Category: Ed Tech

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A Letter to Teachers about Learning

I’m running a course for our school staff at the moment called 23 Things. I borrowed the idea from the very successful 23 Things program run by the San Jose library, but have adapted it slightly for our particular school situation.

Essentially, the teachers work their way through 23 separate tasks, some as simple as reading a blog post or watching an online video tutorial, while some are a little more complicated such as setting up their own blog, feedreader and delicious accounts. The course runs over 9 weeks in total, and each week they are asked to do 3 or 4 “Things” – 23 in total – that will expose them to a wide range of Web 2.0 tools and ideas by the time it’s over.

I’m running the course internally using our school Moodle, and have set it up in such a way that people must sign up for the course and work their way through it a week at a time.  I thought it sounded like a good idea, and  so did they it seems… 14 teachers signed up for the course very soon after I announced it.

For all the palaver that teachers carry on with to students about the importance of time management, committment, and handing work in on time, it amazes me just how “flexible” a group of teachers expects a course to be. So far I’ve had one official drop-out, and really only 3 or 4 people who appear to be doing much at all. If this was their students that were taking such a relaxed approach to a course of study, I wonder if they would be quite so flexible and understanding.

I can’t write a note home to their parents, so instead I wrote a note to them… here’s what it said.

Some folk feel a little awkward or intimidated when they feel they don’t know how to do something… doing a course like this must feel a bit strange because you’re getting asked to do things that you have no idea how to do.

Let me remind you of something… the reason you are in this course (one can only surmise) is that you DON’T know how to do these things, but that you’d like to learn. So it’s ok not to know how to do them, or to not understand them. Applaud yourself for taking the plunge and signing up for 23 Things in an attempt to learn more about these things you don’t know.

Now, here’s a secret… if you have the Internet, you can learn to do almost anything. Try going to www.youtube.com and in the search box, type the thing you want to learn how to do… so, if you want to know how to set up Google Reader, go to YouTube and type “set up google reader“… you’ll find a bunch of tutorials to show you how. If you want to know how to make a Caesar salad, try typing in “how to make caesar salad” and viola! Dinner is almost served!

One of the unavoidable facts of life in the 21st Century is that Information is Abundant. If simple facts and data is what you need, or you want instructions on how to do something, then there is no shortage of information about it. In a previous age, school was predicated on the notion that Information is Scarce. Thanks to the Internet and tools like Google it no longer is, and this has changed the very nature of education. One of our greatest challenges in education nowadays is to deal with this idea that Information is no longer scarce… our students can (potentially) know as much (or more) than us about a particular topic. It doesn’t matter how much we know, there will always be more we don’t know.

For this reason we have to be continual learners, and we have to learn how to find answers to things that we don’t yet know. If this course was delivered face to face, I’d be able to explain and show you a lot of this stuff… but it’s not. And so you need to figure some things out for yourself and motivate yourself to find answers to problems that crop up.

By all means, I will help you if you get stuck and need a hand. But sometimes working it out for yourself can be the best thing you can do for yourself.

I have no idea whether it will make a difference or not, but I felt better after writing it.

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You say that like it’s a bad thing

Last Friday I had a fabulous day at the Why 2 of Web 2.0 seminar in Sydney, where the special guest speaker was Wil Richardson.  Wil was also ably supported by other speakers including Australians Judy O’Connell and Westley Field.

I was very keen to hear Wil speak, after having read his blog for a while now and also having met in the occasional UStream backchannel.  He had lots of good things to say (which he kindly allowed me to record with my iPod so I may post up some audio snippets.)   I was fortunate to get a seat right at the front, thanks to Judy offering to let me share the powerboard at the front table so I could plug in my Mac.  I was also able to piggyback on the wifi service and browse the various sites that Will was referring to as he told the audience about them… quite a few really interesting sites in his list , most of which are now in my del.icio.us feed.

One of my colleagues from school also attend the event, and when I got back to school the next day I asked how he enjoyed it.  His reply was fairly lukewarm, with the comment that he thought a lot of the things Wil was saying made him sound like a zealot.  Google says that a zealot is a “fanatically committed person“, or “one who espouses a cause… in an immoderately partisan manner“.

I don’t think my colleague used the term zealot in a particularly positive sense – I’m sure it wasn’t meant as a compliment.  Personally, if a zealot is a fanatically committed person then I think we need more zealots in education.  I also have strong beliefs about the nature of school and learning and think that we need to act quickly and radically if schools are to maintain any sort of relevance in today’s world.  I also think we need to be fairly drastic about making these changes, so I guess that makes me a zealot too.

Wil gave a number of (what I thought were) powerful examples of how the world is changing.  He used some great examples from Friedman’s The World is Flat and Tapscott’s Wikinomics; examples that clearly show how much our schools are out of sync with the world we say we are preparing our children for.  In  particular, one of the stories that seemed to rankle a few listeners, including my colleague, was the one about a student who was given a research task by his teacher and how he approached this task.

The student found very little information about the topic, not even on Wikipedia. What would you do if you were this student?

Here’s what he did.  He created a Wikipedia entry using the limited information that he did know.  Over the next few days and weeks, the Wikipedia entry on the topic was edited, amended, added-to and improved by many other people.  All of their individual little bits of knowledge gradually built up the topic until there was quite a comprehensive article written about it.  The student then used this article to submit for his research project.

Apparently, the student’s teacher discovered what had happened and the student was awarded an F – a failing grade.  Being the zealot that he is, Will suggested that the student should have received an A grade.  This suggestion raised a few eyebrows…  in the afternoon discussion panel the suggestion that this kid would get an A for doing something like this was questioned by a number of people.  They suggested that the kid had cheated, had acted dishonestly, had not done the task, had rorted the system, etc, and therefore should have failed the task.  I think they are missing the point.

While I can see both sides of the situation, there is no way I would have failed the kid for doing this.  There may be more to the story than I’m  privy to, but on the face of it, failing a student for using their initiative in this manner makes no sense to me.    If I were an employer, I’d much rather give a job to a kid like this who knows how to find a solution in an innovative way, rather than a “rule follower” that just accepts that very little information is available.

It’s interesting that the teachers I’ve told this story to say “Oh, you can’t do that! That’s cheating!”, but the business people I’ve told the story to usually respond with a laugh and say “I want that kid working for me!”.  And really, this is the gap that the education world is struggling with so much.   The “real world” wants people who can find solutions in creative ways, who can innovate and work with teams to collaboratively find solutions to difficult problems.  The “education world” still seems focussed on measuring individual effort, rewarding those who follow the rules and stay inside the lines, those who rehash existing information rather than finding ways of creating new information.

Wil spoke about many things, but I think this story was the most powerful example of the chasm between what the world expects of our children and what most school are prepared to deliver.  One wants to award an F, the other wants to award an A.

One of us is completely screwed up, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the zealots.

You can find the UStream recording from Will’s talk here, and his conference wiki here.

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A Question of Value

I was asked to present at a conference recently and I willingly agreed. I was quite aware at the time that there would be no direct payment involved for presenting but the conference was relevant to me, I thought I had something worthwhile to add and I figured I would enjoy presenting… so I said yes. Besides, the organiser is a longstanding friend of mine and I am usually happy to help out. I’ve presented for this person at a number of other conferences and on each occasion my services as a presenter have been greatly appreciated, but have also been expected at no cost. Because of the good exposure it offers and because it ultimately looks good on my resume, I have willingly presented without charge and have usually not regretted doing so.

But I’m wondering where to draw the line. I live in Sydney, and this particular conference is in a different state. So it means a flight, a hotel and a day away from work. It means a taxi to the airport. It means eating at restaurants for a few days, and while all of that might sound somewhat exotic and glamorous compared to the usual school-bound world of education, it can get quite expensive. Adding up the flights, the accommodation and associated incidental costs can easily accrue to four or five hundred dollars. In most cases I’ve insisted that the conference organisers at least cover the cost of getting me there and back and putting a roof over my head, and in most cases they have willingly done so.

This particular conference, which I don’t want to name, did not initially make such an offer. In fact, when I raised the question, I was put into a bargaining situation where I had to offer to double the number of sessions I was running in exchange for my travel costs to be covered. And while I think it will be a great conference, the fact that I am presenting both morning and afternoon sessions for both days means that I won’t get a whole lot of time to enjoy the rest of it.

The final straw in stretching my goodwill came today however, when a confirmation email arrived for the conference, and kindly informed me that if I wanted to attend a preconference social event it would only cost me $70. In addition to that, the official conference dinner was also available to me at a mere $90. There is something wrong with this picture… Now, not only am I presenting for no charge, I had to bargain for my basic costs to be covered and have to pay my own way to join the social part of the event. That doesn’t seem right to me.

So I replied to the email with this little note tacked on the end…

This is a little bit awkward, but I feel I need to say it.

Without presenters there would be no conference. As a commercial business that operates for a profit, it amazes me that <company name> has an expectation that presenters will come along and present for free. Obviously, there are people out there willing to do this (including myself) who simply enjoy the opportunity to present to their colleagues and who do it for the love of it. If <company name> had to actually pay the presenters there would probably not be a conference, as it would not be affordable to run or attend. Looking through the presenters list is quite a who’s who of the EdTech community in Australia and you are fortunate to be able to get them to present for you, and especially so when you consider that you are getting their services for virtually no cost.

I was surprised a few months ago that I had to do a deal with <name removed> and offer to present a couple of extra sessions in exchange for <company name> covering the expense of getting me to the conference and putting me up in a hotel, both expenses that it was initially assumed I would be carrying myself. While I enjoy presenting, I simply cannot afford to pay the cost of airfare and accommodation, not to mention having to ask for a day off from my regular employment in order to offer my services for free.

There has to be a limit to what people will tolerate before it feels like they are being taken advantage of. I have no idea how many of the presenters are having costs covered, or indeed if any of them are in fact charging for their services, but if my own experience is anything to go by it would seem to be very few of them. To present for no financial reward is one thing, but to be out-of-pocket for the privilege of doing so is just absurd. These things are not a holiday, they’re hard work. It takes lots of preparation time to do one of these sessions (let alone 4 of them!), as well as time away from loved ones, time away from work and other interests, etc.

Now, in return for their generosity, these presenters are being asked to pony up their own money to attend one of the only real perks of being there, the social events.

I believe there needs to be a rethink about how much you value your presenters. I understand that it would be a significant added expense for <company name> to look after them in the way they ought to be looked after, but again, without presenters there would be no conference. It’s OK not to pay us (sort of!) but to expect us to pay our own way in order to help <company name> run a profitable conference is a bit of an insult.

Just my thoughts, although I’m sure others are thinking the same things.

I raised this question on my Twitter network and it seems that many agree with me. The general feedback was that conference organisers should, as a minimum, cover the expenses of their presenters. In the education sphere there is typically not a lot of money to throw around, and I understand that if presenters had to be paid what they were really worth there would probably not be nearly as many conferences to present at… Catch 22. But what is reasonable?

So what do you think? What is a realistic expectation for commercial conference organisers to offer teacher presenters? Do teachers who present for free (like I have in the past) make a rod for our own back? Do we undervalue ourselves by offering our services at little cost?

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy presenting and am glad to be able to contribute. I don’t have a problem presenting for free (for now anyway) but I do think that I ought not have to be out of pocket for the privilege of doing so, especially when these events are being run as commercial exercises. To be paying my own expenses to help someone else make money makes me feel like I’m being taken advantage of, and that’s not a good feeling.

Please leave me a comment as I’m really interested to hear what you have to say on this.

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