Multi-faceted Refractions

While at NECC, ISTE was promoting its newest volume, Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Baily. Yesterday, I received my copy after ordering it at the conference and have had a chance to give it a first reading.

The authors argue that it is essential that school districts and schools to take stock and begin to create their definition of digital citizenship. Once defined, they present example activities that will help all members of the school community, students, faculty and staff, and parents gain a better understanding of the definition which was created by the community.

With the author’s goals of wanting to improve learning outcomes and prepare students to become 21st Century Learners, the authors outline nine elements which define digital citizenship:

Student Learning and Academic Acheivement

• Digital Literacy
• Digital Communication
• Digital Access

School Environment and Student Behaviour

• Digital Security
• Digital Etiquette
• Digital Rights and Responsibilities

Students Life Outside the School Environment

• Digital Commerce
• Digital Law
• Digital Health and Wellness

I feel that authors have done a great job of defining the elements and providing the framework for schools to begin to have the conversations about how their district or school will deal with these issues. One of my takeaways from this volume are new ways of thinking about updating of our Acceptable Use Policy. As we continue to develop the changes, we need to be mindful of making sure we cover all aspects of each of these nine elements. The more that we work on our AUP, it is becoming apparent that we need to come at the problem as an information service provider. Education of all groups is essential.

I especially like the inclusion of health and wellness in the list of elements. It provides credence to this important aspect. One element which is not included in the published volume is where social networks fit in. They do provide guidance about podcasts, wikis, and blogs, but social tools, like Facebook, mySpace, or Nings is absent. I am going to have to check the online resources to find these materials.

But overall, a great job of providing a framework to begin the conversations, especially for those who are not regular users of the new tools.

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Upon the recommendation of Joyce Valenza, in her NECC presentation Information Fluency Meets Web 2.0, I reserved the following book from my local public library. Picking it up last week, I got a chance to read it and was amazed how quickly I got through the reading (two evenings) and how thought provoking it is.

In this book, the authors, Ori Brafman and Rod Breckstrom outline how a decentralized organization can be stronger than an centralized heirchy. Using examples from history (the Apaches vs the Spanish) through modern technology (the emergence of wikis and craigslist), the authors use the metaphor of the five legs of the starfish to describe the five aspects of a decentralized organization:

1. Circles
2. Catalysts
3. Ideology
4. Preexisting Network
5. Champion

Focusing on the role of the catalyst, the authors then describe strategies and rules for becoming a starfish organization

In thinking about the impact towards education and what I would like to implement at my school, I am taking away from this volume is that although a there needs to be a central authority at the top (superintendent or principal), that you have to allow for more teacher autonomy in order to allow students to have the best learning environments. Teachers should be guides within their classrooms, like the Apache Nant’an who provide a vision and then allow the rest of the tribe to meet the vision. At North Shore, I think that we do a reasonably decent job at providing this within each classroom, but like with the conversations surrounding classroom 2.0, we need to have further opportunities for students not to feel like they are being forced into a local centralized classroom.

Also, it is important for teachers to be able to have time to get together, organically, to share best practices with each other. Like in many schools, we acknowledge the need to do so but do not always prioritize the practice as being essential for our own learning.

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I have returned to the work after an eleven day mini-hiatus since I have returned from NECC. Unfortunately, the projects that I left undone did not complete themselves, so this week, I am playing a bit of catch-up.

I have five work days in which to complete a number of these projects before I travel to the Laptop Institute which is being held in Memphis. I am looking forward to this conference and have been in contact with the organizers to see if there is a way that an area, similar to the Blogger’s Cafe, can be set up in order to facilitate reflection and conversation. I am looking forward to learning and thinking about a transition to a more technology rich environment. I will be sharing my schedule in the next few days.

I also look forward to following the Building Learning Communities conference in Boston. Both of these conferences look great and it was difficult to make a decision as to which to attend.

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It was last Saturday, that I recieved a message from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, that a proposal that I created for the K12 Online Conference was accepeted. I am honored that I was selected for this conference. As many of you will soon learn, it was one of the catalysts for my own professional learning. Looking at the lineup of presenters, I have to pinch myself. I look forward to experience.

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I really enjoy summertime. Even though I am on a twelve month contract (six weeks vacation) and I should be taking four consecutive weeks away from work, this summer is like most summers in that there is simply too much to do in order to be away that long. But I enjoy the pace of my summertime work, where everything is project based, so once I knock two or three items off of my list, I can simply call it a day at 1:30 p.m. in order to get away. That is until crunch time near the end of August.

Since I have been back from NECC, I have taken some time just to be. My wife and I have taken the dog for longer walks, I shirked aside the task list and got involved in a 4+ hour Monopoly game, I took my eldest daughter to a Cubs game, where the most important thing going on was not the action on the field (although, the game was one of the most exciting capped off by a game-winning homerun in the ninth inning), but rather the conversation and interactions that I had with my teen-age daughter. Today, we are going to be headed to the local outdoor mostly classical music venue for their Summer Music Celebration and then later this evening, we will be packing the whole family, including the dog, and going to the nearest drive in theater to catch Ratatouille and Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Also, since it is summer, I be sharing stories on this space. The stories will be reflective and demonstrations of projects that we did last year. Based upon the transformative success that we had last year, I will be sharing the planning processes we are going through, to get your feedback and to potentially connect with many of you. I will also use this space to tease out ideas about the role of the integration of technology towards the aim of the changing classroom experience, many of the ideas which were discussed in length at EduBloggerCon and during NECC. Lastly, I will review my summer reading, some work related, some fun, just because it is summer and I have more time to do so.

I hope that you will come back, visit, and take the time to reflect and share.

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