Category Archives: 21st century learning

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

Leadership Perspective: Reading and Reflections

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From my July 14th blog post … I am reading What I Learned From Frogs in Texas by Jim Carroll which I picked up at the Leading Learning conference in May 2009. The first section of the book captured my interest with a couple of insightful thoughts. First, the notion of ‘aggressive indecision’ and secondly ‘lost momentum’…

I have finished reading the book and thought I would share a few comments. The core message in the book challenges us to look at the preparing for change and the future with the right approaches. While many of the examples are business oriented, it is not much of a stretch to see how these ideas can be mapped to many of our educational systems.

Every organization, business or educational, needs a strong long term plan to maintain strength, vibrance and critical function in today’s rapidly changing world. The long term plan must be clearly stated, sustainable, achievable and good for the long haul. There is nothing strategic about a plan that keeps changing every few weeks or months.

Highlights and Challenges

Culture – what is the culture of your organization? Do you have a culture that embraces change and explores new opportunities? Or perhaps you are stuck with indecision – no momentum, or perhaps the avoidance of decision making all together. Is risk taking minimized to the point of ineffectiveness?

Innovation – is critical to the future success of any organization. My translation to an educational setting: invest in strategies that keep enrollment up, produce meaningful results in student learning, prepare students (and staff) for the future and find efficiencies.

Gen Y workers/students – this group of people is used to change, and used to multitasking. After all, as Jim points out, they have lived through through 5 generations of gaming technology already. How do provide for them in a business environment? How do we keep them engaged and focused on their work? AND, before we get there, how do we keep them fully engaged in a learning setting? Big questions!, and important ones looking ahead to future success. Based on trends, the Gen Y group is poised to be a more mobile and transient work force where the focus will be more strategic than tactical.

Leadership – Organizations must sift through the management and/or/vs. leadership question. Bottom line – forward thinking leadership is critical for success. No organization can stay the same in today’s world and remain equally effective.

Lastly, tying back to organizational culture, it is important to make decisions. This is the way in which leadership teams send the signal about moving ahead, and is part of fostering a culture of innovation.

I found the book to be well worth the read. Jim made a lot of solid points which were illustrated with excellent examples. It certainly stimulated me to keep thinking about how to keep improving my skills as a leader and having a positive positive and future focused impact on my organization.

Enjoy the reading and thinking!

~ Mark

21st century learning, Technology in Education

Facebook and Canadian Privacy Laws

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One of the eye catching news items this week from my point of view was the release of the report on Facebook and Canadian Privacy Laws. As I cruised through a variety of related news releases and postings, I thought I would share some of the links that I thought were worthwhile in today’s blog post.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada view website

Overview: Facebook needs to improve privacy practices see overview

          Related links on the site:
          – findings
          – backgrounder
          – Remarks by Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada
          – Remarks by Elizabeth Denham, Assistant Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Facebook’s offical response to the report: response

From CBC: There are some great links on the CBC site to related news stories, perspectives and videos.  view reports

From The Globe and Mail: (Video reports)

Privacy commissioner raises Facebook concerns: CP video report

BNN speaks with Elizabeth Denham, Assistant Privacy Commissioner: BNN report

How to deactivate your facebook account: click for instructions

~ Mark

21st century learning, Technology in Education

Social Networking in K-12

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I was cruising through my Twitter listings last night and found a reference to a Social Networking article by Marcia Connor at THE Journal (http://www.thejournal.com). Of course, curiosity won, and I had a look at the article. The ‘snip it’ below (as received when you select email me a copy) will give you the flavour of the article.

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Beyond Social Networking: Building Toward Learning Communities

Much has been written recently about the impact of social networking tools in teaching and learning and how educators can build on the skills of their students in using these tools. But if educators only integrate the ability of students to connect and socialize, deeper points of learning will be missed. While good teaching and learning rests on effective relationships, in an active learning community, those relationships should evolve into actual idea exchange and knowledge construction.

Among those listed by Connor (quoting from MIT and other sources) are skills in:
• Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes;
• Collective intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal; and
• Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives and grasping and following alternative norms.
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Once at the site, I was interested in the BiWeekly Poll in the sidebar which poses the question: Does your district ban social networking sites?

The currently listed stats show:

No ban – 17%
Yes, banned district-wide for students and teachers – 69%
Yes, banned only for students – 13%
Yes, banned only for certain students – 0%

There is an interesting message in these statistics, and it has got me thinking about the discussions around this very issue we had at our Technology Steering Committee meetings this year. Certainly, there are many aspects to this discussion of access. Some of our discussions included:

– digital citizenship
– embracing it as a way of ‘doing business’
– alignment of content filtering with resource selection policies
– grade appropriate content filtering
– alignment with Acceptable Use Policies
– what needs to be changed?
– what is the process for change in this area?
– how do we achieve a significant change in our systemic approach?
– risks and challenges
– educating not only the students, but teachers, administrators and parents too

I think many of us have a clear notion of where we need to get to, but the path is not necessarily an easy one at the system level, at least in the education field. I believe this is an area the needs to be changed more aggressively and that the positive educational results are with the risks.

At the moment I am thinking big on the change front and pondering strategies.

If interested, the complete article I referenced, is available online at:
The Journal

Happy pondering!

~ Mark

21st century learning, General, Technology in Education

Always something new

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There is always something new to learn in the online technology world. Web 2.0 tools have certainly raised communication, collaboration and PLP’s to a new and exciting level.  This post shares two learnings from today.

Today I became aware of the Digital Buzz website and blog. The site looks very interesting based on my initial impressions. The URL is http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com. In particular you may find this Top 10 Social Media Presentations of interest. For your convenience the link is http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/the-top-10-social-media-presentations-online/. A special thanks to Angela Maiers for sharing this link on Twitter.

This afternoon I started to read What I Learned From Frogs in Texas by Jim Carroll. I picked up a copy of the book at the Leading Learning conference in May 2009. I am just into the book and must admit I am intrigued already. In the first section of the book captured my interest with a couple of insightful thoughts. First, the notion of ‘aggressive indecision’ and secondly ‘lost momentum’. It is not much of a stretch to see how these ideas can be mapped to many of our educational systems. Now, to dig into the book. 

One area the immediately captured my interest is to see how the content of the book may line up with some future blog posts I have planned regarding systemic change as referenced in my earlier (and first) post titled Education Is The Place To Be. 

~ Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

Upcoming changes to Facebook privacy rules

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I was cruising through email notifications this afternoon and noted a new posting re upcoming changes to privacy settings in the Facebook environment. For interested readers, the article may be found at:

http://www.cio.com/article/496742/Facebook_s_Upcoming_Privacy_Changes_What_You_Need_to_Know?source=CIONLE_nlt_leader_2009-07-09

I hope this helps keep you up to date with your online safety and security knowledge – all part of Digital Citizenship development!

~ Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

Facebook vs. Face-to-Face

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Can Facebook replace face-to-face?  This interesting question was recently posed in the ISTE forum hosted at

 http://www.iste-community.org/group/landl/forum/topics/pointcounterpoint-can-facebook

ISTE will be selecting two responses from submissions to publish in the Sept/Oct. Leading & Learning with Technology journal. The response I decided to submit to ISTE is included below.

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Can Facebook replace face-to-face?  

Given the revolutionary change in the internet since its inception and the current capabilities of web 2.0 tools, this is certainly an interesting question to pose. As an avid technology user and life long learner this question has prompted a lot of pondering on my part.

In my view, life is fundamentally about people and relationships. Relationships provide the foundational connection between people as they foster many emotions: love, trust, comfort, sense of well being, caring and personal value. Relationships contain a core ingredient of real time interaction as one of many important components. I do not believe the essence of human interaction can exist in complete isolation. Social networking applications such as Facebook function in an asynchronous communication patterns. I do not believe fully functional relationships can exist with this interactive pattern only.

Based on this thinking, I would have to cast my vote as ‘no’. Facebook can not fully replace face-to-face interactions.

However, I do see an exciting future where people will have more and more opportunities to live in a blended world that maximizes one’s experiences that embrace face to face interactions and relationships, effectively use Facebook, other social networking tools, and other web 2.0 tools, as a way to connect with people, learn and work in a rich and collaborative manner.

As we continue to develop and refine our notions of the meaning of digital citizenship and learn how to embed these fundamental values in each of us, I believe we will have impacted human communication in a truly positive and global way.

~ Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective

Education Is The Place To Be

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Working in education is a great place to be. In many respects, we have more opportunities than ever before.  Consider all that is before us: curriculum requirements, improved achievement scores, literacy, digital citizenship, the role of technology,  integration of technology, web 2.0 tools for learning, the changing role of the library, content filtering, the many forms of elearning, use of smart phones, content delivery,  social networking, equity and inclusion, funding, sustainability, infrastructure, sufficient staffing levels, user generated content, engaged learners, teacher training and best classroom practice. This is by no means a complete list, but gives a good idea of the complexity of challenges that all educational institutions are grappling with. 

One of the key points to ponder in my mind, is the notion of systemic change. Every educational organization has a complicated landscape of successes, excellence, innovation, broken fronts and perhaps some failures. How do we capture all of the right aspects of the many educational ingredients I listed above and mould them into a plan for systemic change to benefit all students? 

In my role as a K-12 CIO, I am actively engaged in analyzing and developing strategies to align our IT planning with the learning agenda in a sustainable and progressive manner that will give us the best of 21st century learning and support systemic change for improved learning. While this topic will be the main theme of my blog, I will write about educational technology in broader terms as well as other personal interests.

~ Mark