I think some of us — for fear of being perceived as fundamentalist technology apologists — feel the need to qualify statements about particular hardware or software with the phrase, “It’s not about the technology…”

I should know. I’m one of them.

It’s about the learning, certainly. And the technology that supports that learning. But if the goal is to create a collaborative, networked space for learning then technology and the Internet are necessary catalysts.

I’ve become increasingly reliant on certain online tools to get things done at and away from my desk. From my task list in Remember the Milk to our Web-enabled classroom walk-through instrument to the Google Docs I use to collaborate with colleagues, sometimes the best solution requires Web access.

I, for one, am spoiled. I’m so used to ubiquitous access to the web whenever and wherever I need it that I take for granted that it will always just be there. I’m stopping short of an of existential crisis here; I’m not “re-evaluating” my choice of tools. I like my tools and they work for me 99.9% of the time.

I’m just pointing out how amazing it is that in a relatively short time we’ve come to a place where, when the technology doesn’t work as intended, we’re paralyzed.

I know. I’m hilarious. But it’s a good question, right? We wouldn’t think of keeping campus open if the indoor plumbing suddenly stopped working, would we?

Argue all you want that we shouldn’t be so dependent on tools that live “in the cloud,” but having access to them has become de rigueur in my world.

This begs the question (for me, at least…) of how this little temporary outage affected our students. Was it business as usual, or were classes interrupted by the inability to access resources? This certainly isn’t a value judgment — there are fantastic traditional lessons and really horrendous online ones — more of a general wondering. If technology tools have become as embedded as we’d like them to be, I would hope this would be evidenced by at least some disruption in the day’s activities.

If class had been temporarily shut down due to lack of online resources, think of the amazing teachable moment. What better opportunity to make sure students have the interpersonal, social tools they need to collaborate with people who happen to be in the same room.

I had the good fortune of listening to one of my favorite educators talk to a group of pre-service teachers about discipline and classroom management. I asked her to give this talk because she deals with some of our most challenging students, yet has very few attendance problems and almost never has a discipline issue.

I don’t even think she realized the power of what she said this morning because she kind of glossed right over it, but she told the soon-to-be teachers that as soon she sees a possible attendance issue emerging with a student, she will pull him or her aside and say (in her best tough-love delivery):

You know if you get to six absences, you and I are going to have a talk.

Consider just for a minute the difference between a statement like that and:

You know if you get to six absences, I’m going to send you to your administrator.

The difference is subtle, but it’s there. If you’re a student, one of those says, “We are going to work this out,” and the other one says, “I’m going to make you someone else’s problem.”

Guess how many of her kids get to six absences.

As a PhD student I spend too much of my time pondering what topic I’ll eventually tackle for The Dissertation. Naturally, I’m interested in leadership and leadership development, but I’m also interested in learning. Specifically, the way we learn when we leverage the power of collaborative technologies that, right now, we’re barely even scratching the surface of. How do these technologies empower educators to educate and, maybe more importantly, to be educated.

Most of the learning that I see happening online occurs in what have come to collectively be called “Personal Learning Networks.”

Coffee Talk

I’ve wrestled quite a bit lately with this idea of a Personal Learning Network (or “PLN”). While creating a PLN is all the rage, discounting their significance could be grounds for excommunication (twexcommunication?). Initially, I wondered how this had any sound, educational value as it seemed to me akin to meeting some friends at the local coffee joint, talking a little about work and a little about the Broncos and calling it professional development.

But then it struck me exactly how many times I’ve done exactly that. And how many times I’ve said or heard someone else say something to the effect that, “Hey – all professional development should be like this!”

Consensus, Conshmensus

As with many things “21st century,” the notion of a PLN is vague at best. What are they? Do we start our own? Join one? How? What’s the protocol? To get some idea of how difficult it really is to pin this concept down, think of the last time you tried to explain to someone that you learned about something from someone on Twitter.

“Yeah – I heard about it from this guy I know. Well, not ‘know, know.’ I know him from Twitter. It’s this website where you can tell everyone what you’re doing. Well, I guess they care since they’re following me, but anyway – he had this great idea…”

If all of this is a little too abstract for you, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has assembled some resources for people interested in finding out what the heck a PLN is and why they should care. My interest is really in watching these things develop. In the two years I’ve been blogging and Twittering, I’ve already seen conversations around social networking in general grow from the fringe, early-adopters (“Hey, this is cool!”) to becoming more mainstream, at least among forward-thinking educators (“I learned about this resource from someone on Twitter.”).

A New Era of Online PD?

Even though there is little specific agreement on exactly what a PLN is, I think that even the doubters may have to grudgingly accept the value of these tools when it comes to connecting with others to share resources and ideas. Has the time come when using Facebook and Twitter for a few hours can be counted as “professional development time?” Probably not. But as the significance of creating virtual learning communities gains acceptance by those higher up the chain, I think we will see more and more structured, high-quality learning opportunities become available to those willing and ready to embrace them.

Ben Wildboer shows how he used some ideas he found online (including some from yours truly!) to upgrade a slide deck about basic Earth structure. His blog post includes an “Extreme Makeover” like before and after look at his entire slide deck.

Ben’s immediate observation distills everything I’ve been trying to convey as succinctly as I’ve seen it done:

There were several students that expressed regret at the demise of the bullet points. It’s easier for them to just copy down exactly what it says (of course it is, they don’t have to actually pay attention or comprehend to do that). How well they’ve been trained by their past experiences!

Ah yes. Undoing years of damage done by the ubiquitous bullet point. Challenging, to say the least. But definitely a battle worth fighting.

Go check out Ben’s slide decks. And the rest of his blog while you’re there. He’s off to a great start!!

I’ve found a good theme recently so I’m going to stick with it. I came across this great blog post by “Speaker Sue” in which she points out what Blue Man Group can teach us about – you guessed it! – presentations!

Imagine your classroom (or your next professional development, or your next parent group meeting…) if you had a killer slide deck and you incorporated some of what Sue suggests:

• Get your audience involved bing, bang, bing. Everyone made a head band out of the paper they passed around before the show. No one balked. Some got really creative. We all got involved and the positive energy – read: party – started. They pre-sold fun!
• Design your presentation so that even your least interesting material is still compelling and fun.
• Start and end with a bang. Drums are good though other options exist.
• Be unique. Playing the drums is pleasant. Playing the drums while dressed in blue paint, with vibrantly colored water sloshing with every beat, is fun, funny and unique.

I’m not suggesting that every presentation you give needs to be a “party,” but I think sometimes as teachers we sell ourselves short in terms of how important the human aspect is when communicating with students. I mean let’s face it, if rote memorization was the goal we could all very easily be out of work. The textbook (or the overhead, or the slide deck) brings the content, but it’s the teacher who brings the passion.

Sue’s post really underscores the point that it’s not about the technology.

[via Patrick Rhone]