A couple of weeks ago now I spent a day with Marco Torres, sometime education advisor to Barack Obama, and (even more impressively) occasional director of Mythbusters. He spoke about how important it is for learners to connect with others, in order to share and co-create knowledge to solve real life, real world problems. The end product is evidence of their learning, but these connections, made through communicative technology, leave a digital trace which is also evidence of their learning.
Some points that I took away from the day -
Problems are bigger than institutions, and so are the solutions
You need a critical mass to make a difference, but it doesn’t have to be big or at your school - it can be across the world. Your colleagues don’t have to be in your physical space. US Department of Education is funding ideas not schools.
Marco was working with the World Bank. At the World Bank conference, even though it was not an education conference, all speakers said that solutions must come from kids. Adults have hang-ups that prevent them from taking risks and moving faster.
Sharing is learning, sharing is evidence of learning, sharing is evidence of passion for learning.
Using connective technologies to learn and to share learning leaves a digital trace. This can be very powerful as evidence of learning. The more hobbies you have the more iPhone apps you have, the more social networks, and the more blogs, YouTube etc you take part in, the more evidence you have that you are a continuous, self directed learner. The question that prospective school employees should be asked is, what is the evidence that you learn? If a prospective employee is really great, they don’t need a resume. Resumes are a list of nouns. It is important to hire based on verbs. Prospective employers look on the internet for what you are actually doing.
Your online activity is also evidence that you love what you do. This is important because people who love what they do work faster and also have higher levels of innovation. This is how Google hires, and how Google works.
Adults are mostly takers in an online environment. Kids are givers. Good learners are givers. Somebody who is a voracious learner is a voracious sharer: they take the information to create something. This thing that they create is evidence of their learning, and so is the process if they capture it.
This is different - it may cause discomfort. But when people are uncomfortable they have reason to learn.
Problem solving is key for 21st century learning. The important thing is to ask the right questions
Given the technology that we have, the important thing is to think about the kinds of problems we can solve.
Marco gave the example of a team challenge, in which every table was given a sheet of ‘logic problems’ e.g. ‘16 O in a P’ → 16 ounces in a pound. Marco used his iPhone to solve the problems, and finished first. Some other teachers there said, ‘That’s cheating!’ But how was this cheating? The process was not actually problem solving: the solution rested on how many people at the table had already learnt the information and could recall it. Marco just had a bigger table. Actual problem solving would be the setting of more problems.
The good questions that should be asked, that technology makes it possible to ask, include comparative analysis questions (where you have to compare data that are now easily available, or creatable - see below). These are crucial questions for today. For example: Civilian vs soldier deaths in WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq - what do these tell us? If you could choose who was on your money, on what would you base your choices? If you could plan cities where they are, now, would the rules be the same as they were when they were built?
Creating data through the use of connective technology - after the New Orleans floods, Marco asked the question: Are levies wider in richer neighbourhoods? Students took the pictures and video, and created a rich database in very little time. When using connective technology, Marco notes that we need more time for reflections to get great questions.
A teacher told kids to go on YouTube and find a village that needed help. They found a village in Bangladesh that needed water. He challenged kids to solve the problem: how do you get water to the village?
Solution: They designed and created a 60 gallon barrel with hooks to drag the barrel.
Problem: They had also had a tapeworm problem.
Solution: Another school developed a tablet that kills the tapeworm as the water is rolling along in the barrel.
Problem: you can’t eat the bits of the tablet that come off in the barrel - it makes you sick.
Solution: kid at a third school stole tablet holder for putting a detergent tablet in the dryer, and adapted it for the barrel.
→ 3 schools solved the problem through the global issues network
http://www.global-issues-network.org/
Look for questions that are both creative and enable better citizenship:
A linking theme coming through the above points is that these activities also enable students to become better, more active citizens of their communities and of the world. Humanitarian design came out of challenge based approach. This involves taking maths and science to solve humanitarian problems.
The questions for challenge based learning (from KeyNote slide):
1.What can you do to solve a real problem? What does the evidence look like?
2.How can you involve students? What can happen if they plan with us?
3.What are some relevant tools strategies to solve it?
4.How will you publish the product and process?
5.What can you do to help convince the yes buts?
6.How will you market the leaning and schooling that just occurred?
7.What is a quick project idea that you could do tomorrow to head in the right direction?
8.Barriers? What are they? How can they be beaten? Problems are perceived not real.
What role does technology play in this journey?
For example: "Say you had the opportunity to make an app for the iPhone – any one you like – what would you create?" Here are some examples of good apps – they are good because they give information that is tailored to the user, and they allow the user to solve problems and to become a better citizen:
MyCongress – wherever I am (based on my gps) it tells me who are the elected officials fo that area. In the past I would have had to go through google. Now it is reformatted for me, for where I am. Everything is there. I can be a better citizen.
Citysourced How do you find the person you need to call e.g. for an abandoned car or broken pipeline or graffiti? Citisourced recognizes that you’ve taken a photo of an abandoned car, and tells you who to call – it can even send them an email, or lots, until the job gets done. Otherwise, because of lack of problem solving, problems remain. Kids can look for the problems and solve them to get points on the app. They become better citizen because of this.
wikiplace Helps find where you are, and connects you to everything you need to know about everything that is around you. eg take a photo of anything and it will tell you about it. The content is provided by users.
Association is key
The number one sign of innovative leaders is their ability to associate. This is association between people, association between ideas, etc. Schools need to promote this.
e.g. a photography assignment - if you tell kids to take a photo of a hat or a tree, they are learning about how the camera operates and how to take good pictures. But tell them to take a picture of sadness, or loneliness, and this increases their figurative language. This is increasing their ability to associate ideas, even if they don't have the skills to write an essay about it.
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