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February 11, 2012, at 04:30 PM EST by 12.139.112.74 -

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I prefer to think that when they leave each other, they can continue their conversations. Some abuse it. Some escape into it. We have to be watchful and be ready to intervene as teachers and as parents. - dfw

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Yes! - dfw

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I like that. Very well put. I guest that what I said later one was that you make the conversation (virtual & F2F) meaningful by making the experience responsive, provocative (provoking conversation), valuable (inspiring personal investment), and forgiving of good mistakes... - dfw

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An excellent point, though I'm not sure the totally decompartmentalizing would be the best thing to do. Perhaps make the compartments much more transparent and make sure that what happens in the compartments provoke connection with other compartments. - dfw

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As I said, traditional schooling provided hard places for learners to get traction. We need new hard places, and I think that at least some of that can be connecting learners to each other and to the world they are learning about. - dfw

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The actual slide said that it "ignores geography," "redefines authority" and it "connects." - dfw

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That we think we know everything our children need to be taught to be ready for their future is the epitome of arrogance. - dfw

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I think that the expected outcome of that connection must be the appearance of something new, that can be handled by the learners, that has value and that is not required to be perfect the first time. - dfw

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I ask myself that question often. I wonder how many exceptionally creative, successful and adaptive people were exceptionally successful students in that industrial model. I certainly was not. Due to certainly learning difficulties (some diagnosed some not) I did not learn well in the classroom. How ever I learned to tackle the textbook at night and figure much of it out. - dfw

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But it's a different kind of assessment. The message is not, "You got that right (√)" or "You got that wrong (x)". The message is "That worked" or "That didn't work." - dfw

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Wow! That's a big'un! I think that our communities need to see not just how much their children are learning, but what they are learning, how they are learning it, and what they can do with what they're learning. I used the term "Turning your classrooms inside-out" yesterday. I think that the community needs to see the evidence of good work, not successful memorization. - dfw

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I want to come back to the "mistakes" part. How much attention do we pay to their mistakes. Do we follow where they go after the mistakes, how they correct them, what they learn by negotiating the correction, what surprised you in that process. I think that tracking mistakes might be a hugely underutilized technique. - dfw

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What if that video was not a final project. What if it was a year long project that students produce, get feedback on (from teacher and authentic audience), rework, improve, and re-produce. What if the value was the progress of the work, not just the finality. - dfw

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Often it's not until we're forced to. Not necessary. We're better than that! - dfw

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Interesting! - dfw

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How do we dare students or bait them into making "good" mistakes? - dfw

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That's not the way that I say it, but I like that. Integrating literacy into technology. Makes sense... - dfw

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"How do you know that's true." The answer needs to be evidential. Here is the reason why it is true. Of course we need to be willing and prepared to answer the same question ;-) - dfw

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Stop talking about Literacy- talk Learning Literacy kids learn to resourcefully use the tech envmt to make meaning #:sd36learn @dwarlick

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Stop talking about Literacy- talk Learning-Literacy kids learn to resourcefully use the tech envmt to make meaning #:sd36learn @dwarlick

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You're probably right. But I wonder if making reading the foundation sometimes happens at the cost of higher order thinking skills. I think I prefer a more level arrangement, that students need to learn to find it, decode it (read), evaluate it, contextualize it and making meaning of it. It's all empowering and if learners are learning to read within those other empowering skills, then reading becomes a tool, rather than just something you do for class. - dfw

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What I find fascinating is how so much of the information we consume today fuels conversation. The statistics on how much tweeting happened during the Superbowl are compelling. Networks are now going to advertisers and saying, we're not just giving you eyeballs any more. We're giving you conversations. I think it will be a big day when textbook publishers are telling us, "We're not just giving you content. We're giving you conversation." - dfw

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I saw a good quote the other day. "Students learn to make decisions by making decisions, not by following instructions." I like it! - dfw

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Hmmm! Not sure Knitter got everything, but this was a fantastic backchannel, from which I learned something. Thanksabunch! - dfw

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February 11, 2012, at 12:54 PM EST by 12.130.123.234 -

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..and in a time of rapid change, I'm not sure that their is an clear pathway to that. The bottom line is that students need to have a clear conceptualization of themselves, the world around them, the people around them (locally and globally) and the ability to inventively and resourcefully be of server/value to that world and its people. - dfw

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"We want the students to be the students we want to teach rather than the students that they are..." #:sd36learn

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"We want the children to be the students we want to teach rather than the learners that they are..." #:sd36learn

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It's a good question. I am intrigued with the BYOD approach. It's authentic. However, there are negatives. One of the most appealing programs I've heard of was from a private school in California, where students were required to bring their own technology. But the expectations where that they would be able to create text documents, presentation slide decks, make movies and music, and interact in social networks. I like that because the focus was on functionality rather than tech. - dfw

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And I think that part of that is that children need to have some ownership of those questions. One of the qualities of the 'native' information experience that I did not mention was that it is "fueled by questions." But this is not essential questions that we present to them. It is the questions through which they navigate their own working and playing. I like inquiry and essential questions. But I think that the questions must be navigated by the students and even hacked, if need be... - dfw

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Key word here is "habit." Helping them to learn the skills may be the easy part. Assuring that they become habits is different -- and perhaps even more interesting. - dfw

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They are learning what a community of people who are connected and collaborating can accomplish. - dfw

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I've long thought that there should be an apprenticeship. My daughter spend last year (here first year in the classroom) as a teacher assistant. It's a great way to become acclimated to the processes of a classroom, and to gain ownership over the environment. I would suspect that very few teachers are ready to do justice for their children right out of college. I certainly wasn't! - dfw

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Yes! But I would say that Google and what it represents has turned us into a question asking culture. I'm not sure if the distinction is important, but I tend to shy away from the word "technology," because it can mean so many different things. - dfw

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February 11, 2012, at 11:15 AM EST by 198.134.91.96 -

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Yes! So much of the conversation about education today is about "best (teacher) practices." I think that it should be more about best learning experiences. - dfw

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Yes! So much of the conversation about education today is about "best (teacher) practices." I think that it should be more about best learning experiences. - dfw

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This will take you directly to the handout notes for this even - http://goo.gl/L7BTZ - dfw

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This is so true and part of our shame that so many educators seem to think that the status quo is their job!!! - dfw

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Yeah, but you know, it's kind'a interesting reading all of these different threads. It's giving my a fairly broad spectrum of ideas. - dfw

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It's an interesting and true notion about education, that we seem to want to "container" it, if I might verbalize the word. To be fair, it made sense in a world of manufacturing. - dfw

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If I might qualify, I'm not saying "stop using paper." I'm saying spend less time teaching children to use paper, and much more time learning to use light. Just for the record ;-) - dfw

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It's an interesting way of putting it. They certainly need to be able to decode messages that need to be squeezed through narrow bandwidths ;-) - dfw

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February 11, 2012, at 11:00 AM EST by 198.134.91.96 -

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There you go! I'm looking forward to reading and commenting here during my flight back east... - dfw

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Nicely done blog post. - dfw

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Interesting YouTube. I agree that we need to redefine homework and it's relationship to the learning process. It should be just about practice, but about doing and expanding. You might call that "Flipping learning," but I think we should be more creative than to just flip things around. - dfw

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I think that we need to take a hard look at what kids learn better in a classroom with instructional supervision, and what they learn better sitting at a computer, researching, collaboration, construction, or not at the computer interacting with their world. Of course this requires that they have healthy access to their world and to today's prevailing information landscape (appropriate tech). - dfw

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I hope so. I always feel sorry when adults have to sit still for such a long time. - dfw

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David This is a test 10 Feb 2012 - 11:13:06

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Just learned that there will be an EdCamp in my city in April. Very excited about it... - dfw

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I'm certainly glad that I didn't know I was competing with an EdCamp ;-) -- I am happy to have access to the posts here... - dfw

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Yes! So much of the conversation about education today is about "best (teacher) practices." I think that it should be more about best learning experiences. - dfw

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February 11, 2012, at 10:35 AM EST by 198.134.91.96 -

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