It Is What We Make of It

This is going to be a somewhat eclectic post, with no real insight or conclusion from me (yes, I know, I know), but I think that there are some connections here that perhaps somebody (or even my future self) can make. There also could be nothing at all here, but I think the links are interesting in and of themselves even if there is no real connection or higher meaning.

Thanks to an email from one of my school board members, I ran across this article at the Washington Post:

The 44-year-old North Bethesda resident desperately wants a restaurant here that caters to the raw food diet, which prescribes only fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts, none of which have been heated above 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Over the past year, she has dedicated as many as 10 hours each month to attending meetings, sharing her ideas on a community Web site and creating raw food treats such as oat-hemp balls to persuade others of the virtues of raw food.

One thing Greenspan hasn't had to contribute is cash, a key element in getting new restaurants up and running. That's because the model for Elements is unlike any other Washington restaurant, and, as far as the founders can say, unlike any other restaurant in the world. If it successfully opens, Elements will be the first "crowdsourced" restaurant, conceived and developed by an open community of experts and interested parties.

So a group of like-minded folks use technology to come together to try to achieve a goal.

. . . "Most businesses are started because you have a great idea, and you take it out to the public to see if they like it," says Linda Welch, 49, the Washington businesswoman who launched and is funding the Elements project. "This is the opposite. We're finding out what people want and doing it."

They gather information from their stakeholders (and, in fact, are stakeholders themselves), to try to develop a product that meets the stakeholders’ needs.

. . . "It's the community. What's rewarding is coming together to create a place in the city that's beneficial to the community and yourself and your friends."

To paraphrase: It’s about the community, stupid.

. . . Characteristically, the group is optimistic. "It's not crazy to do if you have an established, loyal customer base," Takemoto says. "What's crazy is to open a business from scratch."

Again, to paraphrase: What’s crazy is not to use these tools and this ability to organize.

This seems to tie in well with Clay Shirky’s ideas about group forming and group action. It also reminds me a bit of this “group action to make a difference” video that I ran across at Dean Shareski’s blog. As Dean says,

This is the type of thing that illustrates the ability to be proactive . . . I’m looking forward to seeing passionate, connected teachers leading students in group formation that changes our world.

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

As Dean says in the comments to that post, “We only need a few motivated people to lead and the ease of organization can make it happen.”

It also reminds me of James Surowiecki’s keynote at NECC, which is only available for viewing by ISTE members, but everyone can view an excerpt.

Under the right conditions, groups of people can be remarkably intelligent.

So we should be figuring out – and providing – those conditions. What might those conditions be?

You need some method of aggregation.

You need a diverse group of people.

You need independent thinking. You want people to rely on their own information, their own intuition, their own knowledge. You want people to bring something to the table other than what everyone else around them is bringing to the table.

Hmm, sounds like a well-developed, diverse, and active Personal Learning Network.

Finally, it seems to connect for me (somehow, not quite sure how yet) to this presentation by Michael Wesch at the Library of Congress. Wesch, in relation to the YouTube community, talks about ideas including “user generated filtering” and “user generated organization,” and how as “media change, human relations change.” Towards the end he states, “It is not just what you make of it, it is what we make of it.” (He's now posted the full text of his poem, inspired by Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.)




So, how does this tie all together? As I stated at the top, I’m not sure I know. But I think it’s something along the lines of:

Technology is changing us. Us, the human race. It’s changing how we form communities and interact. It’s empowering individuals, yet in a powerfully group-oriented, networked way (“networked individualism” - sounds like an oxymoron, but I'm not sure it is). As educators, we need to delve into the “ridiculously easy group formation,” pull from the wisdom of our diverse stakeholders, and help discover and provide the conditions necessary for our students to leverage the power of aggregation. It truly can be what we make of it, if only we choose to try.

Or something like that.

Or not at all like that.

Like I said, I’m not sure how these all connect, I just have this strong feeling that they do. And if we can tease out those connections, it can have some powerful implications for the way we teach and learn.

What do you make of it?

Stuck

If anyone out there is still reading this blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything of substance for a while (exactly how long, of course, is in the eye of the subscriber). That’s because I’m stuck – I can’t figure out how to get there from here. I work in a great high school with a terrific staff, wonderful students, and a supportive community – and at the moment I don’t see any way to make the changes I think are necessary for our students. Please note that I’m not saying my school is performing poorly or that the teachers aren’t working really hard and doing some really good things. By traditional metrics we are doing very well and we have a hard working, dedicated, creative staff that gives their all for students. I’m just having a really hard time figuring out how to transform my school within the current system.

So I haven’t posted anything lately because I feel like I don’t have anything useful to contribute to the conversation at the moment. As an example, I just got back from NECC which turned out to be a less than stellar experience for me. Let me be perfectly clear, this is not the fault of the conference, it’s me. The conference was the usual mix of some really good sessions, some sessions that from my perspective weren’t quite as good, and lots and lots of informal conversations. But I felt like I got very little from the conference and contributed even less (and I think those are probably very related).

I think it’s telling that the two best learning experiences I had at the conference actually occurred before it officially started and after it ended. On Saturday I had a multi-hour conversation with Chris Lehmann, Marcie Hull and Bud Hunt. Then on Wednesday on the flight home, I had the good fortune of being able to sit next to Bud and have a two and a half hour conversation. In between those two conversations very little learning happened for me and I sunk deeper into my “funk”. Again, that isn’t the fault of the conference or the attendees - it appeared to me that most other folks were having a great experience and there were certainly a plethora of opportunities to learn - but instead is a result of my “stuck” mindset. And that worries me tremendously, because if I’m having trouble learning from a collection of really smart people gathered together in one place, then I’m really in trouble.

Now, I hesitated before posting this because I was worried about how it might be interpreted. This is the first post of mine that I can recall that is pretty much just about me (others certainly included me, but had some other reason for being), and I’m sure some folks will ask what is the purpose of this post. Well, the purpose is not to have everyone leave encouraging comments (although I suppose those are better than disparaging ones) or to say nice things to buck up my ego (it doesn't need much help). Rather, the purpose for me is twofold. First, on a practical level, some folks had been asking about my lack of posting and this takes care of those queries. But second, and more importantly, I’ve always advocated for transparency and I think it’s really important to share out the struggles and the doubts as well. At some point in the future when things are hopefully looking brighter, I’ll be able to look back at this post and remember how it felt – and that will hopefully help me get through any future episodes of “stuck-ness.” (And, of course, if things don’t improve, this will neatly mark the moment when it all fell apart.)

Now, some folks will simply see this as confirmation that blogging is a narcissistic pursuit, but I’ve always subscribed to the notion that blogging is essentially a selfish activity anyway. I mainly blog to help my own learning, although I certainly believe (and hope) that it helps contribute to others’ learning as well. So, while you are always welcome to leave whatever comments you’d like, please don’t feel compelled to leave either supportive ones in order to cheer me up, or withering ones in order to castigate me for my self-absorption. I get it. Really. I’ve already mentally left myself both sets of comments multiple times over the last few months. Rather take this post at face value – it really is just for me.