Ten 21st Century Education Quotes I Carry With Me

Here are ten 21st Century education quotes that I've heard over the past few years that I liked enough to save in my Blackberry so I could look at, remember, and share. These are ten quotes that have been of value to me and I believe will be of value to other innovative educators as well. If I remember or know where they came from, I've indicated it below.

1-Technology is only technology to those who were born before it.
2-We need to prepare students for THEIR future not OUR past-Ian Jukes, educator and Futurist.
3-Teachers need to stop saying, “Hand it in,” and start saying “Publish It.” Alan November
4-We have moved from “know what” learning to “know where” learning.
5-The largest number of podcasts in education are about Podcasts in education.-Marco Torres.
6-Kids DO want to learn, but schools get in the way.
7-Digital Media enables us to build more stages for our kids to express themselves. - Marco Torres
8-What gets us in trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know that just ain't so. Mark Twain.
9-We need to replicate in the classroom the world in which students are living.
10-If we teach today the way we were taught yesterday we aren't preparing students for today or tomorrow.

A well formed quote, like a picture, is a great method for painting detailed concepts. I love collecting these quotes and knowing how they’ve affected others. If one of these quotes affects you or if there is a quote that has affected you that you’d like to share please do by commenting on this post.

Recommended Viewing for Innovative Educators

As an Innovative Educator I have an insatiable need to read, see and hear about new things all the time and on demand. I have found a tremendous resource to satisfy this desire at http://www.ted.com/ which posts fresh TedTalks weekly. Ted Talks are inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers designed to bring inspiration, innovation and new perspectives on the world and on ourselves. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). TED.com makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. Almost 200 talks from the archive are now available, with more added each week. The videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

For an Innovative Educator (especially a city educator who spends a lot of time on subways and buses) the 18 minute format is just fantastic for personal learning. Additionally, the videos are all segmented into smaller pieces just perfect for sharing when trying to inspire students when delivering instruction.

Here are The Innovative Educators 6 picks to begin your TED experience.

Freakonomics Fans
In an eye-opening talk -- presented before the publication of Freakonomics -- Steven Levitt presents one of the book's more fascinating analyses. Sifting data collected through first-person interviews with a Chicago drug gang, he shows that drug dealing is not at all a quick route to riches. And yes, a drug gang does have a org chart.


Whole New Mind Fans
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.


Jane Goodall Fans
Traveling from Ecuador to Africa, Jane Goodall takes the audience on an ecological journey, discussing highlights and low points of her experiences in the jungle. She shows how progress is helping research (DNA analysis) and hurting the environment (clear-cutting). And she draws a dozen parallels between primate and human behavior, making the point that we really aren't all that different. Our big advantage, she says, is the ability to communicate with sophisticated spoken language -- yet, sadly, we are abusing this power and destroying the planet. She urges the TED audience to behave differently, and use their higher powers to correct the planet's course.

Tipping Point and Blink Fans
In this witty monologue, Malcolm Gladwell follows the career of a food industry consultant who uncovered a key secret to what eaters like. Running huge focus groups to find customers' truest tastes, Gladwell's hero draws a radical conclusion, an epiphany that has defined food marketing ever since. Note: The theme of the 2004 conference was "The Pursuit of Happiness" -- hence the talk's quirky presence.

Nicholas Negroponte (One Laptop Per Child - OLPC) Fans
Nicholas Negroponte lays out the details of his nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project. Speaking just days after relinquishing his post as director of the MIT Media Lab, he announces that he'll pursue this venture for the rest of his life. He takes us inside the strategy for building the "$100 laptop," and explains why and how the project plans to launch "at scale," with millions of units distributed in the first seven countries. "This is not a laptop project; it's an education project," he says.

You may also want to check out: Nicholas Negroponte: From 1984, 4 predictions about the future (3 of them correct)ttp://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/230

Wii, Interactive Whiteboard, Touchscreen Fans
Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. A multi-ovation demo from TED2008.

The TED mission involves a passionate belief in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. We are fortunate they have built this clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

Another amazing thing about Ted.com contribution is that viewers have an opportunity to share their thoughts about each video because they provide a commenting/discussion feature associated with each video. TEDTalks have tremendous potential to inspire innovative educators everywhere. I invite you to share how videos such as these have inspired your teaching and learning by posting comments on such experiences here. For more great videos visit The Innovative Educator's Video Recommendations.

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For more information visit 25 Incredible TED Talks for Educators

Professional Development for Learner 2.0

I am at the four-hour Intel® Teach to the Future Leadership Forum designed to guide instructional leaders as they support and promote effective integration of technology in classrooms. The Intel leadership forum is worthwhile and 20th Century leaders will get a lot out of it, but to better address the needs of the 21st Century leader it needs updating, an infusion of some obvious Web 2.0 tools, more modeling of best practices for the 2.0 Leader and it falls into the common education trap of talking the talk, but still struggling to walk the 1.0 walk.

I do not believe this is unique to the Intel Institute. It is prevalent in conferences, forums, presentations, and professional development proclaiming to be for 21st Century learners. Will Richardson reflected a similar sentiment at NECC 2007 when he said,

The total irony of the moment was that in this “Web 2.0″ and “School 2.0″ session that was supposed to celebrate the uses of the tools, the random notes were being taken on screen in a very un Web 2.0 tool called Microsoft Word. No transparency. No collaboration. No thought to sharing.--The Problem in a Nutshell…The UnProblem in a Nutshell

Here are five thoughts and suggestions I have about how today's experience in particular, but professional development in general, can be more meaningful for the 2.0 learner.

• Provide Digital Materials
• Provide An Overview of Digital Materials and Use 21st Century Formats to Share
• Demonstrate the Power of 21^st Century Tools to Capture Opinions and Feedback
• Ask 2.0 Questions
• Use Web 2.0 Tools to Capture Work, Facilitate Learning and Best Practices, and Keep Conversations Going

Provide Digital Materials

Materials should be digitally accessible BEFORE the session begins. Not doing so is no longer acceptable in classes for 21st Century leaders and learners. I see this as poor planning. At the very least 2.0 learners should receive the session handbook and PowerPoint in a digital format that can accept notes (i.e. not in a pdf that you can not take notes on). This enables 2.0 learners to get beyond needlessly copying down what their PowerPoint slides say, and allow them to get to the thinking faster by actually recording higher-order thoughts and ideas on these slides. Taken to another level, these PowerPoint slides could be a Google collaborative presentation allowing for shared note taking and collaborative meaning-creation on the slides. The simple introduction of a digital handbook and PowerPoint would enable facilitators to model best practices of how to write and take deeper notes on the digital documents and the added bonus is the learners won’t have to carry the materials around, but rather these tools are available anytime, anywhere, on demand along with their other digital resources. And, who are we kidding. If we don’t have these materials digitally, and accessible on demand in seconds through a search, they end up in a pile somewhere along with all the other conference material.

Provide An Overview of Digital Materials and Use 21^st Century Formats to Share
Participants received a CD with supplemental materials that come with the book for participants to take a look at later. As a facilitator with more than a decade of experience teaching and supporting others in doing so, I can tell you that most participants rarely go back and upload these materials. For real impact the materials distributed should be explored and used in class. A great way to do this is to begin the class with an introduction to what is on the CD, where to find the materials and each time a document is being used the class should be shown where to access it.

The other issue I had is that while CDs are inexpensive to distribute, I would recommend against using a 20^th Century format to distribute materials in an outdated medium such as CDs. Many laptops (and most in the room) have eliminated CD drives to reduce weight and instead people use usb drives or rely on material being downloadable from the internet.

Demonstrate the Power of 21^st Century Tools to Capture Opinions and Feedback

The forum began with a paper PowerPoint survey about leader’s attitudes, experience, and behaviors. My facilitators happened to create a digital survey so we had the opportunity to see the data from participants across NYC, but I was disappointed that this wasn't the way Intel designed it. They solely had a paper version for discussion and are not capturing this data which would not only be beneficial for Intel, but it would be of great interest for Principals to see how they compared among their peers. Student response systems are the big rage. While they are great for a classroom without laptops, a classroom full of laptops should be using these free and powerful survey tools that enable facilitators to capture and instantly analyze learner’s feedback.

Ask 2.0 Questions

This was a future leadership forum but they were asking 20^th Century questions. While there is value in seeing participants answers to 1.0 questions, the future leaders should be asked 2.0 questions as well if for nothing more than enabling them to be aware that they need to be aware. The outdated questions included questions like what do you use word processing programs for? I don’t even know people who say word processing anymore. And how does a texting, social networking, berrying, blog commenting, emailing, wiki-ing, tweet trying, collaborative doc writing, IMer really answer that when most of her writing is not even within a “word processing” program. So 20^th Century! A better question is, "how much of your writing is done digitally?"

While I may be over dramatizing the word processing question, my problem was the survey was completely devoid of any 2.0 questions like: How often do you comment on a blog or discussion board? Do you have an active blog? Do you belong to any social networks? Do you Tweet? Do you have an avatar? Do you play any MMORPGs? Do you have a wiki that you created or use frequently to work efficiently? Do you listen to podcasts? How many blogs do you subscribe to in an RSS reader?

While many leaders may not know what we’re talking about, they should know there is a whole lot of questions that they need to be able to answer, because many of their teachers and even more of their students can. Questions such as those can stimulate thinking and potentially shake up their minds to what they could/should be exploring.

Use Web 2.0 Tools to Capture Work, Facilitate Learning and Best Practices, and Keep Conversations Going

I also was disappointed because while there were ample opportunities to enhance the forum with web 2.0 tools the only one that was used was Google docs which was something added in by the facilitator and not already embedded in the class. The forum would have been a wonderful opportunity to introduce discussion boards, blogs, social networks, etc. that principals could tap into to begin building a global personal learning network with other leaders who have participated in this work. It also would engage them in a community where they could stay connected to like-interested colleagues, and keep the conversation going.

Another avenue I felt would have been enhanced with Web 2.0 tools was in the creation of personal action plans. Each leader has their own, but they don't have the option to look at exemplars, share, view, and learn from others, comment, connect or discuss. If they had an option to post the documents, share and get feedback, this would be an incentive to go back to the work and would make for smart and obvious follow up conversation with individuals supporting the implementation of the plan including those within a school and those outside of the school.

Final Thoughts

While I was disappointed with the un21^st Century-ness of my experience today, I do support utilizing this forum for leaders because they will come away with a lot. There are a ton of valuable resources and a tremendous amount of food for thought. It is also very well-thought out, planned, and better than most PD experiences. Additionally, I found more value from this forum then I did from my three days at Microsoft’s Executive Briefing where they could not secure laptops or internet for participants and none of the aforementioned suggestions were employed. Furthermore even at NECC, and the plethora of other PD experiences I attend, facilitators can talk a good game, but they aren’t modeling what they are preaching. That said, I think it’s up to Innovative Educators to push themselves to start using the tools and practices they talk about and provide experiences that are more engaging for 2.0 Learners.

How I Lost 20 Pounds in One Month On a Paperless Diet

I walked into my interview for a position at the Office of Instructional Technology with a huge blue wheelie bag containing 25 lbs of necessities for my literacy coach position. Inside my bag was the balanced literacy curriculum (in what was known as the big red binder), a bunch of notebooks containing the latest reading and writing workshop units of study, binders with notes on the work I was doing with teachers, and folders containing information that supported my coaching work. I was interviewed by Troy Fischer who looked up, pointed to my wheelie bag and said, "If we are to consider you for this position you'll have to get rid of that thing." I protested explaining I am the type of person who needs to have all resources at my fingertips wherever I am so I wasn't quite sure I could agree. Additionally, I explained that in my position I had no access to a laptop or digital material and though I had access to a desktop it was shared by numerous people making it difficult to reliably access. Mr. Fischer said, "Well, I'm looking to hire someone who’s ready to change all that."

A few interviews later I was offered the position and my first responsibility was to digitize all the literacy and math materials that coaches would need as part of an initiative to equip NYC Coaches with 21st Century Toolkits comprised of fully loaded Tablet laptops. I worked with all our partner organizations and was able to get a treasure trove of textbooks, resource materials, and even that big red binder in digital format. At the same time I was committed to going completely digital. It was surprisingly easy and was ultimately an absolute blessing because once I made the decision to do this I never had to worry about printing or locating a file again and I had all my work with me wherever I was.
Here are my ten steps to a successful paperless diet:

Low Cost Computing Options That Will Enable More Educators to Consider 1-to-1 Environments

As most Innovative Educators will agree, the key to having a successful 21^st Century classroom is equity and access to some key technology tools like a laptop and digital video camera. Unfortunately, cost has been a huge factor, until now. Many are familiar with Nicholas Negroponte, MIT’s visionary behind the $100 laptop. The dream has finally come to fruition as not only has Negroponte’s XO laptops been released, but he has also inspired the development of an entire class of low cost laptops ranging from $200 - $500. I will be personally testing out some of these new devices and watching how well they work in the classroom.

Here are three suggestions for Innovative Educators interested in finding out more about these devices.

1) Read New York Times Technology writer David Pogue’s review or watch the video.

2) Read about a class that is using the XO laptops in the classroom to enhance writing in the OLPC Blog from Teaching Matters, a New York City-based educational technology professional development organization.

3) Go straight to the websites of three of the leading providers of low-cost laptops.

With the advent of these low-cost learning tools, teaching in a one-to-one environment will become more and more prevalent. I look forward to learning along side other innovative educators the terrific ways teaching and learning are enhanced with low-cost computing and hope that some readers of The Innovative Educator will share their experiences.

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Post Thoughts
(What I've thought or found after publishing the post)

4/21/2008: Looks like HP has also entered the game. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_hi_te/hewlett_packard_small_laptops.

5/16/2008: Rumor has it OLPC may be releasing a windows version. Here's the photo from Tech Crunch. Click on the picture for the full story...and more interestingly, comments.

5/19/2008 - From the New York Times:
Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children

After a years-long dispute, Microsoft and the computing and education project One Laptop Per Child said Thursday that they had reached an agreement to offer Windows on the organization’s computers.

Microsoft long resisted joining the ambitious project because its laptops used the Linux operating system, a freely distributed alternative to Windows.

http://www.blogger.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?ref=education

See what people are saying at Classroom 2.0

General 1 to 1
General Sublaptops
OLPC / XOs
Asus
Classmate

Educating Innovatively

When I began teaching in 1997 I was shocked when I was approached to provide professional development for my district on using computers in the classroom. I was surprised because I was a first-year teacher and couldn’t imagine that I was the person the school district would select as best suited to teach other teachers how to use effectively use technology in the classroom. Paul Reese was the technology coordinator for the district at that time and informed me that I was one of the few teachers he knew of that was putting technology tools to use in the classroom and he promised me I had a lot to offer. I realize now the importance of a leader and mentor to see more in you then you see in yourself and am happy that I took him up on the challenge. That year I taught teachers how to create class websites, publish historical newspapers and travel brochures to support social studies instruction, actively watch video to support content area instruction, use excel to support math and more.

I realized that what made me the right person for the job was that I was always interested in trying out new technologies and learning new things to make teaching and learning more exciting. In a “World is Flat,” “Whole New Mind,” “Change or Die,” climate that we are teaching in, I’ve found my ability to Adapt or Become Irrelevant not only useful, but necessary. If you're reading this, I imagine you either are or are open to being the same way. As such, I am anxious to share the technology tools that I love and use with others.

These are the my current can't-live without tools.
1) Wikispaces
2) Google Docs
3) Skype

These are three tools in which I use as more of a consumer than a producer and want to begin using more actively.
1) NING
2) Twitter
3) UStream

You can learn more about these tools at The Innovative Educator wiki where you’ll find the url, description, tips, and information on learning to use each tool. I know there are many other innovative educators out there. I invite you to share your favorite tools and those you want to begin using more actively.