October+2013

October 25, 2013 (SAGE DAY in Manitoba)
The fun thing about wi-fi and laptops is having mobile access to all sorts of things. My situation as I write this: sitting in the common area near the coffee and chocolate cake during a break at the Manitoba School Librarian's Special Area Group conference in Winnipeg, MB. The hashtag for the event is #mslasage if you want to check it out on Twitter.

Today I had the joy of hearing Kathy Schrock and Dean Shareski present back to back sessions on the plethora of tools available on line, the nature of a participatory culture that is emerging with new tech, and relevant assessment of learning in a digital age. These topics are completely "my cup of tea", so it has been a good day. The challenge that I am particularly faced with as I think through the day has to do with trying to have my students understand me more as a learner than as a teacher. As I reflect a bit on the last three or four weeks of my classroom practice at Dakota I think that the Grade 11 and Grade 9 students that I am with have had opportunities to understand that I am a learner, that I value learning, and that I want mostly to be a model of learning for them as well.

So then, where does "teaching" fit in? Certainly the old-school lecture, top-down, didactic approach seems to be somewhat in decline, but then again, maybe I am just wrapped in my own bubble of new pedagogy, new learning, and new learning tools. Given my context at Dakota Collegiate I could be losing touch with what cell phone banning, pen and pencil pushing, "wi-fi. what's that?" schooling is all about.

I know that Ron Canuel of the CEA was pretty sure that many high schools would have made greater strides toward 1:1 technology as the norm by now. He was working on this stuff ten years ago, and those were heady times. New Brunswick's NB321C program was about to take off, the Manitoba Literacy with ICT continuum was developed and touted as a solid model for going down the road of tech infusion. Now, in 2013, still there are very few public schools that have been able to move out of old habits and to try incorporating info tech as an educational must on a daily basis. It makes me wonder how schools will look ten years from now...maybe they won't change as much as we might want them to change.

When I talk to people at conferences, I sense that there are pockets of excellent practice all over the place, but that the widespread use of info tech in schools has been a much slower process that most would have imagined when they started using the phrase "21st Century" education. After all, this century is already 13% over. We need to figure out a digital education and digital public schooling for a digital age. The work being done at Dakota Collegiate is a good example of a pocket of excellence, but the success of Dakota and schools like it needs to become more the norm. Finding the way forward will come with sharing about our successes and our challenges. When will a critical mass of 1:1 public schools emerge? What will it mean when it happens? Who knows what the future holds. For now, I will try and model my learning, write a blog or two, and share whatever I learn with whoever will listen. Ian Jukes likes the idea of a school of sardines...the decision to turn is a collective decision, a product of critical mass. Malcolm Gladwell also writes about these ideas in the Tipping Point.

The sad thing about battery life is that it limits mobile access. Some of you might read this before I get to edit it. Sorry for the typographical errors, the lack of links, and the fuzzy logic. Time to close the lid on this laptop, and eat a bit of cake.