Microsoft Future School Summit day 2

Microsoft Future School Summit day 2
(All of the presentations (powerpoints, etc) are available on the conference website:
http://sofsummit.com)

Also – don’t forget that I maintain a delicious site – all conference sites I tagged with sofsummit

Breakfast – met Mari who works with FinPol – She is working with SRI to develop an architecture for immersive virtual worlds for the Finnish government. Diana Oshiro spoke with her sum is well to try and find a connection for the elearning hawaii initiative

Keynote: Tony Wagner
Clay Parker – need to think and frame good questions – can get employees to learn new knowledge, but communications and thinking are critical

elite private school head “why is it the longer students are in my school, the less curious they are?”
tony describes what his walks into classrooms show pretty consistently
ex – 18 classes in three days – only one in 18 was student challenged in a way that college prep
example – AP chem class students following lab – students confused by incorrect result – waiting for teacher – “what is you hypothesis about what is going wrong?” students were not even sure what he meant
Jonathan King – MIT molecular scientist – how are kids prepared? Intro class – best and brightest – microscope “tell me what you see?” – students “What should I be looking for?” students are programmed to know what the answer is, not determine it from their experience
about the only thing that educators and work agrees – this generation lacks work ethic – tony’s question “to what extent is this true” – tony’s experiences – differently motivated – this gen is habituated on the internet – they are one the web all the time, collaborating, sharing
slides show stats on teenage use – interest driven self directed learning and self expression
surveys show students want to make a difference and do something worthwhile
tony gives example of 22 yd old google employee – driven to make a difference

Action Items for leaders: Test for competencies, not just coverage – we test for content standards we SHOULD test for performance standards (example knowing a term vs use it in context)
tony gives examples of performance based tests – PISA, CWRA, iSkills
tony uses the finnish examples – one of the reforms they did – schlecter – involved in their education
finnish teacher moved from assembly line to knowledge worker
tony advocates making the process transparent – video taping performance (like sports and performing arts)
need R&D money in education – where is this for us? We need to incent the risk takers in education (like skunk works)

feedback – need to pay teachers like knowledge workers – finland – high status – not through pay, but working conditions – only 1 in 9 education college applicants is accepted to Finnish schools of ed
respect, opportunities,
Question from columbia – reality of schools way behind actually completely different place – for a country like theirs , what do they do with the constraints they have – kids are not even coming to school with breakfast – huge obstacles, they have computers and connectivity, but students are coming from poverty…what to do…tony – lived in mexico for a year – poverty is an impediment – policy makers are still a problem – they want schools to be like they remembered – the social norm
australia – question – obsession with testing – governments and universities determine what kids need to to in order to advance, what is your opinion of how gov and univ should
toy – I believe in accountability “having the wrong yardstick is worse than having one at all”
finland has a few high standards – math standards k-12 10 pages. They test samples to look at the system, not the whole.
what is the yardstick – that which gets measured gets taught
tony gives pisa as example – open ended questions are 70% of the assessment – not cheap – takes longer to build and test – is this a priority
parents& schools – afraid of risk and want to keep schools the same for fear of failure…
admin – first job is to create urgency – if people understand what’s at stake they will be
Tony “I see deeply bored children in school after school – we need to create an urgency about this!”
example of teacher using great tools – but still irrelevant to students “Why do we need to learn this” – never addressed
executives – asking really good questions is the kernel – tony says that technology won’t teach that – but socrates understood…he likes technology but as a support tool not as the tool
mexico teacher – not about technology, about getting kids involved in process

canada – namibia – the notion of transparency is interesting – video taping – are teachers willing to take part in this – how to share this. What if the students are doing the taping so it is more about recording what happened in class
tony – teachers should keep libraries of their teaching, video tape focus groups of students talking about their experiences use as feedback into the system
question – AP exams – and course – too burdened with facts – 20th century
tonys website schoolchange.org

Breakout 1: Knowledge Hub: Reusing Open Educational Resources
http://khub.itesm.mx/
Monterey – university knowledge transfer
overview of monterrey tec
how are we using oer
strategies for transferring knowledge to society

Monterrey Tec – non-profit, private funded – 33 campuses plus a virtual university
1900 location based community ,earning centers (plus an additional 150 in the US)

moved from passive to active learning – moving from teacher center to student centered
(nice graphic on this slide)

Knowledge Hub – a search engine of open ed resources
Laura Ruiz, Victoria Patricia
what is it – strategy – knowledge transfer
identify best learning resources available so teachers can improve teaching practice (mark – is this somewhat like marcopolo does?)
model – universities feed into knowledge hub which then is shared with all kinds of organizations – ngo, schools, learning orgs, etc

no charge for Oer access
they use the Creative Commons license agreement

they believe in the wisdom of the group to elect the best resources – they rate these – flagged by metadata by experts they employ

even though they didn’t start with this, they found that by teachers commenting and rating resources, they have fostered creativity.
how it works: collaborators determine good sites, these are archived, then accessible for folks

they discuss the benefits and they are much like what Michael Horn talked about…
started in March 08 with 300 profs who looked at content
now 10,000 good resources, 1500 have been adopted into courses.
both faculty and students very positive in their use of the knowledge hub

challenge – internet is too open – too many resources, professors need a means to identify good resource
example – they used instructional design ideas to make the specific content usable and containable

5000 hours of aligned consent for their site now.

specific sites for high school, entrepreneurial academy, middle school, etc
this idea of researching and vetting websites has a lot of power – ownership and
their structures lets them keep adding learning objects to adapt

knowledge transfer implies collaboration, engagement, accessibility –

she is inviting folks to work with them to help build the knowledge

Bruce Question – the ability to rank – still development – very important part – is it ongoing? are you done? their social community continues to share and rank
one of their folks works on metadata and scorm to put more information into the resources – research in action
roger – to what extent are teacher contributing content?
3 ways to add content – build a evaluator –
broad assimilation process – teachers have to get into hub – if missing a resource they need – acts as an informal training
question: how did you find the evaluators – she invited profs and post grads who mostly were interested in research, but they are opening it up. incentive – leaders of change within the system. Creating innovation by optional leadership, not mandating roles

Breakout 2: Teacher eportfolio – Victor McNair – Northern Ireland
“grab their hearts and their minds will follow you
first activity – write in a sentence an inspirational teacher and why they were that way

these are the sentences the group wrote:
“inspired a strong sense of curiosity about all things and gave me tools and structures to explore the curiosity”
“unrelenting passion for getting it right, always tied to a performance”
“great ideas in every defense”
“they told stories that lived!”
“He modeled the practice!”
“Gave me self-confidence”
“orchestrated the class with clear expectations and a good mix of individual and group work that was challenging — led to success”
“engage with enthusiasm and varied teaching methods”
“talked about relevant issues that I cared about”
“recognize my ability. Made learning fun. Rigorous standards.”
“She does what she believes — a great practitioner”
“knowledge, compassion, inspiring teaching methods, humanity”
“role modeling, applied skills, caring, feedback”
“she stimulated my curiosity”
“Patience, energy, commitment, enthusiasm. Never get tired of showing me how. Allowed me to ask silly questions”

northern ireland (this ties to Jimmy stewarts presentation yesterday
fair comment – all use ict, but not all use effectively

4 step process – a diverse and authentic evidence of teaching competence that has been the subject of reflection, synthesis and selection for a professional audience
collection
reflection
selection
presentation

(he admits right now he is in charge of this gateway – doesn’t feel they are ready for opening up the process)
teachers progression:
teacher ed…. induction..early pd….performance review staff dev…accredited courses…teacher leadership
the site:
http://pebbleweb.co.uk/

the developed principles for eportfolios
ownership of content by teacher
orgs can develop own software
process dependent
evidence media rich varied
competence based
grounded in pd

2 axes – is this mandatory or not? is this structure or not
are we looking for empirical evidence or inferential evidence?
sometimes the soft evidence is the strongest (comments, interviews, ) mark’s note: this is the quantitative vs the qualitative debate
“the story i am most interested with my teacher students is the conversations we have on their thinking after a lesson – tells me where they are, and my advice on where they need to go”
the empirical vs the inferential is a positivist (skinner) vs constructivist (Vygotsgy/Gardner)

trying to build consensus in eportfolio
how to build a an set of tools for teacher students and experienced teachers
26,000 teachers – 200 in pilot – change model for manage

one of the goals in eportfolio is showing the progression in teacher development over time – to build a body of work that demonstrates what the teacher has and is doing

what is the process?
reflection on practice – knowledge on learning , social science, and content knowledge
how do you apply the knowledge in the classroom
his observation – people who care about kids matter more than subject matter expertise (though it matters)
essentially – we go into the class with expectations, after a lesson what do we do to reflect “I learn most when I am having a cup of coffee with my colleagues” – YES!
how to help teachers reflect on experience from lesson implementation
he articulates a structure that looks like lesson study – you teach, you reflect, you redesign – what is the process to make this happen?
the de-compression is the richest part of the learning – how is this structured?
showed a teacher comment (video) – the portfolio exposes what you are doing and makes you look critically at your craft
shows us examples of eportfolios – one area is resources teachers have found useful to support thier learning – he makes the point that without reflection on these resources, you don’t know whether they have reflected on the items shown
he has web 2.0 comment feature here that allows commentary
right now only he has the rights to comment and converse with students – he is using this to guide their learning – he sees more interaction with others over time
there is a nugget of sharing here that the HAIS might be able to use for the SOTF grant

needs to see a longitudinal development – this will broaden the base of evidence that teachers show “this encourages people to think about this a holistic way”
mark’s note – if teachers were using this tool, would it lead to them adapting the behaviors to look at eportfolio for their ow students?

interesting discussion – will this lead to litigation issue? information to public?

Breakout 3: Anjlee Prakash
India – http://www.learninglinksindia.org/
education today
goal – 6000 model schools for 08-09
30% by gr 8 drop out! (over 100 million!)
education must be aligned to what we do in the future

their models for future schools
it literacy, integration, 1:1, global elearning

slide here has great detail on the differences
they have a great range of schools – poor rural and great private
her org is a non-profit that has the ability to work across the scope of this
3 big quest
is ict meeting ed obj
are tools align with curriculum
do they help locally and globally effective citizen

Model 1 – IT literacy (beginners) 2-5 computers in school
class size 40-50 chalk and talk
kids are coaxing teachers to start using tech – having great effect increasing demand
(reminiscent of the computer in the village model on TED.com from Sugata Mitra)

Model 2: Basic IT Integration 10-30 computers in a lab – (students do not have at home, but labs are open late)
she mentioned that india’s focus on exams – the teachers see the computers as tools that will help support this preparation
their content is in many languages (20 that are native plus 100 from outside)
BOOT model – corporations setting up computers for schools
BIG STAT – only 15% of schools in india have computers of any kind!

Model 3: IT Integration and Innovation
more pervasive access to tech – teachers using tech regularly in instruction

she showed a chart that mapped learning (retention, recall, grades, skill-subject wise) against the 4 models

Model 4: 1:1 technology
classmates intel machines
focus more on student centered learning

teachers/parents/students in this model are asking about pace, time and seat time
they are encouraging schools to not incrementally climb the ladder but leapfrog to the 1:1 model
research ongoing about the impact and adjustments need to support this

Model 5: Global eLearning
uses their education satellite anywhere anytime
online mentoring/ fully digital online
goal – 1000 school like this!

their development cycle – resources, then content and curriculum, then prof dev
she finds it is critical

models – need to be acceptable, adaptable,

“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps – we must step up the stairs.”
— Vance Havner

they use 60 hour of pd offered (required) for the ICT training (21 day module during break time) they get a 60 hr session for ict.

sustainability – not just getting into the classes – need to make sure used effectively

they are collecting data on attendance/drop out rate issue – she reports that the days the kids use the computers, they all go to school – the digital content is leveling the playing field and they feel this will drive up school attendance and matriculation

Lunch: Will Richardson and Andy Ross (FVS) – we spoke almost nonstop for now primarily a boat howl and the sets up and works in the Florida virtual school’s.
http://www.flvs.net/
Even though they have 10s of thousands of students in their system, grades 6-12 (adding k — five next year), only 600 or so are full time online students. The remainder are using FVS has a course replacement program for their face-to-face high school. Teachers in the FVS model work eight-hour days with a caseload of 125 students. Their system is only considered a success if students passed the class, and they only get funded based on the number of students to succeed. They have extremely high satisfaction ratings, and are continually working on product development. All of their profits go back into product development. The retention rate on a yearly basis is 97%. Their teachers work 12 months a year and earned vacation through hours cost, much like the business world. They currently have about 1% of Florida’s students in their system, and when asked, and he thought they might go as high as 5% but he feels hard pressed to see it getting more broadly accepted then that. most common course taken? Physical education. Biggest issue? Traditional schools lose funding when their students used this online service, and so they vie for the students even though they’re not supposed to discourage them from utilizing the service. They have started branching out from Florida their courses cost $400 for a year of course. Of course, the school that the student is attending must agree to accept the credits if a student takes one of your classes.
Mark’s note: here is an example of deferring out it into online space classes that may have more of a content versus competency focus. I asked Andy if you are seeing some schools evolve so that they use FVS as their basic skills requirement area, thus allowing them to focus on project-based learning more and their face-to-face time. he said he was aware of a few schools that were beginning to apply them all.
Will Richardson was concerned (as was I.) then not this was still a very traditional content driven model. And the admitted that there was some of them, but they do utilize Web 20 tools, but only within their system. It is a shame that these students are so close to being connected to the world, the privacy rights in Florida only allow them to share with other students in their own system. All in all a very interesting model.

Breakout 6: Korea elearning
pisa – scores 1st reading 2nd math 3rd science

inrfastructure – 5.5 students per pc

1/3 teachers trained annually
86%teacher use ict 99.6% use ict students
71% self-efficacy (OECD)

17 virtual academies

data and access and planning impressive – master plan I ‘96-’00 ..etc
current goal – lifelong learning society
they see the evolution in elearning design – diverse tools, changes to student centered, content is more individualized
e-lifelong learning society is a plan they are moving to
5 major policies:
improve quality of ed through elearning
develop human resources through tech
strengthen vocational and career ed
create regional integration through e-community
promote e-learning global partnerships

cyber home learning system – set up by keris
http://english.keris.or.kr/es_main/index.jsp
showed a 7 minute video that showed the system being used by a student to supplement her classwork – includes synchronous video elements

this was targeted to reduce the use of private education services – goal is to provide supplementary learning without charge – address urban vs rural access
aspects of the schools: 1:1 learning management, community support, customizable,
offered to gr 4-10 ss, math, sci, eng, korean plus additional service as need locally
scales to level needed, cyber teachers, system support
includes a lot of different activities and media – a really rich multimedia environment
LNMS supports 4 areas study support, academic, (slide went by too fast)etc
cyber teachers – manage learning – support the student activities
there is also diagnostic services (academic level and study habits) which than offers appropriate service for students
PLUS video real time for lecture and group meeting

utilization – since 2005 – 3 million
cyber teachers 60,000 parent tutors 4500, daily access 300,000!

Digital Text Book project
10 minute video
connects to natl knowledge db, lms, eval tools, authoring tool, connection of content owned by the natl institutions
video on – incorporates all the materials used in the past, plus electronic functions, animations, etc…

to what effect – a autonomous u-learning environment

bridge the learning gap whether location or disabilities
reduced cost of private education

3 stages
now: development
07-011 phase in
2013 – full phase in nationally

includes both synchronous and async assessment

Keris – has really pushed this effort
Bruce explained that cost and time for private schooling – they want to address this
secondly – teaching english had been a problem – written instead of spoken – this has enabled oral development….

final keynote
Bill Hill
goal – reading on screen instead of reading on paper
topic – the digital renaissance
gutenberg brought change
we are in the midst of a new change

we are building a new human network
the full effect may take 50 yrs, but we need to make changes now to be ready

the web browser is a reader – development needs to focus on this – need to improve the reading experience
eBooks –
“I have an amazon kindle – it is just about readable – but I wish it did more…plus I reading the tub…and dropped it in”

we are all homosapien v 1.0 – the original version shipped 130,00 yrs ago and there is no v 2.0 coming any time soon – hunter gather in our system – our responses are tied to our need for food and safety – the corners of our eyes are continually searching for movement. Webpages and documents that have flashing sidebars continually distract from the reading experience, since our instincts tell us to mind for flashing as it may be a sign of danger.
so any technology for reading needs to address the design of the reading system we have shipped with…

interesting – the fovea of the eye is best used at 9-13 pt font due to the way reading occurs physically – tied to the size of the image the fovea can process at arm length

he has a paper “The magic of Reading” – will be on the conference web site.
is blog is here:http://www.billhillsite.com/

interesting – two issues – scrolling bad Because as the eye scans text it is cognitive work to lose your place and retrace words you’ve already processed. It affects memory in a continuous stream of thought. flashing bad for the safety reason mentioned above.

reading while scrolling and flashing text completely throws off the visual design of human readability

bill hill’s “new rules”
repeal no fixed page, no sizes in pixels
need adaptive layout technology
large print., text to speech

bill uses his son as an example – never went to school – he taught himself to read – learned it from the computer (he is reading things like faust)

people who create intellectual property must be fairly paid for their work

talking about copyright and intellectual property “information is free” is not a democracy – it is anarchy

Bill does not trust wikipedia – I don’t agree completely with his distrust, but I agree with the idea of compensation for creators of content

Bill shares his new Digital Declaration of independence (see the slide)
We hold this truth to be self-evident: That every human has an equal and unalienable right to the means to create, distribute and consume information to realize their full potential for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – regardless of the country they live in, their gender, beliefs, racial origin, language or any impairments they may have.

common thought. but worth repeating – are we preparing learners for jobs that don’t exist for yet, using tech that isn’t invented for problems that we don’t know yet?

he related the story of when he bought his first sitar in 1971 and when he bought he most recent one this year – access, experts, communication, training all through the web…

Again all of the presentations are available on the conference website:
http://sofsummit.com