A Pair of Dimes Shift

 Hard to believe that it has been over six years since my last blog post. I stopped because I was concerned about potential conflicts with my job and the college I worked at, not wanting to say anything that might reflect badly on it - this was my choice, not the institution's,

Now that I am retired I face no such restrictions or ethical issues, so here I go!

Let's start with the pair of dimes (paradigm?) shift of retirement. I've been at it for a little over 18 months and I think I'm beginning to get that hang of it. Everyday is Saturday, a lot less meetings and no commute have become luxuries. After a life time of work, it's been an interesting transition to being left to my own designs. The cool thing is I can do pretty much whatever i want to do and it if doesn't get done today, there is always tomorrow. I am able to picj and chose and do things I want. This includes being on the board of Digital Nova Scotia and being a director of the Army Cadet League of Canada (Nova Scotia). It's good to stay engaged.

One of those things I want to do more of is write - here on this blog where I will again look at things that make me go hmmm... and on my professional blog Thoughts From the Field where I will write and talk about education, leadership, change, organizational culture and other issues and topics related to teaching, learning and creating better environments for students and their educators. I have started a consultancy, Birch Hollow Consulting as a way to keep busy, continue my academic research and hopefully give back to the fields of education and leadership. If you need advice or help with what your organizations are up to, let me know.

So here I am, back and ready to go - so many things that make me go hmmm... and now the time post!

Adventure of a Lifetime...

My friend and colleague Dave Jellicoe, has just launched the adventure of a lifetime - for the next year (at least), he will be teaching in Japan at the Hohoku School in Sendai . You can follow his adventure at his blog, The Uncarved Block.

Have a blast Dave and stay in touch! Hmmm...

Bill Gates - How I Am Trying To Change The World...

The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) 2009 conference is underway this week. This is Bill Gates' presentation at TED 2009 about malaria and what he and his foundation are doing to help rid malaria, and about great teachers. he answers two questions - how to eradicate malaria, and hpw to keep great teachers. A great presentation - great food for thought. So cool watching someone with such a passion for what they are doing. Watch for the mosquitoes...




His second question is "How do you make a teacher great?" So, how do you? Some interesting perspectives and numbers on what great teachers are and the impact of having more great teachers. One point Bill makes is that a Master's degree in education has no effect on improving the quality of a teacher - it's past performance that is the best indicator of success. Slightly more good teachers leave the profession than bad ones, and turnover is high...

Listen to what he says makes successful teachers - engagement, feedback, focus, caring - despite what he says about the current state of teachers and teaching, Bill still has hope for the future. Talks about using technology and education. A must watch video.

Hmmm...

Learn To Change, Change To Learn...

We've been having a lot of conversations about millennial learners - you know those young people who refuse to listen, to learn the way we want them to, to get excited about non-creative linear testing and assignments that they can't relate too. Why won't they just do what we ask of them?

This video sheds some light on why - it's a series of prestigious educators and researchers essentially talking about who our learners are (and I use the term learners not students deliberately - they are learners, hands on applied learners, not abstract studiers), and what we need to do as educators to change and meet them where they are...



I think perhaps the best comment in the video comes near the end "it's the death of education and the dawn of learning". Just think about that for a minute - the death of education and the dawn of learning - we're on the cusp of a sea change in education that will impact the very core of what we do and how we do it as educators. Talk about your paradigm shifts. Hmmm...

Engaged? But We Just Met...

I've been involved in education, mostly adult education, for over 30 years now, and I have come to believe that the single most important thing we do as educators is the engage learners - get them to actively participate and take responsibility for their learning - without engagement there is no learning, just a lot of words being spoken, slides presented, work being done. So here is what I think of engagement and what we as educators can and must do...

As a faculty member, my world was the learning environments, both physical and virtual, that I created and delivered to my learners - my focus was "here they are, in the "room", now let's give them every opportunity to be a successful learner". The learners were already enrolled, they came to class, or didn't, they did the work, or didn't, and hopefully met the course standards and learned something along the way. In my experience engaged learners not only succeed themselves, they tend to engage their peers who otherwise might fall by the wayside. What I was concerned about was getting learners engaged in what they were doing when I was with them, I didn't worry about what happened outside of the classroom - my focus was on keeping learners engaged in their learning in the courses I was facilitating - a fairly micro look at adult education.

I am now in my second year as an academic chair, with 27 full and part-time faculty, and more than 500 learners spread across 16 full-time programmes and a large number of part-time, continuing education and online courses. I have a much more macro view of adult education.

Engagement is now part of the big picture for me and in my mind it begins long before a learner even comes to my College. We need to engage learners as early as possible in their post-secondary education (PSE) choices. Vincent Tinto (an absolutely amazing guy - you must read his books - "Leaving College" is an essential book for any educator's library) says that the first three weeks of a college student's career are the most important and those three weeks often happen before classes even start - it's the application process, the admissions process, orientation, and so on - making the learner feel part of the institution, in other words making them feel part of a community. Community is the key to engaged learners - simply stated our role as adult educators is to foster community, most everything else will take care of itself if a community exists.

So if community is the most important thing we can foster as educators (way more important than content in my opinion), how exactly can we create environments where community can flourish, engaging our learners? Here are some of the ways that I've been thinking about, using, and discussing with colleagues:

• Engage learners in high school, maybe even junior high school, let them know about your programmes, and career opportunities. To be successful this must be done in concert with industry - employers going into the schools with you to show the education-employment connection that is important to so many learners. At NSCC we have programmes like O2 (Options and Opportunities) and College Prep that help engage high school students early so they can consider the college as their PSE choice. We use Test Drives to show prospective learners a "day in the life" of a college learner.
  
• Research has shown that two of the most important influencers on making a PSE decision are teachers and mothers - engage both in the process. We do this through "parents as Career Coaches", and through our College Prep folks talkingto teachers and guidance counsellors.
• Once a learner is accepted into a programme, actively connect with them, let them know they have made an important (and correct) decision and that they are now part of a community - that they are not alone. This can be done through Admissions or the programme itself sending out information packages (or links to a wiki or Web site with the info) so that new learners arrive on the first day of college as informed learners.
• Have an orientation that fosters and develops community - team activities, getting to know each other and their environment. One activity that I have used is to ask everyone to tell one thing that they are an expert at (amazing what you hear), and add that expertise to the group knowledge base - make it clear to learners that they are each others' most important learning resource. Balance the amount of information handed out (and there is always so much at the beginning of the year) with learning activities that build community - the information can always get to learners later.
• Let learners know all of the services and supports available on your campus, that they are part of a larger learning community that is there to support them
• Maximize the use of problem-based, project-based, and team-based learning. Use projects and assignments that require learners to cooperate and collaborate, strengthening their sense of community
• Use learning technologies that learners like, not ones that you like. It's much easier for one of you to adapt than a whole class of learners. We have found in the last few years that e-mail is no longer the most efficient way to communicate with learners (they use e-mail to talk to "old folks") - so get to know, learn, and use current learning technologies - Web 2.0, Facebook, IM, Twitter, wikis, blogs, text messaging - go where your learners "are"
• Give up control of the content in your courses. This isn't quite as scary as it seems. As the facilitator you know the course outcomes - let learners find and share the content - they develop research and presentation skills, become expert in using the Internet and other resources, develop skills in information gathering, interpretation, and use, and develop their learning community.
• Give control of the learning environment to learners. As a facilitator you will still be responsible for classroom management, but what's wrong with letting learners decide on things like how the environment will look, when tests etc. are scheduled, what kinds of tests are used (meet all learning styles), how they organize themselves, and so on - the community will flourish if the learners are engaged and learners will be engaged if the community flourishes.

These are just some of the things that I have used to engage learners and to develop community. Once learning communities develop and take hold, they are the single most powerful thing you have to keep learners engaged. If you need evidence look at the military (I was in the Canadian Army for 28 years), and in particuar basic training - the individual is subsumed for the team, for the community - it really is Band of Brothers whether you are talking about a platoon of soldiers or a community of learners. Hmmm...

Let Go Of The Content... It's All About The Connections...

I've been an educator, mostly an adult educator, for over 32 years now. I hold both bachelor and masters degrees in education, with my masters specializing in adult education and training. In all of my formal training as an educators content was king - I learned a lot of content, I had to have subject matter expertise and my "job" was to ensure that my students got all of the content that they deeply deserved.

Well guess what everyone - we are not in Kansas anymore - given our new realities of education and the learning tools available to our "learners" (yes, they are no longer students), as educators we are faced with a new paradigm - content is dead - it's all about the connections made and the learning communities that count now. In fact, I have come to discover that content is actually mostly irrelevant in my role as an educator, and what my focus has become is developing learners so they can learn for themselves and find their own content through the development of communities and connections. So what does this all mean?

We are facilitating (not teaching) a new generation (actually generations, as most adult learning environments these days are multi-generational) of learners for a new generation of jobs and careers, many of which have not even been created yet. Technology has become pervasive in most learning environments, and the one technology that has had the greatest influence is the computer and its greatest learning tool, the Internet.

Learners have the Internet as their primary tool for information gathering and research - in fact the so-called Millennials or digital natives (Prensky) have even been said to be 'wired" differently as to their approach to information finding and gathering and their ability to multitask information gathering. They are exposed to an almost unlimited amount of content on any subject. What is lacking are the following skills and knowledge:

• Gathering information
• Processing knowldege
  
• Context and relevancy of information
• Sharing and using information

None of these skills are content-centric or specific to a particular subject area, but rather they should be considered as essential skills regardless of the chosen profession or academic track of the learner. It is our job as facilitators to ensure that our learners acquire these skills in order to succeed in the information age.

As facilitators of adult learning we must step away from our traditional role of content providers and move into one of facilitating connections - connections with information, connections with learners for the development of team and interpersonal skills, the connections with multiple (and massive) sources of information, the connections between raw data and the skills needed to make it useful information, and the connections that learners will need to be successful in their chosen professions, whatever those connections may be.

The most important connections that we can foster are the connections of community - learning is now a team sport - there is just too much information out there for one learner to make sense of - we need to foster and develop the creation of learning communities and environments that will assist in the success of our learners. This will become even more important as more and more learners choose to do their learning in environments outside of our traditional "brick" classrooms.

So, let go of the content and get connected. It's our future... Hmmm...

Conference Prep - What A Concept

We've been sending faculty and staff to the STLHE (Society For Teaching and Learning In Higher Education) annual conference for three years now and NSCC is a STLHE institutional member. This year's conference is at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario. I attended STLHE 2007 last year at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

The STLHE conference celebrates teaching and learning at the university and college level in Canada and attracts presenters and attendees from all over Canada and the world. It is a jammed-packed conference, like most, and for many the hardest thing is how to "attack" it and get the most out of the conference.

For the past two years we have taken an interesting approach to preparing our attendees before they attend STLHE. Current attendees along with past attendees are brought together off campus in a hotel meeting room to have a conversation and a meal - the conversation is "How to get the most out of STLHE (all of the attendees at STLHE (and any conference that we send people to) must prepare a report on their return to share what they have experienced and learned with the larger College community). the conversation strats with everyone introducing themselves and for the previous attendees adding what one thing they got the most of at STLHE.

We then talk about tips and hints - how to select what to see, how to "translate" the abstracts in the programme to get a quick understanding of the presentations, how to work together to maximize learning, what works and doesn't work while attending the conference and any other thoughts that come to mind. It gives the new attendees a sense of comfoert as they head off and builds our "STLHE alumni" community within the college.

As our president, Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair says, it's "a community of learners supporting a community of learners". What a great way to share knowledge and to ensure that learning opportunities are maximized - thanks very much to our Organizational Learning stff for including me in the process - it was a great way to reflect back on STLHE 2007 and to lok forward to hearing about what was learned at STLHE 2008...

STLHE 2008 logo from the conference Web site

NISOD 2008 - Closing Session And Excellence Awards...

This being my first NISOD conference I was not sure what to expect at the closing general session. It was very well done. For the past 20 years NISOD has been awarding excellence awards to educators (faculty, staff, administrators and others) from member institutions. the member institutions develop their own criteria and nominate their employees. the employees who attend NISOD are identified by the medals they wear around their necks for the duration of the conference (and quite possibly beyond - who knows?)

One of the coolest part of the closing ceremony was asking the award winners to take off their medals and to hand it to a friend, loved one or the person next to them. This person was then asked to ceremoniously place the medal around the neck of the award winner - a very nice touch.

NISOD 2008 was a very interesting conference with a lot of great ideas and discussions. I'll wrap it up in my next post...

NISOD 2008 - Humor And Multimedia as Teaching Tools For The Net Generation...

This session was presented by Dr. Ronald Berk, professor Emeritus at John Hopkins University. A statistician by trade, Ron has published several books on using humour to teach, including "Professors Are From Mars, Students Are From Snickers".

In this informative, entertaining, funny, and transformative presentation, Dr. Berk presented an approach to using humour and multimedia to reach our current millennial students. he began by talking about the parts of the act of teaching;

• Content (the what)
• Pedagogy (the how)

Further breaking pedagogy down:

• Learner-Centered Teaching (over 1000+ articles 119 studies)
• Technology - online, offline, inline, and outtaline

We looked at the characteristics of the Net Gen digital native learners, the fact that they are visually oriented, that there is a need to address multiple intelligences and learning styles, and that the use of humour can go along way to reaching students. Include humour in your tests, take a "commercial break" when things are lagging and eyes are glazing over, use humour, demonstrations and even role plays to introduce complex or confusing topics, and connect with your learners.

His entire presentation was full of sound clips, vidoes and other cultural references that the audience and his students would get - an amazing use of technology and tools to use humour to break down barriers, present difficult topics and most importantly reach millennial learners with language and symbols that the understand.

One of his key pieces of advice (and there were many) was this - if you want to identify what is in your students' world - ASK them, conduct a survey - great, simple advice. as he put it "We are working together in the room".

Perhaps his best quote of the presentation, and one that encapsulates something that I have believed for a long time is this:

"PowerPoint by itself is a bunch of dead words on a screen"

Add sound, video, interactivity - bring life to your PowerPoint - great stuff.

there is no doubt that this approach to teaching, which I believe works is time consuming - the depth and richness of Dr. Berk's presentation must have taken hours to prepare. I think that the end result was well worth it though - a jam-packed room full of engaged learners.

This was an amazing presentation, perhaps the highlight of NISOD 2008 for me so far - best way that I can sum it up is to say that I wish I had been one of Ron Berk's students and I am so glad that for a very short two hours I was...

NISOD 2008 - KConversation With Amado's Friends...eynote -

This keynote was a moderated conversation with Larry Gatlin, the 2008 winner of the Amado Pena, Jr, Journey of Excellence Award and Dr. Don Cameron, president of Guildford Technical Community College, home of the Larry Gatlin School of Entertainment Technology.

Larry Gatlin is many things, an entertainer, a songwriter, a business man, but most of all he is a teacher. His memory and recall are amazing, attributed to teachers that he had. He spoke of the how important teachers have been in his life, telling stories of several of them with great affection, how his family was blessed with several teachers, and how important education has been to him (when was the last time you have heard a country star quote Chaucer from memory?).

Dr. Cameron then spoke about the Larry Gatlin School of Entertainment Technology, how it was conceived up to today where it has moved into a brand new facility.

Larry Gatlin then lead what was basically a short master class in songwriting, walking through his process of writing a song - a very natural, learning and teaching moment. He is a teacher, a supporter of education and an entertainer - what a great way to start the day...

"You Aren't Dumb - You Just Haven't Learned Yet"...

To paraphrase Art Linkletter, teens say the darndest things. I ride the bus to and from work (gave up my car four years ago - that's a whole other story...) and the other day coming home from the College there were two teenage girls of indeterminate age (13-17 or so) behind me carrying on an animated and loud conversation. Other than the fact that they mostly used words that would make a sailor blush, at one point in their conversation one said to the other "you aren't dumb, you just haven't learned yet" - WOW! What an amazing thing to say - talk about your AHA! moments.

As adult educators we deal all the time with earners who bring all sorts of challenges and baggage to their learning environments. One of those challenges is a feeling that they can't learn - someone, somewhere, at some time called them dumb or told them they couldn't learn - that's never true - anyone can learn if given the chance and support - and what a way to tell them - "you aren't dumb, you just haven't learned yet". What a lesson to carry into our learning environments and when dealing with our learners.

Thank you girls, and speaking of learning, about that language...

Great Teachers Seminar Alumni Retreat

Here I am at Cornwallis and the Annapolis Basin Conference Centre attending the Great Teachers Seminar retreat. We gathered yesterday evening from all over NSCC and the province, 25 great teachers coming back together to share what they have done and experienced since last attending the GTS.

We are off to a good start - David got us in our circle and we re-connected renewing old acquaintances and making new ones. Some new and interesting exercises from David to get a feel for the room - creating human bar graphs based on years of teaching and years at NSCC - some interesting results - many had lots of years of teaching, but less had many years at the College - an indicator for me that we are doing a great job of attracting great teachers to the College. A really cool exercise that I'll add to my tool kit.

We then convened for a most pleasant evening, but not before David actually gave us a handout (testing the extremes of minimally rigid structure) - seven questions that we will share and answer today - I can't wait. The stress and minutiae of the World slipped off my shoulders as soon as I passed through the gates of Cornwallis, and I'm feeling quite refreshed this morning.

Back to the pleasant evening - we solved all of the problems of the World but typically, no one took notes. I suspect that was because we had a glass (or can or bottle..) in our hand and paid heed to David's three rules - Eat, Meet, and Bring Nothing.

I can't wait for today...

CIT 2007 - Engaging Students In Online Learning Through Collaborative Activities

This was an amazing round table discussion led by Bret Nelson of San Jacinto College on transitioning from the classroom to online learning.

One the advantages of attending conferences like CIT 2007 ids that you get to travel with amazing colleagues who take much better notes than you do. So, instead of subjecting you to my ramblings, check out Randomminds's post "Tips For Teaching Online". She captured the session completely and there is nothing I could add.

I found Bret's enthusiasm and passion for teaching online quite contagious. the other very cool thing about this session was that there were two instructional designers from San Jacinto College participating and they had a lot of great input. It was apparent that they had a very close working relationship, and if I got one thing out of this session is that as online faculty keep your instructional designer close by - they are the real experts and will help you with that transition from the classroom to to cyberspace. Bret had all sorts if tips, hints, and tricks for developing and managing online learning.

The tips and hints that you will find at Randommind's post will hold you in great stead as you prepare (or are currently) to teach online - go read it now!...

CIT 2007 - Strategies For Working With Technology Resistant Faculty

This session was presented by John O'Brien, PhD AVP and CAO of Century College and Ron Anderson PhD CFO and VP Administration/Technology, also of Century College.

Century College is a 9,000 learner comprehensive community college located in White Bear Lake MN. the college has had a lot of change in recent years with 50% new faculty in the last five years and 50% growth in the 2000-2005 time frame. They have spent a lot of money on emerging technologies and have the challenge of ensuring that faculty and learners can use these technologies and are in fact comfortable with them. What about faculty who are hindered, skeptical, disgruntled, or left behind in the rush to new technologies?

The college conducted a survey of faculty to determine their comfort levels with technology. here are their assumptions before the study:

• Enthusiastic - 20%
• Interested/Hindered - 45%
• Skeptical - 25%
• Opposed- 10%

And here are the actual survey results:

• Enthusiastic - 54%
• Interested/Hindered - 34%
• Skeptical - 11%
• Opposed - 1%

It was apparent that from the survey results that faculty wanted to use technology in their courses and also that there needed t be supports in place to allow the enthusiastic and interested to flourish and to provide support to teh skeptical and opposed (who might always be opposed but who should not be excluded).

There are some best practice implications here:

• Balanced offerings are ideal
• Don't define technology too narrowly (for some it is PowerPoint) as online only
• Recognize alternative technologies
• Don't assume that technology is unquestionably good (this point really strikes home with me - even as an avowed geek, for me technology should always just be a tool, and the best technology is transparent to both learners and faculty)

In order to support faculty in using technology there has to be an openness to dissent. Some of the tools used at Century College include:

• Teaching circles
• Recognizing and celebrating non-technology innovations
• Clarifying minimum "techspectations"
• Acknowledge academic freedom

Effects of Technology on Teaching:

Best practice implications:

• Positive experiences better than negative
• Learning more important than enrollments
• training focus - productivity and learning

Barriers:

A lack of technical knowledge and time to learn

Here is how we traditionally offer help to faculty when using new technologies:



There needs to be new support design elements:

• Entry level training
• Ongoing support and crisis support
• Decide when to offer it

Disconnects:

• Lack of visible institutional priorities
• Perceived differences in perspective between faculty and administration

Motivating Incentives:

• Main one was meerting learner expectations
• Questions assumptions
• Know the disconnects
• Change the culture - serve left behind faculty

As a new college administrator (I am an academic chair responsible to three schools, a campus and with almost 30 full and part-time fculty that report to me) I found this presentation very useful. As a geek I found it even more useful - it began a seed in my mind that by the end of CIT 2007 had firmly plated itself - not everyone embraces and uses technology like I do (you tend to forget that at times) and there have to be mechanisms in place to ensure that everyone gets access and support when dealing with technology so they do not become overwhelmed and ultimately discouraged and disillusioned about technology in education

My own college is wrestling with several issues surrounding the use of technology in learning and this presentation will provide me with the balance I need as I work with others to ensure that we get the fit of technology and learning right...

CIT 2007 - Moving From FaceTo Face To Online Teaching

This presentation focussed on helping educators transition from traditional face to face (F2F) teaching to online teaching. The first big question asked was "How do you transmit passion online?", along with the following:

• What do you teach?
• How doe you teach?
• Who do you teach?

Online learning is different. It is:

• Active
• Self-initiated
• Self-disciplined
• Results-oriented

Benefits of Online Learning (OLL) - this diagramme highlights some of the benefits of online learning:



Developing an online course requires more than just taking what has been done in a classroom and posting it on line. first recommendation is to consult an instructional designer who is experienced in online course development. Some of the things to consider when translating a course to online include:

• Develop a big picture of content
• Organize like a set of ladders
• Course is not a glob - create units/modules (the term used during the prsentation was "course cartridge" - a new term for me)
• Course map - keep it clean and simple
• Concerns - layout, discussion boards, assessment, and copyright
• Takes more time to develop an OLL course than a F2F course
• For copyright issues consult librarians and instructional designers

Once the course is developed it must be managed. Major concerns for OLL course management include:

• Syllabus
• FAQs
• Schedule/calendar (layout in advance)
• Rules/guidelines/netiquette
• Office hours
• Just for fun discussions (an important engagement piece in my opinion - adds a "face" to the course - keeps learners around the site)
• Don't be a lone ranger - get help in developing and managing OLL courses, and don't do everything at once
• Be reasonable as you go - add and subtract resources when they are relevant
• Get organized - have a plan - build the course - development and delivery
• Be flexible

This was a very good, commonsense approach presentation on transitioning from the classroom to OLL, something that all of us will have to do as educators. So much more of what we will be doing in the future will be blened or online that we have to become proficient in the development, delivery and management of online courses.

I believe that the best way to do that is to develop all curriculum in a 'delivery agnostic" approach where we focus n outcomes, and competencies and not on how the course will be delivered. If we do it right, the delivery method should not matter...

CIT 2007 - Learning and Teaching In a Flat World

A interesting presentation on the premises raised in Thomas L. Friedman's book "The World is Flat - A Brief History Of The Twenty-First Century" and their implications for education. The first part of the presentation dealt with some of the issues facing educators teaching in this new world and the second part of the presentation dealt with the learners learning in this new world.

The global competitive landscape has ben flattened and restructured - in other words the world is smaller, communications and information flow is faster and we live in a 24/7 world - much of the work we do now can be done in other places in other time zones while we sleep.

Here is what has happened:

• Empowerment
• Less hierarchy
• Widely distributed knowledge
• Course-based learning is unable to meet needs

It's the last point that has the biggest impact on me as an educator. If course-based learning isn't working, what do we need to replace it with?

The learning found in traditional course-based learning is now being found in all sorts of places, supported by tools and technologies that include:

• Aggregators - RSS
• Webware
• Blogging (everyone should be blogging)
• MMORPGs (World of Warcraft, Second Life)

One of the natures of these tools is that they tend to blur into each other - so expect some level of confusion and chaos with the use of these tools - but they are the tools of the millennial or net-gen learners.

Presenters compared the 21st century communications revolution as having the same impact as the Industrial Revolution did, and I think they have a valid point. The NCTT (National Center for Telecommunications Technologies) is a great resource linking the ICT industry and education - lots of resources and information on how changes in ICT will and are influencing education.

Bandwidth technologies and access to high speed bandwidth are being driven by several things including:

• Webware
• Online Gaming
• Video/IPTV
• MMORPGs
• Social Networking

It's access to bandwidth athat will impact education - without sufficient bandwidth, much of the tools and technologies we want to use in education will not be readily or universally accessible - this will be an issue for educators. Bandwidth is expanding, with research being done that has reached speeds of 20 megabits/second - unfortunately there are still large parts of North America (and much of the world) with dial-up or no connectivity. This will take a joint effort from ICT firms and educational institutions working together to fix.

As educators we need to understand the neo-millennial learners, have a "secret sauce" that will attract, engage, and retain learners and we need to understand the implications of the flattened world for education and learning.

Here are some of the implications of the flattened world:

• The worldis less predictable and hierarchical - undergoing rapid change with widely distributed knowledge - classroom learning is strating to fail
• Informal learning on the rise along with new technologies and forms of learning - learning is becoming indistinguishable from work
• Changing demographics require different learning approaches

There is a paradigm shift occurring in learning:

From To
Formal Training Informal Learning
Management Driven Learner Empowered
Centralized Decentralized
Instructor Driven Subject Matter Expert Empowered
Pedagogy/Instruction Collaboration
When Available When Needed
Individuals Communities
Organizational Trans-Organizational
Lifetime Employment Lifetime Employbility

Mobility is the steroids that are moving everything. Web 2.0 has brought many to many publishing, web apps, workflow driven team collaboration - on the mobile web information must be delivered seamlessly regardless of the device (Sir Tim Berners=Lee) - this is a major implication for learners and educators as more and more will use mobile devices and not computers to connect to the Web and access information and learning. we are seeing peer to peer communication through shared information.

So what should our learners look like? Here are some essential characteristics:

• Life long learning
• Able to navigate and evaluate information - information literacy
• Not about intelligence - it's about curiosity and passion
• Well rounded and creative (Sir Ken Robinson) - creativity should be a basic skill

And there are some challenges facing us as well:

• Numbers - not enough people
• Education at the top
• Ambition
• Education at the bottom
• Funding
• Infrastructure

These challenges can be met in many ways by realizing that the world is flat and that we must look at and adopt the new tools and technologies available to us and our learners - meet them where they are - learners now have a disposable life - this influences attitudes and engagement.

Mobility will be the driver - right now the iPhone is the best mobile device, but is about to get serious competition from the Google Phone (about $200 US). whatever device is used - it will all be about moile learning.

A great presentation highlighting ofr me what have become the major themes of CIT 2007 - mobility, learning, engagement and the paradigm shifts that are resulting in a whole new way to learn and educate...

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CIT 2007 - Opening General Session - Dr. Mark Milliron

Dr. Mark Milliron, president and CEO of Catalyze Learning International, was the opening general session keynote speaker. As such he is recognized as a leader in educational leadership and the use of technology in education. An extremely engaging speaker he talked about the changing face of learners and how technology and tools like social networking are going to change the face of community college education.

Community Colleges are preparing for multiple generations of learners and have to be prepared for all of them:

Baby Boomers (the family generation)
Gen X (the ME generation)
Net Gen (the WE generation, or as I have heard it coined, the "XBox generation")

Along with this we have to realize that there is an ongoing digital divide - broadband vs. dialup and that there are still dialup ghettos that will impact how and what technology can be delivered to learners.

Dr. Milliron talked about what is in store:

• Attract, Service, Retain and engage learners
• Visioning
• Planning
• Fund raising
• Capital
• Operational funds
• Maintenance funds
• Sustainable Learning Environments

We are going to see the following things influence how we will provide learning opportunities to our learners:

• Blurring and Blending
• Mobility Galore
• Gaming
• Social Networking
• High Impact Presentations/Engagement
• Analytics, Diagnostics, Evidence-based education
• The Human Touch
  

For blurring an blending we will see models of 20% of learners online, 20% face to face and the remainder taking a blended approach to their education. I know that this is something that I ned to take very seriously as an educator when looking at maintaining and developing curriculum and programmes.

Mobility galore - m-learning will be big - learners need access - the oasis effect - free wireless will keep learners engaged and on campus

Gaming - a whole different way to learn. Look at seriousgames.org and americasarmy.com for examples.

Social Networking is engaging and connecting - collaboration is key. Second Life - a bridge between gaming and education. Of the social networking sites Dr. Milliron compared MySpace as Bart and Facebook as Lisa (or Potsie and Ritchie depending on your generational analogies...). The OER Commons is social networking for faculty.

Take your work seriously and yourself lightly when dealing with net geners (makes sense and it works in my experience). Sixteen to twenty-year olds want IM or chat - not email or readings "EMails are whta old folks send me" - so true - just try getting learners to read their e-mails - Facebook a much faster way to communicate with them.

We need to build buildings with high impact presentation technologies and tools in them - retrofitting no longer working.

The use of analytics to determine the best use of resources is a critical process that we need to start using, just as the gaming industry has been doing for years.

On the Human Touch we need to have the courage to be open to opportunities, the courage to catalyze the conversation, and the courage to learn.

We need to engage all learners in this process, including the CAVE people - Colleagues Against Virtually Everything (and you know who you are..).

A great keynote to kick off CIT 2007 - what we need to do as we look forward and the good news for me is that I get it it. Can't wait to see what the rest of CIT 2007 brings...

CIT 2007 - Open Educational Resources For Teaching and Learning

This half-day workshop was delivered by Thad Nodine and Cynthia Jimes from the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), based in California. ISKME is an independent, nonprofit research institute that helps schools, colleges, universities, and the organizations that support them expand their capacity to collect and share information, apply it to well-defined problems, and create human-centered, knowledge-driven environments focused on learning and success (from the ISKME Web site).

This workshop focussed onlooking at open source and open sharing of free resources, the sharing of educational content (a big issue with faculty - what do I share?), Open Educational Resources (OER), the creative commons licensing process, and the paradigm shift facing educators today.

OER is free educational resources. One of the best sites is the OER Commons, a comprehensive collection of resources for K-12 and higher education. There are several institutions that are offering some or all of their educational resources for free. Some of these institutions include:

• MIT
• UC Berkeley
• Harvard
• Rice University (Connexions)
  
• Foothill DeAnza Community College (SOFIA Project)
  

There are several other resources available to educators as well:

• SERC - The Smithsonian Environmental Resource Center
• iTrain Online
• Lemill
• SOFIA - Sharing of Free Intellectual Assets
• Learn NC (K-12)
  

These sites provide an almost unlimited source of content and resources for educators. The big issue of course, for much of the material found on line, is what can you do with it? Can you localize it for your use, modify it for your courses? The answer is yes you can, but with some conditions. In most cases these conditions are controlled through the use of a Creative Commons license.

If you are producing any materials for use and are then sharing them online, a creative commons license makes a lot of sense. The Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry (from the CC web site). I have put a Creative Commons license on this blog for example that states that anyone can use anything from here as long as it is not for commercial purposes and that you let people know where it came from. If you are an educator, or anyone sharing online, check out the Creative Commons license options - I am sure that one will meet your needs.

There is a paradigm shift happening with the increased use of the Web for online earning and the availability of online resources. As educators we need to be aware of this shift. The key elements of this paradigm shift are:

• Sharing - much of what we do we now share
• Commenting - anyone can now tag or comment on what is posted online
• Authoring - anyone can author and authoring tools are powerful and easy to use
• Collaborating - we live in an increasingly collaborative space
• Training and mentoring - more and more we are developing mentoring relationships with peers, colleagues and learners from around the world.

So what is the process of producing and consuming fre content? Here is a quick diagram that might help explain:



Like most things we do educators, this is a cyclical process. Once we do get into this process though, the sheer volume of content available to us will be staggering. The keys are context and the ability to localize content to fit your needs and requirements, and then returning that localized content back "into the wild' to increase the knowledge base.

The key things that I learned at this workshop are that sharing of educational resources is the way to go, and there are some amazing tools and resources out there for use. In my opinion, the future is a combination of social networking and open educational resources. That combination will truly allow us all to become learning centred and collaborative. Bring it on...

Does The School of The Future Have Walls?

As technology and education come together and as more and more educational institutions look at online, blended,distance, and other forms of delivery to augment their brick classrooms, are we at the cusp of an educational revolution? Will there be a paradigm shift away from "traditional" classroom-based learning environments to ones designed and dictated by learners that are highly customizable, mobile ad distinctly non-traditional? My answer to that question is yes, but...

As adult educators we need to get out of our current focus on the space (classroom), method (delivery), and content and focus completely on the learners and their learning. This means developing strong, measurable, authentic outcomes and the competency-based assessment systems to evaluate learners competencies against these outcomes. It has to be about the learning and what works for the learner.

So let's look at how learners learn, where they want to learn and what they want to use in order for their learning to happen. It will mean a lot more work and planning for educators (particularly at the front-end), but will result in a much better experience for the learners.

The reason I said yes, but.. earlier is that I think there will always be "classroom" learners and we need to continue to offer those learners an environment that works for them. We will also need to offer learning environments for the distance learner, blended learner, mobile learner, and learners we have not even thought of yet. We will need to include all learning styles when we develop these learning environments and their supporting learning resources. The learners must be included in that development too. I do it now, and once they get over the initial shock of being asked to engage in the development of their own learning, most learners really appreciate it and take an active role.

So, will the classroom of the future have walls? Well, yes, but I think they will be much softer, portable, and porous than now and hopefully a lot more inclusive...

(Photo "final exam" by dcJohn)

Pictures From The NSCC Great Teachers Seminar 2007

I've posted a set of pictures from the NSCC Great Teachers Seminar on my Flickr site. You can check them out here. A visual recap of an amazing week as the sun sets slowly in the West...