CoLearners

International Convention Center

Resources: Our Students • Our Worlds Wiki Handouts Bibliography Presentation Visuals (InfoGraphic) Post-Presentation Narrative Personal Learning Networks Wiki Handouts Presentation Visuals Planning Diagram A Gardener’s Approach to Learning, blog entry Constructivism, by George Siemens

What I Just Learned: Ice On the Moon cNET Article NASA Report

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/.

It is an honor to be speaking at this international conference in Singapore. This is especially true considering that Singapore is often the scale next to which we (in the U.S.) measure the effectiveness of our own education system — and we do not measure up.

Of course conditions are changing, and the measure — how we go about measuring — is changing. I will suggest in my keynote address, three converging conditions that are forcing us to rethink education and to rethink what it means to be educated in a time of rapid change.

This perfect storm of change is simple, numbers only three, and it is intended to make a clear and compelling story that we can tell to describe the need for retooling the education institution. The conditions are:

• We are preparing a new generation of learners,
• Within a new information environment,
• For a future that we can not clearly describe.

I will also be conducting a breakout sessions about a concept that is frequently referred to as Personal Learning Networks — what I often describe as a gardeners approach to learning. This presentation will describe and demonstrate a variety of techniques that teachers around the world are using to cultivate their own networks for learning.

• Connecting techniques
• Techniques for mining the network
• Techniques for mapping the learning network

I hope that this is a valuable event for you.

School Mascot

Resources: Literacy & Learning Wiki Handouts Presentation Narrative Bibliography Presentation Visuals Planning Concept Map Gardener’s Approach to Learning Wiki Handouts Presentation Visuals A Gardener’s Approach to Learning, blog post Connectivism, from George Siemens Backchannel Literacy Session Transcript PLN Session Transcript

What I Just Learned: Hyper Connected Teens Online Media Gazette Article Nielsen Report Image by Scion Cho from Flickr

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/.

It is an honor to be invited to speak to education administrators from across northwest Texas, and it is a pleasure to be working at the Lubbock Christian University — about which I have heard a great deal. It has been a number of days since I’ve been back home, but this will be the first where I am not scraping ice from my windshield — and that includes Monday in Florida.

This is a technology conference, but one of the most important messages I will be delivering will be that,

“We should stop integrating technology.”

I think that it is one of the mistakes that we are making and actually one of the barriers we are facing in effectively, efficiently, and relevantly modernizing our classrooms.

We have witnessed astounding advances in information and communication technologies (ICT), but the impact has come from how these technologies have changed the very nature of information. It has changed in

• What it looks like,
• What we look at to view it,
• Where we find it,
• How we find it,
• What we can do with it, and
• How we communicate it.

The true effect on instruction today is not in the tools we use, but in our definition of literacy, what the 3Rs evolve into when information is increasingly networked, digital, and abundant. The information and communication technologies that we are using are critical, but only in so much as how useless my schooling would have been without pencil and paper.

We will also take the conversation to the teacher — what does practicing contemporary literacy look like as a professional practice. I will start my keynote by making the point that teachers should be and should be seen as being master learners — and being a master learner today means being a master of today’s networked, digital, and abundant information landscape, a network learner.

My breakout session will be about personal learning networks, networks of people and content sources that we cultivate and that help us do our jobs. Here, I will overview a range of tools and protocols that teachers are using to cultivate their own personal learning networks or learning gardens, to engage in in-time, on-going, and casual professional development, including blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, RSS, and a range of skills and tools for minding and mapping today’s prevailing information landscape — the great conversation.

Convention Site

Resources: Our Students • Our Worlds Wiki Handouts Bibliography Presentation Visuals Narrative Planning Concept Map

What I Just Learned: G-Speak Minority Report Today Oblong Web Site Vimeo of G-Speak G-Speak Brings “Minority Report” Operating System to Science 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/.

It is a pleasure to be here with you in Saskatoon, Saskatewan, especially after spending the first part of the week on the east coast of Florida. Kidding aside, it wasn’t that terribly much warmer there, waking up to 0°, comparied to only -8°, at this writing.  Saskatoon is far more exotic, and I hope to enjoy some Saskatoon Jam.

This Teachers’ Convention is unique for me, because your focus is so far reaching.  I usually speak at technology and media conferences, but my message, I hope, will resonate along with the chord of other, very fine speakers.  I hope to describe a convergence (a popular techie term) of conditions, what I believe to be a perfect storm that is raging with every school, district, administrator, and classroom teacher.   Each of these converging conditions are forcing us to rethink education and what it means to be educated in a time of rapid change — what it means to be a teacher and what it means to be a learner, and how the line between the two is blurring.

Those conditions are:

• We are preparing a new generation (species) of learner,
• Within a new and dynamic information environment,
• For a future we can not clearly describe.

Each of these situations has profound implications in terms of what and how our children learn, and I hope to make that case, and perhaps even how we might even harness this perfect storm to affect more relevant learning experiences for our students.

Topics will include:

BETC 2010

Resources: Harnessing the Perfect Storm Wiki Handouts Bibliography Post Presentation Narrative Presentation Visuals Cultivating Your Personal Learning Network Online Handouts Presentation Visuals Planning Concept Map Connectivism, by George Siemens A Gardener’s Approach to Learning, a blog entry Virtual Worlds: An Educator’s Primer Online Handouts Concept Map Presentation Visuals

What I Just Learned: A New Web Browsing Microsoft Pivot A good video TechCrunch 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/.

It is an honor to be invited to speak at your Florida conference, especially, I am thankful to escape the winter weather of North Carolina.  My escape is temporary, though, with a gig the end of the week in Saskatoon, Saskatewan, where it is, at the moment of this writing, -13 degrees (Fahrenheit).

Speaking of weather, I will be speaking about a storm, a perfect storm of  converging conditions that are baring down on every school, school, district, administrator, teacher, and learner.  These conditions are new, unavoidable, and the each have profound implications to what and how our children learn.  They have changed the world and curriculum and they have made thing much more interesting.

After my keynote, I will deliver two breakout sessions.  The first will be A Gardener’s Approach to Learning, aimed at professional educators as learners — master learners.  We will explore a new genre of web-based tools that empower educators, and others, to cultivate personal learning networks of ongoing and evolving connections to sources of content and ideas that help us do our jobs.  Expect to get your socks knocked off.

After that, I will deliver an educator’s primer on virtual worlds, exploring the history of the immersive MUSE (multi-user simulated environment) and their implications to learners and to teachers.  This well-established technology will seem fanciful, but it will almost certainly be a part of education in the not-to-distant future.  Come prepared to be amazed.

Ready to Learn

Resources: Literacy & Learning Wiki Handouts Bibliography Planning Concept Map Presentation Visuals A Gardener’s Approach ot Learning Wiki Handouts Presentation Visuals Planning Concept Map Gardener’s Approach to Learning, blog entry Connectivism, by George Siemens Backchannel Transcript

What I Just Learned: The State of the Internet Mashable Blog Post IMAGE-HERE

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/.

It is a pleasure to be in Worcester, Massachusetts, the home of Abbie Hoffman.  I actually “paid for” his book in 1971 (probably more than you needed to know about me).  I am especially honored to be working with Charter Schools educators in Mass, through the Massachusetts Center for Charter Public School Excellence (MCCPSE).

Today, we are going to explore issues of learning today.  Why has learning changed, you might ask.  There are three reasons:

1. We are preparing a new generation of learners, coming from a dramatically new cultural (info-based) experieience,
2. Within a dramatically new information environment,
3. For a future we can no describe.

Each of these converging conditions has profound implications in terms of what and how our students learn.  But, today, we will be looking most directly at how information has changed and what it means, for instance, to being literate.

Information today is increasingly networked, digital, and abundant, and each of these new qualities affects what it means to be literate.  We must ask the questions:

• What does it mean to be a reader when more of information we read comes directly from the author?
• What does it mean to be a processor of information when more of the information we use is digital (ones and zeros)?
• What does it mean to be a communicator, when there is so much information out there?

After the keynote, I will spend some time talking about and demonstrating techniques for using today’s information landscape for learning.  Most specificially, we will look at professional learning, how teachers can engage in on-going, casual, and self-directed professional development.  But will will also look at how these same techniques can be used to produce learning experiences for our students that are more relevant to a contemporary information environment and to their ‘native’ information experience.

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Ohio eTech 2010

Resources: Cracking the ‘Native’ Information Experience Wiki Handouts Session Bibliography Planning Concept Map Presentation Visuals A Gardener’s Approach to Learning Wiki Handouts Planning Concept Map Presentation Visuals A Gardener’s Approach to Learning, blog post

What I Just Learned: Haiti Relief with Solar Energy Haiti Relief Efforts Double with Installed Solar Lights

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/.

It’s not normal that I am writing my online handouts at and during the conference where I am presenting.  The open keynote will begin in the next few minutes, but I just learned that eTech Ohio is the third largest state ed tech conference in the country, third to Texas and Florida.  I’m not surprised.  eTech has long been one of those focal point events.

Will Kuln helps his learners become musicians — and it was quite impressive…

I was especially intrigued by the opening entertainment, a high school tech music class.  I do not understand a lot of what they were doing, and I usually think of this type of music being something that you do in a studio (or you bedroom).  But they were performing the music and they had an wonderful presence.

I will only be here for a few hours, wishing now that I could stay for the whole event.  Closing will be David Weinberger, and he always makes me think.  But there are many great presentations happening.  I will be speaking, first, to educators who are being awarded ARRA funding for innovation.  I spoke to this group at their initiation several months ago, and now following up with a framework for innovation in the classroom.  My approach is not to ignore the education theories of the giants.  I simply believe that in this new information environment, we should perhaps be paying attention to how many of our students are using the environment, the pedagogies of their interactions and their learning.  The session is called, “Cracking the ‘Native’ Information Experience.”

My featured address will be a departure from my usual big-picture presentations on literacy and education reform.  What the conference wanted was something more practical, especially with innovation in mind.  The best I can contribute here is the idea that for innovation to be ongoing, not something you do now and then settle into status quo, then teachers must come to define themselves as master learners.  So that’s what I’ll be talking about, is techniques that teachers can use to engage in ongoing, casual, self-directed professional development — “A Gardener’s Approach to Learning.”

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