Reboot9: Citizens of the future - are you ready?

The time for my talk came and went, with only a handful of people there. Within 2 minutes of starting the 'Box' was full, about 80 people packed in to listen, interrupt, relate to their own experiences and hopes, blog and generally have a good thunk. It seems to have gone down well and it's the first time most of my feedback has come live, as I spoke, through Jaiku. I've since updated some of the notes and added some of the more recent examples from the talk.

Four things that hold us/schools/business back from innovating, or that make us get innovation a bit wrong:

1. "Thin-slicing"
   Malcolm Gladwell's Blink gave me plenty of parallels in education to think about. Thin slicing is the Pepsi Challenge effect, where we see a guy at a conference talking about something new for a couple of minutes. We then make up our minds: "I love it, I'll just jump into it" or "I'm too old for that/the boss will never go for it". Taking a thin slice of a more complex process makes us less likely to succeed in both these scenarios. Most of the things I've been proposing this last wee while are simple initially, but require more complex thinking about the role of the teacher.
2. Fear = loathing?
   When we fear things we decide not to take the jump. But if we can decide that failure might actually be a good thing then we can start to play a lot better. Making purposeful play something that both learner and teacher do will help make that learning so much more effective.
3. Over planning
   I'm not saying that we should stop planning our projects, but rather that we need to leave room for happy accidents to happen, for those tangents to be developed. This might mean throwing out the annual planner for a week, just to go off on a tangent that might lead to something more interesting or relevant to the kids' own experiences. It might be a false lead, it might be the lead that makes that period of learning 100 times more worthwhile.
   
   With ICT we tend to overplan our lessons. This might be a starting point, if we can start to see technology as opening tangents ("how could we do something other than PowerPoint to make the task more demanding cognitively and less demanding technically?") rather than closing them off ("we don't have all the equipment/time/expertise we need to do that". Let the kids lead the way).
4. "Why bother?"
   Kids are changing. The 16 year old in 2007 is entering the employment market with only internet-age experiences on which to rely (the internet came into being in 1991). The six year old entering elementary school expects the web to allow them to publish and share their views with the world.

Five elements that have changed in the online world and which need to change in our F2F world

1. Audience
   • How many people read or hear the work of your students? Do you project the work of your students onto exterior walls of the school or County Hall? Do you publish their work on school blogs for all to see, in the same way that their "stupid and useless" videos attract 154,000+ viewers. Do you know how?
2. Creativity Unleashed!
   • Student creations can be conceived and published in the same place, whether that's in photographic, video or audio forms . Find out how to do all this. Channel the creative energy and ideas of your students - teacher as guide, not fount of knowledge - and you can turn those silly YouTube aspirations into something much more powerful.
3. Differentiate... by raising the bar
   
   • Students' favourite elements of learning are often the most difficult, if my quotes are anything to go by.
   • If students have persevered to create somthing valuable share it in formats that they can relate to and use: mobile phones, iPod and gaming formats. Then mum and dad can see it straight away - and anyone else. Bluetooth is a really easy free way to transfer stuff around the classroom through kids' phones.
   • You can assess and be creative at the same time. Take a look at formative assessment in action in Modern Languages et in English.
   • Why make students write to express their views all the time? Why not use photography and notes on Flickr?
4. Authentic goals (for students, not teachers)
   
   • Create real audio guides for the city in AudioSnacks.
   • Keep a learning log of what is going on in class or on a school trip .
5. It's not about the teach, it's about the tech
   • Use the technology that is in your students' bags and pockets - mobile phone ideas; iPod  use (listen to education material on iTunes Podcast Directory; xBoxes let you speak with fellow players around the world; the games played by kids on their Nintendo DS or Wii (I'm playing one at Steve's here) can often be put into multilingual modes - never has brain training been so draining. We can come up with imaginative uses for dance mats - waht does business do to be imaginative in the way its employees develop?

The tools we use should not get in the way of the far bigger question - what is your role in your classroom now and will new technologies integrate with it? The chances are they won't, unless you integrate (i.e. change) with them. The main release these tools will offer the teacher is the extension of the classroom beyond the 'nine-to-four': collaborative tools like these offer free and flexible ways to claim back some of the 200 minutes spent online by our kids each night.

And why this urgency to empower this particular generation? Because new technology tends to push us into new practices. Some ideas will work, some will not. Do you have the desire to try and maybe make some mistakes? Will you blog about it so that others needn't make the same mistakes?

Comments

[Damien Mulley]

Great talk Ewan. Enjoyed it very much.

[Jörg Weisner]

Ewan,
ich war zwar nicht dabei, aber die Zusammenfassung liest sich sehr interessant.
Super Inhalt.

[DK]

Asking all the right question there my friend...

DK

[Ewan McIntosh]

Vielen Dank, Jorg. Ich denke dass es ein Video gibt fur den audio visual learners ;-)

DK: would loved to have seen you there, copresenting, of course ;-)

[Praguelondon]

Hi. I enjoyed your commentary. I also noticed your suggestion with flickr. A few of us at work have started to use it for the same thing. We thought it would be more inspirational. We'll let you know how it goes.

[Anne Fox]

Your session was a great distillation of what you write about here on your blog and the examples were spot-on. I have seen some of them before but even then you gave some entirely new twists on why they are good examples.

Great to meet up with you and thanks for the conversation.

[Ewan McIntosh]

Likewise, a real pleasure. Looking forward to reading your Reboot posts, hearing the podcasts. Take care!