Building School 2.0 vision from the foundation UP...

There seems to be another recurring theme that came out at the summit and that was the idea about a need for a good foundation. One of the attendees said to me on the way to dinner.... "I thought I knew a lot about using technology...but now I feel as if I was really building this phenomenal addition where others were tearing their houses down and creating a new house or vision." And that struck a chord for me...it is not about the computers. They Dewey quote in my last post When thinking about using the tools of technology we need to be careful not to force technology use as an add on to an already packed curriculum, but find a way that they become a foundation for what we are doing. I noticed when we were doing our brick activity that some of the group had already made this shift. They organized their bricks from the bottom up as the bottom terms created the FOUNDATION for the rest of the ideas...and the foundation is most important. Chris Lehman had a great post a while back that looked at some of the things we should be considering as we build the foundation of school 2.0...

• It's really not about the computers. School 2.0 is older than that. School 2.0 is the tradition of Dewey. School 2.0 is born out of the idea that active, engaged, constructivist learning will lead to active, engaged students and people.
• it is a place where our knowledge, our ideas, our communication is no longer bound by the walls of our school or the hours of our school day.
• creating schools that reflect the world we live in today and creating schools that teach adaptability so that we can prepare for the world we will live in tomorrow
• it is is about process as much as it is about product and it is about collaboration
• it means understanding that facts, information, skills, meaning and wisdom are different, and that each one is valuable. But it also means understanding that facts and information used to be the top of the hierarchy where as now, skills, meaning and wisdom need to be. And it means that we as educators have to understand that meaning and wisdom are co-created.

Some really powerful conversations were started at KTI Summit and already I see these conversations returning to districts so that they can begin to tear down the walls of their current systems and begin to build the foundation of this new vision from the foundation up. I know Chris Lehman had many more ideas in his posts, but I'd like to see yours...

Banning pencils from the classroom...

The theme for this year's PA Keystone Technology Integrator Summit is Banning Pencils from the Classroom... If you haven't read Doug Johnson's Article in Education World it really speaks to what educational technologists have been professing....

When it comes to "technology" use in schools, every responsible educator's first concerns should be student safety and educational suitability. I am suggesting that we ban one of the most potentially harmful technologies of all -- the pencil. We must eliminate them from schools because:

1. A student might use a pencil to poke out the eye of another student.
2. A student might write a dirty word or, worse yet, a threatening note to another student, with a pencil.
3. One student might have a mechanical pencil, making those with wooden ones feel bad.
4. The pencil might get stolen.
5. Pencils break and need repairing all the time.
6. Kids who have pencils might doodle instead of working on their assignments or listening to the teacher.

Sound familiar? We have all heard the same arguments against computer use and the comments on Doug's blog regarding setting up policies for student owned technologies are interesting. Ok so we are not really encouraging teachers to give up pencils and paper....and while we know that banning pencils is unrealistic, the goal this year at the Summit is to expose teachers to real world, relevant technology applications that they can in turn go back to their schools inspired and ready to share with their colleagues -- Will keep you posted as I learn from them and they from me this week.