Prairie South School Division Conversations

This year I asked administrators to consider how they might utilize technology to share and communicate learning.
We've seen some great examples. Mossbank School has been regularly posting learning videos, at least a couple of principals are blogging and several websites are moving beyond sports and extra curricular updates to share more learning successes. We have many teachers who have students blogging and posting work.

While this is a wonderful start, I'd like to encourage you and urge you to go beyond posting and indeed become more transparent in your work and your learning. I"m talking to students, teachers, administrators and central office people. I read this post by Will Richardson. I encourage you to read it in its entirety but I'll pull a few key ideas that challenged me.

...schools also have a responsibility to help kids lead transparent lives online in ways that prepare them for the highly complex relationships they will be having in these virtual spaces as adults. But to do that, schools have to get more transparent themselves.

This is the world our students will and are already living in.

I have more and more of an expectation of the teachers and especially the administrators in our schools to lead transparent lives. The fact that they are veritably “un-googleable” in terms of finding anything they have created and shared and perhaps collaborated with others on troubles me on a number of levels. First, I can’t see for myself whether or not they are learners. And, almost more importantly, I get no sense as to whether or not they are leaders of learners. Whether they are in the classroom or in the front office, I want (demand?) the adults in my schools to be effective models for living in a transparent world. I want my kids to see them navigating these spaces effectively, sharing what they know, teaching others outside of their physical space, and contributing to the conversation.

Many times I've had wonderful conversations about things that are happening in schools and which they were being shared more widely. There is so much we could be learning from each other. If we truly see ourselves as life long learners, how are we modeling that? How do your students know how and what you are learning? As leaders and teachers, we should be leveraging any of the hundreds of options to share our work. I think many are fearful their work isn't good enough or valuable enough to share. That's nonsense. Our students should be sharing and they should be able to have models within our buildings to show them how to do that. I also know many think they don't have time to share. I'd suggest you can't afford not to. I've been fortunate to work with pre-service teachers and I think this student echos how many feel about sharing. I know it's not easy for many but I won't stop pushing.

The question before us as we consider what we need to thrive in the internetworked world is: How do we conquer our fear of exposure and turn these new realities into new abilities and behaviors? How can we become proactive about transparency?

Read the full article and start sharing your thoughts here or there.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yohann-aberkane/2836258475/

Dave Weinberger wrote a nice book for children explaining what the web is for.

I'd say adults could learn from it as well. It's in all kinds of formats, including a downloadable, printable version.

Have a look.

Sir Ken Robinson is a education advocate and particularly in the area of creativity and schools. Watch this video and if you're willing share your thoughts.

I just listened to a podcast of an angry parent upset with the Langley School District for not blocking social networking sites.

The mother, Beatrice, is conceded some authority by CBC since she has a computer science background. Unfortunately her knowledge of ports and key logging software is about all she has when it comes to her understanding of social networks. Admittedly her 12 year old daughter had been to some less than educational spaces and likely was pursuing content not fit for a 12 year old or anyone. Her reaction was to block all these sites, ban her daughter from the home computer and demand the school district to install content filtering that would prohibit any access to social networks. Craig Spence, a representative from the school division gives a very intelligent response in this interview to her complaints arguing the importance of teaching students about these spaces and recognizing these spaces will still exist outside the school. This article might indicate the school district is buckling somewhat under pressure.

This parent makes a number of comments that demonstrate a lack of understanding and fuels the fire of hysteria and in my opinion, bad judgment.

She admits that living in a rural area, the internet has become "for a lack of a better term, connection" for her daughter. Lack of a better term? That's exactly what it is...a connection. From her eyes the connection is obviously negative, but that's got nothing to do with the technology. Her daughter's connections will remain questionable even without the technology. Her response is to ban her daughter from using their computer until she says,"it will be safe again." When will that be? When all the nefarious sites have gone away? When her daughter is 18? When she determines that the only value of the internet is looking up stuff?

She worries that a child in grade 3 will be online at school and will accept a date with a stranger thinking it's another child and will be whisked away by a predator. Once again, there is no case of anything remotely like this. While I understand why she might have this fear, the facts just aren't getting through. That's why in part, I don't just ignore stories like this but feel compelled to speak out. Even the reporter lacked the background information to challenge her claim. I've written about this too often to reprise.

She also feels schools should be teaching reading, math, science and computers (how to use a computer) but social networking should be taught in the homes. Think about that statement for a while.

At Prairie South we have opted to pay close attention to social networking and yet blocking is not a great solution. For every site one person deems educational, someone will disagree. For every social network site you block today, three more will arise tomorrow. These are bandaid solutions. Being proactive, supervisory and purposeful are by far the best approaches. We also feel teachers are our best filters at school and parents should be the best at home.

This is why it's so critical that we continue to promote teachers doing this in Kindergarten and Grade one. At some point we won't even call it social networking. We'll just call it learning.

Windows Live Writer is a download from Windows that allows you to easily post to your blog without having to login. Once you configure it on your desktop, you use it much like a word processor.