Student+Learning

Images provided by http://www.sxc.hu/

“21st Century Workforce Commission National Alliance of Business” Developed by the Metiri Group in partnership with The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory ©NCREL, enGauge—http://enGauge.ncrel.org and www.metiri.com

“Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” by Clayton M. Christensen (co-authors Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson) http://disruptingclass.mhprofessional.com/apps/ab/

“Measuring Skills For The 21st Century” E. Silva, Education Sector Reports November 2008, [|www.educationsector.org]

[|BusinessWeek “The Top 100 Most Innovative Companies Ranking “]

The Networked Teacher (@courosa on Flickr.com) http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/

“New Media Literacies” http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/newmedialiteracies

“The Networked Student” Wendy Drexler, http://teachweb2.wikispaces.com/

NAIS 2008 Resources/Materials
WHAT IS OUR BUSINESS? TEACHING AND LEARNING

All the world's a stage. LITERALLY. __Prompt Questions:__ __Original Notes__: Students: adoption of national technology standards (and recent updates); moving students and teachers from content consumers/conduits to content creators, and effective uses of portable technologies.
 * 1. Schools have traditionally focused on student tech skills by most often directly teaching computer skills. What is changing and WHY with regards to student technology skills?**
 * What is Changing?
 * From the [|NAIS Opinion Leaders Survey 2005]
 * “New technological inventions ARE redefining the educational process”
 * “Role of student and teacher HAVE blurred”
 * “Teachers and learners ARE able to customize, collaborate on, and globalize their educational experience”
 * “Independent schools ARE BEING called on to provide basic social and ethical education about how to interface safely with technology”
 * “Schools ARE BEING pressed to embrace new literacy competencies”
 * “Learn the language of the screen” I would add this notion of redefining the term multilingual to include not only spoken language and expression but also the notion of programming, expression with visual images and collaborative creation of new ideas.
 * “68% of independent school parents surveyed by NAIS in 2003 identified technology and computer skill development as very important or important to their child’s academic experience” This stat is already outdated. Is there any new data available?
 * “Expectation by the upcoming demographic to be highly technological, from communications to curriculum”
 * Pink's premise of the shift from agricultural, industrial, information to conceptual age. What is this shift? What does it mean?
 * (design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning)
 * MFA (Master of Fine Arts) is becoming the new MBA. Perhaps being a "knowledge-worker" simply isn't good enough in the conceptual era. Teachers need to understand that. If a skill that a student possesses has the possibility of being affected by outsourcing, automation, or the sheer fact of abundance, then that student should probably find something else to be skilled at. Through meaningful applications of technology in the classroom, teachers can help prepare students for that reality by allowing them to discover new, more artistic, and right-brained skills. Daniel Pink also goes on to say that although the SATs have been the primary source of measuring a student’s achievement before college, maybe educators should try to develop tests that test more right-brained, artistic & creative skills, as well as general left-brained knowledge.
 * (jb) Technology is not a content area and should not be taught as such. It must be integrated into the content areas as it improved the learning process. Teaching technology is like teaching a scissors class, there is no content without the context of the use. Teaching some discrete scaffolding skills before an integrated lesson works to support the learning in context, however focusing on the technology for technologies sake does not make technology literate students. The chemistry metaphor, chemistry teachers would not give a second thought to teaching students in a chemistry lab the difference between the various tools at their disposal to conduct an experiment. The same holds true for technology. Gone are the days of teaching specific applications or technology related skills, rather the environment exists where now a myriad of electronic and technology related tools are available to students and the key is working with them in collaboration to determine what tool best suits your given need.
 * This is from a student's perspective "Teachers need to be teaching their students by really using technology, not just by displaying it. Giving students laptops and telling them to use the internet to research Plato simply is not good enough. Most students, with that assignment, would be thinking, "Wikipedia - 5 minutes - finished - now I can check my e-mail." Something teachers need to be asking themselves is, "What more can I have my students do than browse Wikipedia for answers?" Teachers should be using the technology to its fullest potential." See[| Technology and Education: We need to better integrate the two, and fast!>>>]
 * Why with regard to student technology skills?
 * [jb] here is a copy of a spreadsheet that shows a comparison of the old NETS and the new NETS with newer/added concepts highlighted and bolded. [[file:NETSRefreshVisualFinal.xls]] Thanks for sharing these Jill. I think they are perfect. Question to the group, should we highlight the major changes rather than restate them verbatim? My sense is to highlight the key changes.
 * [|Framework for 21st Century Learning>>]
 * In 2006, [|The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the Society for Human Resource Management conducted a study to answer the questions what skills are necessary for success in the workplace of the 21st century?] And do new entrants to the workforce, graduates of high school, two-year and four-year colleges have those skills?
 * Professionalism/WorkEthic (clearly indicated in the NETS standards as well as in the NAIS opinion leaders survey)
 * Oral and Written Communications (the entire nature of communication is shifting, moving away from critique to creation, multiple mediums, mash up, the [|Machine is Us/ing Us].
 * Teamwork/Collaboration (Our presentation is a perfect example, wikis, Ning, etc)
 * Critical Thinking/Problem Solving (Real world design problems, focusing on approaching solutions in a collaborative/creative way)
 * The key to this chart is to make connections to the new NETS standards. Focusing on the Applied Skills more than Basic Knowledge.
 * [[image:Picture_2.png]]
 * 2. What are the potential PARADIGM SHIFTS of the near future regarding what students and teachers will be able to do that was impossible/impractical in the past? Why should schools seriously consider these paradigm shifts in capabilities?**
 * What are the paradigm shifts?
 * Integrating technology into our pedagogy is as important as any other area of curricular innovation. Our students must experience a rich and diverse set of learning opportunities that draw from a variety of areas; technology, diversity and multiculturalism, ethics and social responsibility and real world application.
 * “The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind - computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. BUT the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. The people - artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers - will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
 * Why should schools consider these paradigm shifts in capabilities?
 * If you have not seen this video, it was posted on the [|Independent School Educators Network]. Main point is that universities such as Rutgers are beginning to redefine these paradigm shifts. [|See video.]
 * NED HALLOWELL Crazy Busy Metaphor aka Sir Ken Robinson
 * 3. What are some suggested best practices and strategies to deal with the above change pressures?**
 * Have schools begun the process of establishing a set of school wide and departmental learning standards and benchmarks? If so, where is there overlap? If not, how do you know what students know and understand? How are you able to determine what they are able to do across courses, departments and areas of study?
 * Are schools familiar with the [|NAIS Principles of Good Practice].
 * [|PGPs for technology] and the [|Essential Questions] the Task Force developed to accompany them. Thanks Curt!
 * A Perspective to change through the eyes of Daniel Pink;
 * Humanities classes; Arts, English, Social Sciences/History (Design, Story, Play, Create)
 * Re-examine “what” you ask students to produce in technology classes. Challenge them with real world problem, design problems and opportunities to “innovate.” Encourage personal interest.
 * Pink and the Power of Games - Simulations ([|TEP & MIT]) and game creation. A good friend and colleague runs this program at MIT.
 * “Games are the most elevated form of investigation.” - Albert Einstein
 * Encourage digital storytelling, create spaces in classrooms, media centers and student centers that provide rich creative potential for students. Spaces that are fun, promote healthy humor and play. Redefine physical spaces so that they encourage conceptual thinking and collaboration.
 * Connect technology to community service and service learning as a means toward “The Empathetic Mind.”
 * 4. How can we harness the creative potential of technology in our schools to create whole brain thinkers? {AV Possible question addition?}**

[HL} Note that I actually changed the title from "students" to "student learning" - a subtle but important change. I'm not sure the sub-description makes the most sense - let's see where we go with this....

[HL] Back then....schools focused on student tech skills and we often directly taught computer skills (YES - I know some of you still do this!!!) What is changing and WHY with regards to student technology skills?

[HL] What are these national technology standards Jill, how how can they be best used by independent schools? What are these NAIS Principles of Good Practices Curt?

{CL} Happy to talk about the [|PGPs for technology] and the [|Essential Questions] the Task Force developed to accompany them.

[HL] What are the potential PARADIGM SHIFTS of the near future regarding what students and teachers will be able to do that was impossible/impractical in the past? Why is this important to wrestle with?