Month: April 2014

These really are exciting times that we are living in. Never before has it been possible to reach so many students in so many ways. As humans, we are very visually oriented. We respond to what we see. We make sense of the world by looking around, making judgements, decisions, based on that information that we perceive.

This is one reason that many classrooms have been so teacher driven. Teachers can provide a focal point. A good teacher directs the attention of the students when and where it is needed. Teachers used the tools at hand to do just that. A blackboard allows for all students to see the same thing at the same time. This eventually morphed into the overhead projector. This allowed the teacher to focus the attention of the students while maintaining eye contact. The teacher was able to direct the learning and evaluate as the lesson was under way. What a powerful concept. However, that doesn’t scale well. It lead to teaching to the middle.

Carol Tomlinson and others made a push for differentiated instruction. Who could argue with that? Well, at least until it came time to actual differentiate instruction. Turns out that creating multiple pathways for students can take a time. A lot of time. A really, really lot of time. That wasn’t time invested, it was time spent. Teachers who do a really excellent job of differentiating instruction (and there are some out there), tend to put in a lot of time. Now, most teachers put in a lot of time. I’m talking about 6:00am-8:00pm at school kind of time. It just isn’t a model that seems to be able to be spread far and wide successfully. Yet, I’m excited about Blended Learning and the ability to differentiate instruction. Why?

Blended Learning allows teachers to leverage work. It still means a lot of work. However, it is work that is invested. Not just in the kids in front of the teachers right then, but invested into the future as well. Blended Learning allows teachers to reuse, remix, share, steal, borrow, leverage, etc, the work of creating resources. This work isn’t just for that one class (or one student), but becomes a resource for future classes and students as well.

Blended Learning classrooms now allow teachers to use video easily. This feeds the visual needs of students. The students who need to see the presentation again, can do so. It has never been as easy as it is right now to create video recording that are available for students. And it will only get easier. This allows teachers to create those resources and provide them to the students. This has been a generating force for “flipped classrooms”. But it really goes beyond that. Visually, we can now easily video conference (and this will get even easier). That means that we can take students to places that we never could before. They can see what a place looks like. They can talk to students from other places with the full visual queues that humans instinctively rely on. It also means that we can use video that others have created.

Blended Learning classrooms can do so much more than that. But that focus alone is super powerful. Creating visually intensive opportunities for kids. Grabbing the attention of a student. Focusing their attention in a biologically supported way. All these are powerful options.

Yes, we are on the precipice of fundamental change. These are exciting times. There will be some struggles as we move forward. But just think about what we can do.

The world is certainly a different place. Not better, not worse. Different. I visit lots of schools. I love looking at schools. At what they have posted on the walls. At the student work. At what is highlighted. I’m fascinated by the different ways that schools are laid out. The difference between newer schools and older schools can be profound.

School based on Independence Hall.

Security is an issue that is very obvious. In the building that I was fortunate enough to serve as a principal, the office was on the interior side of the building. Furthermore, there was no “security trap” (a second set of doors where you can contain people after they enter a first set of doors). Nope. Parents walked through the main doors, crossed through the hallway, and then entered the office. The building itself was beautiful. It was modeled after Independence Hall. The history of the building was fun. It was built in 1929. The most obvious feature was (and is) the central clock tower. (This was recently replaced. The original was all wood and filled with carvings and tools. The new version is fiberglass.) But when the building was constructed, there were no plans for security cameras, buzzers, etc. Furthermore, the building had additional construction at least three times. The additions jutted back from the ends of the building. This made the building into a basic U shape. After 9-11, there was an edict to lock all doors. The problem with this at my building was that we used the “exterior hallway” for traffic flow. That is, the kids would exit from one side of the building and enter the other. That meant leaving those two doors open all the time. Great for kids. Great for traffic flow in an overcrowded building. Not so great for security.

Many of the buildings feature portraits of previous principals. These portraits always interest me as well. In addition to the clothing, background and posture, I usually look at the plate that indicates the years that the person was principal. Many of these are measured in the decades. Lots of principals served as least 10 years with 20 not being unusual. These principals were an integral part of the community. Parents knew them. Parents may have attended that same school as a student with the same principal. Now, principals are moved around frequently. Principals may be in a particular school for three years and then move to another one. It is starting to become rare that a principal spends many years in one school.

All of this leads to the profound shift from place based to person based. Libraries used to be rooms (well, they still are, but that seems to be changing). Libraries are quickly becoming the web. More specifically, sites on the web. Community was built around a geo location – where you lived. Now community is based more around interest. For example, as my kids grew up, their friends tended not to live in the same neighborhood, but participated in the same activities.

The world is certainly a different place. Not better, not worse. Different. Are we preparing our students and children for this new landscape? Are we preparing ourselves? There is no point in living in the past. The present is here. It certainly is different.