This is a must-watch video by Hans Mundahl, Director of Experiental Learning and Technology Coordinator at the New Hampton School in New Hampshire. Not only does Hans have a cool title (how awesome would it be if every school had a ‘director of experiential learning?’), he makes a mean video.
Check out Hans’ 3–minute clip below, where he tries to explain the value of social media to his school leadership team. Then check out the wiki page that resulted from his efforts. Nice work, Hans!
One of the highlights of my time at ASB Unplugged this year was the opportunity to participate in TEDxASB. Here is my TEDx talk, Are schools dangerously irrelevant?. Other than saying ‘divergent’ instead of ‘convergent,’ I think I did okay.
Here's another envisioning of the forms that traditional print publications are going to take as tablet eReaders and computers become more prevalent. This one is from Penguin Books and shows what some interactive experiences might look like for younger children.
Yesterday was the TEDxNYED event in New York City. Many of us watched the LiveStream online.
Last week was the TEDxASB event in Mumbai, India. I had the pleasure of both attending and speaking.
Both events had some great speakers (I’ll let you decide if I was one of them!). Other TEDx events do also, and many of the videos will be uploaded to the TEDxTalks YouTube channel for others to see after the fact.
I wanted to get the TedxTalks YouTube channel into iTunes, but didn’t want to download each video individually. Could I get the YouTube RSS feed into iTunes? Yes, with RSSHandler! [click on image for larger version]
Simply put the URL of the YouTube feed into the box, change the format to MP4, and click on the Generate button. Voila! A feed that you can put into iTunes as a podcast subscription. You can do this for any YouTube user’s video channel. Awesome!
Many districts across the country are laying off teachers right now. This would seem an especially critical time to ensure that the kids who need the best teachers get them. Instead, prepare for another summer round of the ‘dance of the lemons’ (or ‘pass the trash’). Shame on us.
Iowa State University held its second annual ComETS symposium a couple of weeks ago. Faculty, professional staff, and a few outside folks gathered together to talk about technology integration and implementation in higher education.
Building a community of practice through blogging
Below is my 10–minute ‘lightning strike’ presentation, Building a Community of Practice Through Blogging. I didn’t have my ‘A game’ that day and wasn’t as energetic a presenter as I usually am. I also spent too much time on the ‘creating a listening station’ portion and not enough time on the ‘participating in the conversation’ portion. That ratio was supposed to be 50–50, not 75–25. Despite all that, I think that the presentation came out pretty well and is a solid introduction to RSS and blogging communities for academics. Here’s a quote from my talk:
Most academics have yet to realize the power of social media. . . .
The reason we go to academic conferences is for the conversations. It’s not for the research presentations because you know how good those are. And it’s not to access the papers because we can get those in other channels. It’s to be around other people and have those conversations in the hall and after the sessions and at dinner and so on that solidify our relationships with people. Well, now we can have those conversations year-round. All we have to do is choose to be part of the conversation.
The other thing that we generally fail to think about when we give presentations is a call to action. What is it that you want someone to do after you’re done?
Funny thing about paradigm shifts: If we knew what the next paradigm was, we'd already be there.
Where is the student in all of this?
The opportunity is in increased student engagement [Do most profs at research universities really care about increased student engagement? If so, they haven't really showed it to date.]
I like ComETS because it's an opportunity to learn from other ISU educators, both faculty and professional staff, across campus who are doing interesting things with digital technologies. The annual ComETS symposium gives us an opportunity to intersect face-to-face in a variety of different ways. The ongoing ComETS listserv connects us and allows us to share and discuss in between symposia. We're off to a good start. Now the challenge becomes: how do we expand from those that already are technology-inclined to those that need to be? The latter group is much larger than the former...
You can see some backchannel conversations from the symposium by searching for the Twitter hashtag: #comets. Happy reading!
Many of you may have seen this commercial for Kaplan University. It made the rounds in the edublogosphere because of its message about change, talent, and learner-centered instruction. I’ve used it myself in several presentations to higher education folks.
Here’s a 10-minute video I helped make that advocates for P-12 online learning. Created by Intermediate District 287 in Minnesota, which heads up the Northern Star Online collaborative, the video features Mike Smart, 2007 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, and a number of other Minnesota educators and students. The video will be used for educational and policy advocacy purposes with community members, parents, administrators, and legislators.
Here’s my favorite statement I made in the video (at 7:20):
One of the things I think we have to ask ourselves as school leaders is ‘What’s our moral imperative to prepare kids for a digital, global age?’ Right now we’re sort of ignoring that requirement. . . . I think you would take a look at much of what we do in our current schooling system and just toss it and essentially start over. So the question for school leaders and for policymakers is ‘How brave are you and how visionary are you going to be?’ And you don’t even have to be that visionary. Just look around right now and see the trends that already are happening and just project those out and see that it’s going to be a very different world.
Roger Wilcox, principal of West Cedar Elementary School in Waverly, Iowa, has a burgeoning YouTube channel that he’s using to communicate with his local community:
Given how easy it is these days to post online video (think YouTube QuickCapture and a webcam, Flip cameras, etc.), I’m baffled that more administrators aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity to speak directly to their communities on a regular basis. Forget newsletters, e-mail listservs, or blogging; just turn on the video camera and start talking!
There are numerous benefits to being in regular communication with internal and external stakeholders. The use of online video to connect, explain, build goodwill, create enthusiasm, be transparent, share student work, highlight teacher excellence, tell a story, etc. is a powerful but untapped possibility for most school leaders. Videos don’t have to be polished or professional. Simple, honest, direct communication usually is more meaningful, anyway.
Dive in!
School leaders, take the plunge: Turn on the webcam or Flip camera and start talking from the heart. You won’t regret it.
[P.S. Teachers can do this too. Dump that paper classroom newsletter. Instead, start a weekly broadcast to your families!]
Here's a new video from Heidi Clark and Anita Bramhoff, two Canadian teachers who made the film as part of some work at the University of British Columbia. Happy viewing!
Judy O’Connell asked if the video below is the future of magazines. Yes, absolutely. Maybe not by 2010 or 2012 but sooner than we think. And for newspapers and books too. And, to a lesser extent, maybe we’ll even start seeing more interactivity and/or multimedia embedded within scholarly research, government or policy center reports, and other manuscripts.
If ‘news’ is becoming more of a commodity every day, perhaps it’s this sort of added value from which publishers will make their money. I know I’d pay for something like this from my favorite periodicals.
According to Technorati and Compete, HuffPo currently is the world’s #1 blog. I know that Karl Fisch had no idea that his video would turn into the worldwide phenomenon that it has. We still hear from people and organizations every single day about it. I feel very fortunate to be affiliated with this video series!
And here’s the second one (FYI, the first 2.5 minutes is a repeat of the end of the previous video):
I love the end of the second video where Angela Maiers talks about the lack of teacher time to learn/do technology:
They have time to run copies. They have time to go make blackline masters. They have time to correct 15,000 true-and-false questions. They have time to make cute little art projects for kids to cut-and-paste for 45 minutes…
I think XPLANE did an absolutely fabulous job with it, but let me know what you think in the comments. Downloadable versions and source files are available on the Shift Happens wiki under a Creative Commons license. Happy viewing (and please spread the word)!
The New South Wales province in Australia is on a quest to outfit every Year 9 to 12 student with a customized Lenovo netbook by 2012. It is expected that over 200,000 computers will be distributed to students and teachers. If you’re interested, you can read more about the project or listen to a podcast about the initiative.
I think this is a GREAT idea. Guess which high school graduates will be better prepared for a digital world: those who get to use computers in interesting and empowering ways on a regular basis or those who don’t?
Below is the publicity video for the initiative (thanks, John Strange, for leading me to this). Happy viewing, everyone!
If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a video created by Shawn Gormley and Kevin Honeycutt that highlights some of the digital disconnects that exist between students and teachers:
I don't know how Chris Lehmann finagled an invite to speak to the FCC, but I sure am glad he did (and that he filmed it!). Click on the picture below to listen to Chris' 10-minute presentation. I promise it will be WELL worth your time.
From the author of Socialnomics, here’s what is perhaps the latest modification of the Did You Know? video. FYI, Did You Know? Version 4 is on target for an October release!
Shirky notes that we are living through "the largest increase in expressive capability in human history." Wait, isn't it a function of K-12 schools to help students be effective communicators in the media of their time?
Two girls post a cartoon video on YouTube that depict “The Top 6 ways to Kill Piper!” Piper is an elementary school classmate of theirs at Elk Plain School in Spanaway, Washington.
The police decline to file charges, saying that “We just don’t believe it was done with any malice or hate.” The girls who made the video apparently are remorseful, although it’s unclear whether that is because they a) now realize how hurtful it was to Piper, b) have been exposed to the larger ramifications of what they did, or c) got caught. Piper and her mother are understandably upset.
And the parents of the two girls? Well, one of the fathers was apparently too busy “cooking dinner” to talk to Piper’s mother about the incident. And, of course, the girls were able to spend hours making the video at home without anyone noticing and/or objecting. Nice parenting…
Here are my top 10 2008 K12 Online Conference podcasts for busy principals and superintendents (in no particular order). These are the K12 Online presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!
Load these onto an iPod, hand it to a busy school administrator, and say, “Here are some presentations that I think you’ll enjoy while you’re exercising or driving around. After you’ve listened to a few, let me know what you think!”
Here are my top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy principals and superintendents (in no particular order). These are the TED presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!
Load these onto an iPod, hand it to a busy school administrator, and say, “Here are some presentations that I think you’ll enjoy while you’re exercising or driving around. After you’ve listened to a few, let me know what you think!”
Stay tuned
Come back tomorrow for my list of the top 10 2008 K12 Online Conference podcasts for busy school administrators.
Seth Godin’slatest talk at TED is now available. In his presentation, he talks about leadership, change, group action, and other ideas from his newest book, Tribes. Here is perhaps my favorite line from this talk:
If you’re not upsetting anyone, you’re not changing the status quo.
This is well worth any leader’s or change agent’s time to watch. Only 17 minutes. Happy viewing!
Here are two presentations by Dr. Richard Miller, Chair of the English Department at Rutgers University, that are well worth any university instructor's time to watch.
Here’s a 2–minute video about 21st century schooling and curricula that was created by one of our Educational Administration Master’s students, Steven Hopper, here at Iowa State University. I can take no credit for this – it’s all his – but I sure think it came out nicely!
I think this is a new arena for Steven, so I’m sure he’d appreciate any comments, suggestions, or other feedback you have for him. Happy viewing!
I just ran across this eSchoolNews video from my 2007 Leaders in Learning trip to Washington, DC. I had completely forgotten about it. For those of you who are interested, here’s 10 minutes of me (squinting because of the bright lights they had in my face!)…
From a marketing sense, however, you have to acknowledge the power of the Nintendo Wii brand here. How many products (or people) have brands that make individuals weep when they intersect with them?
These are the reactions I’m hoping for after my presentations and workshops.
Start with a RSS reader. Seed it with a few select feeds of interest (some professional, some personal). Read. Read some more. Read some more. Click on a few hyperlinks in what you're reading. Leave a comment or two. Return to see if anyone responded to your comment. Read some more. Click on some more hyperlinks. Leave some more comments. Start to participate in the conversation. Read some more. And learn the power of the interactive, social Web...
Also check out David Truss’ new video, which is making the rounds of the edublogosphere:
As I said over at Angela’s blog, the video is extremely well done and, as a techie, I like it a lot. But I also know that there are going to be LOTS of people whose reaction to David’s video is going to be
State and federal accountability schemes require that students master low-level academic content. Our decisions regarding how we structure our instruction to facilitate student mastery of that content strike to the very heart of what we believe about teaching and learning. To facilitate conversations about this issue, I made a short video:
What do you believe is the best way to structure instruction to ensure student content mastery?
Greg Davis, who’s on the CASTLE Advisory Board, sent me the Change is Good video yesterday. It’s cute and makes some good points. Here are a few that stood out for me:
Re-recruit your best people. As a leader you always should be in marketing mode, obtaining and reinforcing buy-in for desired actions. You can’t just take your stakeholders - even your ‘best’ ones - for granted.
Forget for success. It’s difficult to get rid of existing mental frameworks but it’s often necessary in order to move forward.
You can’t teach culture. You have to live it … experience it … share it. And most importantly … you have to show it. If we want our staffs to be technology ‘learners,’ what are we doing as school leaders to personally model those learning processes ourselves? Also, what are we doing to help our staffs live and experience the digital, global world on a regular basis?
The things that get rewarded and appreciated get done. Leaders control the resources of time, personnel, money, etc. Use them wisely and strategically.
Reinforce, reinforce, reinforce. The job is never done. Continuous emphasis of important themes and actions must happen if change is to occur. Say-it-once or do-it-once models of information dissemation and/or staff development are doomed to fail.
Thus far, I have posted about educational conspiracy, challenging the competitive nature of schools, and assessing assessments. What follows is a topic near and dear to everyone's career and workplace. This is a post I have been looking forward to sharing with all of you. It's a bit lighthearted, but a serious topic for school leadership.
Let me begin with a disclaimer. A tantalizing and possibly offensive word will be used throughout this post. The word is not common to the professional language of Dr. McLeod or his readers. However, since I will be using the word in the context of a theory, it should be understood that I am not trying to be edgy or shocking. I am merely using the word for purpose of clarity.
The day before Christmas break I am browsing through a book store looking for a good gift for my principal. In the management section I spot a small book with an intriguing title - The No Asshole Rule. I first think this must be some kind of gag gift. But a ten-minute perusing of the book tells me something else. The author, Robert Sutton, is a well known and respected writer. He's not joking here. He is only using the lay terminology for "difficult people", "hardened hearts", or "combative individuals". I bought The No Asshole Rule (TNAR) for my principal, and a copy for myself. Now we're both equipped to handle this obnoxious faculty member.
TNAR is a much needed common language leadership book. I know many of as are fans of many different education leadership authors (Fullan, Heifetz,Wheatley, and Gardner) . These books are chock full of ideas, principles, and theories that are sound, sensible, and applicable. But Sutton is onto something different here. His deliberate use of the word "asshole" to describe those - well, assholes - that we work with, sit through meetings with, receive directives from, and must collaborate with every day, is refreshing.
Though TNAR is written mainly for those employed in the private sector (where hiring and firing is fast and furious - unlike public education), it does have some practical applications for schools.
For instance, how many administrators, teachers, or staff members have you worked with or encountered that have indulged in Dr. Sutton's "Dirty Dozen" list of actions that assholes use?
Personal insults
Invading one's personal territory
Uninvited personal contact
Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal
Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult-delivery systems
Withering e-mail flames
Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
Public shaming or status-degradation rituals
Rude interruptions
Two-faced attacks
Dirty looks
Treating people as if they are invisible.
Check out Dr. Sutton for yourself.
A few things anyone can take from this book are Sutton's suggestions on dealing with assholes you can't get rid of:
Deal with their asshole behavior immediately and make it known that you did. Don't let asshole behavior go on. Even if it hurts to confront an asshole, do it for the greater good of the organization. People are watching to see how you react to the known asshole.
Marginalize them. Make them irrelevant and their influence minimal.
Don't be confrontational with assholes, but don't be a doormat either.
His final word of advice is one that we should all take to heart. Don't hire assholes. Those of us in positions of authority to hire faculty, administrators, and staff must seriously consider candidate's personality as much as we consider their knowledge and ability. I'll remember that as we begin our annual hiring carnival this Spring and Summer.
Lastly, Sutton's book will give you some great tips on how to deal with those pesky, pernicious, parents whom we lovingly call (in the copy room) "assholes".
The last one is very funny and also illustrates yet again the power of Web 2.0. elkedas added the link to the video on the Moving Forward Videos and Handouts wiki page. If I hadn't made that page publicly editable by anyone, and if she hadn't voluntarily taken the time to add the link, I probably never would have seen the video. Now I have a new resource for when I present (thanks, elkedas!).
These are the kinds of examples we need to give educators in order to help them see the power and potential of some of this technology stuff. Also, please remember that the Moving Forward wiki is intended to be a free resource for all of us who are trying to facilitate technology-related change in schools. If you've run across a great education-related blog / wiki / podcast / video / etc., please add your resources to the wiki so that we all can benefit, just like elkedas did. Thanks!
Recent Comments