Blogg-Ed Indetermination

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

-Malvina Reynolds

This cheesy little tune from 1962 (don’t sing it, it will get stuck in your head!) is nonetheless a spot-on description of much of American suburbia and schools. Does anyone doubt that you could be blindfolded, whisked away to some undisclosed location, and upon being unmasked immediately determine if you were in a school building? It would matter little if the building was in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world, in 2009 or 1909. School architecture is universal and universally bad, and therein lies a problem.

As I have discussed in previous posts, our current school system is based on large part on a post-agrarian, industrial model in which efficiency was prized and individualism was perceived as an impediment to the smooth operation of the school. Thus it was natural to put students in neat rows, with the teacher front and center, dispensing wisdom, discipline, and moral judgment. It was natural as well to bolt the chairs to the floor (why would they need to be moved?), make classrooms dark and work-like to discourage frivolity, design libraries as inner sanctums of reverence and quietude, cafeterias as assembly lines of nutrition, and gymnasiums as places of drilled calisthenics and competition.

Since that time there have been cosmetic changes–a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic–but the mother ship itself is still steaming its way towards disaster.

Where to look for inspiration?

Why not look to places where children and teens naturally like to hang out? Say shopping malls, or movie theaters, or living rooms, or parks? Spend sometime like an ethnographer and really watch how kids interact with one another, how they sit, congregate, form and dissolve ad hoc groups and you will begin to see how spaces can be made more adaptable, organic, open, inviting, and alive. Watch how they interact with furniture, what goes where and what they are doing with it. If your school is in the process of building or remodeling and you don’t have student voices in the design you might as well take the picture above and use it as your blueprint.

Fitting 21st century learning and teaching into 19th century architecture based on assumptions about children and teaching makes about as much sense as using a horse and buggy to fly to the moon. Oh wait, we last went to the moon in the 20th century. Well, you get my drift…

Ask the average elementary school teacher what she teaches and she will tell you the grade level or ages of her students.

Ask the average middle school or upper school teacher what she teachers and she will likely respond with the name of her course or her department.

In the best of circumstances, an elementary teacher connects knowledge across the range of subjects taught in her classroom. Vocabulary and spelling words relate to what’s happening in science and social studies, which in turn relate to what’s happening in reading, which relates to the problems students are solving in math, and so on. “Departments” don’t exist. The boundaries between subject areas are fluid and permeable. Knowledge exists and is created without regard to departmental “ownership.”

In secondary schools, the academic model is one of specialization, fragmentation, and territoriality. The boundaries between knowledge are fixed, with little attempt to coordinate learning within or between disciplines. Knowledge is owned by individuals and departments, and don’t you dare teach something in your class that belongs in mine.

I will acknowledge that the above is a generalization. But it is also more true than false. And I think it says a lot about schools, school organization, and the challenges in creating 21st century learning environments.

A few common threads run through all of the thinking regarding 21st century teaching and learning: the need for creating knowledge through connecting information in new ways, seeing the “big picture,” and collaborating across disciplines.

Where, I ask you, do these things happen in the typical secondary school? Where are students asked to think outside the boxes and silos represented by academic departments? At best there’s articulation within an department regarding a scope and sequence relevant to a given subject area. At worst, we all do our own thing and let the chips fall where they may. Ironic, isn’t it, that so many teachers crave colleagues, friendship, and connection yet rarely take time to visit one another’s classrooms.

Interdisciplinary courses hold hope for addressing some of the needs of 21st century learners, but only if the teachers themselves are willing to exhibit the same type of creative, connection-making, big picture thinking we expect of students. In other words, offering an interdisciplinary course wherein faculty take turns teaching their discipline-oriented “take” on a problem or theme without regard to the whole will not work.

In Daniel Pink’s wonderful book, A Whole New Mind (Amazon citation), he talks about six senses necessary for students to succeed in the future: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. Of these six, it’s symphony that is threatened by the structure of academic departments. Pink describes symphony as big picture thinking, synthesizing and integrating disparate bits of information and creating something new.

As Albert Einstein famously said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Why, then, do we think we can lead students to 21st century thinking skills using the same academic structures of the past two hundred years?

We all know how difficult it is to change schools. If I was certain that teachers and administrators would or could rethink how departments could facilitate rather than inhibit the changes necessary for 21st century teaching and learning to flourish, I would continue to support them. But we don’t have time for evolutionary change to take place. The time is right for us abolish academic departments and think more broadly about learning, teaching, and the challenges that face our children and their future.

In a previous post, I wrote about the agrarian school year, and how it serves as an artificial constraint to school innovation in general, and time for professional development, curriculum writing, and project-based learning in particular. But the school year is just one of several constraints that should be examined – and I suspect eliminated entirely – if schools are going to truly become 21st century learning and teaching institutions. Here are eight other constraints that need to be examined.

1. Academic departments.
2. Grading and assessment systems.
3. Grade levels.
4. AP courses.
5. Teacher-proof curricula.
6. One-size-fits-all school models.
7. Teacher education programs, teacher licensure departments, and teacher unions.
8. Current school architectural models.
9. Textbooks and textbook publishers.

Over the next few weeks I will write more about each of these items and my take on how each of them constrains the true innovation required to become a 21st century school. I hope that you will engage in the discussion.

Much has been written about 21st century teaching, learning, and schools. But I’ve had little success in finding information about 21st century school technology departments.

What does a 21st century school look like, and how will its adults be organized? How can we leverage 21st century technology and practices to lower operational costs while still fulfilling our academic mission? Will there still job titles like Technology Directors, Academic Technology Coordinators, Help Desk Personnel, Database Managers and Network Managers?

In mindful meditation practice there’s a concept called “don’t know mind.” It’s illustrated with this story:

The Chinese tell the story of an old man who owned a wonderful stallion. One day the horse ran away. The old man’s friends, trying to console him, said, “We’re so sorry about your horse, old man. What a misfortune you’ve had.” But the old man said, “Bad news, good news-who knows?”

A few days later the horse returned home leading a a beautiful mare. Again the friends came running. Filled with jubilation, they cried, “How wonderful!” But the old man whispered, “Good news, bad news-who knows?”

Then the next day, when the farmer and his son were out riding and the young man was thrown to the ground and broke both legs. The friends were aghast with his misfortune. The old man stood still and said, “Bad news, good news-who knows?”

And a short time later when the village went to war and all the young men were drafted to fight, the farmer’s son was excused because of two broken legs. Good news. Bad news. Who knows?

So with the above in mind, let me state that I don’t know what the future will bring for educational technologists like myself, my colleagues, and friends of BAISnet, Classroom 2.0, Ning, and my other online communities. Good news, bad news-who knows? Nonetheless I find it interesting to think about, and invite your comments as well.

The Needed Characteristics of a 21st Century Technology Department

For technologists to be successful in 21st century schools, they must:

• Be comfortable and facile with the use of open source and commercial software, multiple operating systems, and a wide range of technology devices and brands
• Possess a high tolerance for ambiguity and failure
• Be able to balance the needs of the organization for secure, reliable technology access with user-centric, empowering practices in which students, faculty, and staff regularly install new programs or use new web services without the need to seek permission from the organization
• Be able to integrate disparate hardware and software components through the use of standards-based interfaces
• Be a regular participant in and a contributor to pertinent online communities
• Possess “digital wisdom” (Prensky, 2009)
• Be comfortable with participating in and in leading ad hoc collaborative teams
• Be comfortable with distance learning and technical support
• Be able to critically evaluate and integrate new products and practices
• Be technology generalists with complementary skills sets who know when and how to work with experts as needed
• Be curious, flexible, empowering, transparent, approachable, non-hierarchical and non-territorial
• Pursue sustainable practices to maximize product life, minimize waste and power consumption, reclaim and re-use resources, and promote such practices within the school
• Have interest in a supporting education without the normal constraints of geography, time, and roles

How might these characteristics play out in terms of the various functions technology departments currently perform in most schools?

Implications
However 21st Century learning manifests itself in schools, there will continue to be a need for robust, reliable infrastructure, end user support, sustainable practices, and professional development. The question is: will these needs require us to have the same type of staffing and roles as are currently present in most organizations?

For the short term, I think the answer is yes. But over time, entirely new models of staff will emerge in response to the following developments:

1. Savvier, more capable and independent end users. As more digital natives (possessing what Mark Prensky calls “digital wisdom“) enter the school and assume adult roles, the type of support they will need may change radically from that tech departments currently provide to its largely digital immigrant adult population.
   • In one sense, the goal of any IT support team is to put itself out of business by creating fail-safe systems and educating its users to be to have the knowledge and confidence to be able to solve their own technical problems. However, there will, always be new, immature technologies that are not very fault tolerant and for which the knowledge base is limited. This suggests that there will be an ongoing need for people within an organization to be leading the exploration of new technologies and working with colleagues to determine if and how the technologies might benefit the school. But it does not necessarily mean that these people needs to be a member of a technology “department.” Other adults – or students – within the community might also fill such a role if given the proper support and time.
2. More self-service support options, intelligent help systems, and self-healing computer systems.
   • We bank online, do our taxes online, buy products online, search for houses online, and enroll for school online. When we need help, we’re directed to online services or elaborate menus of automated help within the phone system. Organizations are doing all that they can to make their customers and clients self-serving, in the positive sense of the phrase. Computers can suggest various actions (”It appears as if you’re making a list. Would you like to use the List Manager function?”–Microsoft Excel.) Enterprise level computer systems are “self-healing.” They recognize when something is wrong and apply sophisticated logic rules to diagnose the problem and attempt to fix it. They can even ask for human intervention when the problem requires such help. (”I feel better now, I really do.”)
3. Advances in wireless networking.
   • The trend towards more wireless networking is irrefutable and inexorable. At the present, most wireless infrastructure is really a hybrid of wireless and wired devices. For example, wireless access points are usually plugged into an Ethernet cable. The need for faster Internet speeds at the backbone level is so great that it is unlikely that wireless speeds will approach the necessary throughput to completely supplant wired infrastructure. Therefore, the need for schools to maintain both wired and wireless systems will remain with us for at least the next decade. However, the need for in-house expertise to maintain this hybrid network is open to debate. More and more organizations are outsourcing such support. As networks become more reliable, administrators can securely login from anywhere in the world to make changes to servers, switches, and routers. Support organizations can dispatch technicians to the site as necessary when remote connections are insufficient to solve a problem.
4. Changing models of professional development.
   • The mechanisms available for ongoing professional development will expand in 21st century schools. Distance learning opportunities will blend with on-site training. The need for face-to-face collaborative work with colleagues will continue, though face-to-face may be in virtual space as well as physical space. Time and distance lose relevancy. The digitally wise flourish, while the digitally impaired lag.
5. Less hierarchy and more positive chaos.
   • Schools in the 21st century will be less hierarchical and more organically managed in the past. But as progressive educator A.S. Neil wrote about his Summerhill school some forty year ago, freedom does not equate to license. Software standards and protocols provide one level of organization on technology, but other factors must play a role as well. Large scale experimentation for its own sake can be costly, in time if not money. There is a necessary tension between planned development and serendipitous development. The need for transparent, coordinated technology planning will remain and must be accounted for in 21st century schools.
6. A greater focus on environmental sustainability.
   • Technology is a large consumer of the Earth’s resources–including the manufacture, use, and disposal of products. Technology programs in the 21st century school should play an important role in helping a school lower its carbon footprint. Aside from technology as a source of carbon emissions, technology also plays an important role n the mitigation of carbon emissions by offering less carbon intensive alternatives to knowledge production and distribution, monitoring and increasing energy efficiency, eliminating or reducing the need for travel through distance learning and conferencing, and forming the core of smart buildings and vehicles.
   • Where will the responsibility for environmental stewardship fall in the 21st century school? In one respect it will fall to all members of the community and, in time, will become so embedded in the culture and practices of the school that such distributed responsibility can be assumed. But until then, there will need to be at the very least a core group or individual within the school tasked to help with this transition. There are several logical places for such a position in most school’s current hierarchy: business operations, buildings and grounds, or environmental science. Technologists will be players, but they probably will not be the drivers.
7. Changes in financial forecasting, controls, and new revenue streams.
   • Tightly related to technology planning and environmental sustainability is financial forecasting and controls. New technologies always have financial implications. And fortunately, most environmental sustainability initiatives, at lease in the long term, yield financial benefits to the school.
   • It it clear that expertise will be required within schools to help forecast technology expenditures based on the academic and operational needs of the school, ongoing maintenance of critical business systems, and industry best practices. It is also clear that schools must contain technology costs just as they do all other costs. Independent schools, not so independent when it comes to their over-reliance on tuition payments as their major revenue source, cannot continue to increase tuition at a rate that outpaces inflation.
   • A new responsibility for 21st century school tech personnel may very well be that of revenue production, or at the very least, cost recovery. As technology becomes more embedded in the daily lives of children, the need for schools to provide basic technology equipment to students will abate. Students will be expected to provide their own computing devices, much as they provide their own pencils, notebooks, and calculators today. Other items that have been taken for granted as free services to students may also go by the wayside such as consumable supplies for printing or the loan of digital  cameras. Students who want to print may have to pay for the privilege to do so. Need a camera? Use the one in your smart-phone or rent one from the school.
   • It’s not inconceivable that students could enter into contracts with the school for on-site technical support, or choose to provide their own technical support or go to a third-party. Perhaps enterprising students might even set up their own businesses to provide support to one another. Schools may barter with one another for services, trading the expertise they have in web development for advanced networking expertise they lack in-house. Faculty and staff with expertise in certain software or hardware may staff workshops offered by the school both on-campus and over the Internet. Virtual learning centers may become important revenue centers for entrepreneurial schools willing to share their faculty with others, particularly in niche courses where one school may not be able to support a full faculty position with its own enrollment alone. Such distance learning opportunities will require high bandwidth with redundant Internet connections to assure the best experience for remote learners.

These are but a few possible scenarios for the role of the 21st century school technologist. I welcome your comments and wisdom to help us collectively imagine and shape the future.