Sentiments On Common Sense

It was a good holiday for me this year. My lovely wife got me a new camera, so that means more of my photos on this blog this year and less from others. Probably more photos of my kids, and of a few of my trips here and there. I am back on the road at the end of this month to go recruiting again, and for those of you who are going to be in Iowa for the UNI fair or the Search Fair in Cambridge, please come up and say hi. After returning to Shanghai after being at the clear, clean and cold Pacific Northwest, Shanghai feels exceptionally gray, cold and… well… HUGE! My car ride to the Puxi campus felt as if it took forever and now on the way home, even longer.

Last week I was reading about how the new President’s stimulus package had money earmarked for educational technology support for schools in the US. My colleagues in the US seem to be optimistic about hopes for building better, more technologically “ready” schools. I have worked through a rather long process of organizing, designing and now building a new network infrastructure at my school this past year and a half.

It is not as easy as it sounds, and the pitfalls and processes that are involved are staggering, but I feel the time, energy and money expended will all be worth it. After all, you can’t have the kids use the superhighway of information in the classrooms without high speed on-ramps.

Things to consider:

• Quality consultations. My advice is don’t rely on resellers and industry “leaders” to provide you with solutions. Allow yourself the luxury of a person you can trust that can lead you through the process.
• Community support. Until the community, from the top to the bottom believe it is needed, you will not find your way to building this infrastructure. They must see the results in the way they source their information.
• Look at “add-ons” in a different way. Most schools don’t consider what a strong network solution can do for them in other ways. We are also adding a new phone system, security system and intercom system, all using the network system as the backbone. New technology solutions allow so much more to be driven over by power-over-ethernet (POE). The four for one deal seemed to good to be true for my community.
• Build your sandbox first. With the help of your technology leaders, build sandboxes for the students and staff to play in—such as video sharing installations, blogging installations, social media installations – all within our network. As you sell the idea of the network, demonstrate that you and your team are doing all you can to exploit what you have and connecting it all to curricular objectives.
• Don’t be afraid to demonstrate how slow your network really is for the kids. There is nothing like a failed network or a sssslllloooowwww network to show how painful waiting for information is for the kids. Pull up a webpage in front of a 100 people in an audience and then talk through what that is like for a teacher with 20+ kids in a classroom.
• Focus on expandable wireless options. Push your providers to SHOW you the options for the future and make them demonstrate it for your community. You will need to expand your network in the short term and I am guessing that wires will be the last way most of us will consider networking in the future. If Moore’s Law continues, then we may be looking at low cost expansions using plug and play wireless access points in the future.
• Allow your parents to have access to the old network. Promise them continued access to the “new” network. Hold open network mornings for Moms and Dads so they can see what can and cannot be done.

After you are done with the installation, focus your efforts on the use of your network and SHOW results. If you don’t, you won’t get anything else you ever ask for in the future.

Photo courtesy of CC: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8816624@N08/2899553904

technology infrastructure, wireless networks, educational technology, digital leadership

Powered by ScribeFire.

I worked on this post on and off today when things were printing, or I was sitting waiting for the board meeting to start. I need to finish now that the meeting is getting started… the board has been doing some hard work with only 7 of them. They have a tough job I guess.

George Siemens from his “Connectivism Blog” entry “Pedagogy First? Whatever.” notes something that won’t startle most of you folks settling into any kind of curriculum review or technology education planning. He writes:

“In dealing with faculty and instructional designers, a series of almost default phrases are vocalized once technology is mentioned: “We need to start with pedagogy”…”It’s pedagogy first”. Or, whenever I’m in a meeting and someone says “pedagogy first”, the apparently genetic instinct to nod viciously is enacted by everyone around the table. “Yes, that is right. We need to have priorities here. Let’s tame technology and focus instead on what we already know and are comfortable with. Let’s ensure that technology does not get away from the tried and true method of containing innovation and new approaches.”

It would not be a huge surprise to note this is a commonly used phrase and I will admit that I must have that genetic response as well. In many ways it makes sense.. COMMON SENSE. But let’s dig a little deeper.

How much we develop our classrooms really is starting to depend on how far we stretch the pedagogy. Teachers teach. Student learn. Or…. perhaps student create, and build and… teach? “Sound pedagogy” ideals are being stretched and even changed in practice as we push students to create their own learning environments and drafting, editing, developing and publishing their work for review by their peers, by their parents, and ultimately by an educator trained in solid assessments methods. The leap must be from the common practice, or the “sound practice” to a more innovative, thoughtful use of contemporary tools, with contemporary teaching methods– as Seimens says– look at the context. When we turn that idea into “sound pedagogy, we will find our schools moving off the spot.

So…. COMMON SENSE would tell you that we want our students to be motivated and encouraged by the learning we present. In order for us to do this in a more effective way… one that will meet the needs of our changing student population, we must focus on the contextual nature of all of our work of educating teachers.

I’m not able to attend this workshop, but this might be a place where a motivated educator can explore these thoughts more. Check out the conference “Constructing Modern Knowledge 2008″.

Technorati Tags: pegagogy first, educational technology, constructing knowledge