AIS2010+Will+Richardson

Will Richardson is an educator who has been blogging for nine years at weblogg-ed On his blog, in his books and in presentations world wide, Will talks about the transformative possibilities of a range of Web2.0 technologies. He believes in the power of these applications in school and personal learning, and that we must help our young ones to be safe, effective and ethical in the online world.
 * Transforming learning: a new role for educators**

If you would like to see Will Richardson in action I would recommend a series of videos available at the Vimeo channel of The Avon Maitland District School Boardin Huron and Perth Counties in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, and were uploaded in April, 2010.

At the AIS Conference Will presented from his home in New York via conference call. He spoke for about an hour and answered some questions. There was a lot to take in and the notes below are an attempt to follow the thread of his presentation and to pull in some of the other sources to which he referred.

“Going forward, learning may be far more individualized, far more in the hands (and the minds) of the learner, and far more interactive than ever before. This constitutes a paradox: As the digital era progresses, learning may be at once more individual (contoured to a person’s own style, proclivities, and interests) yet more social (involving networking, group work, the wisdom of crowds, etc.). How these seemingly contradictory directions are addressed impacts the future complexion of learning.” //Weigel, Margaret, James, Carrie, and Gardner, Howard,// //Learning: Peering backward and looking forward in the digital era// //,// __//International Journal of Learning and Media//__//, Volume 1, Number 1, Winter, 2009. [Quoted in video 3 above]//

There is a big divide between the generic world of school and the personal world of the everyday. Will sees authentic learning as being personal, which relegates much of school today. Learning in the online world can be passion based and personal. We can seek out what we need. He cites the example of finding online an expert to teach his kids to use Scratch. This was a major success, in spite of the fact that the tutor was a 10 year old British boy - meaning time differences and bedtimes were issues.

A very exciting document has been released by US Department of Education in March 2010, although Will fears it will probably never be implemented: A 21st Century Model of Learning Powered by Technology:US National Education Technology Plan 2010

“The NETP presents a model of 21st century learning powered by technology, with goals and recommendations in five essential areas: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity. The plan also identifies far-reaching 'grand challenge problems' that should be funded and coordinated at a national level. “

According to a Macarthur Foundation report, time spent online is important for teen development: “Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technological skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access 'serious' online information and culture. Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not character¬istic of educational institutions.” From “Living and Learning with New Media:Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project”, Macarthur Foundation, November, 2008, page 2.

We need to be teaching kids how to connect with adults online (and people generally) well and safely -> SAFE, EFFECTIVE, ETHICAL

The network is powerful and network literacy is important: “Public is the new default” (Erick Schonfeld on Dec 30, 2009 Tech Crunch: We all live in public now. Get used to it.

One of the positive results of this is that there are many places online which share high quality educational material: MIT (The Massachusetts Institute of Technology //)// – all course material is freely available [but Gary Stager says what makes courses valuable is the community rather than just the content – from ACEC 2010 Melbourne - MAT] MIT Open Courseware Other free MIT resources include: iLabs: internet acces to real labs anywhere, anytime MIT World : video of significant public events at MIT

Khan Academy – “The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere. We have 1400+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan.“

Lynda.com - Large assortment of how to videos, professionally presented. $25 per month/$250 per year subscription is basic individual. Class, staff group and campus options available. Can do month by month so may work for short term needs. Does include options not available on Atomic Learning but would only suggest for specialist need.

But all web2.0 tools are easily learned alone – self directed learning is the norm. Video tutorials also abound on the web.

We are moving from “stocks” of old knowledge to “flows” of new knowledge.

The Power of Pull by John Hagel III and John Seely Brown Audio Podcast: Collaborative Innovation and a Pull Economy, April 14, 2010, John Seely Brown NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment – new literacies.

The Twitter Times – is a real time, personalised newspaper generated from your Twitter account.

Google Fast Flip [] is: “A web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to "flip" through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches. ... We are currently testing Google Fast Flip with a limited number of publishing partners in the U.S. We hope to add more publishers in the future but can't share a specific time.” [Currently about 100] From: @http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/answer.py?answer=161790 [This is interesting but very limited so far, especially in the Australian context.]

Information overload is really filter failure. Work on filtering to find the forest amongst the trees (or the best trees in the forest?)

[to be completed] Annotations you write on Kindle books appear on your own Amazon page. KNO.com – tablet device for textbooks Evernote – notes online. "Adults should be a transparent model for children." Powerful Learning Practice – book Connected reading and writing. Buffy J. Hamilton – Librarian2.0