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Ten Challenges for the Network Age -- Part One
2008-03-21 17:03:00
Wharton Professor and long-time digital citizen Kevin Werbach (anyone else here old enough to remember his Bare Bones Guide to HTML?) posts the Ten Challenges for the Network Age on the Supernova 2008 blog. He is using these ten challenges as the framework for the Supernova conference this year, and while I am often wary of education thinking that we just have to take the questions that business is pondering and apply them to education, I've known Kevin through various digital communities for around fifteen years, and I greatly respect the way he considers issues. He does look at these questions from a media / communications lens, and that lens has some powerful ramifications for education as well. With that... here are some thoughts on his ten challenges: Scarcity and Abundance (Both are sources of value, yet they cannot coexist.) For education, clearly this challenge is particularly relevant -- This is probably a blog post or three all to itself. (O.k. -- they all might be.) But...
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A More Perfect Union
2008-03-19 15:13:00
[Note: I haven't blogged about specific party politics since I became principal of SLA. It's not hard to guess where I stand politically, and I have not taken down a single entry I wrote, but I felt I had to write about this.] Yesterday, I made up my mind who I was voting for on April 22nd. Yesterday, I saw the most courageous and powerful political speech in a generation, if not more. Yesterday, Barack Obama took the stage for what most thought would be a defensive speech in an attempt to repair damage made by his association with his pastor who has made controversial remarks over the years. Yesterday, I watched Barack Obama challenge all of us to change the way we think about race, to move beyond a zero-sum game and instead imagine a world where we can heal together better than we ever can apart. Yesterday, I watched a major candidate for president say openly and publicly the things that were often only whispered or spoken in "safe," homogeneous groups. Yesterday, I watche...
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Al Upton and the MiniLegends -- Shut Down
2008-03-17 14:37:00
Al Upton is a teacher in South Australia who had been doing some really amazing work with 8 and 9 year olds and cyber-mentoring. I'd tell you to go read all about it, but I can't. The government shut down the program while it assesses the risk of kids posting work online. This is what we all fear... that someone can complain to someone on the other end of a phone in an office and all the work we do can disappear. Go read the conversation, lend your voice of support: http://alupton.edublogs.org/ And be sure to read the voices of the kids who feel the loss of a wonderful, innovative program.
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One More Great Reason to Go to NECC
2008-03-11 06:30:00
As if there weren't enough reasons to go to NECC (EduBloggerCon, The Blogger Cafe, rumors of BBQ at the hotel, and you know... NECC), there's now another reason to go: Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez and their friends will be hosting The Constructivist Celebration on June 29th. It costs $30 to attend, and Gary and Sylvia are some of the best folks out there at combining educational technology with progressive pedagogy in powerful, meaningful and real ways. It's a small event, and Gary told me told that spaces are going quickly. Reserve your spot now, and I'll see you there!
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Twitter In Plain English
2008-03-08 03:32:00
The folks at Common Craft have done it again. Twitter In Plain English : (Tip o' the blog hat to iJohn.)

Laws of Simplicity
2008-03-04 07:10:00
[Cross-posted at LeaderTalk] Recently, I read The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda, former MIT Media Lab guru and current President of RISD. It's a good, quick read that expands upon his 10 Laws of Simplicity. They are: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. Organization makes a system of many appear fewer. Savings in time feel like simplicity. Knowledge makes everything simpler. Simplicity and complexity need each other. What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral. More emotions are better than less. . In simplicity we trust. Some things can never be made simple. Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful. None of these ideas, taken separately, are rocket science, but when put together, they have a lot to tell us. If we were to simplify the entire book down to one sentence, I'd say it's this: Life is complex; simplify everything you can so that you can devote yourself to the thin...

Live: 7 pm, EST 2/29 -- Something To Believe In
2008-02-29 23:33:00
At 7pm on February 29th, 2008, the opening performance of the original play "Something To Believe In" will air on Science Leadership Academy TV. The play is written and performed by the Science Leadership Academy students. Tune in! [Updated: Here's the play.]
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Letter To A Young Teacher
2008-02-28 09:07:00
I don't remember where I read it, but I was reading another article that mentioned the oft-quoted stat about how many teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and I was thinking about how many really amazing young men and women I've known in my career who fell into that category, and I was thinking about a conversation I had with an old colleague at Beacon and how she said, "Yeah... that year three or four mark, that's a dangerous time, because that's when you think you know so much more than you actually do." And I was thinking about my own progression as a teacher and how true that was... And I was thinking about some of the things people who stayed with the profession seemed to embody that the ones who left didn't. I was thinking about what I want to say to all those teachers who, right around year three or four, start to leave the profession... Dear Young Teacher Thinking of Leaving, You've stuck with this job for a few years now. You have made it past th...
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Call for New SLA Faculty
2008-02-23 04:35:00
[To any bloggers who read this, I'd really appreciate it if you could link to this post, as we hope to cast as wide a net as possible as we recruit our new cohort of SLA teachers. We've counted on the edublogosphere over and over again as we've built SLA... why stop now? ] Call for Teachers: "How do we learn?" "What can we create? "What does it mean to lead?" These three essential questions form the basis of instruction at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) a new Philadelphia high school opened in September 2006. SLA is built on the notion that inquiry is the very first step in the process of learning. Developed in partnership with The Franklin Institute – a nationally recognized science and technology museum – and its commitment to inquiry-based science, SLA provides a rigorous, college-preparatory curriculum with a focus on science, technology, mathematics and entrepreneurship. Students at SLA will learn in a project-based environment where the core values of inquiry...

SLA Students Attempt to Change the World
2008-02-20 05:10:00
There's a real buzz going around the halls of SLA these days as the students of Mr. Chase's English class attempt to change the world. The kids are researching and writing about an issue that matters to them, and then preparing their "elevator pitch" to a change agent about what can be done. The issues run from political to economic to environmental to societal. It's an amazing project to watch develop, and the writing the kids are doing is all via our Drupal blog, so you can follow it all via RSS. Here's Mr. Chase's explanation of the project and the project explanation (which is also a great snapshot of how to make the five core values really live in the work of the kids) and then, of course, the best part is the work of the kids: Silver Stream Gold Stream Stop by the student work... give them some feedback... perhaps even give them an idea or two about what they can do next. After all, when you're trying to change the world, a little help never hurts.
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Chasing False Gods
2008-02-19 07:54:00
I was speaking to a group of high school students the other day -- not SLA kids -- and I asked them what they wanted their high school experience to be. Many of them said, "We want it to be fun!" It echoed some of what I think I hear from some voices in the School 2.0 movement. (Not all voices, probably not even most voices, but enough that I think this is worth exploring...) I've some conversations with kids at SLA about this idea... and yes, I think that SLA is a fun place to be, but more importantly, I think we've created a place that is a meaningful place to be, and that matters more. And that strikes me as what we want to create in our schools -- places of true meaning. I worry that we spend so much time looking at these amazing tools as tricks to make stuff more engaging and fun without tending a critical eye toward meaningful learning. I worry that we mistake engaging and entertaining, and I worry that the tools we have at our disposal allows us to amuse ourselves and amuse...
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Show Me What You Believe
2008-02-18 06:34:00
Maybe it's coming out of EduCon, maybe it's because I've been doing some more speaking lately, maybe it's just because I'm watching the evolution of SLA and really thinking hard about what we're doing and why we're doing it, but lately, I'm thinking more and more about some of my own core beliefs about education... I'm noticing some new ideas cropping up in the things I talk about... and I want to explore one of those tonight. For a long time, I would get frustrated when I would hear people talk about edu-speak buzz words, and I would get frustrated when people would claim that words like "student-centered," or "project-based" or even "constructivist" (as examples) were just empty words when they were words that held so much power and meaning for me. And I don't think I understood how others could treat these powerful words as empty. And, of course, the reason why is that, in so many schools, those words don't have meaning because they are tied to nothing tangible. How ma...
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What About the Other Days?
2008-02-16 18:55:00
Conversations can cause epiphanies, sometimes... I was in a conversation with some administrative colleagues the other day, and the subject came around to standardized tests. We were talking about different ways to measure learning, and I, quite predictably, was talking about performance-based assessments. I talked about how every different assessment tool privileges different things, and I said, "I've come to realize that, as an educator, I am more interested in what kids can do as opposed what they know." Now, that, to me, is a continuum, and clearly, kids have to know stuff to do stuff, but I'm realizing that that dichotomy is at the heart of the disagreement between traditional education and project-based learning. And what I really like about Understanding by Design is that with understanding at the top of the way they frame their hierarchy of teaching and learning, you really can look at both of those things. But all of this is really something I want to explore more in ...
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Writing for Big Ideas: It's Just Not That Simple
2008-02-11 23:18:00
Just in case anyone wanted to read my response to the latest Big Ideas blog prompt: If you could make one unilateral change in public education with your magic wand, regardless of budget, what would it be? Shockingly, I talked about assessment. Enjoy.
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Saying Thank You -- And the Spirit of SLA
2008-02-10 08:35:00
Yesterday was a really amazing day, the kind of day every dedicated teacher deserves and so few actually get. The SLA faculty has nominated me for the ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award and they used the end of our Science Fair Assembly on Friday as an opportunity to celebrate that nomination. It was a truly wonderful moment, and one that reminded me powerfully how lucky I am to have had the career I have had so far and to work with such amazing people every day at SLA. Throughout my career as an educator, I have been so fortunate because I have worked with and for people who have only ever asked "How big can you dream?" and "How hard are you willing to work in service of that dream?" At Beacon, I learned from educators who always believed in what was possible for kids. They believed in educating the whole child, and they believed in creating a community that mattered, that meant something. It has been my hope to create a community of care and meaning at Science Leadership, and i...
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Lessons Learned When We Come Together
2008-02-05 01:12:00
[Cross-posted at LeaderTalk.] A little over a week ago, 250 educators from all over North America came to Science Leadership Academy for EduCon 2.0. The name of the conference itself was a play on words, as we wanted the conference to be about the conversations that people could have, not the presentations we usually see at conventions. It was three incredible days where many folks who regularly read each other's words online came together face to face to talk about the future of schools, about how we could make our schools better, and about how we can marry the tools at our disposal to progressive pedagogy. The conference also featured a great deal of student voice. From the SLA students, to twitter-student Arthus to Meg Peters and Chris Jankowski who presented with their parents, students lent their voices to the conversations, making sure that as the adults talked about how schools needed to change, we had their perspectives in the conversation as well. And I don't know... ...
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Wes Fryer on NCLB: A Must Read
2008-02-03 04:00:00
If you have not yet read Wes Fryer's impassioned and well argued response to President Bush's comments about NCLB in the State of the Union, go and go now. It's a fantastic read. Here's a sample: Our “failing public schools” are not failing because they have not been threatened enough with harsh punishments and closure. They are not failing because they need a stronger emphasis on “accountability.” Our educational system DOES need reform and change, but the solution is not to privatize public education and set groups whose focus is profit and the bottom line loose amidst our public education dollars. The path we have followed under NCLB is the WRONG path, and I have not yet heard ANY of our current political leaders or aspiring presidential candidates articulate a vision for U.S. schools which breaks with the failed patterns of the past and charts the visionary course for the future which our learners and communities so desperately need.And it gets bette...
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When to Publish
2008-02-02 06:59:00
Blogs that influenced this post: Local Connections and Global Connections by Will Richardson The Global vs. Local Connections 2.0-Step by Christian Long So at EduCon this weekend, I talked about how I was noticing that, despite all the use of technologies -- and specifically Web 2.0 technologies -- at SLA, that we weren't using the traditional Web 2.0 technology of blogging much. Our kids weren't blogging to the world. In a few conversations thinking about why that was, I thought about how much social networking, how much sharing, how much presentation happens within our own community, and I talked a lot about how I thought that the community at SLA was enriching for kids to the point where they didn't really see as much need to go outside the school community for that moment. There's very little world that is merely a transaction between student and teacher at SLA... and if that "show the world" moment happens in positive ways in your own community, is it as necessary to go o...
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The Two Schools
2007-11-01 05:13:00
This post owes a great debt to to Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There's a long section in Part II where Phaedrus gives his "Two Universities" lecture, and I admit, that that notion has always stuck with me. What this is is an attempt to use that and both apply it to K-12 and hopefully frame some of what is going on in the larger school world today. Here is the crux of Pirsig's argument about the Two Universities: That night, for the next day's lecture, he wrote out his defense of what he was doing. This was the Church of Reason lecture, which, in contrast to his usual sketchy lecture notes, was very long and very carefully elaborated. It began with reference to a newspaper article about a country church building with an electric beer sign hanging right over the front entrance. The building had been sold and was being used as a bar. One can guess that some classroom laughter started at this point. The college was well known for drunken partying and ...
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Fun With Dylan and Web 2.0
2007-10-30 04:02:00
(Found this first on Bionic Teaching... made my own. Fun.)
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Standardization, Accountability and the Ethic of Care
2007-10-29 05:01:00
Something I've never understood about those who would put accountability and high standards -- which usually translates to a standardized experience for kids -- as their first virtues in our schools is that there are, in every school, those students we love for whom the normal school or classroom experience does not work. For urban educators, this often manifests as the student who lives a life that most teachers can't imagine. I've taught those kids who couldn't understand how cosine and sine could help them dodge the streets... the kids who couldn't see how learning about the Reformation would help them figure out where they were sleeping... What was failing my class because they couldn't see how The Great Gatsby was relevant to their life going to do. (For the record, the Great Gatsby is relevant to their life. A few years ago, we wrote a modern version of it, with an upstart rapper trying to crack high society. We read a lot about Puffy as preparation, but I digress...) ...
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Reminder: Only One Week to Submit Proposals for EduCon 2.0
2007-10-25 13:10:00
Just a reminder... there's only one week left to submit proposals for EduCon 2.0. Given all the folks who have either signed up or told me their coming, I think we're going to have an amazing conference. But we still want more proposals for conversations... be sure to submit yours! [Update: Link to the conference -- Link to the Prop osal Entry]
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Connection and Disconnection in the Digital Age
2007-10-18 09:02:00
[Things influencing this post: David Warlick's K12Online Keynote Tom Hoffman's -- On Modernism The words of the students of SLA] For a bunch of years at Beacon, I taught a senior English class called "Connection and Disconnection in the 20th Century." It was a semester-long, reading intensive class that really was a survey of some of what I thought the major literary themes of the modernist and post-modernist movement were and are. The class was reasonably analog, and despite that, some of my favorite moments of classroom teaching happened there. This is one of the intro letters from the class: To the students of Connection and Disconnection in 20th Century Literature: The desire for connection, to our fellow humans, to a community, to a country, to a God, could be considered a basic human need. In the 20th century, as many of the traditional bonds changed at a speed never seen before, that sense of connection changed or was lost. Much of the literature of the modernist and...
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The Mindset of Project-Based Learning
2007-10-18 00:56:00
I've realized something. Project -based learning is the easiest thing in the world to talk about because it's almost a guarentee that no one will disagree with you. Everyone will nod their head and agree that it's a good thing... but -- and Wiggins and McTigue write about this as well, by the way -- true project-based learning is an inversion of our traditional classrooms in powerful ways. Here's why: Project-based learning is not what you do after you've given the test, as supplimental to the test, as anything other than the primary method of assessment of student learning. In a true project-based learning classroom or school, you may give quizzes to check-in or dipstick for comprehension, but when it comes time to assess what students really, deeply understand about a unit, they do an authentic, student-centered assessment -- a project. If authentic student work is not the highest-order assessment in a classroom, that classroom is not project-based. It is still relying on...
More About: Learning , Mindset , The Mind , Earning

21st Century School Reform
2007-10-16 21:44:00
I'm in Nashville, at the Technology + Learning conference hosted by NSBA. I did a three hour workshop today on 21st Century School Reform . Here was the conference write-up. (And yes, I did use that much edu-speak... but I meant it!) What does the Department of Education’s School 2.0 initiative really entail, and how do we create schools that can realize that vision? Can we really build a pedagogical framework that allows all stakeholders to use technology to change the way we think about schools and create a transformative experience for all involved? Examine the issues of technology infrastructure, staff development, curriculum design in a One-to-One environment, home and school interaction in School 2.0, and the pedagogical framework necessary to make School 2.0 a reality. (And yes, there is a level of both hubris and insanity to think that I could tackle that topic in three hours.) I'll do a longer write-up about what I thought of the session later... I will say this -- the ...

Learning From the Kids
2007-10-11 04:08:00
So, like many other folks these days, I've been getting excited about the possiblities of UStream, but I also have been wondering about how we might leverage this in the classroom in ways that really take advantage of this twin notions of audience and interaction. As a result, what you see is SLA's first foray into interactive broadcasting... I stopped by one of our tech electives to show them the tool (and we were joined by another class after a few minutes), and I sent out a Twitter message to my network, and suddenly an interactive broadcast was born. I did forget to start recording for the first ten minutes, so this stream joins the conversation mid-talk. There are some real flaws with the broadcast, mostly that the mic was next to me, and I'm talking in "teacher voice," so I'm rather overpowering on the video compared to the kids' voices, I need to turn off the Skype noises, because they are distracting, and I think we need a wireless mic so that the kids can be heard...
More About: Kids , The Kids , Learning , Earning

What Is Left Behind
2007-10-08 10:18:00
Just read Jim Horn's transcript of a speech he gave against NCLB. Whether you agree or disagree, go read it. Here's a piece of his closing argument: Recently, a quote by Cal State professor, Art Costa showed up on one of internet discussion groups, a quote that is horribly relevant today: "What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value." Powerful read.
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EduCon 2.0 -- A Call for Conversations
2007-10-05 05:33:00
From January 25-27, we're going to attempt something really quite exciting at SLA. We're going to host EduCon 2.0. About EduCon 2.0 EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference. And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas, facilitate conversations, and share best practice. The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0: 1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members. 2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen 3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around. 4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate 5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked. We are now making our call for conversations -- th...
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Combining Progressive Pedagogy and 21st Century Tools
2007-10-02 07:06:00
My NECC Proposal: School 2.0 -- Comb ining Progressive Pedagogy and 21st Century Tools In our hurry to learn "What's new," we can't lose sight of "What's best?" Examine using the new tools in a school-wide, constructivist manner. Every day brings new tools so that even the most tech-savvy among us can feel overwhelmed. Fortunately, we can use what we know as educators to ground ourselves in sound pedagogical practice so that we can make smart choices about what tools to use and when. Looking at the work of theorists as old as Dewey and as new as George Siemens and the success of schools such as High Tech High and Science Leadership Academy, we will examine how to make smart decisions about how, when and why to use 21st Century Tools. When we design curriculum that is build around inquiry-driven, project-based learning, where students and teachers work together to create new meaning and deep understandings, then we can use 21st Century tools to allow students to create meanin...

An Accident of Birth
2007-10-02 06:08:00
[Cross-posted at LeaderTalk] One of the things about being a principal is that all the major issues that affect our students have to, sooner or later, come across your desk. One of the things about being a principal with a lot of students who come from difficult situations (and really, that describes almost all schools these days) is that you see many, many situations that leave you with your head in your hands and frustrated by the limits of what we can do. But until we resurrect "Boys Town" with some modern equivalent, we have to know that sometimes, the best we can do is create a safe haven in our schools. Sometimes, the best we can do is teach kids that adults can care about them, can be true to their word, and can actually act like adults are supposed to act. Sometimes, we have to do the best we can by our kids by just hugging them every day and trying to give them the skills that will hep them survive their own situations. Those are the days when I come home and hug my kids...
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