If you had a high school gymnasium, how would you turn it into a technology-friendly space for teaching, learning, and research?
As part of the Gottesman Libraries team, I’m currently involved in developing the concept of a “learning theater” — both programmatically and architecturally. Pulling this concept out of primordial soup of imagination (if such a space already exists as we imagine it, we do not know of it), our team embarked on a very broad inquiry:
What could a learning theater be?
What could it be within a library (in our case, it is)?
What is it within the context of Teachers College (with its legacy of innovation)?
We’ve already come a long way. Last winter, library staff hosted a series of design events with the TC community (summary videos can be viewed on Vialogues). This fall we’ve been working with a design team from Shepley Bulfinch to develop the concept and arrive at a schematic design. Our goal:
Renovate the 10,000 sq. ft. fourth floor of Russell Hall as a space for ambitious learning and research activities.
One aspect of our design progress that I’m very excited about is the ability for other educational institutions to use what we’re learning (and inevitably going to learn later on, after we move into our facility).
Don’t all schools need innovative teaching and learning spaces? These will be spaces that must accommodate richer and richer densities of learning tools – physical, digital, and any/every combination thereof. Being able to conduct research about teaching and learning in these spaces, therefore, seems to be increasingly important as well.
Retrofitting libraries and high school gymnasiums as new learning spaces could be only the beginning…
Earlier this year we implemented a new staff-side training tool at the Gottesman Libraries: flashcards. That doesn’t sound progressive (it’s rote learning!), but we’re using a very cool tool developed by Teachers College alum Andrew Cohen: Brainscape.
Our library has a public knowledge base (FAQs), and a staff knowledge base that is more extensive, but with the variety of services we offer, it’s difficult to include nuances (even very important ones!) in these resources. So we use flashcards to extend and deepen staff knowledge of key services.
For example, the library hosts and supports the TC community blogging on Pressible, which is built on WordPress. There are a myriad of details that a library patron might want to know, especially if they are familiar with WordPress. Since our system includes many customizations, flashcards cover issues such as:
Q: “How do I get an image on my bio page?” A: Pressible uses Gravatar.com — a tool built and run by the company that supports WordPress. If someone has a Gravatar, Pressible will use it automatically.
Q: “Can anyone sign up as an author on Pressible?” A: No, only individuals with TC or CU emails can sign up. However, site administrators can manually add anyone (with any email) as an author using the “Add User” menu.
Q: “Why is there a big empty gray bar across the top of my site?” A: This is automatically filled with links to posts when authors use Categories (displayed as Topics).
Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions has helped staff better understand our tools (we’ve confirmed this via various anonymous surveys). Anything that makes staff more confident in correctly answering questions is very helpful—more responsive staff means a better (more accurate and speedier) experience for our learning community.
We’ve already developed dozens of flashcards on a variety of topics to date, and our experience with Brainscape has given us the confidence to continue to develop flashcards as key staff training tools.
For a closer look at design thinking, EdLab is making a series of videos that show individual designers reflecting on its meaning. The first video features Annette Diefenthaler, a Senior Design Research Specialist & Project Lead at IDEO on creating and launching IDEO’s Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit.
Watch the video, and share your perspective on this resource!
I like how Simon frames the issue of participation around the challenge of making it meaningful – because it’s all too easy to create meaningless activities. But at the same time, she suggests, the hooks for engagement have to be simple enough that people are willing to try something new.
That’s tough to do!
I find that easy and interesting are often at odds. For example, our current goal is to use Twitter as a tool of engagement. But what do you ask people to contribute? 160 characters is already technically simple for folks with a Twitter account, but what kind of content should we elicit?
Photo of a library event by Diana Diroy
For me, solving this issue for a particular content is the essence of an exhibition design process – a process that should result in a unique and engaging solution that serves as a great foundation for learning.
One strategy is to aim to make the results of small contributions cumulative – either in a way that creates one large result, or as a mosaic showcasing individual contributions. Another is to make them personal (perhaps identity-oriented is a similar but useful way to think of this).
Another strategy is to offer an extrinsic reward – to offer a prize, for example. But this seems to be less genuine, or at least less likely to relate to learning. On the other hand, this could be a hook that engages a contributor to do more.
Giant Firefly by AMNH
One recent example of a bad interactive solution that comes to mind is from the recent Creatures of Light exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History (sorry guys). While the exhibit had some nice elements, I was disappointed by the gigantic firefly (six feet long?) that hung from the ceiling and glowed at the press of a button (working from memory here) at the entrance of the show. What did this accomplish?
I assume it was supposed to echo the bioluminescence theme of the exhibit, but for my 3-year-old it really just raised the question, “Are fireflies really that big?” I’m not saying that elements need to work for everyone, but really: aren’t there dozens of more exciting ways to show off the mechanisms of science while creating a stronger foundation for learning? (Wouldn’t a six foot magnifying glass aimed at a life-size firefly been many times more awesome? Aren’t there ways to use lighting to better effect?)
Using a traditional exhibition toolbox (scale, lighting, drama, etc.) alongside newer technologies is a big challenge. I’m excited to see what we can come up with here at Teachers College!
This is an intriguing new marketing direction for the Epistemic Games Group: GAPS
Games and Professional Simulations [GAPS] is a cooperative group comprised of six research groups across the country. We are headquartered by the Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
(Love the idea, dislike the acronym?) Also check out this vialogue featuring Padraig Nash’s recent talk on “distributed mentoring” at the EdLab. Cool stuff!
For me, the story about EdLab—its purpose, vision, and strategy—boils down to the goal of democracy. This post is a reflection on today’s seminar by Gary Natriello, but I think it may also resonate with anyone who’s a part of a similar organization.
Gary articulated a vision of the future of the education sector that follows from a few basic assumptions about learning, economics, and technology. Namely, that the so-called “digital revolution” is ringing in a new age of “networked learning” (think: low-cost, p2p learning). He also shared his concern that while we ought to want to help shape this future, it seems unlikely that we at EdLab—as products of the current educational system—can feasibly do so. Why exactly? Because it would be too hard for us to participate in the midwifery of this new sector: pay cuts, lay-offs, new (possibly lower, or non-existant) educational standards, and so on.
Sound bad? It sounded even more bleak when he said it in front of a Keynote deck that juxtaposed glamourous visions of childhood with the realities of work at Foxconn. . .
But I don’t really follow his line of thinking all the way down that bleak path, and I’m particularly skeptical about two of his basic assumptions (and let me acknowledge that it’s easy to be skeptical—it’s hard to be the one in front of the room).
Assumption #1: We currently prioritize uniformity as an educational outcome.
Well. . . I guess so, but it seems like uniformity is just one of many outcomes of the current educational system. I agree we value it, as it seems integral to a democratic ideal of equal opportunity, so it’s hard to imagine a successful democracy without a shared sense of history, science, culture, etc. Perhaps Gary’s view of education can aptly be described as post-democratic.
Assumption #2: The expense of the current educational system makes it unsustainable.
I don’t know enough about economic principles to mount a compelling counterargument, but what the heck, it’s a blog, right? I don’t buy it, and here’s why: Somewhere there must be a principle of modern capitalism about potential and purpose of “creating new markets,” and the point must be that when everything is accounted for, there is a huge surplus of labor in the world. That is, the amenities of capital-generating activities seem to be diverse enough to support a virtuous circle of labor. (Sure wealth is distributed unequally, but hey, a lot of people are willing to work to afford the data plan on their iPhone.)
Why should this come to an end? And why shouldn’t education—even in its increasingly expensive forms—partake in this economy? My response to Gary is that the current education is sustainable. But I wouldn’t want to suggest that it’s deeply democratic. In terms of the cost of education, I think the education sector is already incredibly diverse (though we don’t like to admit it)—if only because education is so unevenly applied (note: additional skepticism about uniformity). So it’s going to become more interestingly diverse as different types of education are increasingly acknowledged as legitimate. In this way, I think Gary’s view is overly pessimistic about future economic conditions.
Conclusions
When I reflect on where my views intersect with Gary’s, I’m confronted by a surprisingly optimistic view of education. It’s a view that counterbalances the news cycle—how putting iPads in kid’s hands is going to empower them and “save schools”—and affords us a different, more democratic space to work (at EdLab, and similar do-tanks). Yes, it’s a technology-rich space, but that’s not the point. Our goal is to locate or create cheap tools that give more learners access to key knowledge. It’s not about the best education. It’s probably not even good yet. But it’s getting better, and more real every day.
Further Questions. . .
Isn’t the Internet itself enough? It’s cheap, and it provides key knowledge! But let’s make it even better. . .
Can or should educational organizations compete with no-cost, advertising-driven technologies?
Can or will the anti-democratic effects of high-cost education ever be overcome through other social means?
“You are innovators” is the message to the teachers at Learning.com‘s second annual professional development workshop in Portland, Oregon. I’m attending the workshop to learn more about their really interesting new software, Sky. I’m also interested to learn if their message to teachers is accurate, a wishful prediction, a hyperbolic marketing strategy, or something else. Working alongside teachers who are learning to use Sky, I begin to hope, will lead me to an answer.
Sky is the name of Learning.com’s recently-launched digital learning environment – which means, among other things, that it’s a platform for teachers and students to access instructional modules (what used to be called curriculum). Using Sky, teachers can create and assign modules (games, animations, links to online resources) to individual students, groups, or a whole class. Each student can go at their own pace or skip around, leaving a trail of data about their learning experiences.
Seeing a group of 50 teachers, librarians, administrators, and other educators learning to use this tool brought to mind a salient issue looming over the education sector: the transformation of the work of teaching from a classroom-based activity to a community-based activity. By this I mean to suggest that the horizon of a teacher’s work is expanding in two senses – both spatially (i.e., a teacher can interact with people in a distant location in a way that is perhaps easier than stepping out of the classroom and walking down the hallway to speak to a colleague) and socially (i.e., a teacher expected to interact with more people than ever).
To anyone who’s interested in education these days, this is not exactly new news. But watching teachers learn to use Sky, a metaphor floated into mind: teachers are being asked to abandon their role as performers. Software like Sky demands that teachers become increasingly like DJs. In short,
Teachers are being asked to jockey media (of all kinds) in the way that DJs jockey music.
Club DJs are very well versed in mixing music to motivate the club goers to dance and drink. Very successful Club DJs can amass real fan followings. Club DJs have historically been on the leading edge innovation when it comes to leveraging the equipment they have for the best new sounds and memorable effects.
Putting aside the goal of dancing and drinking for the moment, the part of this description that strikes me as apt is the effect DJs have on their audience: they are recognized for leveraging the equipment they have for the best new sounds and memorable effects. As companies like Learning.com put innovative software into teachers’ hands, and when these tools further extend the reach of teachers to more and more content (note: I am using “content” and “media” interchangeably, where media puts the emphasis on the diversity of available content), it seems that their role as purveyors of knowledge – and, therefore, as critics and curators of media – is made more pronounced.
Great teaching has, of course, always been about being knowledgeable about, and delivering, content (with bonus points for delivering the right content at the right time). But a significant change that software can make possible is the amount of media that a teacher has access to, and therefore, has the possibility of being knowledgeable about. And this goes beyond mere facts and static content – even beyond dynamic content, methodology, and analysis – and into the area of the learning tools that students can use in conjunction with that content and those processes.
So what are some of the new tricks that Teacher-DJs will have to learn, refine, and become known for? The following come to mind:
delivering simple, efficient, and multi-modal learning activities to students
directing students to great, fresh, and relevant resources
providing a directed (but not inauthentic) way to experience the Internet
sharing responsiblity for student work (and related actions) on school-suported publishing platforms
A related way these changes will likely play out is that authorship will increasingly become an important aspect of teaching. Whether a teacher is authoring content for students, describing and/or reviewing content for fellow teachers, or describing and/or reviewing content for a wider audience (including parents, administrators, and communities), the immediacy (and sheer reach) of the Internet will amplify the importance and potential of this work.
For example, Learning.com has ventured into the realm of positioning teachers within a network powered by sophisticated social software. Using Sky, teachers can create and share lesson plans – lesson plans they may have always had, but perhaps never before in a form that was so ready for sharing so widely. Software features that support searching for, selecting, and rating others’ lesson plans raise the significance of formerly merely digital tools (e.g., putting lesson plans online) to a new level.
An interesting effect of this kind of social software will be that there may be (will be?) increasingly more social pressure on teachers to create and share their work with other teachers. So teachers will be authors not only in the sense that students will use their multimedia assemblages (which seems like a good way to describe their products in software like Sky), but in the sense that other teachers will be able to access their work. By sharing work in this way, and as a community of teachers becomes interested in the depth and quality of a fellow teacher’s work, each teacher may subsequently be judged by it. And though this may have been the case previously on a more local level (e.g., interactions between a teacher and his/her department or administrators), social software is fundamentally changing the professional landscape of teaching by transforming social interactions between teachers.
Understood in this way, it seems that social software is becoming intertwined in what some consider the history of the de-professionalization of teaching. Though, as we see in the comparison to the work of DJs, it is also creating new possibilities of professionalism through a kind of grassroots process – where the day to day work of teachers (lesson-planning) becomes a new kind of lingua franca in valuing a teacher’s abilities and achievements. This is promising stuff. But where there can be little doubt that software like Sky will change teaching, how long it will take for the policies and realities that regulate the day to day activities of students under the watch of lumbering bureaucracies is less clear. And so,
It is still unclear if social software can be a vehicle that gives teachers more power to directly transform the education sector.
Looking into the heart of software like Sky, one sees how teachers are being asked to change the way they work in both obvious and subtle ways. Making a comparison to the work of DJs is, after all, probably not fair. But I think it’s a helpful metaphor. DJs take a lot of pride in their work, and are recognized for their unique contributions to spaces, events, and communities. Rather than evaluating a cultural shift in teaching as a good or bad thing, this kind of lens helps me better understand the kind of work teachers are being asked to do.
Are teachers innovators? Software like Sky gives them an opportunity to innovate. Not all will, but those who do will participate in an interesting transformation – and potentially a watershed period – in the history of the education sector.
The Media Show – a show produced by EdLab’s video team that came out of the After Ed TV project, and a product of Gus Andrews’ imagination – recently won the Fair Use Award at the Media that Matters Festival (see the posting here). The particular episode that won the award (above and on youtube) is a look at the use of Photoshop in advertising, and a short history of image manipulation. Here’s Gus’ description of the show and the episode:
The Media Show is a YouTube channel series staring puppets Weena and Erna, two high-school-aged sisters skipping school to spend time making their own videos in an abandoned storage closet in an advertising agency in New York City. The show’s model of media literacy aims to reconcile the exuberance of fan-created media with a critique of ad-driven corporate media.
In this episode of The Media Show, My Hotness is Pasted on Yey!, Weena and Erna happen across a terrible graphics job in Cosmopolitan, leading them to the website Photoshop Disasters, which gets them thinking about other photo manipulation throughout history. Stalin, Hitler, OJ Simpson, Beyoncé—who hasn’t been touched by photo alteration in some way? The girls explore art and propaganda and end up playing with Photoshop themselves, taking control and manipulating their own appearance.
Perhaps even more exciting than the development and grow of the YouTube-based show, is a case study Gus has developed for using The Media Show in schools (see the Pressible site). We hope this will create an inroad for using these video resources in new and interesting ways.
For example, earlier this spring Gus worked with students at a Brooklyn High School using The Media Show to support a media literacy curriculum about advertising. Skye Macleod supported this collaboration and helped produce videos about the experience (see them here and here).
We’ll showcase the case study in the next few months on the EdLab website, and look forward to talking with educators (and others!) with an interest in this resource.
