Web 2.0 SRR

I just spent an engaging 50 minutes viewing one of the keynotes from the conference. “Time to Grow” was created by two educators, Vicki Davis in Georgia and Julie Lindsay in Qutar, near Saudi Arabia. While much of the session was an affirmation of topics I have been learning about during this course, Vicki’s enthusiasm (I dubbed her the techno cheerleader) combined with Julie’s matter of fact manner about the amazing collaborations she helped create with learners throughout the world (she is the flat classroom queen!)  made for great viewing and listening. I really wanted to meet these people.

There were a number of significant points in their presentation:

1. It is critical to embed professional development int our schedules to learn and explore. They call this intentional R&D. Just as we measure children’s growth, we need to measure our PD growth and do whatever we can to nurture this growth. Try for 15 minutes twice a week.

2. We must guide children to be good Digital Citizens. Equip them with norms of behavior that will enable them to communicate, connect and collaborate with people throughout the world, from very different cultures and world views.  In my own words, if the cannot be open, and act respectfully and responsibly with the technology, they might as well go back to the blackboard.

3. As a corollary to #2, don’t punish the tool, work on the behavior.  Just as people have always tried to ban books that did not conform to their morality or values, we may make the mistake of banning tools because they are not used in a safe way. Research the technology, monitor and be engaged, and avoid the fear factor. The benefit of what students can do far outweighs the risks of what they may do. I do not know enough about what our school does to foster Digital Citizenship to comment. But i do know that I don’t yet have the knowledge or comfort level to contribute much to the process. This presentation made me ralize that is something I need to address.

4. Aim for the flat classroom. Remove separations of space and time.  Eliminate the hierarchy of teacher/student. The teacher and student both become teachers and learners, to each other and to people and classrooms throughout the world.

5. If you’re really cool like Vicki and Julie, you may get to meet Thomas Friedman, the original “world is flat” guy, and one of my heros!

Is there value in this kind of anytime delivery system? Most definitely! To be able to see a presentation like this in the pj’s – or revisit it another day – embeds PD to fit with real life. There were many topics that sounded interesting, but the reality is I don’t have several days or hours at a time to do this.

Kudos to Julie and Vicki for giving me food for thought about my own PD growth, and the flat classroom imperative.