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Vacuum

Posted August 23rd, 2010 by Bill

Last weekend, the Los Angeles Times had an article of dubious worth on value added assessment, in which they pointed fingers and named names. I had something to say about it, as did many others.

But, from a post and thread on John Merrow's blog, it seems that many of the people that used to be known as the leaders are wildly out of touch. In particular, Grant Wiggins makes a stunning cameo, which could actually be a good lead in to a new program named "Misunderstanding By Design." Joe Bowers keeps a pretty good scorecard.

Against this rhetorical backdrop, Will Richardson sends us a nearly-elegiac prose postcard about the role of leadership in fomenting educational change. In it, he talks about how many people outside the echo chamber of online communities are not aware of the changes looming on the horizon - but in his piece, he also alludes to people having an alternative vision about what people should be learning:

(T)hey go back to their conversation. “It’s the schools that should be doin’ that,” one is saying, and all of a sudden, I’m tuned in, listening over my shoulder as I reach for a pack of Dentyne Ice from the candy shelf beneath the counter. “They’re just not teaching it as much as they should be.” I step away from the counter, buy a little time by pretending to look closely at the chocolate bars down below, wonder what the system is so deficient in, wondering, maybe…

“These kids just don’t know nothin’ about managing money,” he says, and I hear various sounds of assent from the others.

When I first read the Merrow post linked above, I was incredibly depressed - it was disheartening to see the extent of the disagreements between people who have been working for decades on improving education. But it slowly began to dawn on me: if this is what passes for vision, then we have a vacuum to fill. And while it would be nice to have a Secretary of Education who could do better than this, we need to play the hand we're dealt.

So, cue the music:

Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation
Found at skreemr.org

One thing we have going for us: virtually no one want the status quo (the only real exception here are, of course, companies that have a business model that depends on the status quo *cough cough textbook/test prep/testing companies cough cough*, but even they need to mouth the rhetoric of change, because the pace of change is a construct that will hold its value over time).

So, given that most of us want change, we need to listen to the changes people want. There are bound to be some good ideas in there, even among people with whom there appear to be broad disagreements. While "managing money" might not seem like a "21st century skill" people still need to know how to do it - and with minimal effort, I can think of a half-dozen project based lessons that could develop that skill.

More importantly, though, we need to act. How are you showing the value of the informal learning in which you engage? How does this make you a better educator? More importantly, how can this contribute to a better classroom, a better learning experience for students, and/or a better school? If we can't articulate and demonstrate these things - and, more importantly, if we don't make the time to enact and articulate these advantages - why should anyone take us at our word?

Social Media Has Changed Everything! Really! Except It Hasn't.

Posted November 7th, 2009 by Bill

I've stumbled across a few conversations recently where people have been trying to push the notion that, as a result of social media, the audience has changed.

Social media has changed what interactions look like, but they haven't changed the nature of interaction.

The idea that social media has wrought a change in human nature is laughable. Two things, however, have shifted: more people now have the means to join in the conversation; and the combination of better search and social networks make it easier to find the conversations that are relevant to you.

As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to engage in a one sided conversation. It has also become increasingly difficult to control your message, or even to stay on top of/ahead of where your message goes.

A recent and ongoing example: at the NYSCATE conference, a vendor selling filtering tools titled his presentation The Enemy Within: Stop Students from Bypassing Your Web Filters. As one might suspect, there were people who took issue with the title, and began leaving comments on the editable web page linked to earlier in this paragraph (also, on the chance that the company doing the presentation would attempt to control some of the PR fallout by deleting the page, I took a snapshot of it, available here).

This situation provides a perfect example of what has changed, and what hasn't. Here's our situation:

1. A vendor/sponsor does a session at an education conference. Someone (probably the marketing folks) comes up with a "cute" title -- this title also happens to be offensive, but in defense of marketers they are not often the best to spot these issues.

So, far, nothing new.

2. In the olden days before social media, the people at the conference would have been offended. Maybe someone would have brought it up during the session. Maybe someone would have written a letter to the company, or the conference organizers. However, the key factor: some people would have been annoyed. The people who were annoyed, however, would have lacked the means to convey their dissatisfaction to a broader audience.

3. Now, however, people are annoyed. They are blogging about it. They are posting about it on Twitter. And the wiki page created for the presentation is filled (for now, anyways) with comments registering this disapproval.

The disapproval is not new. The means for expressing it, and the means by which the topic can be discovered, however, have changed.

The lessons from all this:

First, if you're going to try and be cute, make sure you're not saying anything offensive. Nothing destroys cute like offensive.

Second, let your work be your publicity. Do good things. Talk about them. If you're worried about the balance between doing good things and talking about what you are doing, err on the side of doing.

Third, if you can't be fully transparent about what you are doing, be transparent about your reasons why. The intarwebs hate bullshit artists. Just ask anyone who tried to sell Vista or host a Windows 7 launch party.

But most importantly: realize social media exists, and realize that -- to a small but growing segment of the population -- it matters. Talk with people. This doesn't mean that you should hire a "social media guru," as this is the equivalent of buying digital snake oil. And if you are trying to figure out how or why the audience has changed, stop wasting your time. The audience hasn't changed. They can just talk now. And good companies doing good things will know enough to listen.

The meme, however, that social media has changed everything is all around us, and really, it is time it went away. It gets in the way of more people understanding how to use the communication channels that are currently available. It's also worth noting that an effective use of social media involves listening, a markedly low-tech skill.

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