2020 Vision

Update 4-14-07: For more thoughts about this, read 2020 Vision on DesignShare

This post - and resulting presentation - has been kicking around in my head for the last month or two. One of the difficulties I've encountered with our staff development efforts is being unable to define a specific vision for what the future is going to look like. While I have many ideas about the changes that are occurring - and are going to occur - and the general direction we should head, I can't nail down specifically what school - or the world - is going to look like 5 or 10 or 15 years out. The pace of change is so great that it's nearly impossible to predict what's going to happen. And, for teachers that are used to the seemingly endless pendulum swings in education, that makes them hesitant to commit.

So what I wanted to create was some kind of plausible "vision" of the future that they could ponder and discuss. As I write this, I realize that I've created a trilogy of sorts. The "What If" presentation was a look at the past, at the resistance to change in education. The "Did You Know" presentation was mainly a look at our present, at the incredible changes that are happening due to "flat world" factors and technological change (with a dash of prediction thrown in). And now "2020 Vision" is a look "back" at our future from the year 2020. (Ummm, yeah, sure, I planned to create a trilogy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Maybe by having one possible version of the future to consider we can get past the natural resistance to change. If nothing else, I hope it's another example of David Warlick's "telling the new story" to get those conversations started.

I've thought about this for a couple of months because I never felt like I had all the pieces of the story to create a really good "future." I still don't, but I decided I was never going to have enough time - or enough creativity - to get exactly what I wanted, and I didn't want to wait any longer because I think this conversation needs to take place now. (Plus, things kept happening - like Google buying YouTube - so I kept having to come up with new ideas!) So, the presentation includes some "predictions" about technology, and some "predictions" about changes in my school, as I speak at the graduation for the class of 2020 (hey, it's my future, I can pretend can't I?) - who will be starting Kindergarten next fall. But let me be clear that I am not predicting that these things will actually occur. While I think they are generally plausible, things are changing so quickly that it's next to impossible (for me, anyway) to predict with any kind of accuracy. And I think this is a case of where the truth will end up being stranger than fiction. Let me also be clear that this "future" is not necessarily what I would like to see happen, although there are pieces of it that I would certainly be in favor of. The goal is not to debate the plausibility of any specific predictions, but to envision a time in the not-too-distant future when the world is significantly different - and hopefully schools are as well. Then, based on what that could look like, what should we be doing now to help prepare for and transition to that future. Hopefully this "2020 Vision" will help get those conversations started.

This is intended for my staff development efforts but, of course, anyone is welcome to use it (or, better yet, create your own). While I don't have any sources for this (since it's made up), there were lots of influences. The three most prominent ones would be the EPIC video , Will Richardson's Morning at RSS-Blog-Furl High School Redux post as well as his book , and Ray Kurzweil's book.

Download 2020 Vision (Windows Media Player format - 17 MB) - the volume kicks in on the third slide.

Download 2020 Vision (Quicktime format - 97 MB).

Be forewarned, it's a little long, but that's a small price to pay to see the future . . .

Update 11-28-06: I had a request to post this to Google Video, so I did. That also allows me to embed it in this post. This is the first time I've tried this, so we'll see how it goes.

This appears to work sometimes, but not others. I'm still trying to figure out why.

Update 11-29-06: I added a Quicktime version since someone pointed out that the Windows Media Player version requires codecs that are only available on the Windows platform (although I believe the Google Video version embedded above - which is in Flash - should work on most platforms). Sorry about that.

Update 6-21-08: Here's the script I used (Word, PDF). No guarantees that I stuck to it exactly, but it should be close.

Tags:

• future
• education_change
• video
• staff_development
• stories

Flat World Update

Just a quick post for your consideration.

This video mentions an interesting fact:

Last year more students in China took the SAT in English than did so in the United States.

And this video demonstrates a prototype of real-time language translation - you speak, it transcribes, then translates, then reads the translation. Within the next 10 years this will be fully functional and built into your cell phone.

Even though in some respects these almost contradict each other, I think the underlying message is the same - the playing field is getting more and more level every day.

Tags:

• flatworld
• education_change
• video

Trust But Verify

In our Cohort 2 staff development session on Thursday we had some very interesting conversations. I thought one discussion in particular was very helpful to me, when in the morning session we discussed the relative merits of allowing students to have more control over what they learn versus making sure they are exposed to a variety of ideas. I think most of us would agree that allowing students to have more of a say in what they learn is empowering, and is more likely to engage them and therefore they are then more likely to be successful learners. I also think that most of us would agree that our students need exposure to lots of different ideas, even topics that don't necessarily appeal to them, at least not initially. That they need to engage the world of ideas around them, not just the specific areas that interest them, and that our passion as teachers can help facilitate their engagement in areas we deem valuable. As with just about everything we discuss, I think there is a balance to be had, it's just somewhat tricky to figure out where that balance is.

There was one point that was raised that I've been thinking about a lot since the discussion. When talking about giving students more choice the issue was raised that students would often (or possibly always) choose whatever choice they perceived to be easier. I'm not sure if I disagreed at the time or not, but I don't think I do agree with this. I think that to the extent this is true, it's because we've trained them to do this. Since very early on in their school careers, we've drilled into them how important grades are. By the time they get to high school, my fear - as we've discussed previously - is that they begin to believe that grades are the goal. That learning becomes subservient to, and sometimes completely overwhelmed by, grades. Therefore, if getting a good grade is so all important, then isn't choosing the easier assignment the logical choice? Instead of condemning them for it, shouldn't we be rejoicing that they've learned their lessons well?

I believe that if we can remove the emphasis on grades and refocus on learning, students more often than not will choose the most interesting and personally relevant assignment, not necessarily the easiest. I know this may be somewhat naive (or possibly "hopelessly naive") on my part, but I think we need to start trusting our students more. I think they are more than capable of making good choices for themselves and - when they do not - that it's our role as teachers to help them make a better choice in the future. That our role needs to be less about making choices and decisions for them, and more about helping them become good decision makers for themselves. Isn't one of our goals that when they leave high school, they are well prepared to move into the "adult" world? If so, shouldn't we give them some practice in making those decisions in the relative safety of high school? After all, that's one of the main arguments we give for our variable schedule, so why do we seem to shy away from it in our classrooms? (As a side note, maybe if we do this a lot fewer of them will move back in with Mom and Dad for most of their 20's.)

As I've stated several times before, I think this is their education, not ours. If that's true - and if we want our students to really and truly believe that - then we are going to have to start trusting them. Yes, the level of trust and freedom will vary depending on age and individual maturity level, just like it already does (or should). And yes we still have the realities of curriculum and mandated testing. But I think that if we truly want them to be self-motivated, life-long, successful learners in the 21st century, we are going to have to give up some of the control and trust them to make more of their own decisions - with our guidance, of course. Trust - but verify. I fear that if we don't, if we insist on adhering to an industrial age schooling model, we risk losing all relevance whatsoever. And, given the learning choices that students are beginning to have in whatever we are going to call this current, post information age, I think we need to keep in mind that we no longer have a captive audience. We need to continue to give students reasons to choose to learn with us - or they will learn without us.

As usual, I'm thinking out loud here so I'd love to hear your thoughts on these ideas. Anything you can add that will help push my thinking along will be greatly appreciated.

Tags:

• education_change
• student_centered
• curriculum
• student_choice
• c2
• assessment

Photo Story 3 Tutorial Screencast

Several of our teachers are having students use Photo Story (or something of their own choosing) to create digital stories. I developed a quick overview handout for Photo Story and then did a couple of quick training sessions with classes. After repeating myself a few times, I decided maybe it was worth it (and good practice for me) to create a screencast that our students (and teachers) could watch if they wanted to learn the basics of Photo Story. It turned out okay, other than being a little too long (it's 11 minutes) and a little rough around the edges. It's also a very large file, so it takes a couple of minutes to load the screencast, even over broadband, but I thought I'd share it in case anyone else could use it.

Flash Version (better quality, but takes a while to load).

Windows Media Player Version (13 MB, quality is not as good, but it is downloadable).

Tags:

• screencast
• photostory
• digital_storytelling

This is Montag's Brain on PowerPoint

I sometimes forget how creative our students can be using software that us older folks think of as "productivity" software. Take a look at these examples of student work using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint to illustrate their understanding of the characters in Fahrenheit 451. I especially like these examples because they received no "instruction" on Word or PowerPoint. They were just given the assignment and could decide how best to complete it - they took it from there.

Tags:

• student_work
• PowerPoint
• Word
• MSOffice
• c1