Three years ago I went to my first AASSA conference and had just started playing around with Twitter. It all seemed so dumb, trying to communicate anything meaningful in 140 characters. All the hashtagging, tagging, replying, quoting, and retweeting reeked of just another case of #ABLITT (adults behaving like imbeciles through tech) - looking down at devices when we should be looking at each other experiencing communication in all of its affect, gesture and mirrored neuron responses. But then I got schooled on why this is the most disruptive tech teachers have at their fingertips, and how connected educators are changing edu-culture forever. When Ewan McIntosh beckoned us to be “provocateurs” and Mike Johnston let the cat out of the bag on hierarchies and innovation, the webbing to sustain this kind of change threads through hashtags. Reading through the storified version of the conference there are some definite themes of how users appropriate the tool, but first let’s look through some example of how weird Twitter can get.
Less is More
Creativity needs constraints so I’ve been told. I don’t like that description, it makes me think of my first year teaching staring at gridded boxes where I was supposed to fit my wild ideas for lessons. Boxes stifle creativity. 140 characters isn’t much space, like a box. But then there are those that have shown the power of “less is more”.
If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing. - Poor Richard’s Almanac
129 characters
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know. - Lao Tzu
57 characters
The more abstract the truth is that you would teach, the more you have to seduce the senses to it. - Nietzsche
98 characters
Half-knowledge is more victorious than whole knowledge: it understands things as being more simple than they are and this renders its opinions more easily intelligible and more convincing. - Nietzsche
188 characters, clearly two tweets!
Nietzsche as master tweeter of aphorisms! And if the tweet get’s too long, split them into multiple tweets. Connect them all into a kind of digital narrative, the backchannel art of classroom notes passed under desks brought back. The next logical step...
Users Appropriate the Tool
David Mitchell published a novel on Twitter.
We get off the Number 10 bus at a pub called ‘The Fox and Hounds’. ‘If anyone asks,’ Mum tells me, ‘say we came by taxi.’
And then Stephen Colbert launched the “Praise Fox” bot which every twenty seconds tweets, “...swapping out portions of Rotten Tomatoes reviews with the names of Fox News anchors and shows, and adds the hashtag #PraiseFox, to help counter the negative onslaught mainstream media has thrown their way. It is nothing short of amazing.”
"Fox & Friends" doesn't break anything, but it does know a thing or two about first love and friendship. A small gem. #PraiseFOX
There are endless add ons to Twitter, my favorite beingPoetweet, which scans your twitter feed to create rhyming verse, a deep, deep rabbit hole. You have been warned.
Then there are the spontaneous exchanges between strangers, Amy Burvall’s inspired #blimage challenge between educators that tweet random photos tagging someone for the next blog challenge.
“In the midst of a fabulous array of an historically unprecedented and utterly mind-boggling stimuli…
whatever.” - Thomas de Zengotita
Tech often gets associated with fostering attention deficits, a distractedness blocking deep learning. For that reason, stepping back from the tech, and moving slowly through mechanics of thought necessary to use these tools effectively, could make our classrooms more productive learning spaces at the same time. Using technology as a pedagogical mirror causes a reflection on how we utilize our classroom space as learning tool. Just as tech tools potentially affect how we learn and interact, space with purpose becomes a “third teacher”. Here are some classroom tweaks, manipulations that support a collaborative learning culture, where the process of learning is a visible, manipulative process.
Walls with Cognitive Purpose
Move all furniture away from the walls, make them approachable and use whatever manipulative materials are available (tape, chart paper, post-its, wipe boards, windows, etc…). Use wall space with purpose, each wall, assuming one wall is windowed, for a different kind of cognition - acquisition wall where teachers post content, processing wall where students process, and the “life” wall where learning transfers into the real world. Space takes on a cognitive purpose and provides a point for classroom ritual. The teacher presents material here and this pattern of thinking surrounds this space. Here is where I work out my thinking… Meaningful wall space for habits of mind coupled with a reflection on why we group together within the walls begins to construct a reason for school, the culture of learning within.
Why do we even gather in schools if we could access content online and interact digitally? Thornberg offers the four classroom metaphors based on human interactions - campfire for whole group storytelling (or mini-lesson) time, watering holes for small group interactions, caves for solo-encapsulation time, and mountain tops where learning goes out into the real world. As mentioned above, patterns of expected behaviors in the classroom create rituals, it also communicates how we validate learning process as both social event and internal process, and how learning is to be transferred into actionable knowledge in the world. We need to interact in the same physical space where prosody, affect, and gesture are 360 degree all encompassing experiences. Luma Institute, the d.School, and Expeditionary Learning’s Ron Berger offer explicit critique models for modeling these interactions (see reference links). If we define the rituals within the space itself, and establish the forms of interaction, we are left with the question of how we think together?
Making Learning Visible
Warning: Repetitive thinking moves, applicable to a wide range of content to use on the wall space, foments patterns of thought within the group. Edu-culture has a bad habit of crossing from culture into cult, often propagated by educorporate objectives, including our teacher trainer centers within universities. A good test of the intentions behind a “program” is the amount of content and training offered as open source. Another rule of thumb is to never let the proscribed thinking moves overshadow natural thinking moves that recur within a learning community. When this happens, name them, encourage them, and make them habit. The goal is for students and groups to evolve their own patterns of thought. This means overarching dispositions promoted by a school’s mission statement are critically important. Mindsets within these arches should be openly discussed, methods reflecting this consensus. Too often one teacher’s method gets attacked as conflicting with the way things are done when a macro lens would show alignment with dispositions and mindsets. If prompts to students are only producing regurgitation of content or a pre-scripted process of thought, then perhaps it is time to try something more provocative.
Beyond the warning, having a few explicit examples to repeat throughout the year makes visible thinking on the wall explicit. Some examples from Project Zero are great starting points… see, think, wonder - circle of viewpoints - compass points - color, symbol, image - I used to think, now I think. Agency by Design has developed others particular to maker spaces such as parts, purposes, complexities. Design Thinking offers collective brainstorming and affinity grouping methods for quick crowdsourced data sets, inquiry, and ideation - all methods identifying the complexity of divergent viewpoints within a group, and moving forward into convergent goals. Games for Actors and Nonactors from Boal is loaded with provocative participatory theater games to proceed thinking critically around content, excellent for pre-writing.
Awareness of thinking process should be visual, on wall space, with clear cues to the mindsets and methods surrounding each step. This culture of thinking within a school, made explicit on interactive wall space, validates both individual and collaborative experiences, and prepares for thinking in shared digital spaces.
Reflect the Tech
Tech tools often afford meaningful insights into pedagogy not emphasized in the classroom such as collaborative learning, socratic dialogue, movie assembly, connecting sensory media and text, and processing through sketchnoting or doddling. Stepping back from the tech, slowing down the action, and focusing on these process in analogue space creates a cognitive bridge between the two spaces. Here are __ simple moves.
Google Docs commenting function performed with printouts of text on the wall with highlighters, sharpies, and post-its brings the mechanics of Docs into a physical manipulative space and opens up the space for “comment critique”.
Chart paper and post-its on wall space or tables enables a silent, slow-motion socratic dialogue where students can visualize the threads of their conversations in shared space, before moving to a interactive board space (Murally, Padlet, Realtimeboard).
Storyboarding in physical space before video editing opens up critique space for multiple video and audio tracks and ideal for bridging back and forth between writing space and media creation.
Bringing images and screenshots into physical space as a focal point for deeper thinking critique counters the “swiping” habit associated with digital image.
Sketchnoting and doodling on wall space validates a visual form of processing and for most students yields higher recall.
After 15 years, we stop saying 21st Century Learning. When Google’s AlphaGo beat one of the world’s leading Go players, the program ran off of a basic laptop, questioning the importance of the brute computational force of Moore’s Law. What I think this means for tech integration is, we don’t have to wait for the next greatest all powerful personalized learning device, we have to focus on better integration of the software we have, creating deeper learning experiences. What that means for educational tech designers is better merging of the affordances of our current patchwork of applications to create “personal” learning experiences enabling individual and group appropriation, not the “personalized learning” our closed environment learning management systems promise. In this reorganization of tools there could be a wider balance of multimodal inputs, incorporating a broader cognitive architecture. Google Wave hinted at this merging of tools for group communication across time and space - a multimodal version of what Dr. Aaron Kuntz described in the Disruptive Dialogue Project with discussion threads branching off vertically and horizontally. Imagine a Google Docs space as a transmedia experience, sketchnoting, audio, video inputs all part of the writing experience.
Beyond the curating of our current tools, two of the next advances on the immediate horizon that could drastically change our learning environments are virtual reality, text to speech technology, and personal learning assistants.
When taking a virtual field trip to far corners of the world is as simple as putting on a 3D headset then we should perhaps have some strategies for how to frontload cognition before the event, and how to reflect on an experiential learning experience after. The question will not be who has access to the devices, but who has access to the pedagogy. The place to practice for this, taking a real field trip.
Speech to text advances could change the way we approach writing, our creative impulses more dependent on our “centaur” bonding with the devices. Imagine students audio journaling a walk through a forest, senses honed, then curating their thoughts to report observations - or skimming the transcriptions of a critical discussion for selections to sprout the next inquiry - or as Psychologist and Learning Specialist Maria Jose Serpa just showed me, using voice to text technology to move a student from sketching a written draft, reading it into the iPad, then editing, revising the document into a final draft.
The future of technology in education is not in chasing the latest device but In using tech in deeper learning environments. It should be noted the incredible potentials of bridging transmedia/transcoding literacies in maker space, gamification, game based learning, STEM/STEAM environments, participator theater, and forms of experiential learning.
The structural variables of tech and learning space are often the easy answer investments for institutions. They look great on the school tour and photograph well for publications. The process variables reflect the human centered design of learning, what kind of interactions are happening within the walls. Changing human behaviors can be like changing the course of a river. Pedagogical shift is slow. But learning space design and tech tools serve as catalysts for this change if their purpose is made explicit and is aligned with the culture of thought within the school.
Text is vital for civilization but our tech integration can bridge multiple symbolic forms in sensory medias with our language development making us not post-human, but more human. But advances in technology do carry the false hope that humanity is on a continuous improvement plan. Continuous human centered innovation needs a dispersed learning network, a completely decentralized agile approach that conflicts with the current hierarchical, educorporate structure that resembles Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika. The hope is in connectivity and transparency, in our ability to document and share the incredible learning processes happening every day. These lenses will reveal the interstices within the edifice, the seeds which spread the roots, which, networked and intertwined overcome the host.
Postnote: Beware not blogging or only sketching out notes here and there. Then, when you do try to write, it is all bottlenecked and comes out not as blog but as manifesto. Excuse the melodrama. Pretty much everything here can be expanded out into further posts. Everything I write about is anecdotal, meaning from real classroom practical observation. If I touched on anything that you also have experience with and are passionate about I’d love to hear from you. Or if you have references to related readings, please share. The more we break down the silos, the more we can exchange and create moments when we sit back in awe of our students… (this audio was one take)
Davis, C. (2015). Teaching #rosethornbud as analog @googledocs - "process" wall #mlv #mtv @EoinLenihan @LUMAInstitute #futureedchat pic.twitter.com/4al2RTrPnC. Retrieved April 08, 2016, from https://twitter.com/chrisdaviscng/status/655431698356772864
Davis, C., Peterson, N., Hertz, J., Pall, N., Lopez, D., & Levinson, A. (2015). 2015 08 26 Journeys in Podcasting with Natasha Peterson. Retrieved April 08, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRHjt5f5uQc
Davis, C., & Lopez, D. (2016, February). Stephen Downes on Open Networks, Agile Systems, and Edu Cult 2. Retrieved April 08, 2016, from https://youtu.be/9QOldb-3xZI
Proulx, M. J., Todorov, O. S., Aiken, A. T., & De Sousa, A. A. (2016, February). Where am I? Who am I? The Relation Between Spatial Cognition, Social Cognition and Individual Differences in the Built Environment. Retrieved April 09, 2016, from http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00064/full
The Bolsheviks had incredible titles for their revolutionary literature - What is to be Done? Who is to Blame? The topic of pedagogical shift is as massive and bloated as a Tsarist regime, especially for a generation of teachers who have been trained to implement programs, not reflect on epistemology and cognitive processing. But if we change the toolset in a learning environment, and we truly reflect on what the tools afford, this potentially changes how we organize learning. This list by no means encompasses the whole of the change, but it might provide some starting points for debate.
Learning is a social construction.
Critical discussion drives learning and leverages students into defensible positions, creating a need to dig in and search for reasons for an argument. Common group goals for students to work towards place students in an environment where they must empathize with the abilities and needs of peers. The balance between respecting the drive within each individual but with an understanding that the support of the learning community is necessary to realize one’s potential. The Doc is the tool providing the space for both personal encapsulation and social interaction. Writing is one of the most difficult tasks we ask of elementary school students and yet students often face the blank slate without cognitive front loading. Instead of treating the writing task as a unit of production, it should serve as the “talking piece”.
Break down the barrier of the time-production unit.
There is plenty written about our Prussian school model being outdated, a robust design that is still with us today. Chronemics is the study of how we use time to communicate. The Industrial Revolution introduced a monochronic system in which time was broken into production units serving the efficiency of factories. In this post-Gutenberg era we are regaining some of the communicative strengths of pre-Gutenberg culture, or adopting elements from cultures that never placed text above oral culture. But working from the strengths of these polychronic time communicative systems we create a less fragile system more adaptable to change, innovation, and creativity. Here goals and results are prioritized over schedules and deadlines. Concentration is on an event, not on individual tasks. In project settings this moves the focus to framing objectives around a driving question, not on the successful completion of a series of assignments. People and relationships take precedence over job and results. Google Docs provides this ability to “check-in” on progress without there being an explicit timed-production-assessment system. Active documents are never really finished, there can always be another interaction, more continuity between tasks. With group editors using critique models, there is a social learning net of support as opposed to graded feedback for every assignment. We regain a more human-centered approach to learning, and more space for a personalized learning experience.
Authorship is not dependent on pure internal processing.
In real life, we work from the vantage point of our strengths and knowing our areas of weakness, we go for help from others. In writing, this metacognition of ability should be validated. John Seely Brown talks about situated learning environments in which students observe by “legitimate peripheral participation” as cognitive apprentices. Surfers learn how to surf by watching other surfers, by talking through the process in “hero narratives”. Musicians learn to play by hours of observation, by being in proximity with other musicians. Writing should also be socially active in a community of writers, while teachers should actively model writing and the “think aloud” narrative while writing.
Text and sensory media co-exist in creative writing.
Role playing critical problems through participatory theater, organizing stories graphically, using imagery to discover multiple perspectives, and using film clips or virtual reality “trips” to spark ideas. Using both the active critique of mediums but also the creative sprint in these mediums to organize thought for writing. I recently watched a fifth grade student put together a well choreographed fight scene from his fantasy fiction writing. The scene occupied only two sentences from his text, the perfect opportunity to film the scene, then revisit the writing and capture some of its complexity. There are endless connections between writing and other symbolic forms. Just because Google Docs is a text tool doesn’t mean the teaching and learning must revolve around the symbolic form of that tool. Going back to Activity Theory model, it is the employment of multiple tools that create rich learning environments. The metaphoric play between symbolic forms creates the deeper experience.
Learning is not something that happens to the learner.
Much of our learning design places the learner in a passive role and limits the trajectory and scope of the learning outcome. Think of Math Blasters versus Minecraft. There’s not much freedom within the game mechanics of the former and the latter, especially in creative mode, leaves creative space, the possibilities for constructive narrative endlessly complex. Project design talks about voice and choice. This is not only a motivational feature but a necessary catalyst for agency of learning. Creation technologies such as Docs, Murally, Explain Everything, iMovie, iMotion, Veescope, Scratch, Book Creator, and GarageBand leave the learner to experience the process of moving between divergent and convergent thinking. These tools within project learning models help leave leave learning goals open.
Brown, J. S. (n.d.). Learning in the Digital Age. Retrieved April 8, 2016, from http://www.johnseelybrown.com/learning_in_digital_age-aspen.pdf Buchloh, B. H. (1992). From Faktura to Photography. In R. Bolton (Ed.), The Contest of Meaning (pp. 49-87). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Calkins, L. (1983). Lessons from a child: On the teaching and learning of writing. Exeter, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.
Chronemics. (n.d.). Retrieved April 08, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronemics
Davis, C. (2015). Cognitive apprenticeship and the critical narratives surrounding learning #dtk12chat #edchat #sxswedu @jseelybrown pic.twitter.com/KCWq6VRD4H. Retrieved April 08, 2016, from https://twitter.com/chrisdaviscng/status/658114004498432001
Davis, C., Peterson, N., Hertz, J., Pall, N., Lopez, D., & Levinson, A. (2015). 2015 08 26 Journeys in Podcasting with Natasha Peterson. Retrieved April 08, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRHjt5f5uQc
Hallermann, S., Larmer, J., & Mergendoller, J. R. (2011). PBL in the elementary grades: Step-by-step guidance, tools and tips for standards-focused K-5 projects. Novato, CA: Buck Institute for Education.
Root-Bernstein, R. S., & Root-Bernstein, M. (1999). Sparks of genius: The thirteen thinking tools of the world's most creative people. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
