Multi-faceted Refractions

This is the conversation with Sharon Hirsch, head of child psychology team at the University of Chicago

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I know I was not your typical teenager. Somehow, I developed a love of the Sunday newspaper, especially the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. But it didn’t really matter, as long as it was a paper not from my hometown of Detroit. As Joe Jackson, one of my favorite singers during that time in my life, sang in the song “Sunday Papers” from the album Look Sharp in 1979,

But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside

Every Sunday, I would spend two – three hours reading the news of the world, dreaming of a life outside the city I was currently living in.

Over the last month, I have begun noticing a change in my Sunday paper. It has become a shadow of itself, becoming thinner, with fewer features. With the challenges to the publishing world, it has become less relavant in my life. The section of ads, which was a major revenue source, is now larger in height than the rest of the other sections when stacked side by side. The sad thing is that they have raised the price for what is beoming an inferior product.

The current newspaper that I subscribe to, the Chicago Tribune, has now become a portal to the electronic world. The editors want to push me to more detail on their website, to the blogs of the columists. They have become part of the citizen journalism that has emerged. It is as the Jam (another favorite band of mine), sung in 1978, in “News of the World”:

Little men tapping things out – points of view
Remember their views are not the gospel truth

Don’t believe it all
Find out for yourself
Check before you spread
News of the world

Don’t take it too serious – not many do
Read between the lines and you’ll find the truth

Read all about it, read all about it – news of the world

Call me old fashioned, but I am missing the old fashioned thrill I used to get reading the paper.

In order to beat the Winter Blahs, the Library and Technology Staff challenged the faculty and staff to set a personal technology learning goal. We emailed the following to members of our school community:

Make and Keep a Technology New Year’s Resolution

New Year’s Day is a great time to set new goals and start creating new habits.

Did you set a personal technology learning goal for the New Year?

Did you receive a new camera for the holidays and you need to learn how to download or edit the pictures?

Is there a technology topic, such as setting up a course in Moodle, creating a Google Custom Search, how to create a digital story using PhotoStory or VoiceThread, how to use Microsoft OneNote, create a screencast using Jing, that you would like to learn?

Would you like to learn how to use additional features of NoodleBib?

Interested in how to access and edit Discovery Streaming Videos for use in your classes,  that you have heard about or seen and want to spend the time exploring and learning?

For the past two Tuesdays, we have had 7% of our faculty and staff stop by at our informal Technology Resolution sessions. (This does represent a rate of return than is typically achieved by direct mail response) During these sessions, we guide and mentor the faculty and staff towards their goal. It has been extremely successful and rewarding. The faculty and staff who are coming have technology skills which run the spectrum from being what I would consider our most adept users of technology to those who have been apprehensive.

They have wanted to learn how to:

• Add websites and files to their Moodle course
• Download their pictures from their camera so that they don’t have to rely on their children to do so
• Set up a blog
• Set up a flickr account and upload pictures
• Create an group email, to email parents of sports teams, neighborhood, etc.
• Learn how to create the class push page
• Learn how to create a PowerPoint presentation

What is great is that in each of these cases, the individual created a personal learning goal which was not directly related to what they do in the classroom or as a part of their job description. However, in each case, the individual learned something that they have been able to transfer to what they do as a part of their job or in their classroom. This is higher order transfer of skills.

We have two more sessions that we have advertised and we are trying to figure out how to maintain the momentum while keeping the concept fresh. I am really excited about what the model and how we have grown the offerings.

Today we assembled as a faculty to kick-off the 2008-2009 academic year. This is an exciting day, especially for those of us who work most of the year, as old faculty return with tales of adventures from the previous ten weeks and we welcome in the new members of the teaching community at school.

Like many schools, we begin the year highlighting the themes and topics that we will address for the upcoming year. Last year, the school created a new strategic plan which outlined the areas of exploration for us for the upcoming year.

There are three areas of focus for us in the upcoming year. They are Diversity, Environmental Sustainability, and Service Learning. This is in addition to the technology agenda, of trying to create a cadre of teachers who will seed a professional learning community to talk and communicate about best practices, as we determine our future direction and whether we implement a 1:1 program.

What was interesting while listening to the various presentations from each of the leaders spearheading the initiatives was that our challenge is going to be how we progress in each of these areas, since we will be competing for attention and energy above and beyond the normal day-to-day classroom experiences. Many of the groups, including my technology vision, are going to ask teachers to meet, discuss, and develop priorities and action plans to further the initiative.  It may be dangerous and we may be working at opposition to each other, which may cause neither of the initiatives to gain traction and momentum.

What is interesting is that the solutions, engaging students to take ownership, gathering buy-in from a diverse constituent base, develop curriculum that is more problem-based in nature, could be complimentary and brought together under a single umbrella.

Rather than being four different initiatives, we should try to consolidate our efforts into a single plan for 21st Century Learning. This way, we can combine efforts. There is no reason that they Environmental Sustainability project create service learning projects which utilize technology tools to create spaces for collaboration, communication, and allow for different groups to connect both synchronously and asynchronously to provide a wider group of diverse individuals to challenge and expand our assumptions, making the wisdom of the group greater than that of one part.

Instead of competing, we should consolidate efforts, so that each project can utilize the strengths of the complimentary other priorities while maintaining its unique identity.

That is our school’s challenge for the year, how to create a community and culture that is complimentary and builds cooperatively rather than compete against each other for the two most precious commodities for teachers, energy and attention.

Over the past 36 hours, I have had several profound learning experiences. First, I have been trying to experience as much of the Learning 2.0 conference which was going on in Shanghai on both Friday and Saturday evenings.  Like members of my learning community, Carolyn Foote, Jennifer Wagner, Clarence Fisher, and David Jakes, I have been trying to follow the forums on the Ning which has been set up at the conference, following the messages on twitter, and trying to catch rides in the Elluminate rooms so that I could connect and learn. On Saturday morning, after reading a twitter message from Jeff Utecht, I raced to downloaded the opening session podcast before I jumped in the car, shaking off the sleep on a very cool, autumnal morning to do my Saturday morning errands, going to the bank and grocery shopping. For over an hour and a half, I hung on nearly every word, soaking it in.

On Saturday afternoon, I participated in a FlashMeeting hosted by Paul Harrington from the UK. There were between 8 and 11 participants from the UK, the United States, and Australia talking about best practice. The conversation centered on developing students spoken voice through podcasting. I got a number of great ideas on why this is important for elementary school students and found out about a great new project, Voices of the World, which I am hoping to integrate into somewhere into my school.

So while some may consider me slightly pathetic, since I spend my Friday and Saturday evenings at home, in front of my computer (flipping between the Cubs-Cardinals and Brewers-Reds baseball games and the Diamondbacks-Dodgers on Friday night, not a complete waste of time), I am happy that I invested the time and energy to continue with my learning. I will be better for it in the long run.

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