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Those with whom I network for learning purposes through Twitter, blogs, Nings, etc. are largely members of an amorphous educational technology community. That community is fond of throwing around terms like “change” and “reform” connected to schools or education and most often the “change” or “reform” is largely related to advances in technology. The gist of the argument is that technology has changed the world we live in but not schools so schools need to catch up (or something to that effect). Schools are becoming “dangerously irrelevant,” right Scott? 
There are also frequent references to those other educators who do not “get it.” Yet, it is never clear, at least to me, what the “it” is that other educators are supposed to “get.” There are references to School 2.0, Classroom 2.0,etc. Significant technology integration is certainly implied, but even that is a loosely defined concept.
Many of the same individuals with whom I learn and interact online will be attending Educon 2.2. at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia this coming weekend. That event will involve lots of conversations, largely around technology and the future of education. Chris Lehmann, the principal of SLA, has long been clear that Educon is not an educational technology conference. In fact, the conference is guided by five axioms which you see below:
That’s not a bad starting point for framing the “it” that “others” are supposed to “get,” but like all standards, they are vague and high-minded. I believe “we” (myself included) would all do well to think long and hard about what “it” is that “we” are aiming for and figure out a way to articulate “it.”
What troubles me more than an overall lack of an operationalized vision of the change that “we” want are the many flawed arguments made in favor of “it.” That is, to justify a vision that I argue is not clear from the start, there are a host of arguments being made within the amorphous ed. tech. community that are logically problematic. I summarize and briefly discuss some of those arguments below:
The “Digital Natives” Argument – yes, I’m well aware that “we” have largely denounced the digital natives-immigrants dichotomy, and I’m on board with that. However, I see a new, related line of thinking that is equally problematic. It has to do with the notion that kids are really comfortable with technology, they use it a lot, so we should bury them in it at schools too. When the recent Kaiser Family Foundation report was released, it spread like wildfire among “our” networks/communities. Here are the money lines: Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
Well, there you go. Given *that*, how can we NOT make our schools more “relevant?” HOLD ON…what’s the logic there? Just because that’s what kids do on their own time, that’s how we should engage them in schools? Why is that exactly? Maybe, actually, what we need to be doing is using that evidence to argue for maximizing face-to-face time. In fact, this gives me even more reason to argue for the “flipped classroom” model that you see discussed here. Let’s “disrupt” or “interrupt” kids time online by, where necessary, providing content or instruction via digital means so that when they come to school they can learn to interact with each other and learn socially while face-to-face.
The Economics Argument – this is the argument based, often, in the works of (non-economists) Daniel Pink, Richard Florida, etc. It is a big part of presentations done by folks I admire greatly, including my friend/colleague Scott McLeod. Watch and/or listen to Scott’s presentation to the NEA and you’ll hear a lot about the changing nature of the workforce and how we need to reform schools to meet those changing needs.
I get that, kind of. Here’s the problem. If you make that argument, you have to believe that one of the fundamental purposes of schooling is, in fact, to prepare kids for the workforce. That’s not at all something I believe. For me, first and foremost, schools are in the business of preparing kids to be active, productive citizens in a deliberative democratic society. Schooling for citizenship and deliberation, not employment. I want to remove all references to “workplace” or “workforce” or “economy” from any and all school mission statements.
If I argue or advocate for technology integration in schools, it is based on the idea that we need to recognize that the Web is causing us to rethink what citizenship means and is increasingly becoming a space where important deliberation happens (see e.g. the ways in which social media impacted the last presidential election in this country). We need to help kids become deliberative and to express their ideas and thoughts in productive ways in spaces that are digital and PUBLIC.
That said, building upon my notion of maximizing face-to-face time, let’s think about ways to use school time to foster civic engagement and deliberative habits. As far as I’m concerned, every kid should be required to take a debate class.
The Business Argument – this argument was bolstered by the publishing of Disruptive Class which is based on the theory of disruptive innovation developed by of one of the book’s authors, Clayton Christensen. The general premise there is that technology will increasingly allow us to individualize/customize learning and makes learning possible anywhere/anytime and that is an innovation that will disrupt the model of formal schooling as we know it here…unless, of course, schools figure out a way to head off that disruption at the pass.
Let’s say we accept the book’s premise. Then what? It was NEVER clear to me in reading the book what it is that schools need to do in order to not get “disrupted.” Are student-centric learning technologies that customize learning the disruption or the prescription against disruption? I may be missing that, and if so, I’m willing to listen. But, if “we” include the “Disrupting Class” thinking in “our” arguments, “we” need to be prepared to then tie the vision of the “it” that “they” are supposed to “get” to the logic of disruptive innovation. In other words, it’s not enough just to say that the current model of schooling is going to be disrupted.
That said, I’m not accepting the book’s premise, largely because I’m missing the last link in the chain of logic. I also still don’t understand why the author’s went after K-12 education and not higher education. Higher education is a choice (to a degree). Up to a certain age, though, public schooling is mandatory. It’s also, for most people, a public enterprise and not a profit-driven one, and I don’t think the theory of disruptive innovation works in that context. For a more thoughtful critique of Disrupting Class, I encourage you to read this critique by Andy Zucker of the Concord Consortium.
The “Bored Kid” Anecdote – OK, @bengrey, your turn under the bus. So, lots of attention was given to the story of Aaron Iba, the now former CEO of AppJet, the company that created EtherPad. Ben wrote about Aaron’s story here. Lisa Nielsen wrote about it here and here. Aaron’s story is not a new one. And, I know Ben and Lisa and others know that. In fact, that was pretty much their point. Since forever, kids have been bored in schools.
Well, guess what? For all of the Aaron’s out there, I can point to a…well…me. School worked beautifully for me. I’m the perfect anecdote for maintaining the status quo in schools. I loved school. I got to learn, largely by myself, and that’s what I liked. Teachers soothed my ego and made me feel smart and great and I achieved at high levels. So, why isn’t anyone blogging about me and how schools work?
Additionally, the Gladwellian tactic of finding a case to fit an a priori belief is not compelling to me. I think case studies can be immensely interesting and meaningful, but only if done thoroughly and systematically. Gladwell gives us bits and pieces of his cases and, as a result, we can’t know how well that case “fits” his theory because we don’t know enough about the case. Same with Aaron Iba. Do we really have enough information here to know the whole story? To conclude that the schooling system failed Aaron? Writing a good case study is hard to do. When done well, though, they are deep, rich narratives that are full of meaning; they aren’t meant to be “generalizable” though.
One last question about the “bored kid” anecdote: what makes you think the “it,” the “new” school or modes of learning that you apparently have in mind though haven’t quite fully articulated will be not boring for everyone?
In sum, then, I think “we” are putting broken carts before the horses. “We” are concentrating too much on the “why change” argument without first fully and clearly articulating what it is “we” want from schools. Furthermore, the “why change” arguments, I argue (meta?), are fundamentally flawed.
There are lots of reasons for the institution of schooling to be transformed. Likewise, there are lots of reasons to consider the affordances of ubiquitous computing for learning. I ask you to help me think through those reasons in ways that are well-informed and logical…especially those of you with whom I hope to have fully maximized face-to-face experiences this weekend at Educon. I look forward to deliberating with many of you there!
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John,
Thank you so much for articulating something that has been flowing through my mind for the last year. I have jumped of and on all of the bandwagons you have described here (my feet hurt!). What is it that we want to produce? Are we in it to produce anything? Learning, growing, assimilating, accommodating happen in different ways for people. There is no one model, pedagogy, or “magic” bullet that is going to fix our “broken” schools. I think that school has come to mean so many different things to different groups of people. Unfortunately, school and education often do not resemble one another. I think one of great strengths of our education system, that we seem hell bent on destroying, is its diversity. Not all schools have to be the same. They all need to be high quality, but not necessarily the same. There are thousands of ways to do education right and only one way to do it wrong. When we loose focus on the students, their well being and their growth, then we are doing it wrong. We need to remove the politicians, the textbook companies, and those who have selfish agendas from discussion. We need to invite parents, students, educators and the communities in which they live to the table. Listen to their hopes and fears about what education is and has (or will) become. The standards movement has made what we teach in schools a mile wide and an inch deep because the wrong people are making the decisions about what should be done in school. Information is accumulating at a blinding pace. We cannot hope to continue to have our students try to encounter it all. We need to focus on what our students can do with information as opposed focusing on what information they have been exposed to. I am not sure if I have even broached the realm of discussion you were hoping start here, but what can you expect from a fellow who also did well in the model we have today.
Welcome to the Cult of Web 2.0.
Thanks for taking the time to articulate these thoughts. I almost wish each argument had its own post to make it a bit easier to address.
I’ll only say simply that it is nearly (if not entirely) impossible to prevent bored kids.
I am of the opinion that interest is the key to motivation. And not every kid is interested in technology. And that’s ok. Of course we should provide diverse offerings, etc etc.
Additionally, bored is not always a bad thing. Sometimes I get bored, and I have to deal with it. If I had not learned to embrace “boredom” as “time to think” then perhaps I would be a bit fussier about the topic.
Chris
Jon, as usual this is a thoughtful, reflective post. But you know what? While it’s all well and good to advocate for preparing informed citizens in a digital democracy (and, as a former Social Studies teacher, I strongly support in that function of schools also), people need jobs, preferably jobs that pay more than minimum wage. And we’re seeing that the traditional safety valves of manufacturing jobs and service jobs for lower-skilled graduates are disappearing from the U.S. and other Western economies because they’re being replaced by offshoring and/or software.
We can be idealistic or realistic. The bottom line is that no one’s going to be exercising their digi-political rights (did I just make up a word?) unless they have a solid personal financial foundation from which to operate. I think we ignore the economic argument at our peril (in terms of credibility and face validity with educators, parents, and employers).
Oops, I forgot to say that I like how Tony Wagner talks about this. He says that we are seeing a convergence. The higher-level thinking skills that we’ve typically associated with success in COLLEGE also are the ones that are increasingly associated with successful CITIZENSHIP and CAREERS. In other words, we don’t have to choose between the 3 Cs for different populations. The spheres are overlapping more and more each day…
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. I have never liked the “teach them where they are at” argument. Just because they are using it doesn’t mean it always makes sense to teach in that medium. But I have a couple of comments.
Digital Natives and Economics – No we shouldn’t only teach them online since face to face is still the most vital part of most communication and relationships. However, I think it goes to more about the fact that the world is changing. Not just ‘their’ world but ours as well. You and I would never be having this discussion if not for the read/write web and they need to learn how to interact in this new world to be global citizens AND economically viable.
Yes we need to teach debate at every school but I’m not sure it is in a debate class. Maybe we teach debate in every classroom by connecting our students to the world and teaching them to respect others yet feel free to disagree and civilly have discussions.
The Bored Kid – Yes you were obviously successful at the ‘game of school’ and it educated you beautifully to do what you do now (which is still school, correct?). So we do not need to scrap everything that is happening in school right now what we need to do is modernize some of the ways we present and they produce information. Schools need to take what is working (and has been) and augment it with the things that it is missing or that can be enhanced by ‘Web 2.0′
Would love to continue this discussion at Edcuon. Thanks for the thoughful post.
Great synopsis! You’ve really pulled the arguments together. I wonder if newspaper publishers went through the same analysis?
Really, if my daughter is sitting in a high school math class with no browser and chalk’n'talk, she may as well stay home and go to an online school and use appropriate math tools like wolframalpha, geogebra, online graphing calculator, geometer’s sketchpad, computer algebra system, etc, while still being able to connect with her social group via text, or skype or IM. It simply beats the old model of everyone at the same place, same time, same speed, same content model we deliver so well.
At the minimum we can save enormous amounts of time and energy simply by staying home some of the time and going online for high school credits, for those students who are ready to learn and can effectively access in-school supports on in-school days.
It may not be irrelevancy, but it’s certainly looking like change like that can happen quickly and there’s really little to do about it other than adapt.
Sorry I should have continued on the ‘adapt’ theme a little. Educators have long adapted to changes in society, we can do this. Just be ready for a model that moves away from one-size-fits-all.
Courses in high-school can be taken in smaller chunks and at different speeds. Students need varying levels of support. and access to face-to-face. Not everyone needs or wants to be in the school building everyday. That’s the reality this morning.
These tools will help us adapt, coming soon:
Student learning profile;
Student e-portfolio;
Student learning goal tracking;
Student career pathway planning online; and,
Curriculum expectation tracking for teachers.
Nicely done! Thanks for some reading that got me thinking this morning. The one idea I simply LOVE to see is the axiom that clarifies technology as a support to learning, not the reverse. Many times I believe I hear people (sometimes me) encourage technology so much it seems we are trying to change our content to match the delivery. That just should be.
kind of missed the “n’t” on “should” in my last comment.
Jon
Great post. Thought provoking. Here is what I posted on my blog regarding this post:
___________
I think the point Mr. Becker is trying to make is that we need to first decide what we want a graduating senior to know and be able to do, before we can talk about the “how” or “why” of school change. If my analysis of his post is correct then I would agree with him. Too often I find in schools that we try to make decisions in a vacuum without ever deciding what it is we are aiming for. As educational leaders we should be asking ourselves first “Where are we headed?” It is the basic concept of backwards by design. Figure out your endpoint and then decide how to get there.
As a caveat to his post I would invite him to consider the inevitable option. Meaning that I think it is inevitable that ubiquitous mobile technology will be prevalent throughout our society in the very near future. Whether we like it or not, schools are being forced to address this phenomenon. How does that concept factor into the school change equation?
____________
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Dr. Becker,
Excellent synopsis, it really speaks to that Larabree article you posted on twitter the other day. I especially appreciated your response to Disrupting Education. I couldn’t find the missing link in it either.
Kevin, I don’t think we need to incorporate backwards design at this point. When we throw the purposes of education up for delineation it actually makes the purposes of school less democratic in our current society. There are so many “influencers” out there that do not have students’ success and welfare at the center of their arguments that by clarifying the goals of schooling we would defacto narrow those goals. the loudest voices in a backwards design would the ones with the most to gain in the process, industry. At least the way it is now, teachers have the opportunity to squeeze in some Plato, or Joyce, Jack Kerouac, or Abbot and Costello into a discussion on language and meaning. In a backwards designed classroom we will always be chasing the lion’s tail, trying to catch up with a changing society.
[...] Jon Becker recently skewered several arguments about the direction education “needs” to go in. He did it so well, I couldn’t help but respond in a comment to another false assumption about the direction of schools. [...]
In the mid-nineties I found the work of Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde (Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools) to be groundbreaking and compelling. It captured for me the “it” to which you refer. Alas, it left me wondering how a teacher – a mortal human – could pull “it” off with consistency. The advent of dynamic technologies, however, enables educators to build experiential, authentic, individualized, constructivist, expressive, reflective and collaborative practices into the everyday experience of the classroom.
As a result, I don’t find what we are seeking to be “change,” “reform” or a new definition of “it” (or even “new,” for that matter). Instead, I believe we are searching for a higher level of quality, and for a larger population of educators to understand how to leverage these technologies to create a better student experience, and for more fundamental, meaningful learning to occur as a result.
Hi, All.
How was educon? I apologize for being mostly ignorant of web2.0 integration arguments; may I have a naive approach to tech integration? If you want to focus on pedagogy, notwithstanding economics, here are a couple of teaching/learning reasons why tech integration is important:
Personalized Learning Goals
It seems to me that personalizing learning is a huge advantage of our new tech tools. That means learners can pursue their own immediate learning goals, independent of their peers. Previously that was unmanageable, now it’s possible.
Interactivity
Web2.0 allows for a dynamic, more visual approach to learning maths and sciences. I had a look in a geography text, and the picture of the earth with all the arrows was completely static, in contrast to the best animations of the web. Frankly it was difficult to connect with such a static resource. The only reason we’re so text-based is that videos were previously unavailable in text book form!
Connectivity
It helps to connect and respond to others who are engaged in the same activity as yourself. This blog is a good example of that. As well you may connect to the space telescope, interactive soil analysis, etc., you name it! Your learning is not geographically fixed.
Well as you can see I’m in the ‘web2.0 cult’. With respect, I’m not really getting the other side of the argument.
Hey Jon,
Sorry we didn’t really get a chance to catch up at Educon. This would have been a great conversation/session. And thanks for not throwing us all under the bus by name. ;0)
I wonder if the “it” question can be answered. One thing I did take from the Sunday panel at Educon was when Michael Horn said something to the effect that any vision is going to be wrong. No one can absolutely nail what “it” is. So we paint in broad strokes and add each of those business and boredom colors to the canvas (bad metaphor warning here I know) and hope they mix into some type of image or picture of what we’re after. And I guess I wonder how to best try to define “it”. I mean, we could get all Shirky-ed up and do a community brain dump, or we could try to structure some extended conversations around it, or…
It’s a noble goal, and I think you’d get a bunch of people willing to participate in a “well-informed and logical” process to trying to get to “it”. I may not be convinced that there is one vision to any of this, but I totally agree that it would be worth the effort to get closer to a common story around what education and schools need to become.
Jon,
Thanks for a great reflective post. I totally agree that techniques like the “flipped classroom model” are an outstanding way to maximize face to face interaction, by making teachers more facilitators and less imparters of all knowledge that is good! I do take exception to your opinion, shared by many that the purpose of our educational system is to “prepare kids to be active, productive citizens in a deliberative democratic society.” I think preparation for the workforce and productive citizenship is an outcome of empowering students to become life-long learners. . To create that passion for life-long learning, we need to meet them where they are, utilizing the tools that they use for learning. I think that is what Chris means by “co-creating the 21st Century citizen.”
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts regarding these topics now that you’ve experienced Educon? Have they changed? Thx!
Curious Jon,
Would you consider a national dropout rate of nearly 33% to be sufficient “proof” that schools need to change?
Also, Disrupting Class is more a description/explanation of current conditions in our school systems and not necessarily an argument in and of itself for school change. That said, I think the arguments stemming from Disrupting Class address the student you describe who the current system works well for. Because, as schools loose students to other educational options they also can’t afford to offer that student as much choice. Less options means less opportunity. Might not be as apparent in schools located in densely populated areas as it is in small rural schools.