21st century resume?

If you’re a semi-regular reader, you know I just returned from balmy (12 feet of snow and absolute zero degrees wind chill) Minneapolis, MN and its annual TIES conference.

The common theme was

with Daniel Pink of A Whole New Mind as the keynote. A nice idea . . . as in, let’s focus on technology but let’s not do technology simply for technology’s sake. We need to encourage creativity and high level questioning skills. As in, “we need to prepare kids for their future, not our past.”

All nice and neat but . . . the problem is that it’s sometimes difficult actually visualizing what that really looks like.

I may have found out this afternoon.

I was was over at Paul’s Blogush which led me to Melanie’s Once Upon a Teacher which led me to a great video clip by Judson Collier. Judson was looking for work and, instead of the traditional paper and pencil resume, tried something just a little bit different.

It seems to me that this sort of stuff is what it looks like. This is what we should be working towards as teachers.

Head on over and let Paul and Melanie know what you think.

Fun and Useful Web 2.0 Tools

Still here in balmy (4-6 inches of new snow predicted and -2 windchill) Minneapolis for the TIES conference. Yesterday afternoon spent some time leading a video game conversation and attending a Web 2.0 liability session. The video game stuff was fun and the legal liability stuff was . . . mmm . . . important. I’ll try to post some of that goodness later this week.

Of course, I’m now sitting in a session about cool Web 2.0 tools and am trying to forget everything I learned about legal issues. Jesse Thorstad, Technology Specialist, of Fergus Falls Public Schools is in charge. His stuff is on the TIES wiki and he has a nice Delicious page.

Jesse says that there will be door prizes after the session:

You can play with our iPod Touch for five minutes after the presentation or look at the new Flip Video I just got.

The guy’s on a roll. He actually just said,” Oh, gosh!” You gotta love him!

Jesse’s busy demo-ing stuff. So here we go:

• Delicious
• Google Maps
• Page Flakes
• iGoogle
• Google Docs & Google Gears
• Twitter
• Meet-o-matic
• Phonevite
• 30 Boxes
• Zamzar
• VoiceThread

You may already know about some of these but some “fun and useful” stuff here.

Doug Johnson – moving to the front of the copyright bus

I have been following Doug Johnson, director of media and technology at Mankato MN, ever since I started asking questions about copyright and intellectual property. He’s got a great blog called the Blue Skunk and has written lots of great stuff that’s been incredibly helpful as I struggled with the whole area of copyright.

I hate copyright. I’ve basically ignored it for 30 years. If I had a question, I just went to Carol Simpson‘s book.

But because of a few questions about how to use Youtube videos, copyright has become Doug’s new sacred cow. As in, to sacrifice the sacred cow. Basically, we need to start to err on the side of the user, rather than the owner of the material.

A study titled “recut, reframe, recycle: quoting copyrighted materials in user generated video” led him to think that it”s time to teach kids what they can do, not what they can’t do. According to Doug, teachers many times begin to “hypercomply.” He says that we should not stop doing things that make good instructional sense because there MIGHT be some sort of violation.

We need to quit worrying about finding a Safe Harbor for Fair Use and start exploring the Outer Limits of Fair Use.

Three things he says we need to think about:

• change focus from what’s forbidden to what is permitted
• err on the side of the user
• be prepared to ask the tough question

Another way to think about this is:

Rather than teach kids than they can only use 10% of someone else’s work, or 150 words, for example, ask kids to think about what is the percentage of content that they created.

Doug quotes “Ten Common Misunderstandings about Fair Use” when he suggests that “applying Fair Use reasoning is about reaching a level of comfort, not memorizing some rigid set of laws.” I love that!

This moves media specialist and teacher from fair use cop to fair use counselor. For example, we need to stop telling kids and teachers that everything on the internet is protected by copyright and start explaining the idea of the Creative Commons – much of newly created online material is being shared.

Transformative should be a key word for teachers – if I use part of a pop song in any way other than to sell pop music or part of a movie poster in any way other than to sell movies, I’ll be okay. When a kid or teacher transforms something, no big deal.

It all comes down to the U-Turn Syndrome. Doug was recently talking with a group of Thai teachers and one of them mentioned that the U-Turn Syndrome is why the United States has been so successful.

Here in Thailand, when a driver comes to an intersection, unless there is a sign that specifically says that u-turns are legal, the driver assumes that u-turns are illegal. But in your country, if a driver comes to an intersection and there is no sign, the driver assumes that a u-turn is allowed.

I love Doug’s suggestion that we basically need start thinking about copyright with the idea that making u-turns is not necessarily a bad thing.

(You can find a ton of helpful stuff at Doug’s wiki.)

TIES in Minneapolis – First day AM

TIES in Minnesota may be the best tech conference of all time. Of course, TIES does nothing but tech integration 24/7 so I would assume that this is what their whole year revolves around.

Just very well planned and organized, lots of different topics, nice mix of “professional” presenters and classroom teacher/presenters and they have tons of snacks. So it’s a good day already!

Spent the first session listening to Daniel Pink, did a quick 50 minute preso on using Google Earth in the Classroom and now am sitting in what is called a Community of Interest. This one focuses on Google tools and gadgets. The idea is that people who have questions/info to share and discuss all gather in sort of a cafe atmosphere. So far, not so much.

More of a presentation, though it’s moving to more discussion. Did find out that you can share tabs and widgets (just like sharing Google Docs and Google Notebook) from your iGoogle page. Pretty cool.

I’ll be doing one of the these Communities of Interest on the use of video games later today. Feel free to jump into the wiki and complete the form to add your ideas and goodies.

Daniel Pink – “There was no self-storage industry during the Great Depression”

I first read Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind several years ago and loved it. He has some incredibly interesting things to say about how schools can begin to get past the limitations of NCLB.

He starts off his keynote for the TIES conference by suggesting that there are three basic principles of a good speech:

• brevity
• levity
• repetition

I like that. (Both from a participant and presenter viewpoint!)

One of my favorites quotes?

We need to prepare kids for their future, not our past.

The rest of the hour was Pink basically going over the stuff from his book. And it’s good stuff. I especially like his idea that education needs to focus more on the right side of the brain.

Quick overview?

In the past, there were very specific pathways to “success” and to the American middle class dream. He suggests that traditional skills and career choices such as lawyer, accountant and engineer led down this path. And the system developed to encourage those abilities.

His argument is that this system is designed for our past but NOT for the future of our kids.

We know more today about how our brains function. We are starting to understand how very complex the brain is and what it can do. Both the left and right sides of the brain are working all the time but, at a broad level, the two sides are also very task specific. Neither is better or worse, just different – content vs context, specific vs. abstract, linear vs. nonlinear.

Pink says these tasks and skills specific to the left brain are essential but are no longer the only thing that is needed. In fact, skills like basic facts and quantitative skills are becoming secondary, they matter less. in the present, and certainly in the future of our kids, we need to focus more on the skills residing in right side of the brain.

He suggests that there are three reasons why this is:

Asia – Obvious Flat World kinds of stuff here / cheap white collar labor is available overseas / His example ? A small percentage of a large number is . . . another large number. So when a small percentage of the large number of people living in Asia start doing the same kinds of jobs that US people are doing . . . a large number of people are able to do the same thing as what we do. Which probably isn’t a good thing

Automation – Software is replacing the left side of our brains but not the artistic, creative side. He used the example of law and how the process of needing a lawyer is changing – specifically how easy it is to complete divorce proceedings and taxes using automated, online tools.

Abundance – The economy is scary now but the broad, overall trend is towards greater abundance. Today’s trends lines, specifically those of technology tools, are almost vertical. I love this – “there was no self storage industry during the 1930s.” Today’s self storage market is bigger than the movie industry, basically we have a lot of stuff.

Basically what he’s saying is the world is different and to have an impact, to survive, we need to use our right brain abilities more. We need to ask three simple questions:

• Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
• Can a computer do it faster?
• Is what you are delivering in demand in an age of abundance?

He didn’t have a lot of time at the end but also suggests that the following six abilities are what matter most. These are the things that are hard to outsource and hard to automate. And so become more valuable in the 21st century world. Interesting stuff!

• design not just function
• story not just argument
• empathy not just logic
• play not just seriousness
• meaning not just accumulation
• symphony not just focus

What did I learn?

I’ve had the chance to present twice at the TIE conference here in Colorado. I know all the buzz is about NECC, its big names and huge number of sessions. But the TIE conference is an incredible place to be! It is perhaps the most teacher-friendly event I have ever attended. They really work to make the experience a positive one for those participating.

There are concerts, giveaways, t-shirts, free meals, free ski lift tickets, fireworks and, of course, great learning opportunities. The venue is great and the organizers have things down to a tee.

I spent the afternoon on Wednesday talking with a large group of teachers about why we should be using online simulations and video games. The good news is that about half way through, we all lost our internet access. (ISP problem, not a conference problem) It’s a bit difficult playing online sims without the online part! It was a bit like our house whenever we lose electricity. We snuggle up in front of the fireplace and play table games.

The same thing happened here. That was the good news. We were able to really focus on the conversation in small groups and share the expertise in the room. The group had to quit playing and start talking. There’s been some blog talk over the last few months about how we need to encourage and support back channel conversations during conferences. You know, twitter and chatterous and live blogging and iChat. But when the group had no access to those tools, the back channel became the front channel.

I was able to show a few video clips of the different sims and games. We busted some myths people have concerning games and shared out powerful ways that they could be used.

I learned that sometimes technology can get in the way of great conversations.

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon coaching a large group of people in the use of Google Earth. Again, I was very impressed with how teachers were planning and talking about how to use the tool with their kids. We had a great time exploring some of the cool goodies buried in GE and I had fun watching teachers find new things.

I was reminded how good teachers will always find ways to engage their students and provide opportunities to learn.

Perhaps the most important thing that I’m walking away with is that teaching is becoming more and more a corporate activity. It was never a good idea to put teachers all alone in a classroom. Conferences and technology and meetings allow for a tremendous sharing of knowledge!

What conferences and learning opportunities are you a part of? What have you learned?