Remote Access

3 Years Ago Today....

I started this blog with this post:

"Better late then never I guess. After lurking in the wings of hundreds of blogs for several years, I'm finally getting around to starting my own. 

It's a funny time to start a blog. I consider myself to be an early adaptor. I teach grade 8 in the small community of Snow Lake. This is in the central Canadian province of Manitoba. I am about 800 miles north of the Canada - U.S. border and around 1000 people live here.... For now. Snow Lake is a gold mining community and one of the town's major employers will be closing in 6 - 8 weeks. This will obviously have a huge impact on our already small population.

I'm an educator, and I believe strongly in education, not schooling. I believe that schools need to change to survive, to be relevent, or else we will fade away into the history books.

  Even (and probably even more importantly) in a small, isolated town in the middle of nowhere like ours; we are part of the global society and we need to prepare our kids for global society."

Little did I know at that time what I would be getting myself into. 2 days and 4 posts later I received my first comment from a teacher in London who I had been following for some time and I was amazed that someone would take the time to write to me.

A global community of learners. An audience that now extends to almost 2 000 subscribers. Over 108 000 readers. AS of this morning 780 posts and 948 comments.

I am always honestly amazed and humbled that people will take the time to read what I have to say. A teacher in a small town that probably 95% of you couldn't find on a map. I struggle each day to make my world go around. I struggle to be the best husband, father and teacher that I can be. I rant and rave, I'm unsure of myself and what I have to say.

Little did I know at the time what opportunities would spring out of this blog. I have traveled to conferences all over and been asked to speak in many places. My voice turns up in podcasts and interviews, and I'm always amazed that people email and ask me to drop in to their classes and speak for a few minutes. Last year I was traveling through Minneapolis on my way to speak in Nashville and was amazed when two ladies walked up to me in the airport and politely asked if I was Clarence Fisher. When I answered that I was, I was completely shocked to have them excitedly tell me, "We read your blog!" It was an interesting experience.

This blog is proof to me that people who live on the margins can gain a voice in the 2.0 world. Informational availability and transparency has gained importance. Most important is the fact that we have changed from being voices alone crying in the wilderness (some of us more in the wilderness than others ;) to a network, a community of learners examining each other's practice. This is my blog. I write here as much as I can. But it is only because of all of the comments, the kind thoughts, the people challenging me and driving me forward that this space continues to exist.

Thanks so much for sticking with me.

Photo Credit: Celebration: "http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=902817172&size=m"

Tags: wow

An Open Letter To Gary Stager

"Get off your box and show us something in reality."

Gary Stager at the panel session on the closing day of educon

Mr. Stager;

On Sunday January 27th, I was enjoying the best of both worlds. I was at home with my family making breakfast and meanwhile listening to a panel being ustreamed from the educon conference in Philadelphia. At about 9:00 my time (10:00 in Philadelphia) as I was cleaning up a frying pan of scrambled eggs, I heard this comment from you talking about how many of the people who are involved with education are blogging and talking about change in classrooms; but you say you are not seeing that change happening. You want us all to "get off our box."

My blog is my box and I happily and proudly stand on it every opportunity I get. In the 2.0 world I can do that. In the 2.0 world, a junior high teacher from a small town in the middle of nowhere can have an audience and connect with people around the globe. In the 2.0 world, I can blog, talk, write and dream. But those teachers like me go further than that. We also plan. We think. We work in our own classrooms. We work within the system. We fight restrictive policies, put in long hours and try very hard to see the forest beyond the trees.

I think I understand the purpose of your comment. I have read enough bell hooks and I have struggled with my Friere long enough to know something of critical friendship. As a teacher, I understand the value of issuing a direct and forceful challenge to people and watch for them to rise up and meet that challenge. But I also know about reproach and dissatisfaction. While you and I have never had the pleasure of meeting, I am used to people being critical of, and questioning about, unorthodox learning environments. While we aren't where we want to be as a global community of educators, in many cases we are headed in the right direction. We see examples of projects and collaborations emerging around the world that are new, different, and breaking the mold from old ways of learning. We see individual teachers who are developing the global microbrands of themselves and the learning environments they have created. We have consultants who bring us an inside view of learning spaces scattered across wide areas.

We are a new type of teacher working in new and changing learning environments. We are willing to experiment and drive towards new forms of learning. We fit into the education system like square pegs in round holes. But the fact is that we are the reality and we show it each day in our classrooms. We are connected. We are globally focused and working to create a learning environment, social objects, and opportunities for learning that anticipate the needs of a changing twenty first century society. While we are by no means perfect, we know more this year then last about teaching in these ways and next year we will know even more again.

In closing I would say to you that we are on our boxes and we stand there proudly. They are one channel that is allowing us as educators to have access to ideas, and windows into each others' classrooms as others before have never been fortunate enough to have. We are also the human reality, the human face of the needs of a changing education system. We are about information, connections, and collaboration. We are a growing, strengthening network who take value and inspiration from each other. We are a challenge to those around us.

Sincerely;

Clarence Fisher

Tags: educon, gary stager, change, 2.0, classrooms, education, learning, school

Information Quality Control

"With twitter, you're in charge of quality control."

ijesspederson in an educon ustream chat session.

I didn't get to spend as much time watching educon ustream's as I wanted. Life called, other things to do, but I was around long enough for this one comment to strike me and rattle around.

This one sentence sums up the attitude that we need to teach the kids in our classrooms about dealing with information in general, and information online in particular. We used to give kids textbooks and tell them the content was valuable and could be trusted. Instead, we now direct the to the web, to library books, to videos, email contacts, twitter streams, etc. etc. But we need to do all we can to help them become their own filters and information managers. They need the skills to separate the signal from the noise and find the pieces that are valuable for them. They need to become responsible for, and take charge of, the quality of the information they are accessing and using. This does not mean that we dump them online and leave them to the wolves. It means we teach, we model, we discuss and we learn along with them. We show them the value of having independent information access skills and model the metacognitive processes needed to relentlessly control their access and their needs.

Tags: ijesspederson, information, classroom

Choosing Tools

As with all parents, I believe my own kids are of course the brightest and the cutest on the globe. I have two sons. Christian just turned eight and Alexander who is soon to turn ten. They are both very imaginative and have their strengths and weaknesses. Christian is very coordinated and athletic, but has struggled up until these past few months with his reading. Alexander on the other hand has had no troubles with this and reads several grade levels above his grade four classroom. But as with all kids, they are individuals and each has a story to tell.

Alexander was born at 27 weeks out of 40. He spent 10 weeks in neonatal intensive care at University Hospital in Saskatoon. We had some of the best preemie care in the world at this place and were graced with fabulous follow up. One thing we learned when Alexander was about four was that his fine motor skills were poor as a result of being born too early and would never really advance. Besides this meaning that he would never be a major fan of LEGO, we were also told at that time that he would likely need a laptop eventually to be successful in school.

That time has come.

After experimenting in my own classroom with a small Asus eee pc, we decided to purchase one for Alexander. He has a great teacher who has been very willing to try new things with him to ensure his success and she was completely open to this as well.

Yesterday was his first day. After all of the questions from his classmates were settled, he went to work. He created his own folders, did his spelling work and his journal and was excited to hear that today he could use it to go onto the internet to look for information for a speech he needs to do in class. He came home from school excited about his new machine, excited about the possibilities, and already seeing the potential for his new tool in class.

Besides being a story about my son, this is a story about having access to the tools that you need to learn. In my school, we are fortunate enough to be able to talk his teacher, get him access to these tools, and work together to get him some early success. But what if Alexander attended a school where he was not allowed to bring in a laptop from outside? What long term disadvantage would he be in because of these policies? What effect would that have on him and his learning? How will it effect his vision of information, of access, of learning with his having access at his desk to the world from the age of ten? Right now he is interested in absolutely everything on Wikipedia, on using YouTube to find the solutions to problems he is having with Wii games and wants an email address. His teacher is excited by his level of confidence and competence and already sees the possibilities fro him and for learning as a whole if kids have access to these tools.

Tags: asuseee, laptop, classroom, learning

Canadian Blog Awards: Round Two

Remote Access has survived round one and has now moved on to the final round of voting for the Canadian blog awards.

Final round voting is now open until January 30th.

While this blog has obviously been nominated in the education category, it is amazing to see this many quality Canadian blogs gathered in one space and worth your time to check some of them out. You might be surprised by the new gems that you'll turn up.

Tags: Canadianblog awards, cdnba

Student Take on a 21st Century Education

Taken verbatim from the Students 2.0 blog:

"Twenty-first century education won’t be defined by any new technology. It won’t be defined by 1:1 laptop programs or tech-intensive projects. Twenty-first century education will, however, be defined by a fundamental shift in what we are teaching—a shift towards learner-centered education and creating creative thinkers. Today’s world is no longer content with students who can simply apply the knowledge they learned in school: our generation will be asked to think and operate in ways that traditional education has not, and can not, prepare us for.

As we move into a world where outsourcing, automation, and the ability to produce a product, physical or intellectual, at the cheapest cost, become the cornerstones of our rapidly evolving global economy, the ability to think critically is no longer enough. The need to know the capital of Florida died when my phone learned the answer. Rather, the students of tomorrow need to be able to think creatively: they will need to learn on their own.

They get it. Period.

 

Tags: students2.0, creativity, innovation, classroom

Davos: Innovation and Education?

The Davos World Economic Forum begins in Switzerland this week.

One of the world's highest level gatherings, it is famous for the cross pollination of ideas that occurs there due to the convergence of disciplines that are brought together for the conference. They have posted a tremendous amount of background information on their website about the topics under discussion , but was disappointed to see education only being brought up in the context of help for developing nations. While I am huge believer in ideas of social justice and of programs such as OLPC, when we are dealing with a globalised world that thrives on innovation and which will require it in ever increasing quantities in order to solve many of the problems we are creating for ourselves, no one is talking about it.

Innovative individuals, companies, partnerships and collaborations are desperately needed and need to develop and incubate somewhere, yet the concept and the topic of innovation at the K - 12 school level is rarely raised at global conferences such as these. You may occasionally see these ideas brought forth regarding post secondary institutions, but for K - 12; almost never.

By 2010 (only 2 years from now), concepts of innovation will be a driving force behind many of the world's largest urban economies. Reflecting historical power structures, most of these centres are in the developed world, with at least half of them centred in the U.S.

By 2020 many more of these centres of innovation and economics will be centred in Asia and in other developing nations.

In an increasingly competitive and complex world, K - 12 school systems and individual classrooms have a pivotal role to play in developing the minds who will take part in these processes of innovation, and monitor and understand the consequences of these global changes. Yet few people take seriously the idea of promoting and understanding the concepts, the impact, and the importance of educational innovation and change at the K - 12 level at global gatherings such as Davos. Innovative people come from somewhere and we are presently missing out on developing many of these minds. We've seen Sir Ken Robinson at TED, the just completed DLD Conference in Munich hosted one session on education and Davos obviously has one strand focused on learning, but we need many many more before those who have the ability to make changes to education at institutional levels will see the need to increase the mandate and the capacity of classrooms to focus on helping students to create innovative ideas.

Tags: innovation, education, Davos, World Economic Forum, TED, DLD, Digital Lie Design

Exams 2.0

Next week are mid - term exams.

Approximately the middle of the school year, locally designed, written, and marked; I still struggle with them.

How to design a test for each of the four subject areas that I am required to host exams for (Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math) that is fair and that encapsulates a lot of what we have done to this point in the school year?

Old argument I know. But it still holds water.

While we've learned quite a lot as a community about the pedagogy and the tools of classroom 2.0, our thoughts about assessment have been relatively few. What would a 2.0 exam look like? I'm not sure I know if exams would even be a legitimate form of assessment in a classroom truly moving in this direction but a few ideas might include:

- posting the exams online and letting the kids work things out over a few days
- letting students gather information from any source: library books, textbooks, their personal learning network
- the exams would include both knowledge and skills components for each subject area
- exams that are multi disciplinary and problem based or focused
- students may be required to post something online or use a tool such as ustream and feedback might be collected from various sources
- this feedback might offer the students an opportunity to revise and improve the work they have completed before calling something a "final draft"
- the students themselves might be involved in designing the assessments, giving them an opportunity to have input regarding what they feel are the big issues and important learnings they have worked with so far in the school year

Basically, we need to take everything we know about evaluation (who designs them, who marks them, where, when and how they are completed) and turn it on its head.

Another small task.

Tags: exams, evaluation, classroom

Government Mandated Morality

Doing some background research for their own TED - style talks, several of the students in my class have run into the filter. I wrote not that long ago about my first experience with it, and my surprise at even finding it. Now the kids are running into the wall. One of my students is doing a project on animal cruelty and has decided to focus on the fur trade in China. She has found several gruesome videos online but was very surprised after running a YouTube search to have many of the videos blocked. She had never seen the screen before and called me over asking of course, "What is this?" After I tried to explain she was shocked, saying that there was nothing wrong with what she was looking up and that she was being denied basic research. The people who organized the filter and who chose what to block were getting in the way of her learning. "Do they not want me to learn about this stuff?" she asked*

Combined with hearing one of our highschool teachers asking our technician about the filter since he had found a resource at home that he wanted to use and then came in and found it was blocked in the building, this has me thinking again.

I am still vastly against even the idea of filtering. Filtering content is a messy, inexact, and inappropriate solution to their being "bad things" online. I find it offensive and pure and simple censorship; something democracies should abhor. But as I think about our situation more, I am also worried. The Internet service that our school is provided with comes via a Manitoba government service called MERLIN. They provide highspeed service to many hospitals, libraries and schools. So in the end, it is my democratically elected government that is restricting the access of my students to information and content.

Far too big brotherish for my liking.

I am not suggesting a conspiracy at any level, but it is disturbing. My government is deciding upon the morality of the content that we are able to access. The filters are set up and run from a central location before the service reaches local computers. As much as I am against it, it is different if these decisions are made locally in response to actual problems (not perceived problems, or in the name of potentially protecting someone), but when the service is filtered at a provincial level by a government service, there is something very wrong with this picture.

* (The student in my class also found it very amusing that although she could not directly access the content she wanted through a search, if she found the videos she wanted in the YouTube related search sidebar, she was able to watch them. How long do you think it will take them to figure out how to beat the system?)

Tags: filters, school, MERLIN, Manitoba

Canadian Blog Awards

Did you know there was a Canadian Blog Awards?

I didn't.

Or, at least I didn't until I found people rolling in to Remote Access from there.

Following the virtual trail back up the tree I see that people such as Dean Shareski, Alec Couros and Stephen Downes deserve the credit for there even being an education category.

The long and the short of it: I've been nominated.

Vote now. Vote often.

Tags: cdnba, alec couros, dean shareski, stephen downes