Betty Online – Time Out

I’ve not written in several months as there has been a major shift in my life with my husband Robert deciding to retire, my choosing to leave SFU and now taking a break from teaching for the next year.  So, we’ve packed up with our 15 year old daughter and given ourselves a year to travel.  As I write this we’ve landed in Mallorca, Spain. We’re living in an apartment in an old house right on the water.  The house is old and quite rustic, but charming in a funny sort of way.

The view from our deck.

We’re loving the view from our front covered deck and the sound of the waves lapping on the shore beneath the house.  There are big, very spanish arches framing our view of an island with an old brick tower on it.

Apparently the tower is one of a ring of towers around the island, all built in the 1500’s and used to warn the islanders of approaching pirates.  The islanders would light fires in the towers and when one was lit, the next would immediately be lit and so on until the whole ring around the island signaled the warning, all in less than an hour.  The history all around us is quite intriguing and fun to learn about.

So, I’ve changed the blog title here to Betty Online – Time Out. I contemplated just starting a brand new blog on WordPress.org, but it isn’t set up as nicely as this edublog site and after the first couple of posts and finding myself not able to add photos the way I wanted to I’ve decided to stick with this blog.  I realize that I’ll lose many of you who may have chosen to follow this blog for the small bits of educational insight I may have occasionally had, but at the same time, maybe I’ll gain some friends and family who want to follow along on our adventures.  I’ve struggled a little with the whole idea of writing a blog about this year out, not wanting to write just another travel blog and thinking that I’d have some thoughts about education too. Not quite sure where I’m going with that but shall see.  Certainly my interest in education and research in education is one that I will continue to carry with me.  Where ever I go I find myself asking about the education system.  There is certainly lots and lots of fodder here where the system is very demanding, with secondary students taking up to 11 courses per term. But at the same time the failure rate is ridiculous.  We looked into putting Hannah into a school here, thinking that if nothing else she would benefit from the socializing, the spanish and the sports, only to find that generally physical education is only one day per week and many of the schools where she could attend at great cost, are in English. Plus, if we are only here for a few months, she won’t actually get any credit for being in school. So Hannah is doing all of her schooling on her own, online through Vancouver Learning Network. That alone will be an interesting adventure for me to follow.

A bit of a hiatus since my last post but all for good reason. Quite honestly I’ve been overwhelmed by the amazing blogging world. Then add in twitter, so micro blogging, and I was struggling to find time for work, let alone my family. Life has to have a balance. On top of all that I’m still bound and determined to learn Spanish and I’ve increased my efforts at that to really honest daily sessions. Estoy haciendo progresos finalmente. At the same time my colleagues at SFU and I have begun doing some solid research work around Self-Study, plus I’ve been attending various conferences including this week a small SFU sponsored conference with Amanda Berry and John Loughran from Monach University in Australia on Self Study. (See my previous post on Self Study.) Yesterday I sat in on Day one of the Virtual School Society Conference: Learning Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. I am feeling so immersed in thinking and learning. I am fortunate to be surrounded by amazing thinkers and excellent, supportive critical colleagues. But it has all stewed enough and once again it is time to write.

So the inspiration which has pushed me to do this today is Tod Maffin, the end-of-the-day-keynote at the VSS conference. The first time I heard Tod Maffin was on CBC radio early one morning when I woke up to him being interviewed about why he had just deleted his Facebook account; yes, he deleted his Facebook account! His friends were all, rightly so, immediately concerned about his well being. Tod is funny, articulate and provocative. Thinking back to that, I shouldn’t have been caught off guard when he spoke, but I was. While I don’t have today’s speech but if you haven’t heard him speak before, its worth watching one of his YouTube videos to get a sense of who he is:

Appealing to the Facebook generation isn’t particularly contentious, nor really was today’s talk. Early on he asked who believed in multi-tasking. A good portion of the audience raised hands, me included. This was bold on my part given some of my previous thinking on the subject such as one of my earlier blog posts on LIveJournal in 2007 Flow vs Multi-Tasking. But understand that since I wrote that post I’ve been immersed in teaching with technology. I’ve become a real blogger AND a microblogger on twitter. I now have my own ipod touch and I’m learning spanish partly through long walks with little white wires dangling from my ears. So while I do still find it rude and I would agree 100% that one cannot totally be at one’s best when multi-tasking, I would not agree that learning and multi-tasking are incompatible. But I guess one has to start this discussion with actually defining learning and that may be wherein lies the real meat of the argument. Tod Maffin didn’t go there.

His talk though based on his opinions was, he said, well backed up with research or at least reading he has done. Certainly there is lots of research coming out about brain plasticity and how digital media and imagery is changing the way brains are developing. We both agree that children’s brains are developing differently. Children who spend a lot of time using digital media scan a page of text differently. They process images differently. He spoke to the over identification of learning disabled students in a world that might really be about learning disabled teaching environments. I applauded that point as well as when he started to look at what an amazing creative, critical thinking generation of students we are beginning to see emerge from this digital, imagery driven world. Then he took a turn back to three ways to help these digital student learn better, presumably in our text based world without really ever bringing up the question of what learning really is. His example, two university classes one in which the students kept their tech toys while the in other students were asked to leave them at the door, may have demonstrated that the students paid attention to his words differently, but says nothing at all about the learning, the critical thinking, the retention, the risk taking or creative thinking that may have come from what was presented in either group. This is of particular interest to me as I consider with my colleagues in our self study the question of what learning really is. What do we except as evidence of learning?

So while I do agree that we do want to be attentive to helping our students to monitor the learning space (consider the tech toys, rethink multi-tasking), by informing the habits (get enough sleep, have a good breakfast) and by informing the balance (be mindful, keep perspective) I’m not yet ready to buy in to believing that learning just happens if we set up the right environment. Learning needs active participation on the part of the learner that I still believe might be enhanced by keeping the tools in the learners hands. All good food for thought though. Thank you Tod for an inspiring, stimulating talk.

[Editor's note: this post inspired by "quiltily" watching and contributing to the #VSS2009 twitter conversation during the Tod Maffin talk while also note taking. So I ask you, what do you consider to be evidence of learning?]

This post is the result of several things I’ve been reading and listening to lately, starting with Dave Truss’ recent open letter to the Fraser Institute on Pair-a-dimes.

I’ve always wished that I was more articulate and quicker at responding on my feet, but I’m learning to accept that I’m just not. Things need to stew. Dave calls writing blogs in this way “slow blogging” and I rather like that term, like cooking with a slow cooker. And often, for the very reason that I always need time to mull things over and listen to a lot of perspectives, I’ve shied away from appearing to take a political stance particularly with regard to my teaching. That isn’t to say that I haven’t taken those stances, only that my stance has usually been expressed more through my affiliations and my actions, or unfortunately most often, through my silence.

The ed tech blogging world is full of cries for change; Calls to get on board and “get with” the digital age; Advice for ways to engage this era of the digital student. I’ve often described myself as having one foot in that camp. My job involves teaching teachers to use technology, to help them learn to do this very thing. At the same time, my heart and passion is with the global education world, teaching for social justice if you will. There is always tension there for me, how much does the digital world and rapid growth in technology help us and how much is it distracting us from what we need to be paying attention to? In what ways are we making sure that the use of technology in schools is moving us towards more global perspective and a better, more socially just world. So personally my challenge becomes making the Venn Diagram in my head that is Social Justice in one circle and Teaching with Technology to engage in a digital world in the other, overlap more completely.

Then I read Claire Thompson’s latest blog post. She writes about seeing her students, good students, opting for easy courses and jumping through hoops instead of mucking about in the learning. And she says:

The system is also to blame. We often focus on “these are the courses you need to graduate”, “this is the minimum number of credits you need”, instead of “we have some wonderful courses that you’re really going to enjoy, learn a lot from, and serve you well in the future”. Maybe we need more inspiring courses.

At the end she asks what her readers think. I almost started to comment. I want to say yes, of course we need more inspiring courses. We need to not be teaching to the tests, to the FSAs or to our provincial exams. But as that comment was slowly formulating in my head I was considering all of the various confounding factors. I’m not actually anti-assessment or even anti-testing. I do understand the need and desire to have measures for comparing students particularly while we have limited spaces in our post secondary school systems. I honestly believe there is some content that must be taught. Truth be told, I’m actually a strong advocate of some form of our Planning 10 curriculum, of Physical education classes throughout high school, of Civics 11 and of Socials 11. I think Social Justice and Environmental Education courses should be mandatory or better, woven through all curriculum. Children should, I believe, be taught more than just basic skills of communicating, calculating and computing.

Yet another ingredient in the slower cooker that is my brain was the lovely, inquiring letter from a self-professed “confused and concerned new teacher” on the BCTF Social Justice list serve on February 2. She has given me permission to post it again here. She starts it with Hi Everyone,

I am not sure why the BCTF has to pass resolutions on issues such as the Palestinian situation, prostitution, or any other global issues. Is there a possibility that the BCTF is casting its nets too widely, and so concerns that are local to BC are not getting enough attention? While I am concerned about global issues and big questions like prostitution and polygamy, I am not sure I want my union dues paying for them to be debated and put forward as resolutions. Has the mandate gotten too big? Was it always this way in the BCTF or is this a recent development?

A great question I think, because as teachers we get asked some form of this question often and it is certainly one that has sparked some great explanations and further discussions on the list serve. It took courage to ask.

At the same time I’m preparing for my next class with my Learning and Teaching with Technology group and so rereading Brooksfield, S.D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco. We’re gearing up to explore what critical reflection is. Brookfield clearly defines critical reflection as being very different from the constant reflection that we teachers all do, because critical reflection is that which examines with our thinking, the power structures we operate in and the underlying assumptions we operate from. But the clincher for me, in terms of why we need to do this work comes in his argument for needing to engage in critical reflection to increase democratic trust.

What we do as teachers makes a difference in the world. In our classroom, students learn democratic or manipulative behavior. They learn whether independence of thought is really valued or whether everything depends on pleasing the teacher. They learn that success depends either on beating someone to the prize using every available advantage or on working collectively. Standing above the fray and saying that our practice is apolitical is not an option for a teacher. Even if we profess to have no political stance, and to be concerned with purely furthering inquiry into a discreet body of objective ideas or practices, what we do counts. The ways we encourage or inhibit students’ questions, the kind of reward systems we create, and the degree of concern we pay to students’ concerns all create a moral tone and a political culture. (pages 25-26)

So here I am, all these ideas poured into the stew, simmering away. Up until now I’ve cooked mostly for myself, always trying to get the right taste before I could serve it up. In this way trying to pretend that my stance appears apolitical, while knowing full well that it is not. I choose to engage with technology in my teaching because I believe in weaving social justice through the curriculum. I believe in bringing the learner’s world into the classroom and working to understand from the students’ perspectives as well as sharing my own. I choose to support our union in engaging in large global issue debates because the stances we take as individuals and as teachers as a group are what our students are really learning about. As Parker Palmer says in his 1998 book, The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of the teacher’s life (Jossey- Bass: San Francisco)

We teach who we are.

It follows then that we must strive to be the best that we can be, the most political that we can be, the most just (fair, full and open-minded), optimistic, engaged and involved that we can be. That is what our students will learn from us. That is what they will take with them into their own studies. When we see that not happening, when we see students striving for the minimum we need to turn to ourselves and ask what we are striving for ourselves.

Picture from jennifermackenziej on Flickr at http://bit.ly/zvpo

SFU’s new Learning and Teaching with Technology Graduate Diploma Program started up in Coqulitlam, BC two weeks ago. What is truly different for me with this program is that while the teachers coming in to the program have a wide range of skills just like previous teachers in TLITE programs, this time they have all just dived right in. And the first dive is higher, with more bounce and flair than I’ve seen at the beginning of a program before.

Last night, in just the second class, James McConville presented on ‘Digital Learning Networks’. He covered a lot and challenged the teachers to start building an online network with a fairly comprehensive final assignment. It included

contribut[ing] to the human network [by] comment[ing] on 5 news articles, 5 blogs, and 5 other networks (twitter, facebook, etc.).

The teachers were then asked to summarize their experience and create a mind map such as the one David Warlick has done here, in his blog post The Technologies we Make. (Read about PLN’s in his post Networked Learning at Conferences and/or try his PLN Survey.)

What is curious for me is that the information James presented could be considered to be cutting edge. James had only recently attended the International Congress for School Effectiveness in Vancouver and so what he was talking about was current for him. It was new and exciting, connections he’d made at the conference and how that impacts his work. Yet this group of “new to the program teachers” weren’t out of their depth as a group. Sure, individuals picked up on different things: some joined Twitter on the spot, others busily signed up for a Google Reader account, a few were following along with the blog posts his slide show directed them to, while still others were setting up new Google Docs account for the next activity I had forewarned them about, and yes, some were wondering what was going on. But overall, these teachers were demonstrating something very exciting in the way they participated in the presentation, a kind of readiness for change. A readiness for change in how they learn and how they will teach. Immediately after James finished, one teacher excitedly told me

I’ve realized it’s not at all about the technology. It’s about me and about my learning.

That comment came through in an interesting way in the profile sheets that the students filled out after the first introductory class. For the most part they genuinely have enrolled in this program to gain a deeper understanding of how to effectively use the technology to enhance student learning in an informate manner, rather than simply to automate their teaching. The “what we know” and “what we hope to gain” Wordle art from this group is interesting to consider. In both cases the word technology was removed from the mix. In the first wordle it would have appeared 39 times, in the second 51.

What we Know:

What we hope to gain:

I look out my kitchen window at our cherry tree all decked out in snow.  It will be a beautiful white Christmas this year, something that doesn’t happen often in Vancouver.

Yet now more than ever I’m wanting this holiday season to be a green one. While I truly love this time of year, the warm feeling that comes from the smell of pine trees and hot apple cider clashes bitterly with the sense of consumerism and waste that we indulge in.  So the email greeting I received last year with a link to the Story of Stuff really stuck with me.  (It is very worth watching if you haven’t yet seen it.)

Now with the added awareness of the danger of “stuff”, I struggle with the demands from my children and the media messages telling us to save the economy and shop! Perhaps we really just need a new economy, but how to get there? (Have you seen Affluenza?)

I don’t have the answers but still I’m proud of the changes I’ve made over the past year. In my family we buy fewer, more consumable presents. I’m striving to buy more organic and to cook more natural and wholesome foods. After watching The Disappearing Male on CBC’s doc zone recently I’m paying even more attention to the chemicals I buy. I’ve taken to using a mix of cycling and transit regularly especially on the days that I just go to and from the university. I’ve got the Teaching and Learning for Global Perspectives diploma program off the ground and I’ve accepted a volunteer role as a Sustainability Ambassador at Simon Fraser University.  Clearly not enough as yet, but I’m making progress.

I tell you all this not to say “wow, look at me!” but rather to put the question out there to all of us, so what are we each doing to sustain life on our planet? What more will we, can we do this year?

I still have a long way to go, but I decided my next step would be to write this blog and challenge each of my readers and friends to do what you can to make this holiday season and the upcoming year be a step towards a more sustainable future for us all.

May you and your family truly enjoy the season!