Mountains, mountains, more mountains

I don't know what it is about mountains, but I love them. I always have. I remember as a small kid staring at the Appalachain Mountains that I grew up in, just wondering. You know, looking at the ridge lines receeding seemingly forever into the distance and just wondering where they went. Sunsets in the mountains are always so spectacular. Sunrise is even more so; especially when you wake up in a sleeping bag watching the sun come up over your toes.

I became a telemark skier, then racer, then backcountry enthusiast. I guess that happened when I discovered the amazing Wasatch and Rocky Mountains and what backcountry skiing was REALLY about. Telemark racers are notorious for making the race secondary to the free ski in order to just hit the trees (not literally but backcountry wise). Those races were too much fun, and so my love of mountains expanded. Then, there were the Alps that became more familiar during the Telemark World Championships in St. Anton, Austria and San Gervais, France. Jumping with the Norgies (Norwegian Tele Skiers) was certainly eye-opening. I realized you could talk with anyone, anywhere in the world if you could talk about mountains; or better yet, if you were experiencing them together you didn't need to talk at all. Blissful existence and good memories afterwards.

I could go on and on about mountain experiences; the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt; the backside of Killington, Vermont; spring camping trips up Tuckerman's Ravine in New Hampshire; even an expedition to Mt. Everest as a trekker and student of expedition life. Hiking the mountains, biking the mountains, climbing the mountains, trout fishing in the mountains of Montana, or just staring at the mountain ridges from my kitchen window in Vermont. Many of my most memorable and long-lasting friendships were forged in the mountains.

So what's this got to do with technology and on-line learning? Not much. That's the whole point. Contrast. Having the one makes you appreciate the other. So when it came time to design a course (in Moodle) for on-line study, I chose a topic that took me to the mountains (in terms of content, not actual geography) where I knew the subject matter would keep me going through the frustration of "dissonance in learning". I am learning lot, but I'm still struggling with how to get it all into my moodle course. I did this little widget flickr badge to motivate and inspire students of my Avalanche Safety in the Backcountry on-line course. Seems the only one it's motivated is me, cause I can't get it into moodle (yet).

Check out my new flickr badge, anyway. Most of the photos are not mine. Wish they were.

Thinking, not computing.

“We need to get away from the notion that computers are something we go use in a lab once a week. When was the last time we sent kids to a pencil lab?”
Chris Lehman, principal at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia

I think what Mr. Lehman is saying is that the computer, as a tool, needs to be more integrated into the entire educational experience. Additionally, and perhaps more subtly inferred, is the notion that training the mind comes before the use of tools to express or document what the mind produces. Once again, it is the mind that matters in education. The tools change. The tools are secondary to education and the two are distinctly different.

The difficulty, however, comes in when the lives of our young people (the MySpace Generation) are filled with “programmed” activities. Yes, it’s fascinating to play with ipods and personal computers and phone cameras and to learn flash and photoshop and imovie and 2nd life virtual realities. But filling our lives, or the lives of our children, with these activities precludes the possibility of developing imagination. If we fill all our time learning the tools, when do we learn to think, imagine and make the connection between the tool and what to do with it? The whole person, complete with curiosity, imagination, and motivation to connect the dots is the goal of education. The tools don’t do it. Effective pedagogy and assessment does.

The value in learning programmed tools and applications is two fold. The most obvious is learning to use the tool. Then, there’s the less obvious, what to do with it? Web 2.0 Technology gives us the invaluable opportunity to connect in ways that were never possible before. The value in learning the tools is in answering the question, where will the next generation take this technology and how can we educate the mind to do it in the best possible way. Where do we want the next generation to go? Are the values of peace, moral conscience, and world-wide human betterment still the goal? How do we teach our coning generations to use the tools of technology to get closer to the goal than we have?

flickr fantasy

I like to periodically look at my classmates' blogs to see what everyone else is writing about and what sorts of tools are being used. Today, while sitting at my usual spot in the bookstore cafe, I scanned the blogs and found that Jen had done a sweet little animated flash widget with photos from flickr. I was mesmerized and spent the next six and a half hours cropping and uploading and organizing photos to do the same.

I was obsessed. The more I did, the more I wanted to do. I did sets, and groups and tried to do another flicker flash widget for my avalanche class (haven't figured it out, yet) and then realized I could organize my portfolio for viewing a lot easier than adding pages to my web site. Wahhooooooo!! I thought I'd reached nirvana in a flash (get it?). I was so obcessed that I worked all day exploring flickr instead of doing the moodle work I'd planned to do.

I was motivated like I never was when it was assigned to us to explore flickr. Now, why is that? What was the mechanism that stirred my imagination when my instructor, although well prepared and expert at the job, could not? This question is exactly what we've been reading and discussing. That is, how can an educator customize (differentiate) education and/or the tools one uses to motivate learning? In particular, how can we, as educators, use web tools to motivate and assist learning?

For me, personally, being so visual, I am intrigued with motion, color, photography and how things look. Naturally, the flickr badge caught my attention. Herein lies the key - how do we find that tool, that mechanism, the question that will open a door and motivate a student? It's not so simple. I'm sure at some point in explaining flickr, someone probably mentioned the badge widget and other features of flickr. It wasn't until I SAW it and CONNECTED the possibility to how I could use it as a tool in creating my avalanche safety course, that I "saw the light" so to speak.

In the classes I have taught, I always ask, "Why are you taking this class and what do you expect to get out of it?" I even do this with four and five-year-olds who always amaze me with their wisdom. This gives me an insight into each student's mindset, prior experiences and personal expectations. And, even though I have objectives, goals, needs assessment and structure for the class (although frequently I don't finalize my course structure till I've asked this question) inevitably, I customize the details of executing the class based on the individual students. Along the way I check in, monitor and access not only the progress of the class, but each individual according to his or her personal goals. I check on myself, as well. Am I achieving my objectives and goals? Are the tools I'm using motivating and assisting understanding or are they confusing the issue? Are the students "getting it?" Or, do I need to take another tack? Perhaps the plan works for some, but not others. How do I deal with that and is my structure flexible enough to accommodate change?

With all the readings we've been doing, it's been gratifying to realize that what I've been doing has support in the educational community and has a name - differentiated learning. Not having had the benefit of formal education in education, I was just following my nose and my intuition. I wasn't trying to be an educator as much as a "guide." This has been my own personal guiding rule for being a mom or an educator or any sort of leader. Respect all as equals. Even the 5-year old can show you something new and valuable.

I can't imagine teaching any other way. After all, every one is different. Everyone responds to different kinds of stimuli. Like me, spending six and a half hours on a flickr badge, finally "discovering" flickr and finally being motivated to really learn what it can do.

The Gods Must Be Crazy or Unfamiliar With Web 2.0

Technology is a tool that broadens the scope of possibility. Without the human mind behind it, however, there is no creativity, only programming. The importance of the tool is that it provides a window to the world. It gives us the opportunity to see and hear and experience (to a limited degree) almost instantaneously, the writings, thoughts, visions and news of the world. It allows us access to the world’s libraries, books and people. Nothing is far away; no one is a stranger and no culture hides with the possibilities of internet technology.

Technology is the tool that allows us to be creative by being able to access new data with which to work. We make new connections between old things or new things. We create seemingly new things through the connection of heretofore unrelated elements. New thinking is generated through new stimulus or seemingly new stimulus because of new access.

The mind, the individual, with his or her individual talents and short comings, is the raw material with which the educator works. That material, that person, remains a complex, fertile, as yet not fully understood, field of potential. The mind is subject to fluctuations of mood, chemistry, environmental factors, age, developmental level, physical/emotional variations, and even the personal response to a particular educator. Every person, every moment, every day is different.

It is the educator’s job to make the tools for accessing information useful to the minds he/she works with. It is up to the educator, to find ways to stimulate interest, motivation, creative thought. There are many tools with which to do this, but few are as impactful or exciting as the tools of Web 2.0 and 3.0. These tools are part and parcel of the new generation's environment, but they are less familiar (if familiar at all) to the prior generations who are the educators. This is the dilemma.

There was a film made some years ago Called "The Gods Must be Crazy. " It's about an Australian Aboriginial native who found a Coke bottle that seemingly fell from the sky. He’s never seen such a thing nor have any of his tribe. It turns out to be a very useful tool, so useful, infact that this small tribe who have never known "ownership" or anger or violence, now start to experience these things because of this new thing that is essentially, the new technology. Everyone wants it. But no one knows how to handle it. And, suddenly everything has changed. The native tries to get rid of the Coke bottle; but somehow it keeps comeing back. So he decides to walk to the end of the earth and throw it off, so they can go back to being the way they were. Somehow, it never happens and the adventures that he and his family get into during the journey bring them into more and more contact with new things, not less.

This film is available on UTube in its entirelty, but the part that interests me is the concept of how the coke bottle changed them, the natives. The bottle was just a bottle. It's impact on them, however, was extensive and ever widening.

So, here's the point. Educators have all sorts of tools at their disposal. They are only able to use those that they understand and find personally helpful. Students come from a different world, so to speak, where the language of the internet tools is simply part of their thinking. All tools are useful. All internet tools are useful. But you can't use them, or speak the language that a student needs if you don't understand the tools.