Time For Virtual Schools To Practice What They Preach

This week I had an opportunity to spend a few days with my virtual school colleagues from all over the country at a school leaders summit meeting in Virginia. I always enjoy getting together with this group because they are some of the best and the brightest people working in K-12 virtual education today. For two days, I heard about plans and visions for improving student achievement, new curriculum initiatives, teacher training programs, pilot projects, political and regulatory challenges, new management systems and how virtual schools are making education opportunities available to all students regardless of geography or socio-economic conditions. All good things to be sure.
But what I didn't hear, was any mention of how virtual schools are incorporating Web 2.0 tools to help individualize the educational experience and prepare students for the challenges they will likely face in a global, digital workplace of the near future. No talk about classroom blogs, wikis or websites, no creative uses of video, audio podcasts or mobile devices, no Eyejot, Edmoto, Flickr, Jing, Ning, Twitter, Oovoo, ThinkQuest, Facebook, Posterous, WetPaint, RSS Feeds, Google Sites, etc., etc. What they were describing for the most part, are ways to take the classroom experience and put it online, rather than taking the online experience and bringing it into the classroom. I found this dichotomy curious and disappointing.
It seems to me that we are missing a golden opportunity. We have a platform that is tailor-made for using digital tools to improve the educational experience for thousands of students and engage them in new and creative ways, but that doesn't seem to be happening. And I think part of the problem is that there is a disconnect between curriculum and systems development and teaching.
Imagine what would happen if hundreds of virtual teachers were connected in a social learning network where they could share ideas and best practices for using digital tools in the virtual learning environment. That information could be used to inform and direct the efforts of the systems and product development teams. There is an article in eSchool News this week about a project to try and standardize metadata for e-learning resources to make them easier for teachers to search out and find. Applying that same concept could allow teachers to locate learning assets specifically suited for an individual student's needs at the precise time that students needs it. That is the true potential of virtual schools - the ability to provide a truly personalized learning program for each child.
We've taken an important first step in eliminating the classroom walls that limit students' opportunities and imagination. Now we have to figure out how to take the next step.

Adding to My Ever-Expanding Web 2.0 Toolbox

I used to consider myself relatively well-versed in the use of tech tools. I mean, I send/receive 100 emails a day, work at a virtual school, participate in web conferences, IM, text, have 5 pages of apps on my iPhone (although I still have a 3GS and Apple is introducing the iPhone 5 today), and I even have a Facebook account. However, I am beginning to realize that when it comes to Web 2.0, I don't even know enough to know what I don't know yet. Part of the problem is that before I can catch up on the latest new thing, something newer is being invented. Another challenge for me has been that even the tools I am more or less familiar with have additional features and benefits that I haven't fully explored yet.
Some examples from this past week:

RSS Feeds
I set up an RSS Feed in Outlook about a year ago at the suggestion of my school principal to track news reports related to some virtual school bills that were making their way through the state legislature. Articles were delivered right to my inbox and I was able to keep up with the latest developments. I was able to take advantage of this tool even though I didn't fully understand how it worked.
This week I did a deeper dive into what RSS Feeds are, how they work and the benefits of using them. I set up a Google Reader account and in a few minutes, my aggregator was loaded with useful and interesting websites, new articles and blogs. This information would have taken my hours to accumulate if I had to search each site and I most certainly would have missed something. I am still a novice at using RSS Feeds but I am confident my skill level will improve and I will continue to discover more features that will make this technology even more useful. Will Richardson in his book Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts regards utilizing RSS Feeds to manage web content as a must-have skill for educators and students and know I can see why.

Photo Sharing
Photo Sharing is another Web 2.0 tool that is not new to me, but one that I discovered new applications and features for this week. Professionally, I have shared photos on Snapfish and Flickr many times. This works well in a virtual school where students are geographically separated from one another. I was able to upload pictures from prom and graduation for example, email the link and password to a closed Snapfish account and allow families to copy or print photos from those events. We have a link to our Flickr page on our school web page so that visitors or prospective new families can see some of the things we are doing. Personally, I have been known to share photos on Facebook (much to my daughter's chagrin), but creating an account on Flickr allows me to back up all my digital photos and share them with friends and family (even those who are not on Facebook). I also had no idea that I could link my Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and Blogger accounts together and share digital media across platforms. I'm sure I have only scratched the surface here as well.

Creating in a Connected World

cpschulteis' photostream on Flickr.

This is my first attempt at connecting across social media platforms. Enjoy some photos of one of my favorite photo subjects...

No Excuses For Not Using Classroom Tech Tools

Recently, I volunteered to help a parochial elementary school formulate a new strategic plan. The principal is very enthusiastic and optimistic about the school's future and very open to the transformative potential of incorporating new technology tools to improve student learning. She has bright students, a talented and dedicated teaching staff, involved parents a balanced (if somewhat inadequate) budget and stable (even slightly increasing) enrollment. By all accounts, this is a school that is primed to take a major step forward in 21st century education.

At the first strategic planning committee meeting, I did a presentation about the changing nature of education and the challenges these students will face in the knowledge economy they will encounter after school. I talked about using technology tools to teach essential 21st century skills. I explained how they could incorporate virtual classes, individualized online programs to help struggling readers and mathematicians, classroom blogs and websites, 1:1 computer programs and using technology to expand student learning beyond the school walls. The parents and teachers on the committee seemed excited.

Photo courtesy of www.st-alphonsus.org/school 

After several more committee meetings, we were ready to craft the plan. Imagine my disappointment when the parents and teachers' initial enthusiasm for educational technology had turned to skepticism and a prevailing attitude of "it'll never work." In the end, they proposed a "strategic" plan that was really nothing more than "let's just keep doing what we've always done."

Now I didn't specifically talk about classroom wikis, but I can see how teachers, schools and districts might be tempted to shun the use of such technology tools in favor of the safe, familiar approach. I can imagine teachers in my school (a virtual school of all places) saying something like, "Sure it sounds like a wonderful opportunity to teach students in a new and exciting way, and it might work in some schools, but it will never fly in our school. It's impossible." I implore teachers, school officials and parents to give technology tools like wikis and blogs a chance to radically improve education and prepare students for a future in which such skills will be not only important but indispensable. Will there be challenges to meet and obstacles to overcome? Of course. But nothing worth doing ever comes without having the courage to take a chance. To those who say it's impossible, I would remind them that people said the same thing about winning WWII, climbing Mt. Everest, ending apartheid, landing a man on the moon and building a vast network of interconnected computers so everyone has equal access to the whole of the world's knowledge.

Using Web 2.0 Tools in a Web 1.0 School

"What did we do this week that you can apply in your school or job and how might you use it?"
That is really a two-part question and requires a two-part answer. The answer to the first part may sound patronizing, but everything we did this week could apply to my job/school. The answer to the second part, how might you use it, is the real challenge.
Contrary to what you might expect, most of the online K-12 curriculum currently available to schools and districts is what I would call Web 1.0. Sure, it is online as opposed to in a book or delivered in a classroom by a teacher, and most of it is designed to be accessed in an asynchronous manner by individual students working remotely at their own pace. But that doesn't make it collaborative, or what one of the authors we read this week referred to as social constructionist. It is primarily "read-only" and the assessment and feedback is primarily between the teacher and the student. So even though my virtual school is conducted entirely over the Internet, the method of instruction has yet to incorporate the full potential of the Internet in terms of moving beyond the traditional model of acquiring factual knowledge from teachers and textbooks and regurgitating it on standardized tests, or even the more sophisticated attempts at meaning-making, critical thinking and metacognition.
If we really aspire to become a school that harnesses the full power of the Internet as a "read/write" collaborative classroom without boundaries, we must find ways to incorporate all the Web 2.0 tools we touched on this week, from edublogs and wikis to podcasts, mobile devices and game-based learning. We must open our virtual doors and let the world in by publishing to the web and welcoming interactive comments and peer review. Virtual school cannot just be a place where students go to escape the "drama" of brick and mortar school life. It has to be the medium that leads the way in opening up young minds (and not so young minds for that matter) to a new way of thinking about learning... where the distinction between being "in school" and being "out of school" is blurred. In other words, a world where life is school and learning occurs constantly.
It's not as big a leap as we might think. Every kid that updates their status on Facebook is, in essence, blogging. And every kid who comments on the silly picture their friend posted is participation in social constructionism whether they realize it or not. It's up to us as educators to first understand the learning potential of these technologies ourselves, and then help students safely and responsibly harness the power of technologies they are already using and familiar with to expand their knowledge and understanding of the world.

E-Valuating Student Work, Hardware and Software

What does it mean to evaluate something? Well, the root of the word evaluation is "value," which, as it turns out, is a word with a variety of definitions depending on what is being evaluated.
One of this week's topics was the use of rubrics to evaluate student work. Before starting this class I had only a vague understanding of rubrics so as with many unfamiliar concepts, I approached this topic with some trepidation. However, the more I read about rubrics and the more I learned as I worked on creating my own rubric, the more I have come to appreciate their usefulness. Several of the referenced articles mentioned how parents really seem to like rubrics "once they understand how they are used." This, I think, is an important consideration because most parents are probably unfamiliar with rubrics and probably regard them like I did initially. So to evaluate a student's work using a rubric is simply to measure it's worth or degree of excellence compared to a carefully considered menu of pre-defined criteria. One way to define the criteria is to base it on previous student work on the same or similar assignments. Rubrics are useful for self-evaluation by the student, the other students in the class who participate in peer evaluations, parents who want to help their child with their work and teachers who can save time in grading the work. As a non-teacher, I can think of two ways I may be able to incorporate rubrics in my daily work; in assigning and evaluating projects given to staff or teachers and in employee performance evaluations.
The other topic I spent some time considering this week was evaluating hardware and software purchases. In this case, the value is more tangible in that you are looking at the features and benefits derived from a product or service in relation to the monetary cost of that item. Most people do this kind of evaluation all the time; at the grocery store, working on the family budget, making a major purchase, planning a vacation, etc. In my previous position, I had to evaluate the purchase of promotional items and advertising space. In my current job, I provided input on the purchase of laptop computers for student use taking into consideration things like, cost, reliability, features, security, longevity and liability. For example, Apple laptops were generally more reliable and had a longer useful lifespan, but we decided to buy 1,000 Compaq laptops instead because they were a third of the cost, more familiar for most students and more easily repaired. I also evaluate software and subscriptions to learning resources like Explore Learning Gizmos and United Streaming videos. I have the teachers who request these services provide justification for classroom applications then weigh the cost implications in the context of the school budget.
I do have to take issue with one of the web resources provided to learn about evaluating hardware and software. The article has an intriguing title, "How To Buy An Educational Software In Sixty Seconds Or Less," but that turned out to be misleading. I was hoping for something that would help simplify the process, but what I got was cursory dose of low-level, and sometimes contradictory advice. On the on hand, the author says to make sure the software is fun and entertaining while later on he cautions that if the graphics are too flashy, they can be distracting to students. He also says that using educational software should be effortless. I disagree. I think teachers should put as much thought and effort into choosing education software as they do selecting any other resource and maybe even more because we all know that technology should only be used if there is a clearly identified educational purpose. 

Presentations and Digital Stories

There are some interesting similarities and contrasts between Garr Reynolds approach to presentations and Bernajean Porter's take on digital storytelling. Both emphasize the importance of using images to help tell the story and both spend a considerable amount of time discussing how to obtain, manipulate, edit and position images for greatest impact. This is an interesting approach since traditionally, both presentations and stories relied much more heavily on words than images - the printed or spoken word in stories and the much maligned bullet-point lists so often found in presentations.
Prezi fits nicely into this new way of telling stories because of it's very visual, non-linear approach to presentations - although the zooming nature of Prezi can fly in the face of the simpler, zen-like style advocated by Reynolds. I have seen some Prezis that overdo the zooming to the point beyond distraction to bordering on seasickness.
The other element both authors emphasize is the spoken narrative. Both talk about the importance of delivering the narrative in a natural way, as opposed to reading a script. Reynolds focuses more on the "naturalness" when presenting live while Porter describes how a digital storyteller can use their vocal performance tools (pauses, inflection, etc.) to help tell their story.
The combination of high-quality, carefully selected images combined with a well-planned, purposefully created narrative and tempered with restraint, simplicity and creative design makes for powerful communication instruments in the form of more engaging presentations and entertaining digital stories.