Beth's Thoughts on Technology in the Classroom — This blog focuses on education, technology and learning.

A Good Diagraming Tool

by Beth Knittle on February 27, 2010

I have been playing around with Lovely Charts. I need to make a few organizational charts and decided to try the free version of the tool. It really is pretty easy to use, so far it is doing what I need it to do. I like tools that do not require a steep learning curve.

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I love a good discussion

by Beth Knittle on February 18, 2010

My daughter is away on a school trip and I have taken to leaving iChat open in case she wants to chat. Doing so led to a spontaneous conversation with an educator I have not talked to in a long time. I respect this person greatly and love the freedom to discuss all kinds topics without fear of where they lead. To play devils advocate, to stir the pot of thought, and just talk for the joy of it is such a privilege.

One of the many topics we discussed was change or lack of change in schools, learning and education. Though we discussed many ideas these are two thoughts that have stuck with me. I am not sure where I stand on these but love the thinking process. Below is a summary of some of the ideas we were bouncing around.

We can not change if we do not know what we are changing into.
Are we addressing the wrong audience to bring about change?

We cannot change if we do not know what we are changing into.

I read books and blogs, attend conferences and webinars, and chat with educators on twitter and plurk. The focus of much of this is the need for change. I think we agree formal schooling is not working as it is, it is not meeting all of our children’s needs, we are letting our students down. But that is about all we agree on. The rest is quite varied and up for discussion. Some want to do away with schools as they are, others want them to be technology driven, some want to have more control on curriculum, revamp testing, still others to abolish state testing all together. Where we are going is undecided?
Is the reason schools are not changing? Is it that we do not have a common goal, purpose and as such push and pull in so many directions that we end up standing still?

Are we addressing the wrong audience to bring about change?
Once upon a time a community got together to educate their children. Teachers lived in the community, and the community had great control over how schools were run and what was taught. Things have changed greatly over the decades. Curriculum and policy is mandated from state and federal levels, families and teachers no longer have real influence on what is taught. One of the constant complaints I hear from educators is that tests drive what they teach. In this day and age curriculum, standards and testing seem to be developed by political and business interest from outside the local community. My colleague asked “how many educators sit on your state board of education? How many have actually worked in schools, and taught in a classroom?” * Control for what happens at schools comes from a distance yet accountably is still at the local level.

One audience we (the collected eduverse) address our calls for change is to teachers, trying to get them to adapt collaboration, communication and content creation tools to their teaching. We ask them to change how they teach, though they must teach within policy and mandates they have little control over. School administrators are also those who much of the conversation is addressed. We hope they will lead the way with change and give their staffs the freedom to change how they teach and interact with students and information. Our conversation then turned to parents. Maybe the target audience should be parents? Many feel helpless about what happens at schools, and do not understand how schools work today and how technology can influence learning. Informed parents maybe able to influence change where those of us within the system cannot. I have not really given this much thought before, but certainly will now.

I would love to hear your thoughts. I love a good discussion.

*I actually did not know. Here is the list of my state board members.

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How do you document informal learning?

by Beth Knittle on February 16, 2010

My growth as a learner has skyrocketed in recent years, as I became a connected learner. I believe I have learned more about teaching, learning and technology’s role in the process from self-directed, network supported interactions then I did in many of the formal educational opportunities in which I have participated. I am sure many of you feel the same way.

My children are also connected learners and participate in many opportunities outside of traditional schooling. For example my daughter participated in a writers forum, where they challenged each other in creative writing projects. They wrote, critiqued and re-wrote. She worked on theme, writing style, tense, voice, dialect, setting, etc. She is also interested in propulsion options in space and is researching spacecraft design. She is immersed in learning. My son runs a guild in World of Warcraft. He organizes a group of people, manages assets, plans strategies and often needs to assist members in getting along. He deals with personnel issues and is learning management strategies. Their school transcripts do not reflect their skills, knowledge and talents. How would my children document their learning?

I have been in the process of converting my resume into a curriculum vita, and quantifying what I know and how I know it. This is not an easy process. I have been looking over many CV from a wide range of sources. What I am lacking is published writing. I guess I have been so busy doing, that I have not taken the time to stop and write. As many of you suggested, we need to have products to support our learning.

There are increasing opportunities to learn what you want when you want. Traditional learning environments are not the only learning environments. Maybe the traditional way of documenting our learning and experience will also need to change. A while ago I asked my network what they thought about this question.

How to document or create a resume for informal learning? Should it be done?

Here are some of the responses I received. To see the complete survey results for this question and the others I asked please visit the spreadsheet.

I’m not sure. I’d just post links to my PLN’s if I could, or maybe create a list of books and a link to my reflections if I was applying to an organization who understood what I was doing. If they didn’t understand, say I *was forced* to take a position in that type of organization, I’d just make a list of skills that I’d developed that they’d understand.
I don’t think we can — yet. I do not believe that informal learning has reached a level of recognition that would prove to be beneficial to have it listed on a resume. Aside from the fact that you’ve been drilled that resumes cannot be more than 2 pages!
I created a wiki for my resume. On it I included awards I have won, articles I have written and ones that have been written about me. I also included links to my blog, to my twitter page, and to my NING pages. PLN was most important to demonstrate.
I created a wiki that I’m able to keep many of my ‘resources’ when I have teachers who are looking for a quick fix of pd.
Good question – hadn’t though of that…guess because I’ve not had a need to document it. It probably would be good to do and maybe we do it through our tweets/plurks, blogs, video creations, etc. I know that I’ve reflected on my informal learning through these venues.
The best resumes I have seen talk about skills and abilities a lot and college degrees and formal learning not so much. More and more people are realizing that almost everyone learns far more out of school than in it, and that what one does with one’s learning is more important than how one acquired it.
I think that some sort of e-portfolio should be kept for all learners (teachers and students).
We need to be able to look back and reflect on our learning journey. I think there should be something added to the resume or maybe the resume needs to be revamped. Especially for teachers who take P.D. courses and adminsitrators who are networking via listservs, twitter, nings, etc.
I don’t know how to document this. I guess I do it by teaching it to others or doing it myself. Yes, there should be a way to showcase the new skills we acquire as lifelong learners. Maybe I should set up a wiki with all the links to my new products and presentations.
I never thought of creating a resume for my informal learning. I agree with your thoughts Beth. I have learned more in the last few years through my self-guided explorations than in my formal learning environments. I suppose a blog or journal may be an effective way to document the learning journey.

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EduCon Reflections

by Beth Knittle on January 31, 2010

I am attending EduCon 2.2 and just getting ready to start the final day. Yesterday I had the privilege to facilitate a conversation with Danja Mahoney and Michael Springer, and chat with some of the smartest most thoughtful educators around. Our topic was Subversive PD: Creating a culture of collaboration to bring educators into the 21st century. Our focus was looking for strategies that work, in the absence of administrative and teacher support and/or awareness, to foster professional growth. Are there ways that we, as individuals, can help drive change in our hallways, schools and districts? We had a great turn out, which frankly surprised me. Discussion notes can be found on the session wiki.

What I love about EduCon is that it takes the best part of traditional conferences, those wonderful thoughtful hallway conversations and makes them last for three days. It brings Higher Ed, K-12 and others interested in learning together to focus on learning and education in general. It is not about technology, it is about challenging ourselves to think about what we do, why we do it and can we do it better.

Looking forward to learning and thinking today.

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EduCon 2.2

by Beth Knittle on January 28, 2010

Tomorrow I head off to EduCon 2.2 this will be my third trip. The first conference was something of an experiment with about 75+ attendees. The conference grew out of a conversation and the conversation has not ended. This year there will be 500 participants, reaching full capacity. It will be a lot more crowded, I hope it brings richer deeper conversations. We shall see. This time around I will also be facilitating a session, I was privileged to be asked to join Danja Mahoney and Michael Springer who were planning a session when we meet up at MassCUE. Thanks for letting me tag along.

We are facilitating a conversation on Subversive PD. We would love our administration and fellow educators to encourage and model technology integration; communication and collaboration with the tools of the day. We would love to have teachers flock to professional development opportunities, but this is not to be. Our reality is that we sometimes need to drag them kicking and screaming to these sessions and that even when attended change in the learning environment happens slowly. There has to be a better way to encourage our colleagues down the hall to explore the possibilities and stretch their wings. We hope to generate some ideas and learn with you about what is working. Please join us if you can. There is so much to choose from, a great weekend of learning and thinking is in store for all.

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Do You Debate?

by Beth Knittle on January 23, 2010

I believe that critical thinking, analysis, and the ability to pull ideas together are essential to learning. However it has been my experience that in the current context of content based testing, time for complex analytical discussions, examination of multiple perspectives and allowing time for students to draw their own conclusions has been limited.

I was wondering if its absence in the classroom had been replaced with time outside the classroom. In my high school and college days debate clubs and teams were very common. In fact debate was also part of my language arts and history classes in high school. I do not know of too many debate clubs or teams in my area so I asked my network if they have debate teams.
10 said no, 4 yes and two were not applicable.

Some had alternatives though I do not know if they truly are equivalent:
Mock trial, Mock/Model UN, Robotics, Improve and Eteam (economics @elementary level). One respondent taught at a middle school and thought that might be too young. I do no think that is too young. As a former middle school teacher it was debate and discussion that made my students come alive. Middle school students love to talk.

How do you incorporate true critical thinking and the analysis of ideas in the classroom?

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Is being knowledgeable and being educated the same thing?

by Beth Knittle on January 16, 2010

I have been doing a lot of reading in the past year, or so, on education, learning, schools and teaching. I believe I am on the verge of a paradigm shift in my thinking. The constructivist in me tells me this is part of the normal learning process that comes about from gathering new information and analyzing it from different points of view. You see the conflicts with your old knowledge structures and you need to rebuild them to accommodate the new information. Can I tell you my brain hurts from the process? My mind is a virtual construction site and in disarray I need to bring it some order.

Part of my struggle has been related to vocabulary. We believe we all know the meanings of the words we use every day, but there are subtle and not so subtle difference in meaning, it can influence our understanding. In trying to read and interpret what others say I can get hung up on this. So last week I asked for a little help from my PLN about some of these terms. I asked “Is being knowledgeable and being educated the same thing?”

To me knowledge is information and being knowledgeable is to know a lot of information. Being educated is the ability to analyze, modify, and utilize information also the ability to create and contribute to the knowledge base. I do not think it makes a difference to the individual where or how they acquired their knowledge or the ability to analyze and utilize information. Society may place significance on how one becomes educated as evidence by the needs for degrees or certificates. So now my thoughts turn to schools, do we produce knowledgeable graduates or educated graduates?

The following are the responses I received. Thanks so much to all who responded.

Yes, I think so. Many may not, as they think of “school” when they think education. I’ve recently learned this: “Education derives from the verb educe, which means ‘to draw forth from within.’” Keeping that in mind, I think that a person who is knowledgeable is also educated. The knowledge didn’t magically appear; it was developed and fostered from some source, through the process of education.
No. I view the first as coming from a variety of resources and the second coming from the ‘formal’ ‘degree awarding’ institutions.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of autodidacts who contribute in enormous ways to the life of the universe.
No, being knowledgeable and being educated are not the same. Being knowledgeable has to do with facts. Education prepares you to do something with those facts.
For me being educated is having had the opportunity to learn. Being knowledgeable is “owning” the learning.
No. Educated means you learned it in a school setting or set out to actually learn something. Knowledgeable means to understand something. Doesn’t matter how. Could just be from experience.
I think this depends on the field and who you ask. Knowledgeable could apply to a trade; someone who is quite adept and skilled at their trade (i.e. plumbing) could be very knowledgeable but not be considered educated by academia. Of course said tradesman could turn out to be very “educated” in the traditional academic sense, too.
I think that there are book smart, but street dumb people. We learn so much from just existing. It is how we process that information that counts. We as educators must take background knowledge and basic connections between self and topic to assist in this process.
I would say yes and no. Many times I’ve had colleagues and students who were very educated, but when it came to common sense, they were lacking knowledge in that area.
No – I think they are different…knowledgeable implies wisdom to me while educated is more limited to ’schooled’
In my opinion, being educated simply means having been taught something. Many people are knowledgeable without finishing school. They have been taught by others who have the knowledge. There are many places to become educated.
I don’t think so. Being educated to me implies receiving bits of knowledge, looking at it from all sides, looking for more information, and incorporating it.
No, not as the words are commonly used. Being educated seems to imply a deliberate purposeful effort by the educator or student to acquire knowledge but, as you note in your introduction above, learning (knowledge) can and is acquired informally, haphazardly, spontaneously and other ways that do not require purposeful, directed, strategic education.
Great question. I think you can be knowledgeable about a lot of things but not really have it amount to anything useful.
I think that being educated (today) means that you have the capacity to go out and create your own knowledge about new things. Being educated also needs to incorporate the ability to collaborate and communicate effectively. These are not things that are necessarily true if you are just “knowledgeable.”
I do not believe this is true. Like you, I am learning more and more each day as I connect to people around the world. You cannot put a price tag on this and currently this is not happening in schools to any large degree.
Not necessarily. I am knowledgeable about many more things than I have been educated about. I think, for me, knowledge seems to be more practical and pragmatic while education tends toward the theoretical and the philosophical. After almost 40 years of education and schooling myself, I do consider myself both knowledgeable and educated but maybe not in the same exact things.
Yes and no. While I believe education builds a strong foundation and gives you the basics, having knowledge comes from hands on experience and interacting with others to improve and grow. We can learn from others, best demonstrated practices and new ideas that you don’t always find in a classroom setting.
I think it depends on the way you define the word knowledgeable but I would say that no, they are not necessarily the same thing. In my opinion, you can be uneducated (in a traditional sense) and still be knowledgeable. I don’t think you need to be traditionally educated on a topic to be knowledgeable about it. For example, I have never had an education about video games, but I am knowledgeable about the topic because of my experience with it.
I would say that there is a difference but not much. To become knowledgeable a person does not need traditional education, but isn’t the gaining of knowledge the definition of education? There are many people in the world that I would consider knowledgeable that have not completed high school and/or college. So knowledge can be gained with traditional education.