Future of Education

On Thursday February 19th, the Future of Education channel on uStream will have its first broadcast at 8:05 AM EST. This is a very exciting event for me. If you are not familiar with uStream, my experience so far has been great. Amazing how easy it is to setup and get running.

Thursdays broadcast will feature Billy Fischer of b & a, a 21st century advertising firm. The idea behind how the company is run is very interesting. Check out this article from the Columbus Dispatch to see for yourself.

Billy will talk:

I. about myself
II. about b&a
III. about the work we do and how we do it
IV. about how we are using social media for ourselves and our clients
V. about his recommendations to students as they move towards college and developing their own personal brand using social media

If you are free, come learn with us. If you cannot attend, I will try and have the video uploaded to this site at some point this week.

I just came across this interview with David Sherman, the principal of South Park Elementary School in Deerfield, Illinois. I’m sure he gets plenty of cracks about “South Park”. One statement he made stood out to me;

…I believe that I must model the use of Web 2.0 tools for the staff and parents. I feel that it is my responsibility to keep learning about these tools, which I do mostly through RSS feeds. I am confident that the teachers now know enough about Web 2.0 tools to start using them, so I am starting to “push” a little harder at the individual teacher level whenever the time is right. I spend a lot of time talking with teachers about ways to incorporate these tools into their teaching. Often, these discussion come from my classroom visits and teacher observations.

I don’t expect all administrators to as tech savvy as David Sherman, or others such as Chris Lehmann. What I would like to see is all administrators to have a basic understanding of technology, specifically web 2.0. I want them to understand the role technology plays in an effective 21st century school. I want them to be able to employ these technologies to increase student achievement in their district/building . When I say administrators, I mean superintendents, principals, directors and any other personnel in a position of leadership.

Once the administrators take on this role as a technology user, then more teachers in their district will take steps to do the same. At that point we will be able to push the way David Sherman is. Getting his teachers to a new level. If the teachers are moving to a new level, just think about the places they must be taking their students. I hope I can play a role in helping my district reach these new levels.

I am furious. I just received an e-mail from a counselor in our district that her wiki is blocked. I then tried to go to my wiki, blocked. Seriously? We are blocking wikispaces? We use a consortium for our filters. Many of the schools in central Ohio use this same filter. This means that at least on of these schools has asked for wikispaces to be blocked. When will this ignorance end? When will our students and teachers be aloud to enter the 21st century? I’m so mad at this moment I cannot even formulate intelligent solutions.

Lucky for me, we have override power. I’m confident that our district will have their access back before the end of the day. What about the other local districts? Do they have people inside who are educated enough to know these sites shouldn’t be blocked? What about the great collaborative learning experiences their students are missing? Words cannot tell how sick I feel right now.