Head on over to Kevin Honeycutt’s driving questions podcast at http://kevinhoneycutt.org/ and click on the driving questions podcast. I had a great conversation with him this morning about change in schools and ways to create instant and always on collaboration. I will be posting my audio and notes from the conversation but his is already up because he is much more diligent at getting things online.

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I’m holding my son right now and talking to my WordPress blog and I am considering whether or not this is going to be a great way for me to start blogging regularly again and thinking a lot of different things in order to get my mind out there and produce something.

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Presentation (both live and PowerPoint):

Technology And Community

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Cell Phone Back Channel and Idea Network:

Audio Reflections:

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Topics and Links from the presentation:

* Make the Community Visible

* Make the Community Inclusive

* Make the Community Public

* Make the Community Always-On

* Make the Community Lasting

* Tending your community

The process of creating a Ripe Environment for Authentic Learning is one that must be experienced rather than explained, so it is my most sincere hope that you experience The Ripe Environment today and that you take ownership enough of it to take it with you when you leave today.

Let’s start with the basics, though: defining our terms.

Authentic Learning: Learning for a Real Purpose and with a Real Audience.

The Ripe Environment

1. Connection:

* 1:1 – [email protected]

* 1:Many – The Edublog Awards

* Many:Many – The Classroom 2.0 Social Network or Curriki

2. The Living Examples:

* Youth Twitter

* Space

3. Connecting more than two dots:

* Hyperlink until it hurts

* Capture the learning for later (skitch and Jing and great for this)

4. Collaboration as Instinct

* Do you have a minute, a half-hour, or longer?

5. Backchannels Exist

*

*

The Fishbowl Debate – Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: The Fishbowl Debate

6. It’s the Content, Stupid.

* 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.

7. The Marks of Collaboration

* The Digital Literacy Toolbox (521 revisions at last count)

8. Independent and Interdependent Questioners

* Ask a question here.

* Create something new here:

9.

Well, when I first started blogging about The Ripe Environment, I didn’t know that I was being edupunk, but now that I have read the powerful thinking behind the theory (Students 2.0, Stephen Downes, Bavatuesdays, D’Arcy Norman) and I believe I was. I don’t know that I really want all of the baggage that goes along with labeling myself, but I truly believe in the idea that change is about people not processes.

It takes a person to create change because vision isn’t enough. It is great to create documents and blog posts and do research projects on creating change, but unless a teacher in the classroom does something differetly or a student asks for more in the classroom, there is no way that things will shift one iota.

I happen to love the nitty gritty.

I like talking about working through significant roadblocks to change. I like convincing others that change is worth their time, that it is important.

And not just any change, we need to be moving toward Authentic Learning with such passion and ferocity that it cannot be boiled down a powerpoint presentation. Passion doesn’t come from such things. Passion only comes from a place of specific experiences, not a generic goal of creating change.

The Ripe Environment should not be about creating a hope among people that there is a movement afoot, that technology is the silver bullet or that golden jargon will save us all. The Ripe Environment is about personally expressing a need to do things better and focusing on what better really is.

I have to constantly tell myself that learning is sacred. I do it for myself. I do not share because I know what is best. I share because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is only through this act of rebellion that change will occur within others.

(I may be abstract in talking about this concept from time to time, but I really do want to talk about the personal stories and experiences that create change. Share yours in any way you know how.)

This podcast is all about how budget cuts and justifying every expenditure does not have to stop the process of creation and respect for that process. What has been your experience?

Links from podcast:

* Kevin Honeycutt

* Essdack

* Voicethread

* Freakazoid1’s Blog

This is my first official Learning is Change podcast, and I hope it lives up to the legacy that the Discourse about Discourse educasts established.

This podcast is all about trying to answer the following question: “What is the itch you are trying to scratch?” In the podcast, I try to outline how to identify the primal needs that technology realization can satisfy.

The following are educators and links that I reference during the podcast:

* Wes Fryer

* Christian Long

* DK

* Chris Lehmann

As I am moving everything over from Podomatic and Edublogs, I thought it only appropriate that I combine the podcasts I have done in the past into an archive.

The Future of Literacy

 

January 23, 2007 08:21PM

This is a podcast about how I see the world of literacy shaping up in the next few years. This idea was brought about by discussion ideal learning environments with my 7th and 8th grade students.

Why All Teachers Should Be Using Web 2.0

January 23, 2007 08:37PM

 

I have been thinking a lot about this question. Should all teachers be using the Read/Write Web in their classrooms, or am I merely a part of the latest educational technology trend. I try to answer it in a fairly in-depth, before-school podcast.

The Discovery School within a School

January 29, 2007 04:18AM

 

A colleague of mine and I were brainstorming all of the technology implementation possibilities for the next school, when he suggested that what we were talking about was not merely two classes (Social Studies and Language Arts) collaborating, but that we were shifting the paradigm of teaching to a School within a School. On this podcast, I attempt to flesh out what a technology-centric School within a School would look like and I hit upon a couple of things: 1. Online interactive notebooks. 2. Collaborative note taking. 3. Curriculum wiki’s that are edited by students and teachers. 4. Teacher reflective blogging. 5. Strands of curriculum that students could learn all disciplines within. 6. Synchronous and Asynchronous online discussion.

The Perfect Learning Environment

January 31, 2007 03:57AM

 

This podcast is of a discussion that I had with my 7th and 8th grade students about what they think the perfect learning environment would be like. I asked them a few guiding questions, but their ideas were purely their own. I think there is a lot of insight here. If you would like to follow the online discussion, you can go to our conversate page at http://conversate.org/conversation/3JTD3.

Teacher-Proof Teaching

January 31, 2007 04:04AM

 

I created this podcast because I was frustrated with the way our vision of education seems to conflict with the reality of education. I know that the administration at my school wants only what is best for kids. I do not have any doubts in their abilities as leaders. Yet, I do wonder if every “education movement” we fall prey to is good for our school. This podcast takes a critical look at current educational practices, and is therefore both different from and similar to my other podcasts.

The New Graduation Requirements

February 01, 2007 07:55PM

 

I have been thinking a lot about how we have the same graduation requirements that we have always had. We may have upped the number of Math and English classes, but each student has to do the same things in high school, jump through the same hoops. Why is it that none of the new literacies and skills are included in the graduation requirements? Why should each student accomplish the same things in four years, when they will all be doing different things with their lives? Shouldn’t we be preparing our students to compete, to stand out in a crowded field of applicants? Well, this podcast tries to answer a few of these questions.

How do we assess School 2.0?

February 11, 2007 08:36PM

 

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while just how assessment is going to look in School 2.0. I have developed (or at least half-baked) 3 types of assessments that I would consider in this new type of environment: 1. Conversation 2. Reflection 3. Aggregation

Parents as School 2.

I have been working on a couple new documents that make sense for the development of pedagogy and the future of education. You can find the links to them at the k12online conference: http://k12online.wm.edu/AuthenticLearning.pdf

http://k12online.wm.edu/101Resources.pdf

This new possibility (which is now kind of old) is a total reversal of some of the things that I have consistently talked about and advocated for. This only comes about because of a great contact I have made with the principal of our online school (eDCSD). The possibility is this: Starting from a place of amazing technology and bringing in education rather than starting from a traditional school and trying to shove technology into it. What do you think about it?