in a way she chooses, with guidance from a knowledgeable adult or a learning community. Most of what I read or hear about seems to be very focused on students going through the prescribed curriculum at their own pace – more like personalized pacing than personalized learning. Or students taking one of several prepared paths through a carefully scaffolded, mapped but granular curriculum. So whether you turn right once or turn left three times, you end up facing in the same direction. Is this really ‘personalized learning’? I understand my views may be extreme. But every time I see a child completely engrossed in exploring something that’s puzzling her, something about which she’s curious, something which may never have been part of the required ‘curriculum’ but full of interesting nuances and connections, and I see her generating and asking questions of those in around her or in her extended learning community, experimenting and testing her thinking, meandering through the information and ideas she finds, examining them for relevance and reliability without a test or set of worksheets, stickers, grades or extrinsic rewards of any type, I am awed by this quest. This is what I think of as personalized learning. They are learning all the ‘basics’ of learning, which consists not of a set of facts but of a way of pursuing an idea. When I use the term ‘personalized learning’ when speaking with others, this type of learning quest is what I mean. But I’m pretty sure they think I mean those other definitions and often assure me this is what they are doing or trying to implement. I get the impression our conversation is happening in two different universes. I realize that in the current education system, my definition of personalized learning probably cannot exist as long as we insist on maintaining most components of the system as is. The question is how much are we willing to change? If only a very little, a tweak here, another there, or only one component of what is a large, tightly interconnected system, then nothing really changes at all. The system, in its quest to maintain its equilibrium, readjusts, off-setting one shift with another in the opposite direction to neutralize any systemic threats. Zero-sum, stable, back to calm familiarity. Maybe we need to develop a more precise description, so we can learn from those who truly engage in personalized learning – those outside of the system, who are home-schooled or not yet schooled – and be prepared with that model when the time comes to make it possible. Which means when the time comes that we realize a new system of education is not only necessary but possible. The time when we’re willing to rethink everything about what we mean by learning, education, and the role an institution like school has in this process. With all the learning opportunities ubiquitous access to technology, both in and outside of school, makes possible, that time could be now. Thu, 03 Oct 2013 11:07:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=550 I used to think that once a child turned 4 or 5 years old, she automatically started school. This wasn’t a point of discussion or an option – not only was it compulsory, it was customary, as normal to our culture as breathing is to our bodies. I never questioned it. That was where learning occurred - at least the only learning that counted. As a child, I went off to school every year, obediently, marching from class to class as instructed, trying to be silent, well-behaved, on time, alert. And, when I had children, they did the same. I sent them to school, again, without question, hoping they’d try their hardest and all would go well. I worried about whether or not their teachers would understand them, but, more importantly, whether my children would be able to detect the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) signals of what was expected of them and react appropriately. Now a state senator from Utah is proposing that school no longer be compulsory. State Senator Aaron Osmond has proposed that parents no long should be compelled to send their children to school, that parents have not been assuming enough responsibility for the education of their children, while schools have assumed (by action or default) too much. It’s not that he wants to eliminate schools, just not have them be compulsory as the state re-defines the purpose of school. It would be naïve to believe his motives are not politically driven, but he raises an interesting point. We accept school, subconsciously ascribe certain purposes to it, but rarely stop to question our assumptions or see if schools are, in reality, really designed for these purposes and delivering the anticipated results. This need to question shouldn’t stop there. Too many of us accept the form of school as the essential defining component of the institution. We see its form as intrinsic to the nature of school as the form of our bodies is to our sense of being human. Its form – the same one that existed when my children were in school and when I was a child– seems to be immutable. And although there has been some tinkering around the edges, - breaking down walls, but not changing teaching practice or teaching subjects in their own silos, or adding computers but using them to do worksheets or take multiple choice tests – school in “school form” is what exists in almost all such institutions. There are a few exceptions – THOSE schools, that stand out because they are so different, but they are rare and there’s not a large enough number to serve as models. They are oddities rather than models and too few educators have the opportunity to see what they are doing. What these schools have done is question ALL assumptions about what form school should take. Instead of changing one aspect of school or tweaking another, they’ve looked at what they want to do, what factors and forms are needed to get to this vision, and how each of these connects to the others. It’s as if they asked, if we just invented school today, what would we mean and what would it look like? This is a question I often ask myself and it’s a hard one, since the familiar school form keeps creeping into my thinking. But I admire those schools, such as Hellerup in Denmark, or High Tech High in the USA, that are working so hard to do this. What do you think is the purpose of school? What form best suits that purpose? Tue, 30 Jul 2013 13:54:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=507 Here in Canada, it’s graduation time. This year my youngest child graduates from high school. Although no one is asking, especially not my daughter, I am going to take this opportunity to give her some advice as this phase of her life ends and a new one begins. Dear Madison, I know this is an important day for you, one that you are eagerly awaiting. Although the world isn’t going to radically change the day after you get your diploma, you may find it will still take a little time to get your ‘sea legs’. As you make that transition, I’ve come up with a few words of advice that I hope will help you as you move into adulthood. Here they are: Don’t be compliant. Don’t stand silently in lines. Don’t wait for a ringing bell to tell you to drop whatever you’re doing and move to the next activity. Don’t only answer someone else’s questions. Don’t get all your information from a text book. Don’t expect your work to be evaluated by multiple choice tests. Don’t think that all knowledge consists of a few facts per topic. Don’t judge others based on how they rank on a scorecard. Don’t judge yourself based on one quick snapshot taken one day. Don’t spend all day, every day, in one room or one building. Don’t be timid. Don’t turn off your cell phone. Don’t close your screen. Don’t firewall tools that let you link to others in new ways. Don’t just consume. Don’t sit quietly, not looking at your neighbor. Don’t not share. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Don’t only look at the front of the room. Don’t wait for my response to figure out if you’re right about something. Don’t say what you think I want to hear. Don’t memorize. Be bold. Make noise. Ask questions. Move around. Look for new things that you find interesting. Give yourself time to explore new (and old) passions. Speak up. Question rules and policies if they seem wrong, unjust. Look at something from a new perspective. Seek diverse sources of information. Find your own facts. Mingle with people who are older/younger than you. Dig deeper. Go out, explore the world. Keep learning. Break some rules. Find knowledge in new places, new people. Look for and accept feedback that helps you grow. Learn when to listen and when to speak, and remember to do both. You have a voice. Make mistakes and learn from them. Explore subjects you’ve never heard of before. Talk to others. Collaborate. Value effort. Create something new. Pass notes. Dare, push yourself to try something new. Daydream. Trust in yourself. Say what you believe. Leave your room, your building. Snapchat. Tweet. Travel. Build an app or a treehouse with real tools. Know that what you do matters. Keep learning, anytime, anywhere. Wed, 29 May 2013 15:06:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=109 Economics and economic well-being constantly see-saw – one day you’re on the top of the world and then some bubble bursts or there’s a market ‘correction’ and suddenly, whoosh - everything begins to plunge. Technology changes so rapidly that the minute you buy the latest and greatest something, it’s out-of-date and the next, newest, best thing is already on the market. Our sense of place in the world can change rapidly, too– sometimes so suddenly that within an instant we see the sharp demarcation separating the “us” that existed before and the one that exists now. Change in schools, on the other hand, moves at a much different pace. At a frustratingly slow pace. More an edit than a change, a bit of tweaking here, a minor improvement there. Maybe that’s reassuring. While everything around us shifts, recreates itself, or is ‘revolutionized’, we can always count on school to be familiar, just how we remembered it. Of course, this is a bit of an exaggeration – schools have and continue to modify themselves. But too much of this is merely tinkering around the edges, not change so much as enhancements and adjustments. We keep layering on new, somewhat improved, ways of doing the same old things. It’s kind of like the evolution of an old sod shack. Starting out as the only home that someone could afford to build, each new generation added on something - another room, another floor, an extension, a fix for some problem in one corner, a different one in another. Some of these changes were fundamentally necessary (a wood roof rather than a sod one, glass windows) and clearly improved the lot of all those within. But many of the added rooms, or pipes or systems, became totally useless/out-dated, were locked off, boarded up. Patched to allow this or that new functionality to be added, too big for its original foundation, the old sod shack soon becomes both costly and ugly and less a home than a relic. I’m not saying that school has reached this point just yet, but we need to be smart enough to know when something is worth further tweaking or if it’s time to start anew. And we don’t have to wait until the building collapses before we give up the old shack for something that will better suit our needs and expectations today and for our future. The trouble is, when a school does try to make a change, the push back from the parents, the community, and the media can be enormous. It seems that change is constant – as long as it doesn’t enter our schools. Take for example, the district in Oregon that has gone to a 4-day school week. (Not a massive change, more like a tweak, but it is a break from the old scheduling standards.) The students get the same number of hours in school as they did before (with the mistaken assumption that the number of hours is directly proportional to the amount and quality of learning, but that’s another discussion). The fifth day of the workweek is used for the teachers to meet and plan and work together to teach better in order to improve learning. Sounds good, right? So why did this story make the national news? It wasn’t because the newscasters were lauding the school’s efforts – most people interviewed were concerned or upset. (“Well,” harumphed one commentator to the school principal when told the teachers would be working together on the fifth day, “school isn’t for the teachers!” “No,” the wise principal responded, “it’s for the students - we’re trying to do a better job for them.”) No, it was because most people, complain as they may about the state of education and schools today, do not want them to change. Whether from fear, lack of knowledge, or just plain nostalgia, they constantly block new ideas and create barriers. True, there are issues to take care of and questions to answer, but change needs to start somewhere. Problems can be solved and questions answered. More importantly, we must work to overcome our wariness and avoidance of school change. We need to keep our vision and goal in mind and provide all children with the opportunities to be engaged, self-directed, and passionate learners. And we need to communicate a positive message to the media and our communities that change in the pursuit of these goals is essential. After all, we can’t live in the sod shack forever. The question I get asked most often when talking about re-imagining learning and schools is what schools are truly transforming the learning experience for students and exemplify the schools we imagine for the 21st century. Do you work at or know of one? If yes, please let us know about it so we can share this information with the AALF community. Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:20:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=415 So many teachers say they would use technology more often, differently in a more transformative way if only......If only they had more PD, more support, more money, more evidence of its value, more time, more time, and more time. I\'m sure this list isn\'t exhaustive. So, I\'ve been asking educators to let me know what conditions did or should their schools or districts provide that would enable them to really make transformative change? On a recent school visit, I spoke with a teacher who would be an excellent teacher with or without technology, but she wouldn\'t think of teaching without technology because of the abundant learning opportunities technology, and particularly 1:1, makes possible. Her students use their laptops to access primary source materials, reams of data, opinion pieces, etc. With their laptops, they are able to access the same information and materials that professionals in the field use. What\'s more, they don\'t simply use this material to answer a series of teacher or curriculum dictated questions, but to build case studies and develop informed opinions so they can go out into the world and know that they are not only prepared to knowledgeably impact the world today but also help shape the world in which they will be living long after many of us are gone. When I asked this teacher what conditions she considered essential, she first and foremost said the school allowed her to *take risks and make mistakes.* To continue to try new ways to really stretch what she\'s doing to create a deeper,richer learning environment. This doesn\'t mean the school has given her a license to do something absurd, with no link to pedagogical best practice. Rather, she\'s able to explore new ways to apply best practices to meet her goals. And if something doesn\'t turn out perfectly the first time she tries it, she isn\'t told to stop, but rather given the space to analyze what worked and what didn\'t in order to learn and grow from the experience. Her goal is always to make more and better learning opportunities available to her students (A further note: her students were so engrossed in their work, they didn\'t leave when the class was over. The teacher had to hurry them out finally so they wouldn\'t be late for their next class.) So, her essential condition was being allowed to take risks in terms of her teaching practice. When we spoke to the school principal and asked her the same question, she responded the same way. She recognized the importance of letting the teacher try new, pedagogically sound practices and explore the possibilities. So support from the school leader was also present, providing another key condition. So, what are your essential conditions? Were there conditions you would add to my list? Why do you consider them essential? How would they help bring about truly transformative change? And, finally, how can you articulate your needs to help put in place the conditions you need to explore how you can make these learning opportunities possible? I look forward to hearing from you! Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:04:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=346 I have to thank a friend of mine, Peter Skillen, for recommending the book Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, by Douglas Rushkoff. Anyone who knows me knows that I worked for over two decades at LCSI, the company started by Seymour Papert that developed numerous versions of the Logo computer language. I’m a big supporter of children learning some form of programming - I myself found it incredibly empowering to be able to really ‘own’ my computer experience by building programs on the computer that came from my imagination and interests. It gave me a DIY/maker sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. So I was very interested when I saw the book title. Rushkoff begins by suggesting that when any new technology is introduced, there’s usually only a small elite group that takes advantage of all the opportunities the technology makes possible, while most others merely are catching up with the previous ‘big thing’. When the alphabet was invented, most people became listeners, although they could have become readers. Instead, they were read to by the elite few - the readers. With the invention of the printing press, people became readers (catching up), while, once again, an elite group took full advantage of the technology and became writers. Now, with digital technologies, many people are becoming writers, even though the technology enables so much more. It provides those willing to learn, the means to create the programs to which others respond and which, ultimately, shape our behaviors. Once again, only a small group, the technological elite, is taking advantage of the full potential of these new technologies. Those who don’t program or understand the programming behind the applications of these technologies become merely nodes in the knowledge network of the technologically literate and, because of the nature of computers, of the technologies themselves. In spite of its title, my real take-away from the book is that we all need to understand not only the obvious but also the subtle sometimes almost imperceptible ways in which the nature and capabilities of our technology choices sculpt our behavior. Whether it’s by reducing everything to either yes or no, on or off, 1 or 0 choices, altering how we listen and consequently learn to hear music once it\'s no longer analog but only digital, or how our devices begin to act as intermediaries when we interact with each other whether in another country or sitting next to us at the table, the slight shifts created by technology, over time, develop into fundamental changes. Some of these are good, some more questionable, but all are moving forward in a seemingly unstoppable trajectory. According to Rushkoff, programmers don’t necessarily have the power to predict the future, but they at least have an understanding of how the programs that are shaping our thinking operate. Programmer or not, it\'s crucial to be aware of the fact that all apps are programmed and that programming means conforming to certain rules, formats, and limitations. It’s only through understanding these constraints that we may be able to make informed choices about what we may be willing to give up along the way and what we need or want to save. As I read this book, I was reminded of a quote I recently came across, “Smartphones are for snacking, tablets are for dining, and laptops are for cooking.” (Unfortunately, I lost the source of this quotation, so if anyone is aware of its author, please let me know.) Do you think this is a fair description? How important do you think the ‘cooking’ part of technology is? Are you ‘cooking’ with your tablet or is it not quite there yet? Are you creating projects limited only by your imagination, not the technology’s capabilities? If technology is already reshaping our behavior, how do our more overt choices of device compound this shift? Is this what we want? Mon, 01 Oct 2012 15:00:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=288 We learn a great deal from what others are doing. In this issue, we are focusing on several 1:1 initiatives in Latin America. Each of the initiatives are large and show a commitment at either the provincial/state or federal levels. There are a number of other examples of commitments to 1:1 at these levels – Australia and the state of Maine are two about which we hear frequently. But even this level of government commitment doesn’t mean implementations are problemfree. As you’ll read in the article summarizing a report from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Peru’s countrywide OLPC initiative has not only met with a number of challenges, but, according to the IDB, there is “little solid evidence regarding the effectiveness of this program.” True, this initiative and many others have run into problems. Were these avoidable? Most likely a number of them were. But they did not occur because there was fault with the idea of 1:1. We – readers and the media – need to separate the discussions of implementing a vision from condemning the vision itself. Some problems were the result of, as IDB calls it, ‘magical thinking’ – the idea that just adding laptops to a school without making other changes automatically changes everything. Some problems may have been the result of not paying enough attention to lessons learned from the many 1:1 initiatives of the last 20 years, which form the basis of planning and implementation frameworks such as AALF’s 21 Steps to 21st Century Learning (Note: an expanded, revised edition of the 21 Steps to 21st Century Learning guidebook will be available from AALF this fall). Some were the result of new, and, too often, buggy hardware and software - perhaps this large scale user testing of the technology should not have been combined with the start of such a large-scale 1:1 initiative. Mistakes were made, but the report and the media coverage of the report seem to point to two additional, and central, problems. First, there’s the question of how to measure success. Is it based on results of standardized testing or are there new measures at which we need look? Although we tend to speak of 21st century skills and new ways to assess these skills, too often the success or failure of an initiative (as reported to the public) is based on the results of standardized tests. Don’t new skills call for new forms of assessment? Clearly, there is a disconnect between the vision and goals for an initiative and how we evaluate it. A second, perhaps more urgent, issue is how information about initiatives is communicated to stakeholders as well as to the world at large. How much of what we read or hear is the real story? Read more deeply into the IDB report (as well as Claudia Urrea’s response to the report) and you’ll see the results aren’t as negative as the headlines would indicate. The initiative has been effective in achieving positive shifts in a number of important areas – reasoning abilities, verbal fluency, and processing speed showed improvement across a variety of assessments. Unfortunately, bad news makes better sound bytes, while successes can seem rather bland. So there’s a real challenge to re-focus media attention on what has been accomplished and what this can mean for the future of students in Peru and others around the world. Yes, there have been problems, but there’s an opportunity to learn from them. That’s what we need to be doing. Wed, 08 Aug 2012 10:52:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=162 A great deal of discussion and work goes into planning a 1:1 initiative. The vision is embraced, funding is found, budgets are developed, a communication plan for the school, parents, and the community is outlined and put into action. Finally, once everyone is on board for the big adventure, the infrastructure is put in place and the support services are ready, each student is given a laptop. End of story. But as I think most, if not all, of us recognize, this isn’t true. Laptop deployment is just the beginning of the story. I’d like to think no one goes into a 1:1 program to do more of the same or even to do a slightly enriched version of the same. Just adding laptops doesn’t automatically create change, especially if the laptops are used sparingly and for mundane tasks. Digital worksheets are still worksheets. One-to-one professional development often begins with examining teaching methodology and exploring how this can be changed in order to begin to include the use of the technology to create a profounder, more engaging, more creative learning experience. This usually includes some focus on new skills around creative and critical thinking, connecting ideas, and communicating and collaborating with a variety of people, ranging from local students to experts from around the world. All these changes mean teachers must now be pedagogical designers, mentors, coaches, evaluators, as well as content-deliverers all the while creating individualized learning opportunities for each and every student. In the meantime, the community, parents, and even the school leadership too often view teachers as first and foremost content-deliverers. It can be difficult to shift your role when all around you people are expecting and even evaluating you based on the old definition of what a teacher should be and do. The pressure to change expressed in a vision statement may be overwhelmed by the pressure NOT to change, based on nostalgic assumptions and expectations of what school should be. So change needs to be managed not just within the school walls, but within the school community and maybe the community at large. I would very much like to hear from you about whether or not you think the role of teachers has changed and, if yes, how? What do you think the main role of a teacher should be? Does your school community and the community at large support any shift in the role of teachers? What is the role of the media in shaping how the community reacts to changes within your schools? Is it supportive? Is it critical? I’m very interested in your thoughts on these questions. Wed, 16 May 2012 11:48:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=125 A current buzzword in education is personalization, connecting learning to students’ interests and even, for some, their passions. We read about the success of a school program here, another there, focused on students exploring big ideas based on the students’ own questions, generated from their curiosity and interests. It’s one thing to read about and intellectually understand why this is important, but is an ‘intellectual understanding’ enough to create changes in attitudes and actions? Wouldn’t it be better to experience this learning yourself? We urge students to develop their interests and passions, we talk about having more passion-based learning environments, we want students to develop meta-cognitive skills about learning how to learn, yet educators don’t have the opportunity or the support to do the same and experience how profound this type of learning is. Unfortunately, with long working days that include afterschool supervision, meetings, grading, reports, etc, teachers have little time to spare for apparent ‘non-essentials’. On top of that is the expectation (with financial enticement) that if they take courses, they should be courses designed to build pedagogical knowledge and make them better teachers. There’s little time left over for teachers to pursue other interests and passions. Therefore, I propose that all teachers be given both the time and financial incentives to take a course in something about which they are passionate, have an interest, or about which they are curious and just beginning to explore (there’s nothing more eye-opening and humbling than learning a new skill as an adult!). Let teachers be learners, too. I once helped run a workshop to demonstrate how Logo (the programming language developed for education), can impact learning. We asked each of the participants to create a project of interest to them. Instead, they all began creating projects designed to teach something – after all, they were there to see how the software could be used in the classroom. When encouraged to create something of interest to them – to think as learners, not teachers, they found this a difficult shift. They worried they would be wasting time wondering how they could understand how to use the software from a teacher’s perspective if they created something not focused on teaching. As the week progressed, we saw a shift as first one, two, then more participants began to create projects of personal interest to them. By the end of the week, instead of talking about how to teach with the software, everyone was chatting about strategies for debugging (problem-solving) and articulating thinking strategies they were used and then applied to multiple challenges. They were thinking about their thinking. The workshop had shifted from one about Logo and teaching to one about learning. So, I would like to strongly urge administrators and policy makers - support your teachers and encourage them to connect their learning to their interests and passions. Then ask them to share their insights on learning with colleagues at team meetings, in PLCs, at pedagogy seminars or during embedded school/district PD and together reflect on the implications for teaching. In my opinion this would be an extremely powerful way for teachers to build their pedagogical knowledge and improve teaching practice. I welcome your thoughts on this idea. Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:16:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=117 I’ve recently taken part in an interesting collaborative effort in which I reviewed a number of articles about schools trying to make fundamental changes in how, where, and for what reason learning happens in their communities. The ones that were most successfully progressing were the ones that took a big picture approach, looking at every aspect of school and community life to understand the role they played and how everything connected and interacted. We all know the expression that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but how often do we tweeze this apart to understand why? Adding laptops here, or a PD course there, are good steps and good parts, but it is the interaction between parts that creates the important added benefits. If there is no connection, no interaction, then you merely have a random assortment of costly programs. What’s worse is that each of these can be a distractor, so that those involved become so caught up in the minutia of each particular program they forget to understand how it links and contributes to the bigger picture. Add to this the very real possibility that some programs may contradict each other or negate their outcomes, and you end up with an end that is much less than the sum of its parts. There are no slackers in a good orchestra – everyone’s role individually is important, but it is the collaborative work that brings about the transformation. Yes, the violin section may be superbly talented and the piano solo breathtaking, but if they are playing in different keys or tempos, all you end up with is ear-splitting cacophony, convincing most audience members that, not only is the orchestra bad, but that the community could spend its limited funds elsewhere. On the other hand, when all programs and participants are working towards the same goal, what results rises above the individual components. In music, when tones of a pure harmonic scale are sounded simultaneously, another harmonic tone is created, a combinational tone. Denny Doherty of the singing group the Mamas and Papas called this the ‘fifth voice’. But it was more than just an additional voice. This harmony transformed the sound of the whole group from four individual voices into one new harmonic voice. Doherty even had a name for this voice - Harvey. (If you don’t know who the Mamas and Papas are, check out their harmony here). So, when it comes to transforming learning in your school, step back and look at the big picture. Don’t just add laptops or send some teachers to a PD session or rearrange the desks in a circle. Take the time - seize the opportunity - to rethink all your ideas of how, where, and when learning should happen. If you think laptops will enable more self-directed learning, than consider what perspective and knowledge the teachers need to have to make this happen, what type of ongoing professional learning will support them, how students should be organized to enable this, what curriculum and content mean in this context, what physical environment is most conducive to this type of learning, how time should be used, etc. Each piece should contribute to your vision and you should be able to articulate how it does. Don’t do what happens so often - get so distracted by one component, that implementing it suddenly becomes your singular goal (Yay, we distributed the laptops! ..or…Look – we’ve created a 21st century room! …..and so on). Always focus on the big picture. In so doing, make it your mission to find Harvey, too. Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:16:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=115 We live in an age of sound bites, elevator pitches, and Powerpoint bullets. And because of this, we live in an age of confusion. No wonder it is so difficult achieving a cohesive vision for learning and teaching or ever hoping to scale it. As soon as we introduce a word that seems to capture the power, the completeness of the change in learning that technology can catalyze, we begin to use it to the point of meaninglessness. As Peter Skillen mentions in his article below, “semantic drift” rears its inevitable head and what seemed clearly defined becomes murky, a catch-all phrase that can easily turn out to mean one thing and its exact opposite at the SAME TIME. An example of that is “reform” – good or bad? Back to basics or not? Does it involve conservation or transformation, or neither? Someone recently pointed out to me that the definition of one-to-one is beginning to change. Is it a laptop per child? Is it a ‘device’ per child (tablet, cell phone, iPod, ebook reader, laptop, terminal)? Does the child use it all day or does the computer belong to a desk in one specific classroom? What seemed so clearly defined twenty years ago – one-to-one - is now much less clear. When you compare the impact of one laptop that each student can use all day at school (and, we hope, outside of school) to the impact of having one eBook reader per student in one classroom, you’re clearly talking apples to oranges. So, what do you mean? Defining the changes we want to see and the goals we want to achieve is not about having a snappy punch line or catchy advertising slogan. We are not Mad (Wo)Men. To ensure understanding, we need to clearly define to all involved what our beliefs, goals, and expectations are, using complete sentences. When we use words such as ‘personalized’, ‘self-directed’, ‘global learner’, ‘online learning’, and “one-to-one” we need to define what that means for us in our context, what we would like students to be doing, what our goals are, and how we will assess both what students are doing and what teachers are doing to guide them. Conveying a clear message may take longer than an elevator ride, but it is worth investing the time and words now to avoid confusion and frustration later. (And, for clarity, when I say one-to-one or 1:1, I mean one laptop per child that s/he can use 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, all year round. To me, that\'s a foundational piece for contemporary learning.) Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:55:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=102 I’ve just finished reading A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown in which the authors describe two types of knowledge: explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is the knowledge that is “easily identified, articulated, transferred, and testable.” In essence, it’s what school is all about. But there is also knowledge that we have about how things work or what we know about a situation that we often cannot put into words. This they refer to as tacit knowledge (based on work by Michael Polanyi in The Tacit Dimension)– it is part and product of our experiences, but rarely articulated and never really assessed. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that doesn’t (or rarely) changes. Schools were based on transmitting this knowledge because much of it was deemed important, there’s lots of it and schools provided the time and place to pass it on, and, importantly, other means of being exposed to this knowledge were once very limited. Schools gave all children the opportunity to be exposed to what was considered the essential knowledge to be a productive participant in society. In the 21st century, a time of constant and rapid change, the authors argue, the focus is on tacit knowledge. It’s learning by doing, experiencing, not by listening to someone or reading about how to do something. Unlike explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge is not transferrable. It’s something that comes from each of us and our experiences in the world, through actions, our senses, our physical interactions. It is, as Thomas and Seely Brown state, “not about being taught knowledge; it is about absorbing it” through our mind, our bodies, our senses. What does that mean about schools as they currently exist? First, no one is saying schools should not still transmit explicit knowledge. But, they also need to provide ample time and opportunity to develop tacit knowledge. 1:1 exponentially expands these opportunities, letting children experiment and explore and develop tacit knowledge, but only if they are given the opportunities that digital technologies make abundantly available – exploring their questions and not just answering yours, creating and not just consuming. Thinking about the opportunities 1:1 helps make possible, I began to consider some other work I’m doing- preparing an article about computational thinking. Computational thinking is a new approach to how we view and understand our world. It is also becoming one of the most important shifts in thinking of the 21st century. Computers have freed us from the onerous and sometimes impossible task of running long, complex calculations, the type often required in research, so that researchers now more easily can focus on the big ideas and patterns that emerge. In thinking as a computer scientist, researchers become aware of behaviors and reactions that can be captured in algorithms or can be analyzed within an algorithmic framework. Computational thinking now gives them a different framework for visualizing and analyzing – a whole new perspective. To rephrase a common idiom, “Until you have a screwdriver, everything looks like a nail.” Computational thinking develops a variety of skills (logic, creativity, algorithmic thinking), involves the use of scientific methodologies, and helps develop both inventiveness and innovative thinking. It has roots in mathematics, engineering, technology, and science, and in the synthesis of ideas from all these fields, has created a way of thinking that is only just beginning to generate enormous changes and benefits. Just using computers does not necessarily lead to the development of computational thinking. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google, while all great applications, do not require or involve the same skills. Computational thinking is a learned approach and there’s no better way to learn it than through programming. Programming employs all the components of computational thinking and the tacit knowledge gained through the experience of tackling programming challenges can provide a framework not only for computer science, but for any field from natural and health sciences, to the social sciences and humanities. So, here we have an important, essential and very truly 21st century “skill”- computational thinking - that is best learned through experience, interactions, actively doing. One that can only develop in a technologically rich environment – a 1:1 environment. It allows students who learn to express themselves through programming (and who have the time to gain this knowledge) to not only answer questions but generate new ones as they begin to view these challenges through the lens of the tacit knowledge intrinsic to computational thinking. If the only reason to have 1:1 was to provide students with the opportunity to play within this computationally rich environment long enough to develop both the explicit and tacit knowledge inherent in activities such as programming, this would be reason enough. Another book to check out – Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America by Allan Collins and Richard Halverson Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:35:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=92 It\'s easy to confuse learning with schooling, but they are not the same thing. Learning is much broader and happens before we ever attend school, in the times in a student’s school day when s/he is not in school, and after we complete our schooling. Substituting one term for the other often leads to a misunderstanding of the value of non-school learning, the role of schools in a person\'s lifelong learning scenario, and the very nature of learning itself. Watching very young children interact with their environment, it would be difficult to draw a line that separates learning from playing. Whether they are playing with an ‘educational’ toy or the box in which it came, pre-school children are self-motivated to be curious, to seek playful pleasure, to generate and test ideas, be creative, communicate (both to be heard and to listen), and by a host of other positive forms of engagement. And as both studies and our informal observations make clear, children are learning an enormous amount, including something as hugely complicated as language. Add to this the fact that children are not driven by grades or other external rewards, and it would be easy to recognize that learning is the inherent drive. And each child, each person, has the right to learn. In 2000, the United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is the goal to provide universal primary education by 2015. More than a noble statement, this represented worldwide acceptance of the idea that all children have the right to receive an education. Unfortunately, the likelihood of achieving this goal diminishes as we approach the deadline. It is dependent on finding and financing more and more resources because an education, as the term is commonly used, is something that is provided. The right to learn, on the other hand, recognizes that from the moment of birth each person is a learner. At the core of our interactions with the world is our drive to learn, first to fulfill our basic needs and then to learn for the sake of learning. A young baby doesn’t wait until she arrives at some designated ‘learning’ room or building to begin this process – she is learning everywhere she is, without any must-complete-before-turning-two curriculum. Yet very young children learn a remarkable amount. The freedom to continue learning is every child’s – every person’s – right. These ideas form the basis of the newly released white paper from AALF, ideasLAB of Australia, and the Maine International Center for Digital Learning. Entitled The Right to Learn, Identifying Precedents for Sustainable Change, the paper was developed from ideas expressed in conversations at the 2010 Big Ideas Global 1:1 Summit held in Maine last June. Policy makers and educational policy advocates from ten countries shared ideas, talked about common issues, and sought to find some policy recommendations to bring about sustainable change. Looking at the role of schools from the perspective of a child’s right to learn, one begins to see that there are a number of structures that may make it easier to organize and administer the institution of school, but which create clear and numerous roadblocks to this freedom to learn. It is not surprising that, after a few years in school encountering numerous obstacles, many students simply give up trying. They are physically present without being engaged, or they drop out completely. So, the first step in making real change is to shift our perspective and to recognize our responsibility to protect and defend this right. This means redefining the role of a teacher from someone meting out resources to someone protecting each child’s right to learn. It means looking at schools in a new way to recognize the obstacles we’ve created. This is a big shift and one that will change the way we think about what is done in schools. Please read the white paper and let us know what you think. Thu, 12 May 2011 09:58:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=87 All around we see revolution. The world as we thought we knew it is rapidly changing. I’m not talking about technologically, I’m talking about politically. 2011 had become the year of revolution. Why is this happening? Is it just because technology has drastically magnified our ability to connect like-minded people, with dramatic results? Or is it something more? Well, I vote for something more–I think what we have is a very potent combination of technology and youth. The median age in Egypt and Libya is 24 years and half of Yemen’s population is under 18! That’s a stunning statistic! (To put this in perspective, the median age in the US is almost 37 years, in Australia 37.5 years, and in Canada it’s almost 41 years.) These young people know that change cannot come if we succumb to the ‘tranquilizing drug of gradualism’ (Martin Luther King, August, 1963). Combine overwhelming ease of communicating, sharing, and co-constructing ideology and action with a very young population, a population that believes that unless action happens swiftly, it gets diluted and beaten down, and what you get is a brew that is clearly world-changing. Interesting as this is, what does it have to do with anytime, anywhere learning? It’s hard not to notice the other place where we see a population being served that is almost 100% 18 and under, technologically savvy, and unsatisfied – K-12 education! You may argue that changes are happening, meted out bit by bit by a much older population that has a whole bureaucracy and many industries to protect. We in education throw around terms like reform or, better yet, transformation when we’re actually floating in the soothing warm waters of incrementalism. But beware - revolution may be inevitable. What if: Students refuse to take tests that are not designed to help them learn but rather that condemn them for every mistake they make with judgments that impact not just their lives but the livelihoods of the adults in the system, as well as property values and the reputation of their neighborhood or town? Students walk out of stultifying-ly boring classes where they’re required to sit for hours as someone lectures on content some other person in an office somewhere determined they must know to be granted a document that states that they sat quietly for 13 years? Students finally find their voice and insist that it be heard, that they all, not just the lucky few, be allowed to own their learning and find and develop their passions? That they spend their youth engaged, excited, and eager to learn and not be processed through like yesterday’s Model-T’s? What if that happened? Would you listen? If you think this is an unlikely scenario, perhaps you need to think again. Look around. How long will young people wait? How patient will they - can they be? It’s their youth and they won’t get a second chance. If we don’t change, change may, no will happen anyway. I think it\'s time for a revolution! Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:07:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=74 This past June, over 80 policy makers and educators from around the world gathered in Maine to participate in the Big Ideas Global 1 to 1 Summit, hosted by AALF, the Maine International Center for Digital Learning (MICDL) and IdeasLab of Australia. The Summit brought together people involved in city, state or national ministries of education in more than ten countries, who are planning or already have 1:1 initiatives. It was a unique opportunity to share knowledge and tackle issues that were surprisingly similar despite the diversity of the group. A main goal of the Summit was to create connections and build strong networks so we may all learn from each other. Information on the Summit is included in this newsletter, but I think it worthwhile to single out two participants whose research and visionary ideas provide unique perspectives on how children learn, technology’s place in this process, and the role of teachers and schools. No one would argue that Seymour Papert is not a true visionary. It was he who insisted, in the late 1960’s, that the computer was not just a tool for scientists and mathematicians, but rather one for learning. In his view, computers provided an environment in which even young children could explore ideas previously believed to be too abstract or difficult for them to understand. In developing the Logo language, he helped create one of the first tools that anyone, even young children, could use to create environments in which to explore ideas using the computer. Early on in his work with children and computers he had the idea of developing a small, portable computer to be used by children for learning, an idea which provided an early prototype of today’s laptops. He talked of the “children’s machine” and the idea that every child should have her own laptop, ideas which lead to the first 1:1 initiatives in Australia, the Maine laptop initiative, and the creation of AALF. …Ideas that caught the attention of Professor Papert’s colleague, Nicholas Negroponte and evolved into the One Laptop Per Child initiative. The OLPC’s XO showed the world that it was possible to develop a low-cost, light weight computer that could be a powerful educational tool, leading to the development of a whole new category of laptops - the netbook. The list of Professor Papert’s contributions goes on and on. Many of his ideas were seen as too radical to ever come to fruition and many people laughed at them saying he lived in a world of tomorrow but was disconnected from today. Interestingly, most of the people who made these comments have long since disappeared from the learning forefront, while the impact of Prof. Papert’s ideas continues to grow around the world. Delegates at the Summit were thrilled to be able to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to Professor Papert for his lifelong efforts on behalf of children and learning, efforts that have profoundly shaped our vision of what education should be. We were also very pleased to welcome, from the other side of the world (India to be exact), Dr. Sugata Mitra. Best known for his “Hole in the Wall” experiments, Dr. Mitra talked about his research into how children self-organize when it comes to learning. Dr. Mitra has captured unique videos of how children who had never been exposed to computers, children living in the slums and small villages of India, reacted when a computer and mouse were literally placed in “a hole in the wall” without any instructions or any teacher. Children not only learned how to interact with the computer, browse, and play games, all in a language other than their own (English), but they taught each other what they knew and established a system to organize and manage access to the computer and the sharing of knowledge. Dr. Mitra’s work sharply calls to question the role of schools in learning. His research is frequently cited as being the inspiration behind the Academy Award-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven’t heard of Sugata Mitra or the “Hole in the Wall” initiative, take the time to check out his web site and his presentation on TED. The research and ideas of each of these men have given us a radically different understanding of how children learn and the need to re-conceptualize the role and design of schools. Interestingly enough, though Dr. Mitra’s work was very much influenced by Professor Papert’s ideas, and Professor Papert has been following with great admiration Dr. Mitra’s work for many years, they had never before met. The two held a private conversation and one couldn’t help but feel that out of this historical moment, something extraordinary would develop: a shift in thinking, a new vision that could dramatically change how we view learning. We’ll be sharing more on this historic meeting and other Summit conversations and presentations in upcoming newsletters and on the AALF web site. Enjoy the newsletter and please share your ideas with the AALF community! Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:07:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=82 In years past, the tipping point in terms of 1:1 always seemed tantalizingly close. “We’re here, we see it, it’s happening,” we said, hopefully. It seems, though, that 2010 was really the year of moving forward. The recommendation that every student (and teacher) have at least one internet access device was one of the actions recommended in the recently released US National Ed Tech Plan 2010 (Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology). Although the term “internet access device” can have a variety of meanings, the stipulation in the plan that the devices should have not only information gathering functions but that they should be able to be used for multimedia content creation raises the bar quite a bit. The recommendation that each state ‘ensures all public school students and teachers have Internet access devices’ also appeared as one of the action points of the ’10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning’ in the Digital Learning Now report published by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, another US organization. http://www.excelined.org/Docs/Digital%20Learning%20Now%20Report%20FINAL.pdf The US is not the first country to read the writing on the wall and recognize that a 21st century education requires all students to have access to 21st century resources and tools. Uruguay, Portugal, Australia, Peru, Rwanda have all taken bold steps to rethink education, starting by providing each student with not just a ‘digital device’ but with a laptop. (Yes, we can use that word.) What is interesting about these reports is that the US, as an early ed tech pioneer, has not only the benefit of a long exploration of the use of technology in education, but also the burden of much legacy thinking. Pioneers, if they don’t keep moving forward, run the risk of becoming obsolete. That is why the recommendations in these reports are so exciting. Who knows? Maybe this is really the year of the 1:1 Tipping Point. Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:43:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=77 21st century learning. One-to-one. Laptop learning. Mobile learning. Integrated, infused, embedded. Personalized learning. Blended Learning. Disruption. Innovation. Transformation. I hear these words over and over again. No sooner is there a new term that seems to perfectly capture what I want to say, see, achieve, then it becomes so overused it loses all meaning. And yet I find myself using these words. They seem to convey something we’re all willing to embrace, but even as I use them, I cringe because I know what I’m thinking isn’t necessarily what all the people around me, shaking their heads with understanding, are thinking. This is not the first time in education that overworked terms have lead to superficial agreement, yet lack of enough shared understanding to provide any direction. Take the term constructivism – I’ve heard that described as everything from students building their knowledge based on what they already know to schools running amok as students do whatever they want in the day with no pre-determined curriculum. No wonder non-educators are confused – so are we!! Even one-to-one, laptop learning and mobile learning is less straightforward than I’d like. One-to-one can be one laptop for one student or one device per student (cell phones and PDAs such as an iTouch included) or one computer (desktop, laptop or terminal) per desk so each student has a computer to use when sitting at that desk. Mobile learning seems to turn that around a bit, starting with one cellphone per student – or one PDA – or even one netbook or laptop. We at AALF try to be very clear about how we think of one-to-one – we mean one laptop or netbook with full capabilities per student. And although laptop programs in name seem to be focused on the device, I think we all agree the focus of all these discussions should be on learning. A smaller “mobile” device is good for some tasks, but I always try to be forward thinking enough to anticipate other needs the student most certainly will have. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of letting the device capabilities (subtly) define our goals. Rather we should let our goals define what device we need to make sure all our students have the thinking tools they need. Of all the terms in the first paragraph, I think my biggest problem is with 21st century learning. We all use it yet every time I say it I know that everyone is in the same city, but not necessarily in the same ballpark. Maybe that’s the point – we have come up with words with a certain amount of built-in flexibility because we just don’t know for sure what we’ll need but we do know we need to be flexible. So, when writing this editorial, I can say 21st century skills and maybe that defines the topic well enough. But when using these terms in our school or district, we need to be clearer about what we mean and what our specific goals are in order to make it possible for us to all work towards the same end. Leave the vague definitions for editorials and blogs. What do you think 21st century learning means? Do you share this definition with others in your school and district? Is there a better term to use? Please send your thoughts and comments to me at seinhorn@aalf.org. Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:27:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=65 What a great time in history to be learning! Computers, the internet, Web 2.0 applications – they bring so many learning opportunities to each of us. Laptops, netbooks, handhelds mean these opportunities aren’t just available in some “computer room” but anywhere that I am and where I’m connected. Not only are there opportunities embedded in the technology, but there’s information about other opportunities that I may not have learned about if I wasn’t connected. There are people with whom I can share my learning or from whom I can learn – people I would have never known if it weren’t for the Internet and the various social networking applications. I, like many others, have been and am creating a very personal web of ideas and knowledge. I sometimes intellectually step back from this mélange and think how odd some of those people and ideas look juxtaposed with each other, yet how intriguing. Through these connections, of things old and new, fanciful and serious, fact and fiction, whole new ways of thinking about my world emerge. This month we’re highlighting some unique opportunities for students and educators to interact, learn from each other, break down some of the barriers distance once imposed. Both my 14-year old daughter and I had a chance to participate, each of us reflecting on these experiences from our own perspective. My daughter participated in the Flat Classroom Conference, held in conjunction with ASB-Unplugged 2010 in Mumbai, India, this past February. The event, the location, the project on which she worked left her wide-eyed and vowing to both return to the country and participate in next year’s FC conference. My daughter and I were lucky; we were able to attend these events. But being present physically isn’t the only way to participate, and that’s what makes these events, happening at this time in history, so special. When, on our return to Canada, someone asked her what she found “hard” in this experience, my daughter looked puzzled. Although there were many parts of the project process that were challenging, hard and challenging are two very different concepts. On the other hand, she is returning to a classroom in which most work is solo work for an audience of two – herself and the teacher. Now that’s hard. So I hope you enjoy reading about these different projects and events, but I also hope you and your students have the chance to delve into not only these, but other learning experiences. Check out the Events listing on our website, use Twitter as your “ears” to hear about others, and rejoice in the abundance of unique opportunities we have for ourselves and our students. Thu, 27 May 2010 10:15:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=59 I am going to make a confession – soon. But first, a story. I went to my high school class’s twentieth reunion. (No, that’s not the confession, just the start of a story. ) I hadn’t seen almost anyone for those 20 years. It was strange, exhilarating, interesting – a typical high school reunion. That night I had a dream. In it, I was at my 40th reunion, wondering how those last 20 years had flown by so quickly. How could that be? What had I accomplished?! I panicked, waking up with my heart pounding, not sure what year it was. As I became more awake, I reassured myself it was only 20 years since I graduated, not 40. I still had time. Well (confession time), the reunion, the dream – they took place 20 years ago. My class recently celebrated its 40th reunion. Twenty years go by very quickly…. It was 20 years ago that my good friend from Australia, Bruce Dixon, excitedly told me about how a school in Melbourne - Methodist Ladies College - and a group of teachers were trying something new, something truly revolutionary – providing each fifth grade student with her own laptop and a software program called LogoWriter. “You wouldn’t believe what those girls are doing! Creating, problem-solving, exploring ideas, reflecting on their thinking! It’s completely changed everything.” Twenty years ago, I was working with Seymour Papert at LCSI (Logo Computer Systems Inc) the company that developed LogoWriter. Papert had for many years imagined a time when each student would have his or her own “children’s machine” that would be the “instrument” (to appropriate Alan Kay’s term) that made it possible for even young children to explore big ideas, ideas that most people thought too difficult, too complex, too advanced for children to grasp. That in so doing, children would construct a deeper understanding of the ideas that are the foundation of our knowledge (rather than a string of information “bites”) while retaining that passion for learning that we see in very young children. The computer itself was just part of this process – but an essential part. The tools one had to use and what one did with the computer were of even greater importance. And, although providing software tools that enabled these explorations was essential, these tools without ubiquitous access to the technology would not be enough. And providing universal access without rethinking what this made possible would also not be enough. These ideas all came together at MLC twenty years ago, and it caused some people to rethink education and the role of school in this process. They began to talk to others about what they had seen in that classroom and the idea begin to spread. In the history of the world, twenty years is a mere fraction of a sliver of a second, a wink of an eye. Twenty years is also the difference between one generation and the next. So, what has happened, what has changed in this time? Slowly, slowly the idea of ubiquitous access to technology began to spread, with first a little patch here or there, then to larger districts, then whole states and even countries beginning to realize the necessity of providing universal access. In addition, we’ve added the internet and world wide web, new ways to communicate and collaborate, locally and globally, Web 2.0 tools, handheld devices that have morphed into total communication and entertainment units that fit in your pocket. We’ve had distractions such as whiteboards and clickers that made people feel there was universal technology access when actually these were just digitized versions of old classroom tools. While we discussed and debated the possibility of universal access in school, it’s been sneaking up on us outside the school walls so that most of our students (and us) are constantly connected to the giant web of humanity and information. Students have changed because of this and so have their expectations. So much change in a fraction of a sliver of a second. It makes your head spin. So on this anniversary, it’s good to reflect on where we are after twenty years and how far we’ve come (or have not come). At the same time, we should also look forward. Twenty years isn’t very long, but the speed of change seems to be accelerating. How will these new tools and the changed expectations of today’s youth – tomorrow’s parents – change our vision of what school should be? What can we – should we - do in this process of re-imagining the role of school and providing unlimited learning opportunities for all students? In twenty years, what will we accomplish? Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:28:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=54 Ring, buzz, ring, buzz. At holiday time, with everyone home and friends and relatives visiting, it’s easy to be driven batty by the number of personal electronic devices going off when I just want to visit with friends, have a family dinner, or enjoy some quiet time. No matter where I am, something is buzzing, ringing, singing, vibrating, or just being totally distracting. Telling everyone (including myself) to turn everything off for a short break may seem like a simple solution, and it’s do-able. But maybe that’s missing the point – a point that’s being made over and over again in every magazine and newspaper. Kids today interact with their world differently. Those devices are part of how they think, choose, play, work, connect, and generally know how and what they are in this world. Intellectually this is easy to accept, but realizing this at a more visceral level is different. During some casual conversation or trivial everyday task, something happens and the realization of how differently kids today think can hit you like a ton of bricks. And it’s not just the mere presence of a device, it’s the radical change in thinking that this ubiquity of devices and the immersion in all areas of technology have brought about. This different worldview colors (some would say taints) so many other parts of their lives and their thinking and impacts the world in so many ways. For example, the question of who owns intellectual property and what constitutes consumer rights became a big discussion point in our house. Why buy without trying? And if you try it and you don’t like it, why pay? Today, if you buy a shirt online and realize, once in your hands, that you don’t like it, you can return it. Why, kids ask, can’t you do this with everything? You should be able to hear the music, watch the movie, play the game before you buy to make sure you’re willing to invest in it. Why pay for music at all if the songs are used to entice people to buy tickets for a live concert where the real money is made? Paying for a song is like paying to see a commercial. The movie industry, contrary to all fears, had their best year ever in terms of revenues. Forcing people to pay just to try something only creates waste. So, downloading isn’t evil, it’s just different. The software industry – who creates software and who owns it – has been completely turned inside-out with the growth of open source, Web 2.0, cloud computing. Who owns ideas? Anyone? Should anyone? It is a different culture. This cultural changes also mean anyone can now create and distribute without having a select few determine what you can or cannot see and hear; the sharing of ideas, democratized. Whether you agree with these changes or not (for example, I like to believe that intellectual property has intrinsic value that should be acknowledged for what it is. I also like the phrase “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”), they are happening. And there’s lots of room and opportunities for discussion about what this means in terms of the future job market but also around the idea of what is “fair” and what do we value. Our kids are immersed in this dramatic change and are demanding more rights, a greater recognition of their needs, desires and goals. Then they enter too many schools that offer them nothing more than a pre-packaged education that needs to be accepted as is, no refunds, no exchanges, no changes at all. While we’re plodding along with an old model of thinking, of business, of school, young people are shaking their heads at the restrictions we’re so willing to accept and the unquestioning acceptance of the old order. But watch out - the times they are a’ changin’. Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:19:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=50 This month I\'m focusing on project-based learning. No, not for students or even the Foundation. I\'m focusing on it for me. Early this year I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month, held every November. My project? I, and all NaNoWriMo participants, must write a 50,000-word book in one month (and a 30-day month at that!). That comes to 1667 words a day for 30 days. Doesn\'t seem like too much, but that\'s on top of working, parenting, and community volunteer work. And it means writing 1667 words EVERY DAY, not just some days. Why would I do this? I liked the challenge of setting a difficult but thought-provoking goal for myself and working to achieve it. The NaNoWriMo organization suggests participants tell everyone they know that they\'re participating in this month-long event so they\'re motivated to continue if, for no other reason, than to save face. The month is about writing, not editing. Editing, we (me and the other \"WriMos) are told, is what we do in December. To win NaNoWriMo, you just have to achieve your goal. No one else needs to read your text, books aren\'t judged or critiqued (although some WriMos have been published), there\'s no \"fastest writer\" or \"best vocabulary\" award. Winning is about personal accomplishment. And in the writing, the \"doing\" of this challenge, I\'m learning - about writing, structure, character, plot, and how I approach a challenge. In the process, I am being supported by an online community that is providing insight into the process of writing, a community sharing its frustrations, achievements, and quirks. The NaNoWriMo organization has arranged for various authors to cheer us on and help by describing what the writing process is like for them. Last week, I (and all WriMos) heard from Jaspar Fforde, author of two series of popular, quirky books, including The Eyre Affair. Here are some of his words of encouragement, \"The overriding importance is that the 50,000 words don\'t have to be good. They don\'t even have to be spelled properly, punctuated or even tabulated neatly on the page. It\'s not important. Practice is what\'s important here, because, like your granny once told you, practice does indeed make perfect....a concerted effort to get words on paper is one of the best ways to do it. The lessons learned over the next thirty days will be lessons that you can\'t get from a teacher, or a manual, or attending lectures. The only way to write is to write.\" (click here for reference.) What has been even more interesting for me is that my 14 year old daughter, Madison, also signed up for NaNoWriMo. At first she kept erasing lines, not sure if what she wrote was good enough. She was doing so much self-critiquing she couldn\'t get started. Then Madison realized that she\'d just write for herself, tell her story, and, voila, the words began to flow. When I asked if she liked her book, she said, \"I like writing it. I\'m not sure if I\'d read it.\" Honest. She has already written over 15000 words and we\'ve had some great conversations about the writing process. So.... what does this have to do with 1:1 learning? One-to-one and anytime, anywhere learning isn\'t about getting laptops for all students. It\'s about what students do with their laptops and the learning that goes with the access that technology makes possible. It\'s about having the ability to tap into and communicate with a community of learners with whom to share and experts from whom to learn. And, finally, it\'s about finding easy fun, engaging challenges that make us think and help us learn, no matter what our age. Comments? Thoughts? Read more about NaNoWriMo and schools by clicking here. Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:54:00 EST Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=46 As anyone who\\\'s ever talked to a teen can attest, young people have strong opinions about many things, especially about school and their education. Why then is education too often something we do TO them rather than with them? Where is their \\\"voice\\\" in this process? Recently I heard about a large-scale example of student voice being included in the process of determining what educational policy should be. In Ontario, Canada, every school board is required to include representatives from the local Student Senate, which is composed of student trustees from each high school in the board. The student trustees represent students and ensure that students\\\' ideas and opinions are heard at the school board level. These student representatives have joined together to form the Student Trustee Organization which is, according to their website, \\\"the largest student stakeholder in education and the voice for the student vision\\\" and they act as consultants at the provincial Ministry of Education level. This is probably one of the most ambitious efforts in the world to listen to and heed \\\"student voice\\\" in the development of education policy, and over the years, they have impacted some major school reform efforts. But student voice can be effective at a more local and even more individual level. A number of schools include students on various decision-making committees throughout the school. Students actively engage in designing and planning curriculum, learning spaces, and other school activities. And the learning experience isn\\\'t limited only to the classroom, but can extend to local as well as international issues. Giving students the opportunity to speak up and let their voices be heard whether in the classroom or in service projects, combined with a teacher\\\'s pedagogical guidance empowers students and helps them learn invaluable lessons about democracy and how each individual can contribute to society. The pitfall in adding students to committees is that their participation can be mere tokenism, and their contributions don\\\'t really play any role in the final decisions. As Paulo Freire discusses, schools should practice democracy and not just teach it. I recently had the opportunity to hear Deborah Meier speak at Constructing Modern Knowledge 2009 and she echoes Freire\\\'s beliefs and sees schools as the one place where all young people can learn what democracy is through the modeling and practice of real democratic decision-making at all levels throughout the school. What does all this have to do with 1-to-1? One-to-one increases the opportunities to hear and heed student voice. The assistance provided by students becomes almost essential as the learning environment begins to dramatically change. There is no way teachers (or anyone else, for that matter) can know everything, and, particularly when it comes to technology, our students often have more time to experiment and play with the hardware and software than we have. So their advice on how to get started with the technology and also on new ways to represent their ideas is invaluable. As you\\\'ll see in our articles below, participating on a student tech support team helps students develop skills that will help them in university and beyond. Providing these opportunities to participate in the design of their learning experiences or in supporting the technology is not only helpful to you but probably the most enduring learning experience they will have in school. What examples do you have of \\\"student voice\\\" impacting change in the learning environment? What challenges have you had to face? Please share your stories with us here. Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:15:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=40 Transforming learning is easy to say, but oh so complex to do. As I\'m sure most of you realize, it takes more than just providing each student and teacher with a laptop (although those laptops are essential). But too often governments or organizations get dazzled by the technology and forget all the other essential elements to truly make a change. That\'s why I was pleasantly surprised when I received the latest newsletter from DesignShare, a company whose mission is to help transform learning through the reconceptualizing of learning spaces. There\'s been some news and a great deal of discussion about Portugal\'s countrywide programs to make available low-cost (and, in some cases, no cost) laptops to all its students. Primary school students will be able to get a version of the Intel Classmate under the Magellan Initiative while secondary students can get one of several brands of laptops under the e-Escolar program. Any program of this size is sure to have its issues, and this one is no exception. There have been some glitches - for example, internet access seems to still be a problem for many - but Portugal\'s technology plan is indeed bold in a time when bold steps and the people to take them are desperately needed. (For an interesting discussion on the programs, check out Don Tapscott\'s article here. Now I see that Portugal also has a Secondary School Modernization Programme focused on creating spaces that make possible a variety of learning scenarios. Having learning spaces that encourage collaborative efforts, project-development, both construction and presentation, shows that we value and support these activities. It\'s good to see that the government of Portugal recognizes the need for these programs. Let\'s hope their efforts don\'t stop here but they continue to look for ways to provide the learning opportunities all children deserve. Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:52:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=38 Considering all the constraints, rules, and political regulations with which public schools contend, is it possible to create and sustain a school that has a culture of innovation that reaches all classes and students? Let me rephrase that - how is it possible to create and sustain such a culture? The schools frequently showcased as being innovative usually have some pockets of creativity or innovative thinking but only a subset of the students get to participate. For too many of their students their role is strictly audience/viewer. Do you know of a school with a school-wide culture of innovation and, if yes, how did they create and sustain it? Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:52:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=37 This past month I was invited to attend the National Center of Women in Technology conference (NCWIT). NCWIT is an alliance of diverse organizations, ranging from large corporations (such as Google) to universities to non-profit organizations involved in K12 education (Society for Women in Engineering) or dedicated to girls (Girls Scouts). What they all have in common is a commitment to encouraging more young women to study and have a career in computer science, technology and engineering (the TE part of STEM) and supporting these women as they begin to work in these fields. Ensuring that all learners, girls as well as boys, have access to technology anytime and anywhere would seem to be an excellent first step. No inequitable representation in the computer lab, no fighting for control of limited computer facilities. Has having a 1-to-1 program in your school changed girls\' interest in technology? If yes, how? Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:51:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn) http://beta.aalf.org/blog/SusanEinhorn/view?PostID=36 Once upon a time, people who took a chance and began to experiment with technology in education were called \"pioneers\". Then when Marc Prensky began using the term \"digital immigrant\", everyone of a certain age suddenly was lumped under this new label. We went from being daring innovators to being newcomers, outsiders. Now, one could say that an immigrant is someone who is taking a risk to achieve a better life (really, both a literal and figurative trailblazer), but unfortunately, I never get the feeling that this is what is meant when digital immigrants are compared to digital natives. There must be a better term for whatever it is these labels are supposed to describe. Thoughts? Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:50:00 EDT Susan Einhorn (SusanEinhorn)