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3rd April 2006

Embracing Technology for Positive Change

posted in edtech, leadership |

Embracing Technology for Positive Change
by Miguel Guhlin

[Miguel has posted this session and others from this day of workshops on educational leadership and technology as podcasts on his blog.]

a presentation at ESC10 in Fort Worth, Texas

“Surviving old solutions to new problems”

What race are you running, and how can we go about seeing those trees better?

Key points
- be aware of how change is framed
- join the conversation
- create opportunities for authorship and community-building where you are
- share what your learning process is with others

I am a proponent of using technology to facilitate writing and publishing
- I believe that encouraging students, constructing and connecting, and collaborating is what we need to be about

I always wanted to have my students send their work off to a magazine to get published, but it took longer to that than the school year would allow

Core values
- #1: sharing learning
– I am about sharing ideas and information with others
– today’s presentation is sharing the journey I’ve been on for the past 5 months

#2: I want to invite you to join in the conversation
- there are people in this room who are not sharing what they know with other people
- the conversation that some people are having is one sided

NPR: talking about how kids learn to play a musical instrument
- many of them will not grow up to be musical virtuoso
- I played an organ as a child
- we should encourage people to speak up and share even if those people think that what they have to share is not important

All of us here have valuable things to share

I believe in joining in the conversation even if you can’t deliver the lines in a perfect way

core value #3: share response-ability
- yes we work together
- but sometimes you are the only one in the room

core value #4: collaborate with others
- if you’re not reaching out, there will be consequences for you

core value #5: ubiquitous technology
- what makes us real is how we communicate, solve problems, create common solutions
- so let’s use technology to do that

Miguel’s story
- at age 10, family came from Panama
- a story of change: at age 10 his father sent him to “Camp Chip-a-Bit” at Trinity University
- walked into a huge lecture hall, felt very small
- I remember sitting in front of that technology and not knowing what to do
- if you have done that without your support structure: friends, family, etc.
- I latched onto another kid there who could program and play games
– we played an awesome game called “outpost”
- my Dad bought me a $3000 Apple IIE with VisiCalc

Story of Change: Age 19-24

I don’t care that
- I was more interested in writing, sharing ideas, etc
- I was able to print using print statements, one of my high school essays
- I was the only one turning in printed work (having to program in Basic)
- then used Appleworks and Multiscribe

In high school I was a trader, we traded software
- does that still happen today in high schools?

IBM 8088 Personal Computer
- got this about the time I got married
- my wife didn’t use

Story of change: ages 27-37
- now have used multiple computers, multiple operating systems
- I’ve worked on Macintosh, Windows, Linux,

I was not interested in techy stuff
-

Dad always asked his mom, “Do you think technology made a difference in Miguel’s life?”
- the answer is: you bet!
- it enabled me to connect with other people, to publish my work, publish the work of my students

Benefits of that change: Learned to interact more
- very important: group share
- like the writing workshop

Having a conversatioin
- all of these fit into writing and technology
- lots of connections for other subject areas
- digital storytelling, blogging, podcasting

Add to stores and research on the writing technology connection
- http://writetechnology.wikispaces.com

A little bit of danger / risk when we ask students to write about real issues
- a little edge of danger

Quotation from Nanci Atwell, “In the Middle”
- “I nudge students….”

How do we have these types of conversations?
- 5 steps to district blogging
- how do you contain something so potentially dangerous in a school context [my thought: potentially disruptive]

Technology changed my life
- now reflect about how technology has changed your life

[MY RESPONSE: TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED MY LIFE BY CONNECTING ME TO OTHER PEOPLE, BUT THIS HAS BEEN A FAIRLY RECENT PHENOMENON. HISTORICALLY, I THINK TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGED ME TO SOLVE PROBLEMS, TROUBLESHOOT, CRITICALLY ANALYZE A SITUATION, BREAK IT DOWN INTO COMPONENT PARTS, AND MAKE THE TECHNOLOGY WORK FOR ME-- ACCOMPLISH A TASK OR SOLVE A PROBLEM THAT I WANTED IT TO. CONTROL THE INFORMATION. I GUESS THAT WAS PART OF IT.]

Key points
- be aware of how change is framed

Shield against bewilderment
- schemas are (something I learned about from Frank Smith talking about reading)
- without a schema, we are lost and overwhelmed
- schemas are knowledge structures that represent objects or events and provide default assumptions about characteristics, relationships, and …..

It is important to become aware of the frame
- way? because you might end up depressed
- I started blogging in July 2005 because I wanted to find out more about this tool
- look at something people were excited about using in schools that I was not too sure of

As a district administrator, I was worried
- the genie was out of the bottle, how can I bring this into my school district in a way that can be controlled and handled
- I didn’t realize I was working out of a particular frame as a district administrator
- I also

ESC20 IT person asked Miguel why he was sharing all his stuff on the web
- Miguel answered that it was part of the ethic of being a classroom teacher
- I built repoire with district technology stuff
- people who were business managers didn’t understand that

Maybe we were working out of different frames
- sharing is survival, collaboration is survival in the classroom
- if I don’t have an understand of where that business manager is coming from (their frame) there is going to be conflict and heat

“Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate–The Essential Guide for Progressives” (George Lakoff)

This is a political book, but we are in political times
- Lakoff says we are all working out of different frames
- this meant I was not crazy anymore

Frame Factor #1: Strict Father
- the world is a dangerous place and competitive
- there are right answers and wrong ones
- children must obey since father is the authority
- develop internal discipline to succeed
- punishment for failure to obey is an option

On Radio: “hear, understand, and do”
- I thought: that is a traditional classroom teacher
- think about this frame

Frame #2: Nurturing Parent
- shared responsibility for raising children
- encourages children to engage in open, two-way conversation
- engage in community-building
- protect children by using life’s teachable moments

[MY THOUGHT: THIS IS QUITE SIMILAR TO VIRGINIA POSTREL’S “The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress” - DYNAMISTS

Strict father response
- so we’re supposed to ignore the fact that students are trading pornographic pictures via MySpace? For that reason alone I’ve denied access to this site.
- I’m not risking student exposure to pornography or my district’s erate funding on….

Nurturing parent response
- if nothing else, the “trainwreck” of myspace has allowed a great deal of open communication at my school with both parents and children
- if education is communication, then bring the trainwreck on, I can make a lesson out of it
- If I had to pick an example of an educational activity, I could not have chosen a better than a

Self-reflection
- how do you see yourself?
- frames and worldviews are built on more than what we learned in school, they flow from what we believe (faith, spirituality, religion)
- from what frame do you act out of most of the time?

Are we in a race to survive?
- I am not so sure

Race to save America
- Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, as scared everyone
- when I read this, I got depressed because of my role as an administrator for a large, urban, poor school district
- China and India are hot on our heels
- are our children, our students ready?

Are your kids ready?

Quotation from Dr. Janet Swenson
- spoke on topic “Can you hear me now? Composing Connections between Classrooms and Communities”
- March 2006 SITE Conference

Equity, access, and excellence are the prizes we are all keeping our eyes on
- we are interdependent, the world is at risk and we are an

Producer or consumer
- Tom Friedman, interviewed lots of folks
- you can go to U2.com from home
- “human beings have been reduced to consumers.”
- are you a producer or a consumer
- are you a solution developer or a solution consumer
- “The Other Side of Outsourcing”

This is linked on Miguel’s blog

When I started writing, I decided to become a producer
- I started teaching workshops in Edgewood ISD, because I didn’t want to hear others tell me what I needed

Think about Humpty Dumpty
- nur
- an apt analogy for K-12 education reform

Story elements
- big guy sitting on a wall
- he fall down, broke, and couldn’t get back up
- everyone had an idea about how to fix him
- but in the end, it is over

Analogy: what bricks made up the wall Humpty was sitting on?
- if K-12 education is Humpty Dumpty

Think about the frame of standards-driven education
- content and performance
- all these solutions to problems of education
- high stakes testing
- effective implementation of broad initiatives

Everybody is telling us what to do
- setting up professional development
- “hire” vs “higher” learning
- how does business define higher learning, how does business, how do we

All the King’s men couldn’t put

The big lie
- the Kings’ men CAN put humpty together again
- THE LIE: all they have to do is tweak the old solutions

High school redesign, private academies

If the old solutions work so well, why did Humpty fall off the wall
- if they worked so well, why are we here?

Did he jump?

What about the “new solutions”
- will these do any better

Solution #1: tell a new story
- new story: what students are learning is less important than how they are learnign it and what they do with it

“For the last 80 years American teachers havea been trained to value process, not content, anti-content mindset attracts the incompetent”
- from www.wgquirk.com/content.html

is “a new story” the old content versus process argument
- is it a time issue
- not spending enough time on the content or the process
- who knows? you do

Another solution: Game based learning
- kids are rewiring their brains, they are thinking different
- after you’ve played an online game, you can’t go back
- nothing beats playing against a real people
- people playing in teams, working together, even the US Army has gotten into this (America’s Army game)

Funny story: I would love to create something that would have 13 million people look at it
- 20 short video clips, 5-10 min each
- put them together and you have an hour long movie
- these kids developed a solution with their Xboxes, 8 kids, one was a girl
- used game called Halo
- kids decided to make their own story: they used Halo and the game engine
- then it was viewed / downloaded 13 million times

knowledge work is still necessary, but no longer sufficient

Dan Pink: we need design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning

We do not have to be dependent on the experts you bring in

if you don’t like the race you are running, you need to speak up
- if that includes political action, then so be it

There is nothing more transparent than you and your students sharing what is going on

Look at Dr Tyson’s blog at mabryonline.org
- all teachers have a blog

if you’re scared, that is ok
- if you don’t start talking about it, that frustration will be building
- you will burn out and drop out

On this day..

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