Is Online Learning Equal to 21st Century Skills?

What a beautiful day to go to a music festival right on the Delaware River with Philadelphia's skyline and blue sky as a backdrop! Sure it was a little hot. But it was nothing water ice and a trip around the carousel couldn't cure.


An online school display piqued my interest so I stopped to by to chat with the very kind teachers manning the booth. From our conversation, I didn't get the sense that 21st century skills were part of their learning experiences. The school did make AYP.

But collaboration, creativity, problem-based learning were not central threads (or so it appeared) to learning. Overall, I just didn't get sense that students would be any more prepared for the 21st century learning through an online environment than in a traditional school. [ Please note: The was conversation was not extensive from a research standpoint and in no way am I try to be overly critical of this school. ]

Interestingly, I just blogged about this concept drawing on the history of educational technology. I go back to the questions from yesterday: Does online learning equate to better learning?

Put another 2 ways: Does the medium for delivering content make the difference? Or is the difference in how the students come to understand the content?

Alright, so maybe I'm still a bit parched.

Technology Plans: A Parallel Conversation?

In reviewing a technology plan recently, two things stuck out:

1. A great deal of work goes into creating a technology plan.
2. The benchmarks were really interesting.

The benchmarks listed teacher adoption rates by application, percentage, and time frame.

For example, one of the goals in the plan was:

80% of teachers by 2008-09 will integrate multimedia projects into lessons.

I like standards and goals since I think they give us a framework and something to strive towards. They, in a sense, give us a vision. And I realize we need to satisfy requirements through writing goals into technology plans. Ultimately, technology plans can be powerful, amazing tools especially when created by all school stakeholders.

As I mentioned, a great deal of time and work goes into creating these goals but I have to ask in the context of this specific plan:

• Is there a plan to connect multimedia to curriculum and student learning?
• Should the focus be on student learning rather than teacher utilization?
• Are there plans for teacher learning networks (personal and professional)?
• Are these goals part of the school's vision?
• Do these goals mesh with the school's culture?
• Is there a link to 21st century skills?
• Are these goals collectively developed?
  
• Is there a plan/conversation about teacher technology adoption?
• Should our goals be learner (student focused)? An example: 80% of students will engage in projects where multimedia is used a tool for better content understanding.
  

I'll return to a theme that I've discussed before: parallel conversations. Sometimes, I think good things get lost through parallel conversations especially thinking technology is a separate entity from everything else. Sometimes, I think this "parallel-ness" gives rise to technology being someone else's problem. And inadvertently, I think teacher technology adoption is adversely affected. Teachers don't see a culture of merging technology with learning, teaching, and students.

Should we be thinking about a Student Learning Plan of sorts that is a combination of a technology plan, instruction plan, and improvement plan? Technology can be planned, discussed, and prioritized but it would be in the context of student learning - the focus of our schools. There could be even a section dedicated to the technical details but connecting the technology to the overall culture, mission, and vision of the school can only help ensure the common ground between learning and instruction is forged.

Teachers, People, and Chief Technology Adopters: Can There Be a Balance?

There's no doubt they work hard...I'm just not sure they're working hard on the right things.

This quote was said by an administrator I respect a great deal. I often keep it in mind when I'm trying to prioritize tasks, my thinking, and my work.

In thinking about EduCon 2.0, I am very excited about participating in all the great conversations, meeting folks, and learning from others. In reflecting and refining my conversation on teacher technology adoption, I keep going back to these questions:

• What does teacher technology adoption look like?
• What are our expectations? Are they realistic?
• Are some teachers overwhelmed by choices?
• Are we technologists clear in articulating what a 21st century, technology adopted class looks like?
• Do we sometimes loose focus of the goal of student learning with technology's "oh-wow" factor?
• Do we loose sight that teachers are people with families, outside commitments, non-school responsibilities, hobbies, and non-technology professional development?
• Is there such thing as an over-saturation of technology?

I find we collectively don't address this side of teacher technology adoption. For me these questions emerge from looking at teachers - our current, future, and potential chief adopters of technology, 21st century skills, web 2.0 tools, and the read/write web - from a human perspective. Some of what initiated this thought process is the fact that I just at 10:15 PM was able to have "me" time.

Prior to 10:51PM, I got up early to do some baby proofing around our house before I left for school. I had some coffee, did some morning routine chores, checked email and drove my 1 hour 10 minute commute to school. While it was great to get back to school after our long break, it became a busy day very quickly and didn't stop until I left at 5:20. I drove home in an hour and six minutes. As soon as I got home, I hugged my daughter, asked how her day was, and grabbed the pork chops to start cooking. My wife came home around 7:20PM from work and we finally ate around 7:30PM. After a fun dinner full of laughs, we did some playing and it was off the tub where my daughter learned the word "monkey". Then it was time for a snack, reading a book, and off to bed at 9:30PM. After some more chores and some quiet dad time, I got started on some work...work that led me to this work. It's now 10:57 and I still have work to do but not technology work. And this isn't a night when my wife has a late meeting, I have a graduate school class, or that we need to run an errand to the store. Tomorrow night promises to be different as my wife has a late meeting.

I share my schedule not because I think it's interesting or compelling at all. I share it because I wonder how many teachers - our chief technology adopters - our 21st century architects and builders - have similar days? How many teachers are there that maybe aren't night owls who can exist on my usual 5-6 hours a sleep per night? How many teachers don't have a great deal of time during the school day for professional development?

But how many hours exist in 1 day to tinker with a new technology to learn a new (something)cast, to really engage in technology to feel comfortable with using it in front of the classroom? How many hours does it take to register for these great tools and just keep track of username and password combinations?

I'm new enough to marriage and family life to know that I sure don't have the blocks of discretionary time as when I entered into my current phase of life (for which I wouldn't trade the world). And this is all personal time. I'm not talking about the current list of professional responsibilities that teachers have. At the risk of sounding Todd Oppenheimer-ish, I'm not downplaying technology's role. Nor am I'm trying to making excuses. What I'm trying to be is realistic with my thinking about teacher technology adoption. Yes, I still dream and think big but there's a practical reality...even I as a technologist there's limits to what I can adopt.

There are five tiers of teacher technology adopters that seem to have existed throughout my 12 years in technology:

1. jump-in with both feet
2. migratory wading area to deep end travelers
3. stay in the wading pool
4. one toe in
5. stay on the beach

What are the differences between the teachers in the same school who jump-in with both feet and those who stay on the beach? Do the jump-in with both feet teachers have more time and less personal commitments than the stay on the beach teachers? Do they engage in different teaching approaches - constructivism, constructionism, and hybrid? Do they work harder on the right things? Do they have a higher tolerance for complexity and possible failure? Do they build and leverage their own capacity or find capacity somewhere? Are they more savvy consumers of technology? Is somehow their total perceived pain of adoption (TPPA) lower than than their current pain. Put another way, is their current pain greater than their current TPPA?
Do they see something in the culture that others don't? Are they privy to a vision others aren't?

Is it necessarily bad to stay in the wading pool and not use every web 2.0 widget available but rather focus and maybe dabble with one technology?

How do we facilitate and encourage teachers - as chief technology adopters - to get into the wading pool and possibly into the deeper end? Is this where capacity, professional learning communities, and competent systems become vital?

Or does this come down to working hard not on the right things?

Policy and Culture: Friends or Foes for Teacher Technology Adoption & 21st Century Skills?

When thinking about 21st century skills and more specifically teacher technology adoption, what are the roles of culture and policy? Are they friends or foes? Does and can policy influence culture?

I really got to thinking about this while writing my last post. The culture of a school is such a powerful factor in how, when, and why things are done. Teacher technology adoption is especially prone to culture, albeit still like any other practice, since it's still not a commonly practiced norm in many classrooms, learning, and instructional routines. Interestingly, I would suspect in spite of many great cultures of learning and student achievement, teacher technology adoption and 21st century skills are void.

Larry Cuban has written quite a bit about the influence of policy on actual classroom practices. Deal and Peterson discuss policy as one of the lenses used in educational initiatives. The conclusion I've drawn from from reading these scholars is that policy doesn't have a large, lasting impact on classroom practices.

The old adage "give a man to fish, he'll eat for a day...teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime" comes to mind. It seems like policy, in a sole effort to drive teacher technology adoption, will really just sustain short-term adoption like giving a man a fish. Culture of a school, or "the way we do things around here", will sustain a greater adoption of technology like teaching a man to fish.

If this is true, what effect will it have on teacher technology adoption? Here are some more interesting questions that I think could be asked:

• Will policy be a true catalyst for engaging educators in developing 21st century skills?
• Does a strong, culture filled with capacity have to be in place first for policy to have a sustainable effect?
• How can culture become inclusive of 21st century skills?
• How can culture embrace teacher technology adoption?
• What cultural traits need to be shaped for 21st century skills to be inclusive?
• What cultural traits need to be shaped to provide for greater teacher technology adoption?

21st Century Skills: Working Out the Details

Larry Cuban wrote a number of years ago that systemic policy can stop when the classroom door closes. I think in some form or another many educators have experienced this. Something comes down from "above" that may not be agreeable, practical, coincide with their beliefs and values about teaching and learning, or demonstrate that it will result in learning. It's not direct opposition or intentional defiance; rather it's a matter of the degree to which immediacy is felt.

How well does this bode for 21st century skills?

I truly believe in 21st century skills. As a result, I spend a great deal of time reading and thinking about them on a global perspective, school perspective, teacher-adoption perspective, and how I can implement them in my K-8 technology literacy classes. Despite this, 21st century skills are still a bit fuzzy to me as a classroom teacher. While many great folks are working hard on this conversation, I still sometimes come up with the question of, "What are 21st century skills exactly?".

I think, a few things needs to be addressed to make sure this "policy" is carried out even once the classroom door is closed:

• Discussion of 21st century skills in the context of subject matter (concrete details)
  
• Consideration of teacher technology adoption (no adoption means less 21st century skills)
  
• Demonstrate results of 21st century skills for teachers to show enhanced learning
  
• Find systemic harmony/synergy between NCLB and 21st century skills
  
• Provide models of how 21st century skills look for teachers
• Assess the assessment of 21st century skills
  

We often rely on traditional teaching teaching since we know the results...most of us are a products of it. The results of educational technology and 21st century skills are a great unknown for many educators. What's even more unknown is the direct connection between 21st century skills and content areas.

How can a teacher teach genres, main ideas, polynomials, fractions, health, or art incorporating 21st century skills? Moreover, how are these areas to be taught knowing that students are expected to have a certain level of proficiency? Will schools risk test scores for 21st century skills?

Teachers are great practitioners. I think often times they are viewed too generally as someone who takes only takes the abstraction of curriculum, goals, and objective to guide learning and understanding. But there's so much more that goes on to make learning take place. Students have to read, they have to pick up pencils, talk, reflect, write, ask questions, build, type, watch, hear, and see to learn. Teachers need to not only offer these activities but also assess them too. This is the detailed level that 21st century skills need to get to, I believe, to be most effective and welcomed into the classroom. The conversations need to get to a level or granularity that is this specific. At this point in my thinking 21st century skills (like educational technology adoption as a tool) have to come from within the detailed activities not layered on top of teaching practices. The further something is away from the core of pragmatics, the easier it is not to be adopted.

I don't think we can expect the details of 21st century skills will work themselves out in the classroom at the adoption level without first considering all the details of the environment in which they need to be implemented. Said another way, we need to work out the details on the onset, not afterwards. 21st century skills are far too important to not be implemented once the door closes. I think we need to decide whether we want to pay now or pay later.