I want to acknowledge the work of colleagues Wendy Drexler, Alec Couros and Kim Cofino whose work influenced me greatly.

I hope you enjoy watching the slide show and feel free to email me with questions.

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This is my first time attending EduCon and I must admit that it has on the whole, delivered in every way. As I sit here in a Starbucks trying to catch my breath and enjoying a Vanilla Rooibus Tea latte I am thinking about the depth and breadth of conversations I have been able to have over the last two days. From our arrival on Friday afternoon, our tour of the Science Leadership Academy, the panel discussion at The Franklin Institute, the Saturday sessions, my presentation, the networking gathering and Sunday morning panel, the experience has been superb.

While I am still gathering my collective thoughts and trying to process much of what I have learned and heard over the past few days, I wanted to capture some of the enduring understandings that have left a mark on me.

• Part of the purpose of school should be to foster creativity, collaboration and courage.
• Schools should be a place where students generate ideas rather than just regurgitate them.
• We should strive to create environments where students have the ability to try out new ideas and test creative ideas.
• Working towards fostering new humanities rich environments where teachers can help “capture and harness student energy in order to shape it.”
• Schools should try to provide opportunities for students to convey concepts and original ideas through thoughtful, technology rich collaboration opportunities.
• “Schools should be about communication.”
• “A teacher has not really taught unless the student has learned.”
• If schools looked to the Mars Rover Mission for inspiration, they could see that any decision that they are about to make that does not meet the mission of the school is expendable.
• Schools should serve as the anchor and social hub for young people; they should be “the place to be” and have access to cool creative tools where students can create.
• As school administrators, we should strive to accept and embrace change with courage and confidence to challenge the status quo, and work toward fostering this mindset among all members of our school communities.
• Schools should work hard to become partners in the local economy where they can provide authentic, real-world experiences that allow students to take their original ideas to market.
• Small “schools” can exist within larger school structures. Meaningful relationships where no child falls through the cracks.
• “Transforming schools is not a mystery. What is needed is the moral courage to do what we know is right.”
• Gary Stager “As the richest country in the world we should provide every student with a computer and a cello.”
• Mandating systemic change has failed our schools, at what point will we truly honor diversity by seeing every school as unique?

I am sure that this partial brain dump is only a portion of what I have been able to digest and I hope that it provides you with a flavor what EduCon has done for my thinking around what education can be. I will be sure to process a more formal response once the conference is over.

In the meantime, have I left anything off the list?

Photo Credit: christopherl

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One of the first things I remember learning in my graduate work in education was that no matter what I did or how well I planned, there would simply never be enough time for me to get everything done. It just wasn’t possible, there were too many demands, too much work, not enough time. In the 14 years since, not much has changed. Regardless of the school you work for, or whether you are a teacher or administrator, the same mantra pervades most discussions that there is just not enough time to get everything done. The demands on students have not decreased, if anything, they and/or their parents inflict additional stress to be in every club, to compete at the highest athletic levels, to take 5 AP courses. It feels like not only has life gotten more complicated, but we try to pack 27 hours worth of “stuff” into a 24 hour day.

I am sure many schools have spent countless hours in faculty meetings discussing this schedule over that schedule and in some schools, the way we use time with students looks more or less the way it did 20, 30 even 50 years ago. Let’s face it. With the exception of a few schools around the country, the majority of schools function on the old agrarian based calendar where students were sent home for the summer months to work on the farm or in the fields and then sent back to school after the harvest in the fall. in fact, prior to the Great Depression, a few year-long schools popped up in mostly urban areas but they quickly lost favor in light of tough economic times. And since WWII our society has become less agrarian with each passing decade.

Yet, we continue to try and pack 10 lbs of potatoes in a 5 lb bag. We are pressed to find time to making meaningful changes in teacher practice; be it integration of technology, service learning opportunities, real-world experiences and multicultural education. Many schools regardless of their public or private designation are driven by standards based testing pressures, MCAS, SAT, AP exams etc. Students and parents are told by colleges and universities that they must have a breadth and depth of extra-curricular and co-curricular activities on their high school resumes as well as multiple AP courses and a commitment to community service. When will we pause for a moment and reflect that it is simply not possible for us to do it all.

Here in the New England we are only about 6 weeks into the winter season and many schools have lost significant time due to ice and snow, some as many as 8 to 10 school days. It has reached a point where the Massachusetts Secretary of Education is needing to weight adding school days to the year. The point is this; we need to rethink how we devote time to teaching and learning. Continuing to try and do it all in a 160 or 180 school days is only one component we must look at. Rethinking what we do with students during the school day is the second major task. Segmented, structed blocks be they rotating or non-rotating create learning environments that more accurately reflect the industrial age rather than the information age. Starting classes prior to 8:00 am for teenagers and after 9:00 am for elementary school aged children seems backwards to me. Rethinking the priorities and expectations parents and colleges place on young people also needs equal time in the conversation.

Regardless of your opinion of year-round schooling, breaking up the year into smaller and more reasonable chunks of time with breaks spread out over the entire year rather than during the winter, spring and throughout the bulk of the summer months would address issues of summer learning loss, provide extended time for meaningful real-world experiences and field trips and lastly, remove the pressure those of us in education feel to “cram” it in or “get it all done.” Embracing the notion that learning can occur outside the confines of the four walls of a traditional classroom and beyond the hours of 8am and 3pm will allow us to embrace the reality that is the 21st century we are now fully living in and can no longer simply continue preparing for.

Photo Credit: ToniVC

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The resource wiki for this presentation is available @ http://antonioviva.pbwiki.com/21st-Century-CIOs

PLEASE NOTE: There are 3 videos that were embedded into the Keynote did not capture in the final video. Here are the links in the order of their appearance.

“A Vision of Students Today”
“The New Media Literacies”
“The Networked Student”

Description: By rethinking what we mean by technology leadership in our schools can we effectively change the landscape in order to harness this powerful new reality to improve teaching and learning? A better understanding that the role of a school CIO includes business partner, classic IT support provider, integrator, strategic thinker and educator, as well as a redefining of attributes and job description are some of the first steps schools can take to help navigate the world of technology 2.0.

21st Century CIOs for 21st Century Schools from Antonio Viva on Vimeo.

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Over 100 years later, the work on Kingsley Labs has begun, part of the scope of this project is to redesign and update our science facilities that they may once again be state of the art. Our labs will include fully integrated technology resources, AV, LCD, SmartBoard and a fleet of portable laptops for data collection. Lab benches are designed to allow groups of five students to work together as well as independently. Yet, many other classes at our school as well as other remain unchanged. Rows of desks or tables, the focus of the classroom is often directed toward the front of the room, blackboards remain popular at our school as I am sure they do at many others, technology is not yet fully integrated but requires a process of signing out etc. I am pleased to report that we are beginning a 1 to 1 pilot program in our Middle School with the hopes of a school wide implementation in the fall of 2009.

Innovative companies like Google, Apple, 3M, Starbucks, Toyota, IBM and General Electric are recognized for their ability to foster innovation and creativity. So what do they have in common? These companies are known for creating environments that cultivate and foster creativity, innovation, collaboration, new designs, and 21st century problem solving. I recently had the opportunity to hear Sir Ken Robinson speak. He was fantastic. Many I am sure have seen his presentation on TED on “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” and his speech at the NAIS Annual Conference in New York touched upon many of the same themes. One idea that really struck me was the analogy he drew between farming and teaching. He said that farmers know that they don’t actually get things to grow. What they do is create the right conditions and environment to get their crops to do what they will naturally and inherently do on their own. Farmers understand that what they are responsible for is creating the optimal conditions. Schools could learn a thing or two from farmers. Schools need to recognize that students have enormous potential and are capable of amazing things and if given the right environment and the proper conditions will rise to the occasion. However, if we continue to subject students to a early 20th century industrial model we will continue to do nothing more than stifle all but those at the top 15% of the class. Preparing our students must begin by rethinking our teaching and learning environments. By looking to innovative companies such as Google, Apple and 3M, we can adopt their workspace philosophy to reshape the nature of how we work with students and how teachers collaborate with one another.

So how will our schools catapult innovative teaching and learning in the 21st century?

A few suggestions:

1. Design rooms that are properly equipped and can function as flexible spaces to support different teaching modalities. Rooms should not focus on one method of teaching versus any other. Create rooms that are designed to meet different purposes.
2. Rethink traditional scheduling practices – Rooms should be signed out and used as they are needed by a group of students and their teacher. Rather than continue to schedule classes as we currently do, consider creating teaching clusters where groups of teachers have access to these different rooms when they most need them.
3. Create comfortable, well equipped and contemporary faculty work rooms. A teacher who has their own classroom finds it very easy to become isolated and close their door and teach. Making spaces available to teacher groups/teams where faculty can collaborate, obtain resources and materials, make phone calls and get snacks and good coffee, cold beverages and talk with one another can encourage colleagues to design and create innovative curriculum and teaching strategies with one another.

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While the research is still out and many studies have confirmed mixed results with regards to gains in student achievement, as a teacher of writing, there is a clear indication that student performance in writing increases and improves when working in a one-to-one laptop program. An example of this could be taken from my Creative Writing class today. Students and I are exploring poetry as a multidimensional form of expression. Today, my budding, young writers were asked to bring in a set of poems that they would share with one another in small groups. The purpose was to reach each other’s poetry and then engage in a conversation on providing one another feedback. I provided the groups with a rubric/outline for the discussion points and feedback areas they could focus on. This happened with paper copies of drafts, circling the tables and students writing in paper notebooks.

Now imagine for a moment, 18 students take out laptops, upload their poems to a blog or wiki. They read through and provide comments, mashup, link, respond using technology like VoiceThread.

The potential is endless, the opportunities countless. We are hoping to take the plunge and move to a one-to-one next year in our Middle School. I will be sure to keep you posted.

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