Themes+-+Ignite+Philly

[|Video of the talk]

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[|Slides of the talk]

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"Schools 2.0 is the idea that we create the schools that we need, right?"

Most schools today would look a lot like they did a 100 years ago. "That's a problem."

Here are my biases:
 * 1) School 2.0 is progressive education with 21st Century Tools
 * 2) 21st Century Citizenry, not 21st Century Workforce
 * 3) Public Education = Democracy

"Schools have been doing this the right way for a long, long time...just not many of them."

"We need to stop!
 * thinking that schools need to be just like businesses
 * thinking we can measure everything a kid does by a test
 * blaming teachers and blaming schools

Data-Driven Decisions: We hear 2 things all the time:
 * Data-driven decision making
 * Accountability

The problem is:
 * "Good data costs more than we want to spend"
 * "The work kids do every single day, it's not the answers they get on a test."
 * "And nothing will ever hold me more accountable as an educator than I hold myself responsible for the kids in my charge."

The Great Big Question: How can we have so many passionate, dedicated educators in our schools and still have so many really failing schools?"
 * If you put a good person in a bad system, the system wins too often so we need to change the system

MIT's Media Lab:
 * "the coolest place in the world"
 * "They get it right"
 * "Life Long Kindergarten" -- "That's their model, that's the way they play, that's what we've go to do."

Instead "we have schools that look like this" (image from the Slide Rule Museum)
 * "That's a problem. It used to be that everyone needed to know how to do that, but today nobody does"
 * Alvin Toffler: "THe illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

What do we need?
 * 1) Caring institutions: We need to remember that we teach kids before we teach subjects. Too many kids get turned off because they feel that the subject is more important than they are
 * 2) Student-centered learning: It's not about the teacher in the front of the room...it's about what the kids can do; about what they can make; about creating a 21C citizen
 * 3) Inquiry Driven: We need to ask questions as we gather as a community. We know how we learn best as adults; it's when we have something that we need to figure out, not when someone tells us what they want us to know.
 * 4) Passionate: It has to matter. Ex: Flow-process bio-diesel generator project that is getting a patent and sharing the plans with 2 schools (Guatemala and Ecuador) to take their villages off the grid. "What happens when school is real life, not preparation for real life?"
 * 5) Meta-cognitive: We need to think about thinking. We've got to get kids to ask questions about the way they think and learn. They do it differently. Get them to think about: "How do I learn best? How do I think best? How do I work best?

Traditional Classroom
 * pyramid hierarchy of assessment image: bottom layer: class participation; next layer: projects; next layer: homework; top layer: tests
 * Recall-based learning
 * "In the age of Google, it's just absolutely obsolete."

Understanding-Driven Classrooms/Schools:
 * Bottom: tests/quizzes ("Have a role" as a "dipstick"); next layer: class participation; next layer: homework; top layer: projects.
 * Want to see what they've learned? Give 'em a project. "Dare them to show you what they can do with the work of their own heart and hands."
 * "That's when you'll get kids engaged. That's when you'll get kids learning. And that's when you'll get kids to change the world."

Neil Postman:
 * "Certain technologies are not additive; they are transformative."
 * That's how technology in our schools should be.
 * They should not give us "schools + computers; they should give us whole new schools, things we can't even recognize.
 * Technology needs to be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.
 * We need to not think about it; it just needs to be there.

This picture should never be on the front of a classroom or library ever again: "Please shut off and put away all cell phones, iPods, and Gameboys before entering the library." (BTW, on the front of the library at the top magnet school in Philly).

Transparency: "We can invite the world to our students; our kids can change the world."
 * lists various ways the world/students engage at SLA
 * "We can dare our kids to change the world this way."

What should every school/class dare our kids to do?
 * research
 * collaborate
 * create
 * present
 * network
 * "If we're not doing those things, if we're not giving the kids these skills, we're doing them a disservice.

Last question:
 * What is the role of the teacher in the age of Google?
 * We have one last thing to teach: wisdom!