Open Education Australia Report - iLabs MIT

Dr Philip Long, MIT iCampus Project (now at University of Queensland) gave his view and use of Open Source development of scientific experiments at MIT in iLab. He was talking at the Open Education Workshop in Sydney.

He talked about secondary, under graduate and out reach students using and developing lab based experiments through conversion of parts of the experiment that are normally ‘bench’ based into digital alternatives – and shared online with open access for all.

Some experiments use digital interpreters to data log or produce visual responses to user action over the internet. This includes the use of web-cams to give students the initial ‘view’ that the experiment is ‘real’, and that the enhanced digital interfaces that are being developed through iLabs.

Students can uses existing ‘code objects’ to interact with ‘lab’ devices – via activex or other mash-up to control and conduct experiments. Phillip was keen to point out that students are keen initially to view webcams and see that they would be ‘really’ operating a ‘live and real’ experiment remotely.

There are a number of Open Source project in development that students can either use or develop. Code can be downloaded, modified and re-distributed back through the iLabs community.

There are a number of global competitions run via iLabs for encourage students to learn. Phillip says the key in high school based learning using iLabs is under standing that students don’t know what they can and can’t do in using iLabs – it creates exploration and interest – through participation.

Phillip gave numerous examples of how students had found fault with some of the experiment to digital interfaces from an academic, user interface or programming perspective and then set about working together – online – to solve these issues and re-distribute the improvements though Open Source.

He was illustrating that Open Source and Open Education are not limited to technology, but sharing ideas, information and intellectual property to improve learning outcomes from high school through to Phd.

Independence from interest

How much important are you putting on ‘independence’ in transforming classroom practice?

If you walk about talking to people about the ‘wow’ of the week, your favourite Web2.0 gizmo this week, sooner or later people switch off. The honeymoon period is over. Initial interest can fade as people get lost in the fog of technology.

You might think what you are talking about is crystal clear, but others are simply looking into the murky unknown. Too many conversations, too many tools leads to confusion and inaction.  At times I have thought, ‘wow, I thought they were getting it, but what happened?’

Now I have learned that from an educational development perspective, there are some critical questions you have to ask yourself before saying much of anything.

For example : I want to create podcasts for my distance students. How do I do that?

The easy answer is : Audacity, Podomatic and a microphone. But that answer is incomplete.

We have to also ask

• How will what I do/say next build independence, so they can sustain this?
• How will the way I maintain this build capacity in the department to do more?
• How will this intervention in the established ‘norm’ – strengthen learning?

Independence

We want to ensure that whatever we do to develop education creates independence in those we help. This adds value, and prevents you being the ‘go to tech’ person – to ‘do’ it for them.

Capacity building

How will your instruction be recorded, shared or published so that it can be re-used by others repeatedly. What is the cost of this? Developing a resource such as a wiki or creating a screen cast has is a cost outside that of the mastery skills needed. This is normally measured as your time.

If you are able to create an independent teacher, with supporting materials – then they will be able to model the educational development in others.

Strengthening Learning

Locating and aggregating quality supporting resources will strengthen learning. This could be connecting the person with people who have experience and passion in this area (their blog, wiki or actually having a conversation).

Setting out terms of reference to evaluate the benefits to learning will assist in turning the intervention in the existing ‘norms’ in to a measured argument to sustain or modify it. It is likely that un-seen factors will affect this. Bumps in the road, such as access issues, technical issues or policy issues. Documenting and addressing these will help with maintaining the use of the technology over a period of time, not being a one off field trip.

Educational development requires more activity than the act of ‘teaching how’, it has to predict issues, challenges and further opportunities that will create independent advocates, that build capacity to do it again and again. This has always been the issue with ICT in schools – how to maintain and build on any given ICT introduced into learning. The major difference today, than a few years ago, is the amount of existing freely available materials and connected intelligence that we can draw on.

We simply don’t need to show people everything, but we do need to ensure that we scaffold resources and provide wider information that they can explore, knowing that it has been provided a result of our own evaluation.

Three questions I ask myself, whenever someone asks me for help.

Capacity through intervention strategy

What do we mean by capacity building in Educational Technology. Perhaps right up front, it is advisable to remind people that you are working with that you don’t mean ‘learning computer skills’.

That is often the assumption that people attending workshops make as that has largely their prior experience. PD + Computers = Mastery Challenge.

Capacity should be addressing critical areas such as participatory planning, curriculum, units of work, lesson design, implementation, evaluation, research, information, advocacy, networking and financial planning.

Building capacity in yourself is far easier than attempting to do this at the whole school level. All that knowledge and connectedness that comes with the acquisition of capacity in yourself – is not easily replicated.

Often in our eagerness to see reflections of our own advocacy and practice in others, it is easy to forget just how confusing, frustrating and massive it was to climb out of the 20th Century teaching norms and look towards the horizons of what could be possible.

Flash was easier to learn when it was version 1, Photoshop was far less complicated in version 7, and RSS was far easier to deal with when there was less information flooding in. The capacity of all of us to generate information that we think helps the rest of ‘them’ – means that early adopters are critical to any educational institution to interpret and lead.

To me, it is an ongoing tragedy that these people are often not empowered to ‘lead’ – hence the perpetual question ‘how do we effect sustainable change’ that senior educational leaders orbit. It is hard to plan your future, if your point of reference is the past - specifically, time served is preferable over capacity to lead change.

Friere (1973) Pedagogy of the Oppressed argues

“the process of learning to read and the act of reading are deeply political: our reading of the word is shaped by our reading of the world”

Student’s own experience of technology combined with teacher interventions are mutually reinforcing in building capacity – for change. We simply don’t need to know ‘everything’ anymore. Mastery ICT skills are less important that understanding how technology changes learning.

“We are going to blog” or ”We are using Web2.0 tools in the classroom” and other statements are unlikely to improve learning outcomes for students.

I say unlikely, unless they are seen as interventions essential in strengthening teaching practice. To say you are working to build capacity is

“Meaningless unless you insist on using language and terms that have precise meanings.” (Moore, 1995).

While we are talking about promoting change, the interventions that teachers are doing right now in their solo-classrooms are part of a wider social transformation.

“We are going to blog” – is an output of increased capacity not mastery skills – writing a blog is no harder than writing an email in that regard.

Capacity comes through understanding how using blogs is an intervention within wider social change. In education it directly relevant to renewing pedagogical approaches, developing media literacy skills, reflective learning over passive learning etc.,

In fact web2.0 is part of the digital-soup of Learning Objects within curriculum.

Chiappe defined Learning Objects as:

“A digital self-contained and reusable entity, with a clear educational purpose, with at least three internal and editable components: content, learning activities and elements of context. The learning objects must have an external structure of information to facilitate their identification, storage and retrieval: the metadata. ” (Chiappe, Segovia, & Rincon, 2007).

Any professional development seminar, workshop or in-service – that promotes ‘learning about Web2.0’ – has to address ‘capacity.

It must clearly explain the wide reaching implications that it has to have to become sustainable, and that on their own, Web2.0 applications – such as blogging are unlikely to improve learning outcomes for students.

Once you done that, you are in a much better position to understand which Web2.0 tools could be used in ‘capacity building’. And it may be that you shortlist a relatively short, but considered list.

What are the interventions? What are the learning objects? What are your criteria for capacity building? - The tools are easy in comparison.

Has your curriculum expired?

One of the projects I am undertaking at Macquarie Univeristy is ‘curriculum renewal’. It taken me a week to read all the planning and research into this - and I’m not done yet.

In K12 speak, this is looking at ’21st Century Skills’, those things that have previously fallen outside summative performance testing, yet recognised as critical skills to be a lifelong learner. Having the ability to collaborate, participate etc., to act out a role in society as an ethical, productive and reflective individual.

At Macquarie, student capabilities are an embeded part of the curriculum, with the ‘curriculum renewal’ project - specifically addressing the wider issues in the 21C discourses.

The questions being asked are very similar to those that K12 is asking (or perhaps those which I’ve been focusing on before last week).

How do we teach institution-wide graduate attributes?  How can we measure the capabilities of our graduates?   How can universities bridge the gap between institutional rhetoric and the reality of the student learning experiences?

The process of beginning to do this involves, as we know, mapping the curriculum to these capabilities.This I think is where K12 Curriculum Leaders need to, well, lead.

Identifying and being clear about these in a school - and articulating that to parents and staff providing the opportunity to explore and select technology tools with pedagogical approaches towards change.

It is not going to be something that can be done quickly, but then since when have schools worried about ’speed’ in relation to adoption of technology. It has been a long, slow process in schools - not a revolution, but a consistent evolution since the 1980s.

The last few years have seen change like never before - and perhaps as technology has become cheaper and easier to access - we notice it more than once we did - when Computing was a Science - not a fact of life.

We can’t ignore or deny that social networks and our ability to create, share and publish - is something that students can do - easily.

What skills and capabilities do we need to provide learners beyond content related learning?

The challenges in doing this in such a large institution as Macquarie, with thousands of staff and distributed students are very similar to school systems. There is a need to develop capacity in both teachers and learners to develop these skills - over time.

In a discussion today, the Ed Development team could identify lots of opportunities to introduce blogs, wikis, second life, virtual classrooms etc., but the challenge remains - how to develop ‘teacher’ technology-savvyness to see where in a unit of work, or classroom that these are best deployed. We accept that we will need to help, support and probably ‘do’ it for a while - but the goal is independency.

We can’t expect to ’sit’ on skill levels as we once could - new ideas, new tools and new opportiunities appear daily. We can’t know everything … but at the same time, we do know we can’t sit still as we have done in the past.

I wonder if in the rush to see read/write, collaboration in K12, spearheaded by innovative teachers - how many ‘curriculum co-ordinators’ are actively seeking to define and build school policy around these student capabilities? Do teachers find curriculum leaders a barrier or a gateway to what they are trying to provide students?

Given we are in ‘exam’ and ‘A to E’ reporting, how do we convince parents that these skills are just as important as exam grades. How many schools have clearly identified them in the current curriculum and mapped them against outcomes - so that teachers know exactly what they need to learn in order to meet these using ICTs. Curriculum and Technology are not exclusive anymore, one needs the other to survive and remain relevant to learning into the immediate future.

Change starts with curriculum leadership by identifying 21C capabilities and making firm committments to staff and students that if the process is started, then it will be supported and maintained.

Will the curriculum you have simply expire and become less and less relevant to what students really need - be that K12, TAFE or University. How long is the expiry date on it? 1 year, 5 years a decade?

Wanted: Aspiring Leaders

The phrase ‘aspiring leaders’ - seems to be a phrase used by the incumbent leaders to describe those teachers who are demonstrating innovation and passion about their role as both a teacher and a learner in schools - and have been elevated as having potential to be a future leader.

This is often what we read in institutional newletters. “So and so has been awarded as the …” complete with nervous looking photo opportunity, which is often remarkably indifferent from long service or even retirement reports.

It seems some what presumptuous to assume that these people can only be called leaders at the discretion of the incumbent leaders of learning. Akin to being anointed or given a badge of office, the opportunities to be placed in this spotlight misrepresent the depth and number of teachers who are already leaders within the common interest groups (CIGs).

Contrasting ‘Aspirational Leaders’ with Common Interest Groups (CIGs) helps illustrate the gap between the incumbent leaders and the self organising, self determining leaders who we generalise as being active in the ‘Edublog’ CIGs.

CIGs overlap, intersect and deliver interoperability for participants. This is what continually drives them, as there is always something new, something to diversify into or just to learn about.

An example of a CIG in action this week can be further illustrated. We are looking at ePortfolios  at Macquarie University. This is part of the ‘innovation to integration’ educational portfolio.

I spoke to Allison Miller - a leading expert in my CIG. Allison’s research into ePorfolios in Delicious makes the process faster, more focused and easier for the whole development team. Allison is leading by proxy.

To me, there is a stark contrast between permissive leadership attainment in school communities and social leadership attainment through CIGs.

Incumbent leaders need to demonstrate far greater understanding and willingness to accept CIG leadership as not only vital but a significant attainment as professional development as a 21C Educator. Supporting them is the action that is needed, not ignoring them.

To me, leading learning is a combination of experience, passion, practice, skills, passion, work ethic and connectedness. The very skills many educational leaders talk about as things students need to learn … but are not effectively recognising in teachers.

When educational leaders ask (perhaps rhetorical) questions such as ‘how to we encourage and retain leaders?’ – reply, “You have them, you are just not using effective criteria to recognise it’.

This to me is one of the biggest issues that Australian teachers should be raising with thier ‘leaders’.

Edublog Award Nominations 2008

Here are my nominations for the 2008 Edublog Awards.

Best educational use of a social networking service - Green Up 2145 - 9th Grade Students - Lucy Gresser

Best librarian / library blog - Judy O’Connell

Best educational wiki- Sue Waters (of course)

Best new blog When Darkness Turns to Light - Elliot Cambridge

Best educational use of a virtual world - Jokaydia

Student Strikes Back

Wow, this was fantastic to read. One of the students at my old school. He’s been lurking around blogging for a few months I suspect and its fantastic to see him jump in an write such a great reflection - from the student viewpoint.

Teachers at our school are really starting to blossom as 21 century tutors. A major part of being such a group of talented teachers, undertaking PBL( problem/project based learning) for first time in entire Australia, is that they to are learning alongside students.

It’s intresting that he’s calling them ‘tutors’ not teachers for one and also that he reflects on the student experience of the recent Animal Farm project. I highly recommend this post as a read. I am not sure that I would have previously expected a 9th grade student to write something like this in any context, let alone in reflecting on his learning, in what has fast become a benchmark in collaborative learning. Meeting grade expectation is one thing - but to find a track-back like this is quite another.

The Power of PLNs

So day one at my new job. Lots of random people, names and faces to remember. Much of the day spent trying to figure out how these people in offices communicate and looking at a proposed paper on ePortolios.

After reading that, I talked on Skype with Allison Miller who I met earlier in the year to discuss.

I wasn’t too sure if Allison was the one with the ePortfolio Lens or not, so I asked Twitter. After a 10 minute conversation on Skype.

I now have bags of information, directions and links to look at. The power of a learning network never fails to amaze me. I could Google all day long, spend hours searching the archives … or just ask Twitter and take a short cut to the good stuff. Thanks Allison! New desk, same network.

All I have to do now is figure out that people do with all these filing cabinets.

Getting Online Communities - online

 

Okay, so you’ve decided to let your students interact online, publish, make, do blah … no more passive technology use. Good for you (and them). How do you set it up so that it becomes a norm, not a storm?

Communication with parents is not only about seeking permission … its about seeking dialogue.

Parents view on home internet activity

Parents see kids on MySpace, Bebo, Messenger et al. Lots of parents in the last few years have said to me ‘he’s always on messenger chatting - how do get him to do his homework’. In a general way, teens spend more time at home with their PC for social-entertainment than they do learning. Googling/Wikipedia and slamming it into a Word document is more often than not - the kind of activity that kids do at home. But you want to change that right?. Communication is the key with parents - to change thier perceptions of what their kids are doing with a computer. This is where you kick off your campaign.

Obviously, you are going to send home a note to get permission. Obviously, you are going to ensure that your school has an effective AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) to ensure that everyone is aware of what you are doing. Fianlly, you’ve obviously decided to MODERATE all comments.

So lets get started with a simple, effective 4 step plan to get online and get parents and students talking about technology and the issues that we all know are critical right now.

The note sent home is the first in a line of communication opportunities, not purely a permission slip, and I’ll come to that shortly.

The other thing about working online at home, is that parents physically ’see’ less paper and books. So they become concerned that ‘he is not getting homework’. This leads to kids getting hassled about that, plus the time they are on the computer … so you have to ease the migration for both student and parent.

Step 1 - Communicate the class goals to parents

Set up a new class email account for parents to contact you. Either via the school system or gmail. Use this as your communication channel to parents. Send a letter home explaining what you are doing in simple language. There are TWO key parent hot spots. One addresses the ‘what is he doing online’ - tell them that he is learning about internet safety and digital reputation and representation online. You might want to mention the 95% of digi-teens on MyFace et al, and how it is important for them to realise the importance of privacy and being appropriate online. The second one is Media Literacy, tell them you are studying this, and specifically the issues about ‘downloads’, file sharing, and copyright. Parents have seen the ‘don’t download’ messages, but often are not sure ‘how or when’ their kids do it.

So right now, you’ve got a draft letter, explaining TWO goals. The third goal is actually, reflective writing - but that one will be demonstrated.

A third point of the letter, is to invite them to communicate with you. Say that over the course of the semester, students will be participating in safe publishing activities online, and if they have any questions (about anything) that they can contact you at your new email address. This opens a communication channel.

Step 2 - Explain specifically what the students will be doing.

Give parents the URL of the place students will be working. I suggest you stick to communities like Ning or 21Classes if this is your first run. If the URL is ugly, shorten it with TinyURL to make it easy.

The next letter home should have an outline of the work, and your expectations of any ‘home’ internet use. I strongly suggest the use of the word ‘may’ - as not all students will have access at home - so you are going to need to make school based arrangements - but for those students who will be online at home in Ning for example … make sure that the parents know your expectation (max) time. Getting parents to help manage the time and activities that students are doing.

In this letter you will ask for basic permission for students to engage in read/write activities - within the boundaries set. Also ask for a parent email address (you might not get one, but ask anyway). Ask if it’s okay for you to contact them from time to time.

Step 3 - Discussion  and Collaboration with parents.

Set some homework task that the kids can’t do alone - but with parents. Focus on the TWO issues you started with - Reputation and Legals. Ask a couple of driving questions such as;

“How can you tell is something on the internet is real or fake” or “What reputation do Teens have in their use of the internet”.

Try to make them short and un-google-able. Ask the kids to discuss these with 2/3 family members and produce a short report on each question - using your new online community. Make sure they use paper and a pen at home, then transfer that to the community site. This will form your initial basis discussion online and allow you to talk about commenting and the other great things that build reflective writers (another skill to learn).

When you’ve had the discussion … post your own ‘blog’ story about the questions, and quote the students and family members (no names). Thread the conversation together making sure you are not making judgements … and prepare for the final step.

Step 4 - Parent Feedback

Send home a short survey - with closed questions - focus on their opinion of how their kids used technology and talked about their project at home.

Include a link to the community site and/or to your own reflection post.

Invite parents to email you any feedback about anything directly. (Access to student works will depend on your schools view of ‘public access’ - but comments MUST BE OFF duing that period).

In class - discuss the survey with students, throwing in any relevant comments you got via email - and then get them to reflect on it in your community site.

What did you think about your reputation as an online learner - what did parents think? - How did you’re use of technology at home change - did parents see it as a beneficial - etc.,

Get the students to grade your first project!

Conclusion

This is not an absolute science … but its very important to recognise that parents want their kids to be safe and to do safe things online. They are often not tech savvy parents, but understand communication. Before setting off, you are preparing some classroom norms for kids and parents.

You will tell them what you are doing online, you give them a method of opt-in communication to ask questions or to share ideas and feedback, and you are removing some of the ‘fear’ that parents have when kids are online - in things like Messenger and MyFace. You are showing parents that you are asking important questions and that you are ‘teaching’ media literacy and safety - along with content. This sets you, the teacher, as adding value and an open communicator.

Parents want to be advocates for their students and it’s important to include them in what you are doing. Your first venture should be simple, easy and relevant to both the students and the parents. This process allows you to do that - and to include manditory policy needs - but at the same time create a sense of ‘always responsive’ communication.

It’s unlikely that you’ll get all parents in to the school for a presentation evening - or that they will understand what you are talking about if you did. This line of communication builds trust and can be managed. At some point you might want to do more … but for your first digital field trip, you need to address parent concerns and demonstrate that you are moving your students to consider repulation, ethics and legal aspects of technology - not just social uses.

You may have grand plans, but as the ‘leader’ you need to make sure you know exactly where your students and parents are in your online activities - create UNITY. This makes what you are doing in your classroom and community both engaging and open - and you will get direction from those groups. Start simple, and keep it simple. It takes a while for parents and students to see what you are doing as ‘normal’.

But it builds, and transforms learning.

Mass Leaderhip, Mass Change

Why put an amazing teachers on a full load? - sure they can take ‘difficult’ classes and do magical things - but maybe, just maybe if we put ‘time served’ aside, and put them into ‘every’ classroom - to team teach with ‘every’ English teacher, then they would reach hundreds more students.

As managers, leaders, risk takers, modelers and mentors, they would quickly identify and probably solve teaching and learning issues in their stride. They are connected to a global peer network, the sum knowledge of which cannot be measured in traditional HR ways. The HR people will want to define ‘amazing’ for one, then want to know if they are 5 year amazing or 10 year amazing etc., but thats their business and business is good.

What is the cost/risk/danger in trying this to ‘the system’? - a salary? a hierachical change? systemic change? - I can’t see any reason not to do this - apart from money.

Investing in HUMAN INFRASTRUCTURE is more important than investing in BUILDINGS or TECHNOLOGY itself. But then people are hard to own in the industrial age sense - and the bargain between employer and employee has never been more challenging as people no longer require organisations to assemble and re-organise better ways of doing things.

• We can’t judge how hard a teacher works, by the number of hours on class.
• We can’t assess how inspirational, creative and connected they are to their learners and learning by time served
• We have to recognise that to get kids to use ICT in connected, relevant ways, then we need teachers who do this.
• Learning is a conversation - be part of it - talk and listen (listen more)
• We can’t make salary the only bargain between employer and worker.

2008 has been a year in which the seemingly impossible - not just possible, but world changing.

• Lots of rich people crashed the world economy then put their hand out to poor people to get ‘their’ money back that they screwed out of them in the first place. 
• Some guy called Obama took out the top job in the USA and he wasn’t white.
• A bunch of year 9 students learned that writing was fun - in a day.

Educatorsin 2008 are connected today in ways that were unthinkable even a year ago, yet administrators ponder the next 5 years. I have no idea what education could look like in 5 years. Its not me kids are waiting for.

Surely if there is a time to take a risk on changing how where we put amazing teachers - its now!

I once saw a sticker for a Volkswagen Bus Club which read ‘Don’t Join, Just Wave’ - this I think is the offer to our leaders, we are all waving at you - take a risk before schools become museums.

It is a massive effort to sustain ’shift’ enthusiasm and focus, and at times if we stop waving - its because we are human and not ‘cogs’ in your wheel.

Things change, and we drop out of sight. We don’t want to, but thats how life is - notice us.

I leave the school feeling pleased with the massive changes that are happening - but frustrated as others are, that k-12 education is still referenced, judged and structured on out-dated policy, inflexible workplace arragements for teachers, salaries structures, in-equality, access restrictions … blah …

I hope that I’ll keep talking and working for the benefit of k-12, as I take up my new role.

So this I guess is the last ‘High School’ blog post from me … thanks for watching and talking … if I can help anyone out … then let me know … I share.