Living on the Future Edge

I've borrowed the title for this post from Ian Jukes of whom many of you will have heard. Ian's been around for a while now and delivers some pretty energetic keynotes. I watched him deliver the final keynote at EduTECH 2014 in Brisbane yesterday.

In this he gave a fast paced, emotive plea to Australian education to make the rapid change required to deliver the kind of education that will be relevant for learners of today an into the future. In his presentation he pulled no punches. He based much of his presentation on the work of Richard Florida and his Creative Class project, ( http://www.creativeclass.com/ ) and that of .... Clayton Christiansen and his Disruptive Innovation projects. http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/

Now, I'll have to admit that I have heard Ian before and while I have not read Florida or Christiansen I am aware of their work. So, it was good to hear and see what some of their research is showing, and I'll try and capture the essence of it as Ian shared it.

1. Many of us know the 'industrial' model that Sir Ken Robinson and others have described in some detail over recent years. We all nod in agreement that the Industrial Age has long gone and we are in the Knowledge Age. But as I sat and watched comments such as ...

'90% of routine cognitive tasks will be taken by either software or outsourced'

'By 2025 the average number of careers (note : not jobs, but careers) that school leavers can expect to have by the time they are 38 is 10 - 17’

'Part time is the new full time. The corporation of the future is the corporation of size 1. You will have multiple part time jobs with multiple organisations at the same time, all on contract.' [Ian gave an example of his own company hiring via oDesk. They posted a job on oDesk and within 20 minutes had 238 applicants. They hired a developer in India. oDesk does all the rest - keeping track of the work the developer does and sending this to Ian's company.]

2. The rate of change is/continues to be exponential.

Moore's Law still applies to the computing part. Doubling of the number of transistors every 18 months and halving the cost.

Fibre optic cable can transmit vast quantities of data at the speed of light. And I mean VAST ... And the speed of light is pretty quick from memory, too.

As Sugata Mitra observes, 'there is no need to know. There is the need to know how to know and when to know.' 

We have incredible amounts of data available. And the tools we have for manipulating that data and transferring it are incredibly powerful and cheap today on comparison to just a few years ago.

All of this leads to a crucial, and I would say tipping, point...

In the now, and in the future, there is a new learning disability. This is those who are digitally illiterate. Today and in the future, it is as important to be digitally literate as it is to read and write and do basic arithmetic.

This is big. How many of us believe that today's students, the so-called digital natives, are digitally literate? They may be tech savvy, but are they digitally literate? From my own experience I would say no. Many don't know file types, they don't know how to protect their systems from corruption, and if corrupt how to restore. They don't know the language of the network they depend on.  How many of our teachers and administrators are digitally literate? How many of our colleagues can use multiple devices, operating systems, applications and create their own content for the network in any form other than via a word processor and email?

As  Steven Johnson said, 'chance favours the connected mind' and if we really believe this, or of we even suspect this is true, then why is it that we have extensive discussions in schools about just how to block students from social media sites. Business and individuals are communicating via these means for real work and real learning and we want to ban them because we don't understand how to make our students aware that they are really useful tools. They are using them outside of our school networks anyway!

3. The world will only pay for what you can do with what you know.

Given that if you can harness the power of the networks to know, then what you do with this is critical. 

I loved this comment - Neck down is minimum wage! Neck up is where the money is.

And of course this is the non routine cognitive work that Florida talks about and that we hear so often is the domain of the 'creative class'. And the creative class jobs are increasing.

Now - this graph is quite scary for a country like NZ. We have a huge agricultural dependency. The jobs are rapidly going in numbers as smarter ways of farming, more technology and bigger machines replace the people aspect. So what do the rural people do? Move to the city will be one corollary to this. But also, given that the requirement is now to continually recreate our own knowledge base and skills, and given that the power of the network let's us do this anywhere, we need to be opening pathways for students to explore their creativity and to explore what it means to be in the space where knowledge value and creativity happens. In reality, they can do this,from anywhere. They don't need to be in 'school' to,do this. Sure there is a social role that schools provide, even a custodial role while parents are 'at work' ... but parents  aren't going to be at work in the future according to many of the futurists - they'll be at home ... so the kids can be too. Why will a parent in the future want to send their children to a school unless it serves some real vaue?

Creativity is facilitated by technology. There was no 'app' industry 5 years ago. Last year it generated $10 billion in revenues. There are 800,000 jobs in app development currently, growing incredibly fast.

This graph, again from Florida, shows that we are at around 25% of jobs in the creative class now. This will grow to around 50% in 2018. How many of our students are ready to move straight into this space as a result of what we are helping them with in our schools today?

Of course, the rest of the jobs are being replaced by smart software or outsourced to lower cost of manufacture and delivery countries.

As has been said many times before, we are in danger of becoming irrelevant to our students if we don't make the required changes in our classrooms to cope with this sea change going on around us. Our students will learn from where they see the value to them.

Again, I'm reminded of Mitra's work ... kids are not stupid. They have, as Robinson says, tremendous capacity for creativity. Mitra has shown that kids can and will learn on their own via the web if they have the desire. A question is then how do we harness the best of the web and develop the digital literacy skills for them in a way which is beneficial for all learners. This will require some considerable thinking and lots of action, testing and trialing and it will threaten many individuals and schools and systems of education. It worries me that in education we still spend so much time on planning and consultation and inclusiveness and equity and replanning and reinventing what already exists .... We need to apply more of Fullan's 'ready fire aim' and hurry things along. 

A final reflection. 

There is a convergence here. Whether it is Robinson, Mitra or Jukes or Florida or ... the messages are powerful and we are seeing the evidence all around in business of massive change. The explosion in mobile has driven this much faster than we thought. We've only had tablets and 'smartphones' for a few years, yet these have rapidly changed everything. They have brought the power of the network to everyone. And as Carly Fiorina said to Tom Friedman all those years ago, 'Tom, what you have witnessed so far is only the forging and sharpening of the tools. The real revolution is yet to come.' Well it's come. We're in it. This is sea change stuff and we'd better respond fast. Or the next generation will not be so keen on sharing their children with a system which is a relic.

'There is a default future rushing towards us,' says Jukes. 

Sometimes you only get one last chance to catch the wave.

Oh, and it's not optional either! 

The Future of Learning

Sugata Mitra is known for his "Hole in the Wall" research project in India in 1999. He's known for the TED Talks he has given. He's known for being the TED winner for 2013.

Today I had the privilege of listening to him for 60 minutes as the opening keynote speaker at EduTech 2014 in Brisbane. This post has a few of my observations and then links to his previous research.

Let's set the record straight from the start. This guy is so genuine. He's a modest, thoughtful, dedicated, intelligent, sensitive, reflective researcher. He speaks from his heart and his mind.

So - what did he have for us today? Sooo much ... where to begin ...

I'll begin where he did. He gave the now standard "today's schools are designed to produce conformity, obedience, instruction following" that is now the hallmark of many - Sir Ken Robinson in particular. But that's OK - because there are young teachers at this conference for whom the rationale for educations systems being constructed the way they are might be new.

But he quickly moved to the killer stuff for me. Here's my paraphrased backstory. He started some research in a non-English speaking area. The kids were Tamil. They were 12 years old. The question he left them with was something about DNA. They didn't speak English. The resources he left them with were basically Google and in English. As he states "a pretest would see then score zero, and when he returned in 3 months, a post test would show them score zero". He was stunned at the results. And so presumably is anyone who has followed the story.

So, he's gone on to show that 9 year olds left alone with an internet connection can answer GCSE questions and retain the information for 4 years!

He asks the question "Is knowing obsolete?" Not to say that "knowing how (and when) to know" is obsolete - quite different!

From his research and commentary we know that examinations see students at their lowest "ebb" for learning. We know that the "friendly adult" (aka Granny cloud) is a powerful motivator for kids. We know that his SOLE ( self organising learning environments) work. We know that these are potentially in conflict with what most think of  as 1:1 technology initiatives. We think (well, he does, and I don't know enough about them, but I know he knows more than me!!) that these SOLE environments are on the edge of chaos according to "Complexity Theory".

So what are my takeaways ...

• explore through practice these ideas 
• get some big questions applicable to our environment
• get some supporting "friendly adults" to support
• change the collaborative space
• enjoy the ride and the results

So - here are some of the backstories from Sugata. Thanks for the opportunity to share!

Chance favours the connected mind!

It's been a while since I posted ... so here goes a short one to get back into the swing of things.

Steven Johnson, author of "Where Good Ideas Come From", is someone new to me, and this short 4 minute clip to me gives great sway to why cultivating a PLN is so important in learning and teaching these days. We all want to have the great ideas, the creative ideas ... but if only we knew how ...

Listen to Steven as this animation gives you some good ideas about how to get those "good ideas". Think of the coffee house and the camp fire and the drinking hole ... and using your PLN and storing stuff away when you first hear/see it ... gives you some great ideas for developing your thoughts using tools that are there to help. Think Twitter, think blog, think EverNote, think RSS, think FlipBoard ...

This is a great starter for "getting started"!

"Chance favours the connected mind!" - awesome!

Extending Google Drive functionality - Lucid software - a great addition to Google Drive/Apps

One of the really cool things about Google Apps for Education (and other versions) is its ability to integrate with other web based applications. You can add applications to your GAFE or Drive account using the "Connect More Apps" button from the Create dialog box.

As you can see in the above image, two Lucid products are connected to my Google Drive account, Lucid Chart and Lucid Express. (More about Lucid Express shortly)

Earlier this year I stared using LucidChart with some of my senior students as they started to formalise their work around flow charting and programming. What surprised me was how quickly those that had a solid foundation of using GAFE became quite sophisticated users of Lucid Chart. (though in hindsight I probably shouldn't have been surprised)

Functionality is somewhat crippled in the free version - you are limited to 60 items, but you can always break the flowchart into several sections if you need to.

Of course, Lucid Chart does far more than just flowcharts - as the next item shows.

Summary - Lucid Chart is well worth a look. And there is an iOS app for it too!

Now - just a couple of days ago an email arrived announcing LucidPress. It looks very cool, its in Beta at the moment, but I have had a quick look and this is certainly a tool that I'll try and use for an interactive newsletter in the next week or so. Check it out here.

NZ Data at Wiki New Zealand

Came across this site the other day - Wiki New Zealand 

Didn't know it existed. Don't know how long its been around for. It's short and to the point - it houses data (and graphs) of stuff about NZ.

According to the site
"Wiki New Zealand was born on a picnic blanket, the product of a simple realisation: informed decisions are good decisions. To get the best outcomes for our communities, our country and our world, it is important to make decisions that advance ourselves. And while good is subjective, informed is not. To make informed decisions requires clear, digestible and unbiased information. This is Wiki New Zealand."

 A quick look shows all manner of interesting information ... being  a teacher I zeroed in on some that I thought might be of value to me ...

And this one too! Must drag this one out at the next review!!

I like the stated simplicity of the aims of the site - these next few lines grabbed from their site.

Building knowledge enables informed decisions, which leads to better outcomes. Data alone does not build knowledge, but it is a crucial component. Wiki New Zealand brings data together in one place and in accessible formats. Topics are presented from multiple angles, wider contexts and over time. Presenting this data in similar forms invites users to compare, contrast and interpret it easily and without bias.

Wiki New Zealand won’t tell you what to think. Its job is to present data on a wide range of subjects relevant to New Zealanders. Your job is to draw your own conclusions, develop your own opinions and make your decisions.

Wiki New Zealand is not entirely impartial. It is proud to have one agenda. Know your country.

The Individual Responsibility for Professional Development

Many teachers have some form of "personal learning network" or PLN. If you don't, then it isn't too late to start and, in fact, is pretty much essential to be a functioning participant in the environment of education we find ourselves these days. This is all because there is just so much happening that unless you are linked in somehow to "the network" the you are being left behind.

So, what does my PLN look like?

Well, I don't go far without my trusty RSS feeds from a few places that I couldn't do without.  I was gutted when Google killed off Google Reader earlier this year - but I've gotten over it slowly and I am now happy using InoReader as my aggregator and I prefer to read on my iPad using Feeddler Pro. Finding a few people to follow is not hard - the web is full of them. My feeds come from around 50 sources currently. No - I don't read them all - in fact I often have hundreds unread and so occasionally I purge the lot. But often I'll skim the headlines and go from there.

Twitter is another of those tools that I just couldn't do without. Not that I send a lot of tweets - but I send a few. But I do find the immediacy and shortness that 140 characters gives means that you get the message pretty quickly. Its also a great way to get a response to a question you have - just tweet your question and let the crowd respond. I also fond it useful to follow the hashtags for certain events - that way you get to see what others are talking about - related to the event.

The two of these tools work well with another favourite tool of mine - EverNote. EverNote is one of those tools that can be everywhere - I have it installed on my laptop, my iPad and my iPhone. It syncs with my RSS feeds via Feeddler Pro meaning I have access to all of my notes no matter what device I have. EverNote is far more than just a collection space though - you can share your notes and notebooks directly over the web and of course you can create audio and insert photos directkyminto your notes from an iPad - attach files etc, and clip pages from the web. I don't use anywhere near the number of features that it has, but being able to keep order to my RSS feeds that are worth keeping is great.

Of course, subject associations are a great place to learn. My subject has a useful website at NZACDITT, but of more value to me is the active discussion board they run via Google Groups. Most of these groups offer a range of automated updates via email - and I usually find one or two nuggets in each daily update - thanks to the contributions of others in the group!

Others that I use, but not as much as the above three, are LinkedIn, Symbaloo, Pinterest, NetVibes, Google+, Paper.li 

In the end - it doesn't much matter what you are using. What does matter is that you are using something and you are keeping up with the growing importance of digital competencies in your subject areas of choice.

Change comes from the ground up.

How to change education : from the ground up.

Readers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of Ken Robinson. But this time he goes that little bit further, IMHO, and starts to touch on those aspects that we, as teachers, can actually work on to see change - the change that we've all been on about for the past 10 years ... As usual, the Knight says is better than anyone - so listen to this carefully ... and then I share some other thoughts below.

Wow! There is so much in these 24 minutes. What follows are my observations and thoughts - but I'll couch my comments now by saying that this video, plus what I read in the Herald today have given me further insight into my own position on learning and teaching and what should be done. So this particular post will have a couple of sequels ... so apologies if it seems a little disjoint at the moment. 

So - my key take always from this

• The basics of education are "why we do this", and not any particular group of subjects
• purpose of education 1: economic - but the economic environment now is vastly different than the one in which current systems of education were set up ... And today we need adaptability and creativity (IBM research). These are 'bottom line' competencies that business want today but they claim that our largely one size fits all system discourages.
• Purpose of education 2: cultural - in an increasingly global environment, we need to understand other cultures and perspectives well. Value systems are not the same. It's interesting to note that he refers to the Middle East dramas at present. I think you only need consider the changes in the likes of Egypt, Libya and the like over recent years - changes there have not been driven by the leadership in the country - it has been by the people in the street finally saying they've had enough.
• Purpose of education 3: social - and we need to engage. Our society needs to be 'rediscovered' by every generation - and we can't do this without open debate.
• Purpose of education 4: personal - education is about the individual. We know individuals are diverse, everyone has different talents, interests etc ... But a key driver in education today is still conformity.

Robinson then makes the point about governments in general ruling from the top down - the command and control position. And I think about our current environment here in NZ (by current I mean over the past 10 - 15 years) where it seems to me that the teacher unions and many of the teaching profession are in conflict with the Ministry of Education and the Minister in particular. "You cannot run a system by alienating the people who do the work."

 

So, if getting back to basics means getting back to the student/teacher interface, and don't clutter it with other stuff unless it adds to that relationship, then we will have to 'undo' a lot of the "institutionalised" structures we have built. I have maintained for a while that there is far too much 'compliance cost' in education these days - teachers are spending too much time doing everything but teaching - there is a form (or several) for everything. Then of course there is the incredible workload that is the assessment regime.

 

There are a few other points that Robinson makes in the last 5 minutes of his talk that I think might be in complete contrast with an article I have just read from Professor Elizabeth Rata from Auckland University, so I'll stop for now and revisit this is another post. I have the feeling that, for me anyway, there are a number of issues that are becoming increasingly clear about what we can do and where we should head, and I'm looking forward to trying to put all this together over the coming weeks.