Cardio-techno Conditioning on a Steep Learning Curve

     A few short weeks ago, I light heartedly created this blog with the tongue in cheek name that it bears.  Little did I know, or perhaps in my heart of hearts I did know, I just didn't want to give into the fear that the title would be a harbinger of what challenges lie in store for me as a learner.  It has been in a sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy. In his book, Blogs Wikis, and Podcasts,  Will Richardson suggests that in order for teachers to be able to prepare students for a future that will most assuredly be full of technology and networked spaces, then we must  experience these environments for ourselves. He prescribes to the notion that if we are to understand HOW to use these tools to teach our students then we must become engaged and connected with these tools personally.  Well personally, I must confess that I have indeed “experienced” them but I am far from experienced IN them.

     Wikis, pods and blogs sound like they could be nick names for sweets or the small, precocious children of pop stars, but they are not sweet and they are not adorable.  They have been agents of discord and frustration.  Under the guise of creating, publishing and networking with the aforementioned tools my computer has heard words that I would dare not type.  I have lost hours of valuable sleep and forgone meals and social outings trying to embrace this beast called technology that will not go away. To say that I was frustrated is an understatement equivalent to reminding someone that rain is wet.  I had placated myself with the thought and hope that maybe the technology would change so quickly that the world would forgive my apparent inability to grasp today’s bees’ knees.A quick glimpse of sanity from Dr. David Thornburg insisting that students need to be taught basic intuitive 21^st century skills such as cooperative learning, critical thinking and communication reminded me that not all learning had to take place via a tweet or a mouse. 

     Trilling further built my case for allowing some quarter when it comes to using technology by admitting that there are some challenges with using information and communication technology information and communication technology. Here I thought that everyone in the world had read the manual except me.  He writes of a new learning curve and encourages society to shift from learning from and about technology to learning with technology. It was encouraging to feel the shift in my own paradigm from feeling like I didn't know anything about these new technology tools to that of realizing that I am at least on the spectrum of learning.  Technology is not an all or nothing endeavor. Trilling outlines stages from disconnected to majority to innovators and finally mavericks.  I think perhaps I was seeing the world around me being in the final stage of Trilling’s curve feeling as if I could never bridge that gap so how could I ever lead my students there?  

     In addition to teaching, I am a dairy farmer. As dairy farmers in an increasingly global and technological venue we are constantly being badgered to implement new and improved technologies.  We decided that we would not necessarily be the first to adopt the new but would also not be the last to set the old aside.  I am adopting that mindset for my class room as well.   Being able to look at the distance I have traveled rather than that of what is left to traverse, has given me the confidence and will to accomplish more.  I now realize though that I must commit to practicing using these technologies myself and need to seek out colleagues and resources that can provide a safety net until I can navigate them successfully. If I am comfortable with the mechanics of using the tools of technology then I can more effectively apply learning through them. These two goals go hand in hand with each other.Surely there will still be a few choice words and episodes of high blood pressure but I am a little further along the curve than when I started.

Invasion of the Pod (Cast) People

Does anyone remember the cheesy horror flicks that had aliens duplicating themselves into human persona via a POD? Well the new Pod people are among us and I am the one that feels like screaming. These pods though are in a different form than the 1956 version of gelatinous pods found in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. These pods are PODCASTS and I believe that after struggling with multiple files of unknown extensions these past two weeks that I have entered a new and strange world.  Like it or not I have crossed to the geek side....I have pod casted.  It's true. I have joined the ranks of the wired multitudes and published a brief response to an impromptu survey about the use of technology in schools and whether or not students feel that schools are current with incorporating that technology. I don't want to ruin the surprise ending, but guess what? They are not. I am coming to the slow realization that perhaps Alan November is on to something when he speaks of the disconnect that is occurring with students and schools because they cannot use the "containers" or digital tools that they are so comfortable with to create and learn.  Trust me, I understand that it is ultimately about the content and I will stand hard and fast that there are some things that students just HAVE to know, but I am starting to wiggle a little uncomfortably with the idea that maybe educators, me included, do need to look at some other ways to allow students to construct their own meanings about that content and where it fits in the world.  Meanwhile I will not numbly follow the technology simply because it is there.  I will use my own brain to construct my own meaning and let's hope that podcast people and pod people do not become one and the same or  I may be that person standing in the center of the road screaming at cars passing by to wake up and not let the aliens (or technology) take over our individual thoughts.

P21, 3R's, 4C's and a good pair of running shoes

     P21 is not the latest fitness craze.  P1 stands for Partnership for 21st Century Skills which is a national organization that "advocates for 21st century readiness for every student". This  organization encourages the education system to be mindful of not just the core subject areas, the 3 R's, but also to be mindful of  4C's.  The 4C's stand for Critical thinking and problem solving,Communication, Collaboration and Creativity and innovation.  The goal is to help American students breech the increasing gap in achievement that seems to have been created with our last greatest educational reform.  These are not NEW skills but perhaps they have become forgotten ones for many of us.  Someone probably spent a lot of time to generate the rainbow graphic complete with supporting pools to illustrate the framework for 21st century learning .

      I suppose I have always subscribed to the belief that young people need to be taught not just book skills but life skills. This P21 framework encourages us to think of all the parts as being interconnected and that just makes sense.  That in itself should be scary but perhaps there is some hope then that the policy makers and researchers are finally realizing what educators have known for years.  There is more to teaching than what is in a text book or on a test.  My greatest fear is that the bureaucracy  that is our education system will take a goal so pure and common sense and muddy it up by trampling it under its misguided but well meaning feet.  Students need to be able to read and write and do basic math.  They should leave school knowing how to read a car contract or an apartment lease and they should know how to balance a check book and understand the fine print in a loan paper.  Students should be taught how to find information, not forced to remember minute details. Students should leave school prepared for what lies AFTER school and that will most likely involve working with other people and negotiating the technology of the day. 

     This all makes sense but at this point no one can tell us exactly what it will look like in the actual class room.  I want to know how we are going to teach children these skills. What courses will we offer?  How will we determine if it is successful or not? P21 offers comprehensive resources for policy makers, educators, parents and students. They have a plan for the learning environment all the way through professional development and curriculum design,  This is the complete package but I'm not sure if I am ready to open it.  At the moment everyone is buzzing about 21st century skills.  Dr David Thornburg identifies no less than a dozen key skills for the modern learner to be successful and speaks of "deep global transformation". Dr Chris Dede lauds collaboration as the next greatest interface.  Everyone is talking the talk but as of yet, I'm not sure who is walking the walk but rest assured when the time comes to lace up the walking shoes, the teacher in the class room will be the first to get blisters.

Wha wha wiki wiki wiki...whaaaaaaaat?

My day is complete.I have learned something new. In Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson explains that the term wiki is an abbreviation of wiki-wiki which in Hawaiian means "quick".  For the average teenager, add -pedia to it and it becomes the sole source of all human knowledge. Add "group" to the front of the word and it becomes the bane of my existence at the moment.Richardson suggests that Wikipedia is the "poster child for the collaborative construction of knowledge and truth that the new, interactive Web facilitates".  I feel like a different sort of poster child.  I understand how Wikipedia works. People from all over the world can edit and supplement information about any topic ranging from snail tails to rocket trails and the idea is that since it is public to everyone, no one group or individual can spin the information too wildly out of proportion. I'm okay with factual stuff like how many kilograms there are in a pound (It's 2.204 by the way. I didn't have to look it up but I did confirm it and even SIRI understood what I wanted and she almost never gets things right) but I am a little sketchy on subjective issues like race, politics or religion. After all some things just can't be quantified and individual experiences can build bias.  Meanwhile Thomas Friedman insists that the world is flat as a result of all the potential globalization that technology provides and Wikipedia is just one part of that new world map. Following closely on its heels is the idea that students in individual class rooms will benefit from a class wiki site.  Some educators are well on this path while others, myself included, are just hearing about this latest and greatest tool. Richardson assures us that regardless of how we feel about them, using wikis in the class room can foster a sense of community and encourage the exchange of information and creative ideas among students.  If group collaboration is the new hope for the future then perhaps I had better try to prepare  my students for this new world order.  After all some day I may start to drift off in a haze of anesthesia and glance up to see face of a former student frantically tapping away on the latest portable electronic device trying to retrieve vital information needed for my operation.  I can only hope that they know how to access Anesthesiologists-R-Us and that I was the one that taught them how.

To Blog or Not to Blog?...That is the question

Well if the question is to blog or not to blog, I must admit that I'm not sure of the answer.  Currently the purpose of blogging seems to be to keep me up well beyond a healthy bedtime and to challenge me to develop a series of electronic breadcrumbs so that I am able to find my way back to where I once was on my computer.  Often my computer prompts me condescendingly, "Are you SURE you want to close all tabs at once?"  I suppose the the actual edict of the week is how will I incorporate blogging into my high school class room?  Initially I believe that I will use it as a means of communication with my students.  It will be a place where they and their invested adults can see what's going on in any particular week in a course.  I am hoping to have a calendar with upcoming due dates and assignments as well as links to resources and additional content information.  Since I teach science, I like the idea of providing links to current events or stories in the news that have a science spin.  Genetics, bio-technology, world health, environmental issues and the ethics of how society will use its new found technologies are all fair game for stimulating thought and discussion.  A blog would be a good place for students to post their comments about both sides of any of these issues and to extend their thoughts by providing additional research and support about their stance. So just in case anyone else's bread crumbs have brought you to this site, I encourage you to please let me know if and how you are using a blog in your class room.

Does anyone know how to spell USB?

Not to date myself but I remember going to the drug store with my dad to test television picture tubes. He seemed like some techno-God being able to figure out just how to fix the horizontal or vertical hold of our beast of a television.  It was its own separate piece of furniture, big enough for its own zip code yet it had a picture area small enough to be blocked by the family cat. OK, so we had a BIG cat but the greatest advance in tv's at the time was if you had color and  whether or not you needed to put tinfoil on the rabbit ears to make the picture more clear.  Today electronics pervade nearly every aspect of our lives and my own children insist that I do not "deserve" a Smartphone because I don't know how to effectively operate one.  Meanwhile I find myself teaching in a high school with children that have never known a time without computers and cell phones and I am at best, electronically "special". I am aware that the proper term for this generation of youth is "digital native" and I am also WELL aware that I was not born on the same planet as most of my students let alone the same country.  I can't help but feel as if I am a visitor to their world and they are ordering 5 course meals in electronic technology while I can barely ask where the bathroom is.

So here is the beginning of a journey, a crusade perhaps or at least hopefully me not spending 40 years wandering in the desert looking for a place to plug in my laptop computer that is probably wondering how IT got paired with ME. The objective is to become more sound in the field of technology and specifically how to best use it to help our students become successful learners.

By the way, does anyone know how to spell USB?