Although it sounds sad, it really isn’t.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while and those of you who are reading it for the first time, I have some very exciting news. I have decided to join together my blog, podcast, and various project sites into one resource: Learning is Change.

I have found that working with so many different platforms has left me a little frazzled and strapped for time. I have also gotten tired of other people (podomatic and edublogs) having more control over my content than I do. So, starting today, I will be posting regularly on the Learning is Change blog and Podcast.

All of the content from both this blog and Discourse About Discourse: Educasts has been painstakingly recreated (okay, so I just copied it over) on the new server. Those of you who subscribe to my feed through feedburner will be unaffected, but if you subscribe to the edublogs feed, you will need to switch over to http://learningischange.com/feed/.

I am very excited about this new venture that I am undertaking. Please check it out and let me know what you think. I have set up video and audio comments, so that I can hear my audience first hand. I hope to see or hear from you soon.

You are invited to attend the Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation Conference.

What is Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation?

Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation, is a one day conference/meetup for teachers, administrators, students, school board members, parents and anyone who is interested in education. It will be held on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008, from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, USA.

Education is conversation. Conversation creates change.

The future of education does not exist in the isolated world of theory and abstract conference sessions. Instead, it exists in conversations. It exists in creating a robust learning network that is ever-expanding and just-in-time. Learning 2.0 is not the beginning of this conversation. It is merely a stopping point, a time to talk about the visible difference that we all seek. We read. We reflect. We write. We share. We learn. Come join us for a day of conversation about learning and technology.

You can learn much more about the conference on the wiki, including information about registering. Here are some highlights:

Tentative Schedule
We’re still working on the details so this will be updated before the conference. Also, this may expand if we have more folks register than we are anticipating. (To quote Bud Hunt, “This conference stuff is hard!”)

Registration
You must register so that we know how many folks to expect and so that we can have enough lunches available. (Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?)

Cost

Free, baby. And lunch is included, thanks to the generous support of Littleton Public Schools, St. Vrain Valley Public Schools, and Arapahoe High School.

Wireless

BYOL (that would be Bring Your Own Laptop) - we’ll have wireless access to the Internet (filtered) - we may test our capacity to handle density of machines, but hopefully things will go swimmingly. If not, we have wired machines in various places you can access.

Questions for Students
We’re having a student panel discussion during lunch. Here’s your chance to submit some questions for them to consider.

Invite Others

We strongly encourage you to invite other folks from your school, district, neighborhood, or learning network to attend as well. It would be great if everyone could bring at least one person with them that is perhaps new to this conversation. Put up THIS POSTER everywhere you can (within reason).

Questions?

Feel free to email Karl Fisch, Bud Hunt, Ben Wilkoff or Mike Porter .

I’m not sure how many people truly mean it when they say it, but I am truly honored by my inclusion in the Most Influential Blog Post category of the 2007 Edublog Awards for The Ripe Environment.

To be along side Karl Fisch and his amazing work to create a mirror for our schools…

To be next to Konrad Glogowski and his visual portrayal of pedagogy…

To be nestled in with Scott Mcleod and his viral networking power and ability to see the greatness in a single idea…

To be among Kris Bradburn and the challenges put out by Wandering Ink…

That is what I am most honored by.

Thanks to all who nominated me. If you care to, please vote for this blog. I don’t imagine I have written as influential of blog posts as the above bloggers, but I would like it not to be an absolute slaughter in the polls.

What do should we do in the classroom?

One of the biggest takeaways that I have been formulating at the Virtual Schools Symposium is that the hybrid model is not fiction. When students have access outside of class hours (and this is not a given by any means), shouldn’t we be expecting that they be connecting and collaborating during this time?

The more that I work with my new 7th graders (the students who I have only known under the Academy of Discovery Model), the more I realize that productivity is something that comes from having the ability to work at your own pace and schedule. I keep seeing the majority of essays being written at home even though I feel the obligation to give them time in class. I keep seeing my students make more meaning out of the emails and instant messages outside the classroom.

My real question, I guess, is what activity is so well suited to face-to-face contact that it can’t be replicated online? Whatever the answer to that question is, is what I need to be doing in my classroom, every day.

Here are my thoughts on what can’t be replicated online, yet:

• Debate - In its truest form, debate is a refined series of verbal arguments that require many people talking in rapid succession. Although you can do debate in an elluminate session, the passing of the mic is awkward at best and the visual separation of the competing sides is not possible.
• Networking - It is why we still come to conferences. Finding great people that you want to work with and that will challenge you is something that is lacking in the online world. A social network does create a sense of community amongst many people, but it the bonds forged are not immediate. They take time and tending. In face-to-face communication, it is easy to see the worthwhile. It is easy to recognize excellence. That is what classroom time can be: the search and recognition for excellence (in writing, in math, in science, etc.)

What are the things that you think are so essential in the classroom that they can’t be outsourced to a virtual space? (Do they still exist? Will they always exist?) I really want to know.

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I hope to see you soon.

VSS Blogroll so far:

• Virtual High School Meanderings
• MrMoses

Technorati Tags: VSS2007

“The people that complain are our best customers, not our worst.” -Jackie Huba

In the keynote for NACOL VSS 2007: Jackie Huba, an advertising consultant and blogger, is talking about creating learning evangelists. Her idea is that word of mouth is all powerful. The students and parents that complain about learning are the ones that may be the biggest evangelists. They are the ones that care enough to put forth ideas. They are the ones who want a better product. For every complaint from them, many more complaints exist (she says 26).

What does this mean for us as teachers on the cutting (sometimes bleeding) edge of education?

Well, I think that we need to be able to pay attention to our critics and frame our ideas in order to make them into evangelists (I would call them advocates). We need to be solving issues of content and access so that our students and parents see that we are listening.

If we are listening to our stakeholders, we need to do something about it. Pushing further and further out into the blogosphere and online learning without listening to what is working and what isn’t will never create the kinds of advocates that we need. So, my next question is: How do we listen well? How do we use what we hear to change, or possibly, keep doing something that is working.

Point #2

“Google Never Forgets.”

If you post something, write something, create something, google will remember. Bad press matters, as does bad research, bad marketing, and bad framing. I want to make sure that I don’t make any missteps with my identity. Is that possible?

Technorati Tags: VSS2007

I was not the only one with this idea, however.

I just so happened to sit next to Kathryn Knox, Ph.D. (Senior Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Colorado Virtual Academy) and we struck up quite the conversation about online learning.

My favorite part of the discussion was when we stumbled upon community as a tenet for a successful online school. She put it this way: “Without community you don’t have a school. You have a program but not a school.” This idea really caught me and it hasn’t let go yet.

Are we trying to create programs that are viable and sustainable, or are we trying to create communities that constantly need tweaking and guidance. The first is easy: Set up the systems, install the software, write the content. The second is terrifyingly hard: engage all stakeholders, listen, change.

I really need to keep looking at the Academy of Discovery to make sure that I am not just creating a program, I am creating a community.

Technorati Tags: VSS2007

But…

More and more I am coming to realize that most people are not looking for this. They do not want a searchable database of thousands of Web 2.0 offerings. Instead, they want a well organized document that makes the connections from technology to pedagogy for them. Most teachers are not trying to find a new way of mashing up two web pages so that it gives off a split screen effect (if anyone knows of something, let me know). Most teachers would say that is pretty geeky. And each and every one of them would be right.

I have made peace with my idiosyncratic geek status in the education world. I don’t want to be defined by it, but I am still proud of it. I think it is about time that I stop trying to make others like me, though.

Our model of success should not be to see how many people we can get to be WebHeads. Our model should start somewhere more along the lines of Step by Step: Building a 2.0 Classroom. Or prehaps, as simple as a series of documents. Something that could exist as paper, that could still have value in the analog world.

So, about a month ago I started working on such a document. The document is supposed to be an introduction to the essential tools and resources needed for creating an authentic learning environment online. It is not perfect, and it is not finished. When I started sharing the early version on Starting from Scratch, quite a few people contacted me wanting to know if they could use it. Please use it, upload it, change it, but keep me a part of the conversation.

• What should be there that isn’t?
• What can be eliminated as inessential?
• Can this document be used for other purposes?
• How can it be refined?
• What is the next step for teachers when they have the document?
• Is it enough to get people started?

If you missed the link to the document above: 101-resources-ver-2.pdf

Please let me know what you think.

A blog is informative, but stylistically so. The ability to craft a unique image within the information is a virtue that we should all be striving for. So, in an attempt to put these words into practice, here is what I am talking about.

Topic: Cell phones and iPods in the classroom

With his two fingers pushed together, carefully spreading them outward across the screen, one of my students was doing something that I had never thought of a couple of years ago. He was blogging from his iPod. Immediately, we gathered around the gadget, pondering its significance. It was distracting and powerful: the ability to blog about anything at any time. Just think if twitter wasn’t blocked at school.

I still can’t quite wrap my head around cell phones being used for things other than voice. I have been saying for quite a while that we need more laptops in the classroom, as many as there are laps. But can’t we get done most of what we need with our plans from verizon and AT&T? Watching the mini-safari browser spin into action leads me to believe that we aren’t far off from this reality.

I want my students to be thinking about how they can utilize their cell phones in my classroom not how they can sneak a look at what time it is on the display when I am not looking. Their cell phones are bejeweled with authenticity. In many cases, their cell phones are so representative of their lives that given the choice of losing a cell phone or a limb would cause them to pause to think.

Where is the research that says cell phones are great for the classroom. Well, mostly it doesn’t exist yet, at least not that I know of. If anyone has seen any great studies or has done some great work with non-laptop ITC, please share. All I have right now is anecdotal evidence from my classroom and the presentation from K12 Online 2007. Surely there is more to it than that.

I have italicized (for my students) the moments where I intentionally added imagery or description in order to make a potentially boring subject interesting (at least to me). My hope is that blogging moves closer to this style and further away from the dense writing of academic papers. Let me know what you think about either idea.

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Well, the time has come for a new K12 Online conference, and I am happy to report that my daughter reached her first birthday without any major catastrophe (although she is still keeping me up at sometimes). This time, though, I am not merely listening in on the conversation. This time, I am a presenter in the Obstacles to Opportunities strand. It is my greatest hope that the work I have done for this conference will be seen in the same light by other new fathers who are trying to find a way to both cradle their baby’s head correctly and balance an iPod on their pajama leg.

So, if you are interested in the presentation check it out here. 

You may find the supporting documents even more intriguing, though:

1. Starting From Scratch Companion
   
2. Authentic Learning: Metaphor and Vision
3. 101 Resources and Tools for Authentic Learning

Some students blog because they have to. Some students blog because they enjoy using the technology. Some students blog because they like their choice of topics, but very few of my students blog because it is the life-blood of their communication. They don’t see it as their primary or even secondary way of putting ideas out into the greater world and getting validation for those ideas. This saddens me as much as it sobers me. I have been putting off thinking about it for a while because I believed that this kind of community would exist out of my classroom eventually if left alone. Unfortunately, I don’t think that a laissez-faire approach is going to do it.

That is why I now believe that every student blogger need to find a niche, a type and style of writing that best fits them and draws in a larger audience. This niche should not just be an understanding within the blogger him or herself; it should be a well articulated part of their writing.

So I say to my student bloggers:

You cannot create an audience from thin air, you must go in search of an one. You must write about things that make sense for you, that you are passionate about. You must go and find your niche. Subscribe to other’s blogs about sports. Find those interesting voices that you would like to become a part of. Link to them in your blogroll and in your posts. Start commenting on things that are outside of our small writing community. Break out of the repetitive storytelling that can lead to feedback loops within small groups of friends. Use Google Blog Search or Technorati. Use Netvibes or Google Reader. Work to find what you are looking for in your own writing. It may take longer to write your next post, but once you find your niche, you will be able to work within that framework that you have set up and never again be at a loss for words.

I can’t take any credit for this idea, though. I was inspired to try to make my blogging community a part of the greater conversation by two presentations at the K12 Online Conference.  If you haven’t checked out Sustained Blogging in the Classroom  or Initiating and Sustaining Conversations: Assessment and Evaluation in the Age of Networked Learning, you really should. The latter may be the best presentation on blogging in the classroom that I have ever witnessed.

Although I believe that my classroom blogging community is working, it has a lot more potential energy than kinetic at this point. I think only now am I really able to admit that to myself. I have found one of my own niche again: reflecting upon what goes on in my classroom.

For the Ripe Environment to exist, we have to have better (and more simple) reasons for doing what we do with technology. So, I was struck with the simplest of all reasons for using blogs in your classroom: It’s the content, stupid. (I believe this is the one and only time that my mind has blatantly stolen from Bill Clinton and his 1992 presidential campaign.)

The following is what I shared with my students after I shared my rather abrasive reasoning for blogging in the classroom.

That is why we use blogs to communicate, not because they are easy, not because they are more collaborative, it is simply because they let the content speak for itself. Without content you are nothing. Without great ideas there is no hope for the future. It is the content that matters, not the format. That is why we do blogs, to pull content up through the rss straw, roll it around in our mouth-like readers, tasting each smooth milkshake post and swallow it down, totally satisfying our desire to fill our bellies with content.

Now, content can be anything from stories to videos to embedded PowerPoint. The only crucial element of content is that you are proud enough of it to consider it yours. That means that content does not exist in an answer that was just done to get it over with. Content does not exist in the unrealized half-wonderings of a before school speed post. Content exists in thought-provoking ideas. It exists in well-worded prose or original poetry. Content is the torrent of inspiration that is created when authenticity is the goal, and you actually have the time to do something.

I actually wrote the preceding piece on my Palm Treo while I was eating cereal. I didn’t start writing it as a way of addressing The Ripe Environment, but this piece really gets at prerequisite number 6: Students and Educators should know that their products and ideas as valuable. If we are concerned with content, students will know that we genuinely care about what they express and teachers will know that their ideas will have some impact. If we focus too much on adding more features or tools to our toolkit, we will never get to the act of content creation. And that would be a very sad thing.

My Cross pen is always, always by my side. Slipping it over the edge of my pocket feels grand. It is that extra insurance for everything I do. I will never be without an idea because the idea instrument exists. It is connected to me.

I will use it on mundane homework, the calculus equations that fit so perfectly on the page. But, its real work, the strokes it was meant to make are the ones in my titled notebooks.

I sit in the cubicles that look like a swastika, only because they are the quietest place I can find. I pen the prose that only my best friends will see. This pen is for me, just like the time. I own it, forgetting all other writing implements, all other worries.

I am a cross pen moving the page to meet my needs. I am the world of ideas, stroking ego and creating the colossal theories that outline my outlook, my personality.

I believe that everything we do should be in the purpose of creation. We need to create the environment, create the products, create the expectations and create  the hope of a generation.

But, what is that hope? What can you possibly expect out of yourself to ensure that you are are a part of it?

I know that these are just words. I know that we actually have to do it. There is no way to get around the work that comes from creating.

So, when is it appropriate to look back? when is appropriate to take stock?

Every creation is worthy of reflection.

Just a few thoughts to get you thinking, I guess.

The social network that many of us have come to love, Classroom 2.0, is a space for teachers to come together and share ideas for and stories about teaching in the 21st century. Yet, so far, it has not been an avenue for turning on “would-be advocates” to social media. It has basically been a way of aggregating all of the great minds that are already engaged in the authentic use of technology. Although we may be able to see Classroom 2.0 as a living example of collaboration, most other people won’t. They will see it as a teacher-based myspace, a place where work and play blend into this muddy mixture that can not possibly pay attention to the details of an individual classroom.

So, if Classroom 2.0 isn’t it, then what are the Living Examples of collaboration that The Ripe Environment requires?

Well, I don’t have to look to much further than the hour and half I spent with these eight teachers. In fact, I don’t have to much further than the first few minutes I spent with them. In those beginning moments of our time together, I asked the following question: “How would your writing (and writing instruction) change if the form and content of your writing were separable?” Now, there is nothing very special about this question except in that it demands an answer. Most teachers cannot resist a question about how they will or will not change their teaching in light of a new idea. Better yet, this question does not ask for a generic answer that could have come from anyone, but a real answer that only the individual teacher can provide.

I realized, perhaps too late to make my presentation as good as it could be, that the only thing Living Examples require is action on the part of the newly initiated. If the example of collaboration can go on existing without the new teacher, it isn’t Living in the way that it should. If the type of collaboration is revolutionary but requires no revolutionary step on the part of the person seeing it for the first time, then it is just another piece of noise that can be filtered out.

There are too many collaborations going on in our edublogosphere that require only minimal thought and effort on the part of the observer. Classroom 2.0, for all of its merits, will continue to be an edubloggers’ paradise until new users are made to feel challenged by the very notion of collaboration. Where are the engaging questions that will bring new bloggers into our spaces? Where are the wonderful memes that grab a hold of our attentions? Why aren’t we reaching out with inquiry rather than answers?

We seem to simply accept that everyone should want to use blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networks and all of our other wonderful tools, but we really don’t ask other people if they agree. We need to let others poke holes in our logic/pedagogy. We need to ask others to contribute, not just to the periphery of the conversation, but to the hearty core. We need to let them change our spaces, to create the Living Examples for a new group of teachers, teachers that can get along fine without technology in their classrooms (or at least think they can).

So, those are the things I learned today. Throughout my presentation, the most engaging moments were when I was asking my fellow teachers to think about how they saw blogging working in their classrooms or how they envisioned a shift in their instruction.

The Living Examples, therefore, are time sensitive. They only exist for the moments in which a teacher feels challenged enough to act and collaborate with either the challenger or others who feel the same way. If they do not take advantage of the opportunity they have been confronted with, the same question or line of thinking will never engage them in the same way. They will need another Living Example of collaboration in order to get them into the Ripe Environment, and we need to create it for them.

So, I guess my challenge to anyone who reads this is as follows: What are the questions, ideas for inquiry, or memes that will get teachers and students to create Living Examples for one another?

“Honestly… because my friends will hear it.”  - Sam Altman

I’m pretty sure that this can become an analogy for why creating blogging and collaborative writing communities are so much more engaging than writing in a journal, writing an essay for a teacher, or taking notes in class that are only for a test. Students aren’t willing to put forth the equivalent of 99 cents of effort if only they (or only their teacher) is going to see it. However, if their content will be seen by many other students, they will put forth $5.00 worth of effort.

I want my kids to always put forth $5.00 worth of effort. I want them to continue to come back and purchase more and more content from the ideas that my classes provide. Are there any other ideas other than giving students the ability to broadcast/syndicate their content that will make sure that we receive that level of engagement and effort? What is the specific value of expression that engages students? How can we capitalize on it in our classrooms?

This woman really gets the kinds of environments that kids crave. She told the story of a character dying on Degrassi and students needing a place to grieve. She created that environment, gave kids the tools, and then let the kids talk. I find this anecdote to be extremely compelling. For the most part, I don’t do this in my classroom.

For the most part, we don’t show students compelling content and then let them recreate it. We don’t give them the tools and set up the environment and let them go. Why? Are we interested in what they would come up with, or are they more interested in seeing the kind of knowledge that they can amass?

I hope that we start to focus more on creating the environment and finding the best tools (ideas, resources, collaborative values, etc.) that will allow them to create or recreate learning. What are the standards for that?

His response was quite interesting. He first started talking about reassuring the teachers that they are working with turnitin.com and other anti-plagiarism sites, but then he started going on the offensive. He put a challenge out there for teachers: “We need to teach kids how to cite sources before fourth grade.” He said that most students are not trying to cheat; they just don’t know what qualifies as plagiarism. He also calls into the question the line between plagiarism and collaboration. We need to explain, expand, and explore this line.

Where is this line for you?

Should we respond to his challenge?

Clearly, this man is going to be a star. We need to watch his projects because he is going to move the debate, whether we are with him or not.

His research into fan fiction has helped him to think about online communities that create mentorships and opportunities for continual advancement. He talks about how kids start writing harry potter fan fiction one day and then two years later they are helping other writers to edit their work and get it ready for publication. This is an amazing process for creating mentors. Why aren’t our educational communities like this?

We need to create online mentorships between adults and students. This needs to not be a weird element that borders on child predator activity. How can we set up these connections so that the mentorships go both ways. The digital native/immigrant debate is counterproductive. It doesn’t allow these groups to blend and change. It doesn’t allow students to indoctrinate teachers. It doesn’t create the kind of hope that is possible when communities cross-pollinate.

How can we do this? I really want to know.

“It isn’t about pushing ideas down their throats, but rather letting them pull what they find useful.” -Music and Social Media

How can we let students pull content rather than pushing content upon them? How can we create an environment where there is so much content that students have to heavily explore and interact with the concepts in order to create meaning.

They must be able to access information at all times.

But, we shouldn’t be too eager to let them pull the answers out of the white noise of content. We should be helping them to craft the questions. There is no way that students will pull the right music, text, movies, concepts, skills, etc. unless they have crafted the right questions. We need to help them pull what will produce the most change, the most creation, the most higher order thinking skills.

We need students to pull, but we need them to pull well.

The first of the 10 prerequisites for The Ripe Environment is “Educators and learners must have a genuine need to be heard by others and, in one way or another, receive feedback for contributions.” This need for input and feedback equates to a continual longing for connection. Our ideas must be connected to other’s for them to have value. They must be experienced by someone out there somewhere who is intrigued, disgusted, embarrassed, or in some other way affected.

Connection is different in The Ripe Environment, though. It is no longer sufficient to meet someone and shake his or her hand. This is not a connection; it is merely a coincidence that both of you happen to be in the same room. A connection is something that is felt when ideas/personalities/beliefs meet one another and are challenged, bettered, or assimilated. Two people can be talking about the similar ideas or completely opposite opinions, but until a link is made between the two, neither are aware of the similarities and differences. That means, that there is no value held within either. And truly, connection is all about creating value for the the two people doing the connecting.

The three types of connections that create the most value are as follows:

• The 1:1
  • Definition: Two people with the same aims. A friend. An adversary. A person who encourages you to do your best work.
  • Examples: A twitter friend. Someone you e-mail/IM regularly that asks you exchange questions and answers with. A collaborative document (i.e., Google Docs)

• The autograph (aka 1:many)
  • Definition: A fan or follower of someone else’s ideas. An inspiration. A person that creates (or attempts to create) a movement.
  • Examples: A twitter follower. A blog that you read or write. A podcast. A comment on a blog post.

• The frame (aka many:many)
  • Definition: A builder upon other’s ideas. A new context for established content. A collaborative network.
  • Examples: A tweet. A Meme. A trackback. A Wiki. A webcast. A social network.

All three of these connections are essential for the culture of collaboration to occur. If we stop at merely 1:1 interaction, collective intelligence is wasted. If, on the other hand, if all we are doing is framing other’s ideas out in the open, there is never any time to develop personal relationships with those that can directly benefit from our ideas and help them to grow.

So, we can blend the three types of connections. A link within a blog is both a 1:1 and a 1:many, as is a comment. Blending personal and public connections is a way of introducing our own contacts to our greater network; it is a way of getting rid of the apprehension that people have about putting themselves “out there.”

For example, a colleague of mine writes great e-mails. They are concise and beautifully written. They are based in both theory and practice. They ask amazing questions and beg me to go deeper with everything I am working on. So, I tell him to start blogging the e-mails, and I ask him if I can podcast about them. What I am doing is introducing his ideas to some of the other people I am connecting to. These are the connections that make sense in The Ripe Environment because they don’t allow any good idea to stay archived in an e-mail folder, never to be heard from again.

My hope is that we start honoring these types of connections for the inspiration and passion that give to our daily lives. We cannot settle for an atmosphere of acquaintanceship in our learning communities. We must strive for an culture of connection.

This post is in draft form. My hope is that it will expand to include better definitions of each type of connection as well as examples. Please feel free to comment to that affect, or if you would prefer a more 1:1 connection, please e-mail me at benwilkoff@gmail.com. I would also like to thank those of you who are already interested in expanding upon this idea (Patrick Higgins, Chris Lehmann, Alec Couros, TechKnow, and Christian Long) . Please write as much about as you can. It is the only way that The Ripe Environment will actually occur.

I am tired of talking about the tools. Many of us have been talking about the tools for a long time now. We have said that using technology for technology’s sake is counterproductive. We want to use technology as a tool, right? But the tools for collaborating and creating are the largest sticking points for others. Teachers get caught up on jargon, on the basic skills of one program or process. They are still so focused on “podcasting” or “dreamweaver” that there is no room for creating the environment in which people will actually want to go beyond the tools, into true learning (you know, what we want our kids to be doing). What, then, is beyond the tools? What should we really be reaching for? The Ripe Environment. The simultaneous personal and public experience of using all of the tools at the teacher’s disposal to tear down walls, collaborate with each another, and question the traditional role of technology in the classroom.

So, how do we get to The Ripe Environment? Well, I have started to reflect on how I became a constant-learner and contributor to this thing I am more and more reluctant to call School 2.0. I want to replicate this process for others, and showing people my flickr account, my del.icio.us account, my blog, my podcast, my pedagogy, my wiki projects, and my twitter account just doesn’t seem to work very well. What does actually work is making sure that they have the right environment so that they can explore these resources on their own, through their own creation.

I am now proposing the 10 prerequisites for collaboration as a way of creating The Ripe Environment in the classroom, in a school, and in a district. There will be quite a few follow-up posts about this topic, but I wanted to get some feedback on what I have already written before I go too far off the deep end. Please leave a comment or e-mail me at benwilkoff@gmail.com.

Here they are:

In order for the environment to be ripe for collaboration, educators and learners must:

1. Have a genuine need to be heard by others and, in one way or another, receive feedback for contributions.
2. See living examples of collaboration (not case studies or projects from a few years ago) that they can become a part of.
3. Have the time to connect more than two dots together. (Rather than connecting: “My students need to know this” with “here is the information” they need to have time to connect “My student needs to know this” with “my students need to evaluate this for validity” with “my students need to know how to use this resource to find the information” with “my students need to create new information for others to use.”)
4. See collaboration as an extension of their natural instincts as a teacher (opening possibilities for learning).
5. Find the backchannels relevant to them (these backchannels must be encouraged and honored as vital sources of learning).
6. Know that their products and ideas are valuable.
7. Understand the marks of successful collaboration. (They have to know what it looks like.)
8. Accept that questions are both for interdependent and independent learning. (All questions are serious points of inquiry in The Ripe Environment.)
9. Believe that personal and professional change can never be institutionalized. (Individuals create change, not schools or districts.)
10. Know that meetings, conferences, and workshops are not the places where the most powerful learning and change takes place.

I will be writing more about each one of these 10 prerequisites, but please let me know what you think about them as stand-alone ideas.

This is both a big moment and a small blip, a tongue-tied mixed-feeling overture. It reassures me that I have done something important, but I that can never rest on my laurels. I will never stop being passionate about learning, nor will I cease to use collaborative tools in the classroom. This is who I am now, and apparently, that makes me a Totally Wired Teacher according to Edutopia, Yahoo Teachers, and Ypulse.

Steve Hargadon nominated me for this award about a month ago and I really didn’t think much of it. It seemed like the Edublog Awards, something way out of my reach. But, about a week and a half ago Anastasia Goodstein e-mailed me saying that I was one of two finalists, and that the interview for the final decision would take place later in the week. I was flabbergasted . I have never presented at a major conference. I have never met the likes of David Warlick or Stephen Downes. Surely, I could not be The Totally Wired Teacher of 2007.

After many nervous moments before the interview, I had the chance to talk to Karon Weber (this isn’t her site, but it does say that she used to work at pixar and that she created the gobbler feature for yahoo teachers), Jim Daly, Derek Baird, Anastasia Goodstein, and Nicol Addison (I couldn’t find a relevant site for her). I really enjoyed the interview, a half hour of talking about how my classroom has changed and how I have dealt with the unchanging traditions of schools.

Then, last Saturday I received this e-mail:

Hi Ben. I’m thrilled to let you know that you have been selected to be receive the first Totally Wired Teacher Award at the Ypulse Mashup in San Francisco! We were all incredibly impressed with the trailblazing work you’ve done with your students.

I have always wanted to do something that I love, and teaching and learning is as good as it gets for me. That is why this award comes as such a wonderful surprise. I have found fulfillment in creating authentic learning environments for others. But, if this award is a symbol of that fulfillment, it is only the most concrete symbol.

If I have learned anything from the past few weeks, it is that we need to recognize those around us that are doing great work, and not just with words. We need to value them with the actions of collaboration and respect. So, instead of using this blog post to gloat about doing such great things in my classroom, I would like to take a moment to recognize those who have inspired me, who have led to this achievement:

1.  Bud Hunt - He is one blogger who I have followed for a long time, but only recently met. His words of struggle and success keep me going. His ability to also have a young family and do what he loves is evidence that it is possible.
2. Karl Fisch - When I stumbled upon his professional development blog a little over a year ago, I read everything. I think his blog is the only one that I can honestly say that I have read every word of. I would just sit there nodding my head at his ideas, and each one of them has challenged me to be a better teacher.
3. Vicki Davis (the other finalist for Totally Wired Teacher, incidentally) - Her observations on how blogging and wiki creation can change the classroom are wonderful. Her work with constantly expanding the boundaries of school mean that it is easier for me to try it.
4. Paul Allison - His forward thinking and questioning never get old. His voice of struggle is sometimes the only one that resonates with my experience. He is doing great things, even if he isn’t always convinced of it.
5. Clarence Fischer - I always want to hear what he has to say on an issue. He has a way of distilling his ideas into easily thought-through chunks. I also like building off of all of the observations he has of the edublogosphere and his classroom. I also appreciate that he is never too tired to reflect upon his practice.

To all of you, Thanks. I hope that this informal award means something to you.

This phenomenon, although real and slightly annoying, is not what I want to concentrate on. I don’t want to plumb the depths of why it is that people around the world will comment on your blog and give you feedback on your work, but it is maddening to just get a coworker to check out a great resource. I’m not interested in figuring out why the parents of your students are less inspired than the parents of other teachers’ students. In fact, I really don’t care that the recognition for doing online presentations and creating learning objects that are widely held as groundbreaking is seen in local circles as an affront to the organization from which you hail.

All hyperbole aside, what I would like to focus on is creating collaborative opportunities in your “own town.” How can we go about making sure that the great types of conversation and feedback described above are going on in the hallways in between classes?

Well, I think I have come up with three things that will help:

1. Wear your passion on your sleeve.
2. Reach out on a consistent basis.
3. Find a way to incorporate what others are doing already into your vision.

I have been e-mailing quite a bit about my podcast on this topic. There are a few teachers out there that are wrestling with the use of technology in their teaching. One such teacher, Jason Hando, said that he worked with a “flat world” project initially without applying all of the technology. After he had worn his passion on his sleeve for a while, he applied some web 2.0 technology in the form of a blog and received positive feedback from his school administration, including his principal.

This is not the only kind of passion that I think we can wear on our sleeve. We can be constantly talking about the great resources that we have found in our feed readers. We can be showing off the authentic products that our students are creating daily. Eventually other teachers will start to ask us how we are doing this. We can let our students and their parents become the advocates for the kind of learning experiences that are abundant in our classrooms. They will start wearing our passion on their sleeves too.

We should also be sending feelers out every once in a while for anyone who is ready to incorporate School 2.0, even to the smallest degree. Hold a class on blogging in the classroom even if you know only 5 people will show up. Send an e-mail tell others what you are doing that you know will only be read and trashed by the majority of your staff. Pull other people into a project that you are working on if they are on the outside looking in at your technology realization. Be the one teacher that “gets it,” but isn’t angry that others don’t.

The last thing that I have found for working collaboration with the people around you into your hectic global collaboration schedule is to honor what the teachers in your school are already doing. I am a big fan of looking at a project that is already in place and just making it 2.0. A great example of this was when my team decided that we were going to go on a field trip to Denver. Most of the other teams in the school were having the kids to a scavenger hunt of key places in the downtown area and answering questions on a sheet of paper, which was to be turned in and never to be heard from again. My way of making this trip into a “2.0″ experience was to use Mapwing so that my students could make interactive tours of downtown which could be looked at by anyone from around the world to find out more about our fine city.

Each teacher on our team was able to contribute their expertise to the project, but we were showing the kids how to collaborate and create in an authentic way. My hope is that more of these types of cross-curriculum projects start to happen organically because we have opened up the door by using what was already in existence.

What do you think? Are there other ways to create collaboration in our own towns and become, if not prophets, at least teachers with advice and experience worth sharing?

When I first learned how to harness the power of the read/write web, it was by aggregating all of the blogs that meant something to me. Whether it was answering the daily challenges of Weblogg-ed, finding meaning in Edublog Insights, or trying to parse through the Borderland, I was enraptured by all of the great work already happening in the edublogosphere.

Now, I find myself with less and less time to read what others are because I am so consumed with trying to make my own vision of School 2.0 work. In some ways I think that this is an improvement. I am now participating in the conversation rather than just observing it. But, in many other ways, this is not an improvement. Will Richardson is always talking about how reading blogs prepares you for writing them, but finding the time to consume information that is not directly related to the projects that you are working on is harder than I would have ever imagined. The pile of blog posts just keeps adding up. And according to this, I will never catch up unless I do something drastic.

Well, I think I may have found a solution, both for myself and for all of the people who seem to be having the same trouble (I know that there are at least a few of you out there). I have been playing around with my new Palm T|X, which was purchased with funds from my school district’s Digital Educator Program. At first, I was rather disappointed with the limited web functionality of the built in browser. That is until I realized just how effective of a feed reader a palm pilot can be. Google Reader Mobile allows me to read one post at a time and then progress to the next. I don’t have to worry about seeing the 2000 blog posts that are unread. I can focus on just one. I can also pull it out whenever I have a free moment. I don’t have to pull out my laptop and fire up bloglines and search for something good to read. It becomes a book of blogs for me. It becomes the way for me to catch up again and listen in on the conversations going on in the edublogosphere.

The real reason, though, that I am so excited about finding this new feed reader is that I can imagine having a set of these in the classroom (5-10) and setting them up next to the bookshelf. Anytime a student wants to read something written by a fellow classmate, they take a palm pilot off of the shelf and read a few blog posts. This would not be the ideal venue for responding to blogs, but it would further the community of writing. These devices are also pretty inexpensive, so getting a few into the classroom would not require a huge investment.

What do you think? Are there other uses of a web-enabled palm device that I am missing for the classroom (other than for reference)? Is this another way of creating School 2.0 in small increments.

1. This is way too technical for me. It is fine if you want to try it out (and fall flat on your face when parent/administration/other teachers find out what you are up to), but I am just fine to live in oblivion. Wikis (did I say that right?) are too complicated for my kids. There is no way that they would be able to handle that kind of organization on their own. Your kids are different. You have more access to the technology. You were born into this stuff. I am too far into my career to start learning something new.

2. We tried something like this back in the 70’s/80’s/90’s/a few years ago. It didn’t really work then, but feel free to give it a try now. I was pretty excited about it before, but I think my interest petered out around when I realized that I was doing more of the work than the kids were. I think there are a few teachers in the school down the road who are doing this kind of stuff, so I’m not really sure that it is new or different. I will just sit back and watch you put effort into collaborative tools, but I will not put my own support behind it.

Now, #1 I have made my peace with. If a teacher has decided that they are not ready to try something new yet, I will reframe it as many different ways as I can think of in order to get them on board. At least they accept that working with students around the world, getting instant feedback on authentic writing, and infinite choice in assignments are things that are truly different than the traditional goings on of education.

#2, on the other hand, does not even acknowledge that working with web 2.0 tools is something that is a transformational step. They are so used to educational jargon and methods being repackaged and renamed that they have come to believe that School 2.0 is just a big facade that houses the likes of Project Based Learning or Cooperative Learning Groups. I can’t blame them for thinking this in the light of all that public education has taught them, but for them not to be able to see the drastic difference between writing an essay to one teacher and writing an essay to an entire school (and beyond) to be critiqued and linked to and built upon is something that I just will never understand.

Case in Point: After presenting The Academy of Discovery to a high-level technology coordinator in DCSD, he said that there were pockets of people who were trying this out elsewhere in the district. I was shocked. It was news to me that we just might have the most progressive district in the US and I just don’t know about it. Or, perhaps the problem is that he is having trouble distinguishing between an authentic collaborative student-directed wiki (receiving 50,000 hits in 6 weeks) and doing iSearches with google in order to make posters to put up in the room. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but I really think that this is an important roadblock to advancing our vision of education. Many educators, administrators, and parents believe that all technology integration is created equal. This is just simply not the case.

So, I guess what I am saying is this: We need something that will distinguish us from mundane “technology in the classroom.” We need to be seen as going beyond what has been done before, not something that is untested or fad-like, but rather something that is essential. How do we make sure that people get that we are not doing something old in a new way? We are doing something new, something that you would never be able to do without the tools of online collaboration and rss.

This is a challenge that I am willing to take up because if we can’t even explain what is going on in our classroom to other educators so that they realize the potential of a school 2.0 environment, we will never be able to explain it to the rest of the world.