Telling the New Story in New Zealand

Patrick Duignan Keynote Yesterday

It is a privileged and an honor to be back in New Zealand, and this time communicating with school leaders.  My keynote will be about “Telling the New Story,” the notion that part of leadership is one’s ability to tell a compelling new story.  We will look at three components of that story, components that:

• Fit the marketplace,
• Resonate with deeply held values,
• Represent something that we can point at¹

There will be two themes for my afternoon breakout.  As the title implies, this one will be about literacy, what happens to our notions about literacy when the nature of information changes (networked, digital, & abundant).  But I will be adding in an additional aspect of literacy, that today, in this time of rapid change, we use literacy to learn.  It might actually be accurate to a flattening world that we call it “Learning Literacy.”

Here, I will describe how educators are developing new skills, fluency with new information tools, and a new image of the 21st century teacher to cultivate Personal Learning Networks.  PLNs are people and information resources that we can connect ourselves to that help us do our jobs.

Resources: Telling the New Story Wiki Handouts Bibliography OSOW Wiki Post-Presentation Narrative Contemporary Literacy — Learning Literacy? Wiki Handouts Bibliography Post Presentation Narrative Personal Learning Networks Wiki Handouts	What I Just Learned: Kirlian Photography WIRED Article Kirlian Photography Robert Buelteman
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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1. James, Jennifer. Thinking in the Future Tense. New York: Free Press, 1997. [↩]

Big Picture for Texas School Board Members

Sunset beyond Fort Worth

I is a pleasure and an honor to have the opportunity to speak to you.  It is also very difficult for me to say something in less than an hour, and a half-hour is all I have.  So rather than trying the squeeze up one of my standard presentations,  I’m just going to tell some stories.  The points of the stories are three bullet points, three conditions that are converging on every district, school, teacher, and learners.  They form a perfect storm for change.

The conditions are that:

1. We are prepare children who have grown up in an information experience that is dramatically different from ours and any other previous generation,
2. We are preparing them within a dramatically new information landscape, and
3. For the first time in history, we are preparing our children for a future that we can not clearly describe.

Each of these converging conditions has profound implications in terms of what and how our children learn.

I have posted some suggestions for you in my regular blog, 2 Cents Worth and have asked my readers to suggest additional recommendations.  you can read it here.

Also, you can visit the presentation here.

Telling the New Story in Fort Worth

I took a walk yesterday with my camera.

There has probably not been a time, so ripe for change and innovation in education since Sputnik.  Factoring in Russia’s launch of humankind’s first space satellite pointed pretty clearly in one direction — a dedicated emphasis on science instruction, and the way for us is not nearly so clear, educators and education as an institution is facing a singularity.

There is a story about education, schools, classrooms, teachers, and textbooks.  It is a plot that we all know well, since we all spent more than a dozen years experiencing it.  It is a story that is indelibly etched in our self-image and a defining quality of our culture.

Dr. Jennifer James, a cultural anthropologist, describes three kinds of leaders.  The first two are master leaders and creative leaders.  However, she says that it is the third type of leader who will affect needed change in education — the leader who can tell a compelling new story.¹

James says that the story must include three elements.  It must:

1. Fit it the market place,
2. Resonate with deeply held values,
3. Be something that you can point to.

This keynote address will seek to tell this story.

Resources: Telling the New Story Wiki Handouts The Latest “Did You Know?” Session Bibliography Clay Shirky’s Speech on “Gin, Television, & Social Surplus” Presentation Document (Prezi) Our Students • Our Worlds Wiki Handouts Session Bibliography Post Presentation Narrative	What I Just Learned: Title 3D Printing SOURCE2
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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1. James, Jennifer. Thinking in the Future Tense. New York: Free Press, 1997. [↩]

Rebooting Literacy in the 21st Century

I usually get a wide angle from a distance, but rain prevented this morning.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be working in Caldwell County — just up the road from where I grew up — and even closer to my father’s upbringing, in Hickory.

Today, we’ll be examining literacy, a very old and well-established staple of the education buffet. At its most basic, it is the 3 Rs, a structure that remains valid to this day.
Reading - the acquisition of information,
Arithmatic - processing information in the form of numbers, and
Writing - communicating information to others.

There is certainly a lot of mortar that fills in the spaces, but I will suggest that revisit the 3 Rs in light of how information has changed in the past 20 years. As information has become networked, how does that expand what it means to be a reader. As information becomes increasingly digital, does that expand what it means to be a processor of information. And when information becomes overwhelming, does that expand what it means to be an effective communicator.

During the morning, we will look at literacy as those skills involved in using information to accomplish your goals. During the afternoon, we will alter that definition just a bit, suggesting that during a time of rapid change, perhaps literacy is those skills involved in using your information environment to learn what you need to know, to do what you need to do.

Resources: Literacy & Learning in the 21st Century wiki Handouts Bibliography Post-presentation Narrative Concept Map Cultivating your Personal Learning Network Wiki Handouts Concept Map	What I Just Learned: Blue Mars Smithsonian taps virtual world technology to take us to Blue Mars Virtual Space Entertainment Avatar Reality
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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Sally Ride Academy

From the Lobby of the Messmer High School

There is a context for teaching and learning.  It is seated not in the political whims of elected officials.  Its roots are the goals for socializing a generation for their (and our) future, understanding the nature and experience of that generation, and tuning instructional to the information landscape through which we communicate as a culture.

Today, at the Sally Ride Academy, in Milwaukee Wisconsin, we are going to explore this context — and come to understand how this three bullet point context has shifted and expanded in the past decade and how transformative education must become in order to help today’s children, within a new and dynamic information landscape, might be prepared for a rapidly changing future.

During my first presentation will will examine these three contexts in Our Students • Our Worlds, looking at how rapidly changing times have altered our sense of the future — an unpredictable future.  Then we will get to know a generation of children whose outside-the-class “native” information experience has set them apart historically as a new species of learner.  And finally, we will look at some of the fundamental shifts that have taken place in today’s information landscape and how they are requiring us to re-examine what it means to be literate.

This will be followed by a session designed to help educators to utilize aspects of today’s information environment to shape and cultivate personal learning networks, webs of maintainable information connects personally created to help us remain viable educators and lifelong learners.

Resources: Our Students • Our Worlds Wiki Handouts Bibliography Prezi Environment Post Session Narrative Knitter Chat Transcript Personal Learning Networks Wiki Handouts Concept Map Prezi Environment Knitter Chat Transcript	What I Just Learned: Map the World Map the World with OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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Telling the New Story in San Antonio

Much has changed in the last year.  A federal government that influenced education in the U.S. so significantly over the past eight years has changed hands, producing as much uncertainty as relief.  A new budget crunch grips our entire culture.

At the same time, there is a new excitement about education, a new realization that the image of classroom instruction that prepared our generation for the closing years of the industrial age, does not suit a generation of millennials, a dramatically new information landscape, and an unpredictable future.

The cultural anthropologist, Dr. Jennifer James, says that there are three types of leaders. They are:

• The master leader
• The creative Leader
• The leader who can tell a compelling new story

It is the third type that will provoke a change in the institution of education.

Resources: Telling the New Story Wiki Handouts Bibliography Did You Know — Karl Fisch OSOW Presentation Narrative View Presentation [Prezi]	What I Just Learned: Green Jobs Growth Outpaces other Job Classifications WIRED Magazine Article PEW Trust Study
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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Long Tail Libraries in Indiana

The Site of our Work Day

This is my first face-to-face gig in over a week, and I’m very happy that it is with library media specialists.  This title of this all-day workshop indicates a change in libraries — their function and their scope.  Anyone who is paying attention to the rapidly clanging information landscape and who thinks at all about libraries, has to come the that conclusion.  The days of Miss Shush checking out books are gone.

Word Cloud of the text of the AASL’s Standards for the 21st Century Learner Click Image to Enlarge

This is also demanded by the new standards document recently published by the American Association of School Librarians.  What seems gone from the verbiage of school library speak are library skills and even information skills.  The focus now is learning or learning skills.  My favorite phrase is learning literacy.

To become independent learners, students must gain not only the skills but also the disposition to use those skills, along with an understanding of their own responsibilities and self-assessment strategies.¹

Another theme defined in the title of this blog entry is long tail.  If you do not know what the long tail is, read this article from WIRED Magazine.  If you want to learn more, follow Chris Anderson’s blog, The Long Tail and read his book by the same name.

Traditionally, libraries (and schools) have dwelt in the head of the information distribution span.  They have offered the content that would be most useful and appealing to the largest denominator of patron.  This also better served the purpose of education environments that were about teaching — assuring the acquisition of a common scope of knowledge and skills.

However, in an education environment that is increasingly focused on learning, learning skills, and lifelong learning (learn lifestyle), the libraries become not just the property of the patrons, but also an adaptive and personal tool for inquiry and application.

So one of the questions that we shall explore in this workshop is do we need long tail libraries and how do we achieve them?

Resources: Our Students Our Worlds Wiki Handouts Session Bibliography Post Presentation Narrative Long Tail Libraries Wiki Handouts Knitter Chat Transcript	What I Just Learned: Wordnik Enamored With Words? — ReadWriteWeb Article Wordnik Shows What the Web Knows about a Word — LifeHack
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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Fast Cities 2009 | Fast Company

In a year like this, we need a city upon a hill. Seattle, Fast Company’s City of the Year, not only sprawls across seven hills but also boasts the ingredients that we believe will bring our communities — and country — back to prosperity: smarts, foresight, social consciousness, creative ferment. This year, singular bright ideas have earned 12 other cities — Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Malmö, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Taipei, Tucson, and Vancouver — places on our honor roll. Their exemplary initiatives are improving neighborhoods, transforming lives, and helping build better, faster cities for the future.

1. [↩]

Reading & Teaching — a New Literacy

Photo removed.  It hadn’t occurred to me that taking a picture of that young woman and posting it here may not be culturally appropriate.

I wish that I could remember her name, but this young woman, of First Nation heritage did a wondrous job of singing Amazing Grace.

It is a privilege and pleasure to be back in Alberta, sharing and learning.  I am especially honored by the company I’m keeping here, teachers from through the Calgary area, and a stellar roundup of invited speakers.  Ian Jukes was right in exclaiming how important these professional development experiences are and how lucky you are to have this opportunity.  I would also like to say that, contrary to his statement, he was not lecturing.  He teaches with passion energy, visual elegance, and a refined sense of humor.  I only wish he talked just a bit slower.

You have learned already about the changes that are occurring, what Larry Lezotte called a perfect storm for education.  He described change from a school structure point of view.  Ian Jukes enlightened us about the profound and very exciting differences between our children and the children that we were.  I want to suggest another profound change — that, over the past couple of decades, the very nature of information has changed.  With advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet, the information that we use to accomplish our goals is increasingly networked, digital, and abundant.

Each of these new qualities has an affect on how we do our jobs as teachers and learners.  But more to the point, it affects what it means to be literate.  My presentation will helpfully help you to understand that it is not technology we should be integrating into our instruction.  It is literacy.  But we need to redefine literacy so that it reflects today’s information environment — and then integrate that.

Resources: Redefining Literacy Wiki Handouts Session Bibliography Post-Presentation Narrative	What I Just Learned: Next Age Discovery Wall Street Journal Article
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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Redefining the Basics in Waterloo Ontario

Lights, Camera, Action

“How can schools continue to be connected and relevant in the world of the 21st century?”

This is the driving question behind the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association report, calling for a provincial conversation about 21st century education.

I have to confess that before recently I knew nothing about Waterloo.  However, I just finished reading, Canadian Sci-Fi writer, Robert Sawyer’s latest book, Wait, which takes place almost exclusive in your fair city.  I feel something of a citizen now.

Yours is obviously a connected city, where technology is part of your character — at least this is the way it is portrayed on Sawyer’s book.  However, educators must go beyond the technology and drill down to what these new tools and the rapidly changing times that they have facilitated, all mean in terms of what and how our children learn.

As information and communication technologies have changed, so too has the nature of information.  Today, information is increasingly:

• Networked,
• Digital, and
• Abundant

Each of these new and prevailing qualities of information affect what it means to be literate.  Today, we will explore what has happened to the 3Rs to address the needs of citizens of the digital age.

Resources: Literacy & Learning in the 21st Century Wiki Handouts Session Bibliography Post-Presentation Narrative Backchannel Chat	What I Just Learned: The World is a Canvas LiveLeak Video Fast Company Article Obscura Digital
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.

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Pennsylvania One-to-One Conference

So it’s a One to One Conference.  What would you expect.

It is an honor to be a part of the 4th annual One-to-One Conference in Pennsylvania.  This is one of the few pioneer states that is moving forward into and education environment that that is digital, networked, and abundant.  It demands a different kinds of technology.  It demands a different style of teaching.  It is what our students need to be ready for their future — and it is what they deserve.

Tonight’s address is a first time ever, an attempt to identify in our students outside the classroom information experiences that qualities of those activities that make them singular, that make them compelling, and that make them ideal learning experiences.  Because it is not the technology that appeals to them.  It isn’t technology to them.  It is something else.

It is this “something else” that we must focus on, if we will truly tap into the unique and powerful learning skills they are entering our classrooms with.

Resources: Welcome to “Their” World Wiki Handouts Bibliography Knitter Chat Transcript	What I Just Learned: Yes, this is exactly what it looks like Web Site
Online Handouts by David Warlick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://davidwarlick.com/.