Pixar University's Randy Nelson on Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age

A lot has been written about 21st Century Skills and jobs of the future but how do schools prepare students for jobs that don't exist yet and give students the needed skills for these job?  I recently saw this video from Edutopia by Randy Nelson, Dean of Pixar University. 

In this video Mr. Nelson explains what skills future employees will need and what schools must do to prepare students for new models in the workplace.  

The following is an outline from the video.
Use improv as a mechanisim to help with collaboration.  There are two core principles of improv.

1. Accept every offer - if you don't accept the offer it goes no where
2. Make your partner look good - always try to make your partner look good, not bad
• It's called Plusing - take a piece of work and don't judge it - say, "here's where I'm starting, what can I do with this?"
• How do I plus this? 
• How do I accept the offer and make my partner look good?

How can students be ready for innovative jobs with innovative companies?  How can these innovative companies find someone who has a depth of knowledge that is able to do the job?  Many innovative companies will look for people who have seen failure and figured out how to turn it into something positive rather than those people who have avoided failure.  The core skill of innovators is error recovery not failure avoidance. 

Some predictors that innovative companies will look for:

1. Depth - Proof of a portfolio verses the promise of a resume.  Students who are high achievers in school usually are high achievers in the workplace.
2. Breadth - people who are extremely broad - people who are more interested in the job and learning than they are interesting - people who want to know what you know.
3. Communication that involves translation - willing to work on communication as a destination, not a source, being able to communicate to your audience effectively.  People with a broad range of experiences can effectively communicate to several audiences.
4. Collaboration means amplification - connecting a group of people who are listening to each other; interested in each other; bringing separate depths to the problem; and bringing breadth that gives them interest in the entire solution.  Collaboration allows people to communicate on multiple different levels - verbally, in writing, in feeling, in acting, in pictures, and helps them find the most articulate way to get the point across to a broad range of people so every person in the group can pull together. 

Schools have an untapped resource in their students.  Schools need to find ways to help students build leadership skills, problem-solving skills, collaboration skills and effective communication skills.  Students also need to be given the opportunity and guidance to learn how to turn failure into something positive.   All students need to be challenged to achieve mastery at school to become high achievers in their future careers.

To view the entire video:
http://www.edutopia.org/randy-nelson-school-to-career-video

Image from:
http://web.lincoln.k12.mi.us/Buildings/Hs/nuzzo/web0809/Pixar.jpg
http://web.lincoln.k12.mi.us/Buildings/Hs/nuzzo/web0809/pxindex.htm

Top 6 Technologies for the Next 5 Years

According to researchers from the 2010 Horizon Report K-12 Edition, cloud computing and gaming are among the six technologies that will have a major positive impact on K-12 education in the next few years. The article outlines key technology areas for the next five years has been broken down into technologies that will have an impact in the near futures, technologies in the early stages of adoption, and technologies that are further out.

Cloud computing and collaborative environments will have a significant impact on education. In the next two to three years game-based learning and mobile technologies will foster collaboration and engage students more deeply in the learning process. According to the article in the next four to five years augmented reality and discovery-based learning will have an impact on education. Augmented reality is the convergence of various media tools and mobile applications to create “a portable tool for discovery-based learning, enhancing the information available to students when visiting historical locations, doing field work, interacting with real-world objects, and paging through books.”

But there were challenges identified as critical –

1. Inadequate digital media literacy training for teachers
2. Out of date learning materials and teaching practices
3. Lack of agreement on how education should evolve, despite widespread agreement that change is needed
4. A failure of education institutions to adapt to informal education, online education, and home-based learning
5. Lack of support or acknowledgement of the forms of learning that usually occur outside the classroom

Many schools have provided more computers, interactive boards, software applications and opportunities for students to enroll in online courses and within the regular school day teachers need to provide learning through real life experiences because students need to see the connections between the world, their lives and the school. Outside of the regular school day students are finding online resources, practicing skills using games and interacting with their peers through social networks. Students shouldn’t have to power down when they enter the school and not be able to communicate with the outside world.

To read the entire article written by David Nagel:
http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/04/13/6-technologies-that-will-shape-education.aspx

To read the 2010 Horizon Report K-12 Edition:
http://www.nmc.org/publications/2010-horizon-k12-report

Edutopia: Ten Top Tips for Teaching with New Media

Free resource from Edutopia

Here is a tips list from Edutopia on ways to make the most of the latest technologies and how to bring new media into the classroom. This is a list of practical ways to prepare students for 21st century success.

1. Break the Digital Ice
   a. Scavenger hunts, name games, and other introductory activities help teachers and students get acquainted so they can start building a positive learning community. Give this important classroom tradition a 21st-century makeover by integrating digital tools.
2. Find Your Classroom Experts
   a. Early in the school year, survey your students to find out about their digital smarts. You can take advantage of their technical know-how in the classroom, too, if you know where to look for help
3. Get Off to a Good Start
   a. Spend some time on self-management strategies now, and your investment will pay off all year long. A wide array of Web tools can help students get better at managing their own learning.
4. Think Globally
   a. By using online resources and new media tools for connecting, you will help your students see themselves as global citizens. One of the fastest ways to expand your students’ horizon is simply to connect your class with students who live somewhere else in the world.
5. Find What You Need
   a. Instead of digging into your own wallet, take advantage of online tools and community resources to find what you need—for nothing. One of the best-known programs is DonorsChoose.org (donorschoose.org), Public school teachers post a specific request on the Web site. Citizen philanthropists choose which requests they want to fund. Kids follow up with thank-you notes. What gets funded? Everything from musical instruments to picture books to classroom technology.
6. Make Meaning from Word Clouds
   a. Encourage lively conversation about words with the help of tools that turn text into visual displays. Wordle (wordle.net) is a free tool that turns a block of text, or simply a list of words, into a cloud pattern. Teachers across subject areas and grade levels are finding good uses for this simple-to-use tool. For example, as a prereading activity, you might use Wordle to highlight key vocabulary.
7. Work Better, Together
   a. Collaboration is a skill your students will need for the future. To help them work better together today, try using collaborative workspaces in the classroom. Google Docs, part of the Google for Educators toolkit (google.com/educators /tools.html), is one example of a secure, online place for managing work in progress. Once you help your students set up free accounts, they’ll be able to access their spreadsheets, documents, and presentations anytime, from any connected computer.
8. Open a Back Channel
   a. Creating a back channel is one strategy for inviting everyone into the conversation. Think of a back channel as a private chat room just for your classroom. Using an instant-messaging tool like iChat or Twitter for microblogging (twitter.com), students can pose questions, make observations while watching a video or student presentation, or share a dissenting viewpoint.
9. Make It Visual
   a. From document cameras to projectors to interactive whiteboards, these technologies make it easier than ever to use visuals to inspire curiosity, generate brainstorming, and engage diverse learners. Across grade levels and subject areas, good visuals help students build background knowledge as they tackle new concepts. You can use images to set the stage for a story set in a remote place or a far-away time. Primary sources from the vast Library of Congress (loc.gov/teachers) archives, for instance, help students “see” the time period for a story set during World War I.
10. Use the Buddy System
    a. Teachers can take advantage of a variety of communication tools to share ideas and strategies with colleagues.
    b. Classroom 2.0 (www.classroom20.com) appeals to both new users of Web 2.0 tools and more experienced practitioners. It’s a good place to throw out a question and get some quick answers.
    c. social-bookmarking tools like Delicious (delicious.com) enable you to organize, comment on, and share noteworthy resources.

To receive this free resource from Edutopia please sign up for the free e-newsletters at
http://www.edutopia.org/edutopia/enews

Global Competition: U.S. Students vs. International Peers

The U.S. has been leading a movement of discussion about the importance of educational technology and 21st Century Skills that all students need. But several countries are doing a better job of preparing students with technology skills which means that US schools could fall behind other countries in using educational technology to improve K-12 schools.

Australia, Britain, China and South Korea have launched plans to make sure students will know how to effectively use technology for learning and work. Developing countries such as India are making financial commitments to ensure that technology skills are taught in schools.

What makes the difference between U.S. students and international students? According to the article U.S. students know how to use cellphones, computer applications and multimedia equipment but they are not being taught to think critically about what they present, how to analyze content or how to employ tools for specific tasks and problems. Students are not receiving consistent, engaging, comprehensive instruction in how to apply technologies to the kinds of assignments given in schools or the workplace.

According to Donald G. Knezek schools need to instill critical thinking, analytical and technology skills as well as creativity, collaboration and communication into the curriculum. According to the article many states in the US have become more deliberate in infusing technology into the curriculum since the No Child Left Behind Act but states have been left to figure out how to reach this goal. How can schools help students gain “technology literacy”? How can schools engage students to use technology for more than Web research or as a presentation tool?

Here are several sources of information for teachers:
ISTE’s Educational Technology Standards for Students
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/NETS_for_Students.htm

Partnership for 21st Century Skills – Framework for 21st Century Learning
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=120

Intel Education Programs and Resources
http://www.intel.com/education/technologyliteracy/

Benefits of Technology Literacy Projects
http://download.intel.com/education/common/en/resources/technologyliteracy/teach/Overview_Benefits_Technology_Literacy.pdf

Teachers: Content Literacy
http://www.literacymatters.org/tech/intro.htm

Article from Digital Directions - June 16, 2009http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2009/06/17/04global.h02.html

Online School for Girls Launches This Fall

This will be the first ever online school in secondary education for girls. The online school was developed by a consortium of independent all-girls’ schools.

The four private schools that will offer the pilot courses next school year are: Harpeth Hall School located in Nashville, Tennessee, a 5th – 12th grade college preparatory school; Holton-Arms School located in Bethesda, Maryland, a 3rd – 12th grade college preparatory school; Laurel School located in Cleveland, Ohio, a K – 12th grade college preparatory school; and Westover School located in Middlebury, Connecticut, a selective boarding school for 9th – 12 grade girls.

Currently 44 states have some type of virtual secondary schools but none of these virtual schools specifically address the educational needs of girls. Ann Pollins, President of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools stated, “We believe that girls inhabit online spaces differently than boys and that this initiative can combine a powerful, transformative online learning environment for girls with a high-quality, twenty-first century academic experience.”

The Online School will offer two pilot courses this fall with four additional courses being offered spring semester of 2009-2010 school year. The Online School will focus on several key principles based on current research on how girls learn best: emphasizing connections among participants; incorporating collaboration into the learning experience; inspiring and rewarding creativity; and engaging in real-world problems and applications.

In the future the Online School will provide an online education that is flexible, affordable and accessible to a diverse, worldwide student base including students who need a flexible school schedule, students who are home schooled, or students who need opportunities for challenging and/or unique coursework.

To read the complete article from Harpeth Hall School:
https://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=204&nid=538755

To read the complete article from Nashville Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2009/06/22/daily10.html

Image from Microsoft Clip Art

Online Games for Learning

Online games have been described as casual games, serious games and advergames but to teachers and parents what do these labels mean?

Casual Games
Casual Games are designed for entertainment. Some casual games are preloaded on computers such as Solitaire while other casual games are downloaded. Learning can occur but mostly casual games are for fun.

Serious Games
Serious games are designed for learning. Simulations, military training, corporate education, health care are just a few ways games are designed for learning. It’s easy to find educational games on the internet from pre-school to university level. Serious games are categorized by genre, complexity, and platforms building maturity and learning.

Serious games focus on specific learning outcomes that can be measured. But do these serious games really promote learning? When the game design is focused on learning outcomes, then learning is possible. According to Mary Jo Dondlinger a game that motivates players to spend time on tasks mastering the skills of the game, is time spent stimulating learning outcomes. Even some casual games like EVE Online can produce real learning outcomes. One player from EVE Online stated that once he had managed a virtual corporation that spanned a universe he could easily manage a real corporation.

Computer games with 3D graphics are being used in the workplace, for recruitment, to improve communication and train employees at all levels. The military trains soldiers using “virtually real” environments where soldiers build teams and prepare personnel for specific missions. One of the most popular games online today is America’s Army.

Advergames
Advergames are a combination of casual and serious games and have been used as a form of marketing for movies and television shows. Advergames are sometimes the most visited section of brand websites promoting repeated traffic and reinforcing the brand.

But what does this mean for education in public schools?
A virtual learning environment needs to encourage content exploration, be learner-centered and individualized. Our digital native students prefer to:

• Receive information quickly
• Multitask
• View pictures and videos
• Interact and network with others
• Receive instant gratification and rewards
• Learn information that is relevant, useful and fun

Digital learners today need online learning that is stimulating and develops critical skills. Once successful program is DiDA Delivered, a diploma program in IT skills for secondary students in the UK. To check out the site please click here: http://www.dida-delivered.org/
The curriculum for this program includes 4,000 learning objects and 300 serious games and teachers can develop their own content to add to the learning environment. DiDA looks similar to Second Life and Active Worlds.

Considering that children ages 8-18 spend at least 50 minutes per day playing video games education needs to provide stimulating, learning environments where students acquire 21st century skills necessary for today’s workforce. To do this learning designers and game designers need to work together to provide a more engaging and effective learning environment for all students incorporating social networking, and other Web 2.0 technologies.

To learn more about online games for learning please read the entire article Serious Games: Online Games for Learning at: http://www.adobe.com/products/director/pdfs/serious_games_wp_1107.pdf

Retooling Schools to Meet 21st Century Education

In September a report was published about Retooling Instruction or US schools will fail. The report basically stated that for the US to be globally competitive, attract industries and create jobs, schools in the US needed to recognize that 21st century skills were critical to the workplace. Unfortunately while the global economy has been changing schools have been focusing on closing the achievement gap and not on the demand for advanced skills from students.

The 21st century skills needed is critical thinking and judgment, complex problem solving, creative thinking, collaboration and communication skills. With these skills students will be able to see a problem and find ways to solve problems, handle responsibility and contribute to productivity and innovation. Students K-12 need 21st century skills. To do this schools need to move beyond assessing science, reading, and math to including 21st century skills to better prepare citizens to work and compete in a 21st century economy.

How do schools ensure that students graduate with all of these skills? I looked to the Partnership for 21stCentury Skills for information. They have created a framework for 21st Century learning that outline the skills, knowledge and expertise that students should master to succeed at work and in life.

What some educators may not know is that in 2005 the governor of North Carolina launched the nation’s first Center for 21st Century Skills to improve North Carolina’s education system. Through North Carolina Virtual Public Schools students across the state can take online courses for high school credit. But what can teachers do in their classrooms today to better prepare students with 21st Century Skills to meet the needs and demands of a competitive global economy?

First teachers can learn more what their district and state are doing to increase the use of technology in the schools and teachers can read through the Framework for 21st Century Learning developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Simply stated the 21st century skills are:

• Accountability and Adaptability – set and expect students to meet high standards in the classroom and teach students to set standards and goals for themselves.
• Communication Skills – students need to be able to read, write and understand multimedia communication in a variety of forms.
• Creativity and Intellectual Curiosity – help students develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others, being open and responsive to other perspectives.
• Critical Thinking and Systems Thinking – exercise sound reasoning and understanding with your students to make complex choices, and help students understand the interconnections among systems.
• Information and Media Literacy Skills – help students to analyze, access, manage, integrate, evaluate and create information in a variety of forms and media.
• Interpersonal and Collaborative Skills – help students develop teamwork and leadership skills, helping them adapt to various roles and responsibilities. Students need to learn how to work productively with others, respecting diverse perspectives.
• Problem Identification, Formulation and Solution – teach students how to frame, analyze and solve problems.
• Self-Direction – help students learn how to monitor their understanding and learning needs, locating resources, and transferring learning from one domain to another.
• Social Responsibility – help students to act responsibly keeping in mind the community at large, to demonstrate ethical behavior in personal and school contexts.
  
  How many of these skills could be targeted in your classroom? Students learn more and retain better what they have learned when they are actively engaged in the learning process. We all need to work together to find ways to incorporate these 21st century skills in our classrooms everyday.

10 Ways to Boost Learning

In my last blog I wrote about the seven skills that students desperately need by the time they graduate from high school. I also wrote about employers who need employees who can think and be able to see a problem and come up with a way to fix that problem. We as educators need to teach 21st century skills to students finding ways to assess those skills through performance measures. We need to find ways to teach today’s multi-tasking students who need visual stimulation and constant contact with their friends. But knowing that we need to be reaching out to our students in a more creative, productive way using technology is not enough. How do teachers and schools do this?

I’ll start by listing those seven survival skills again:
1. Problem-solving and critical thinking
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship
5. Effective written and oral communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination

As I thought about those survival skills I began to think about what part of those skills some students may already possess and how we could build from what students already know. Let’s see, problem-solving – OK if you can’t set up your new cell phone and are tired of reading the manual just give it to one of your students. They will set up your cell phone in 10 minutes flat. How’d they do that? They are not afraid of technology, they are not afraid of trying different things and they will sit and work on something until they figure it out. Problem-solving, simple right? Yea, right. It was easy for them. So students do possess some problem-solving skills. How can we build on that tenacity to help students refine and expand their problem-solving skills?

Collaborating across networks – do students collaborate? You bet, everyday. They work together building Facebook and My Space sites, they form bonds of friendship from texting their many friends everyday and join forces as a team for many of their video games. I continue to read about companies that are using video games for educational purposes. Can we as educators build on the collaborative skills our students already possess? Sure we can.

I don’t need to go through the rest of the list because by now you’re thinking about the students you work with everyday and seeing the skills they already possess. This led me to an article that outlined 10 ways to boost learning with technology. No one would disagree that we have a crisis in education today. In spite of the resources and money used for education students continue to fall behind students in other countries.



The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) came up with an action plan with ten recommendations for national, state and local education leaders:

1. Ensure that technology tools and resources are used continuously and seamlessly for instruction, collaboration, and assessment.
2. Expose all students (pre-K through 12th grade) to STEM fields and careers - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
3. Make ongoing, sustainable professional development available to all teachers.
4. Use virtual learning opportunities for teachers to further their professional development, such as through online communities and education portals.
5. Incorporate innovative, consistent, and timely assessments into daily instruction.
6. Strengthen the home-school connection by using technology to communicate with parents on student progress.
7. Provide the necessary resources so that every community has the infrastructure to support learning with technology, including assessments and virtual learning.
8. Obtain societal support for education that uses technology from all stakeholders – students, parents, teachers, state and district administrators, business leaders, legislators, and local community members.
9. Provide federal leadership to support states and districts regarding technology’s role in school reform by passing the ATTAIN Act, the Achievement Through Technology and Innovation Act.
10. Increase available funding for the e-Rate so that schools can acquire telecommunication services, internet access, internal connections, and maintenance of those connections.

This is a comprehensive list that covers what all school systems, communities and districts should be doing. As I think about what our school system is doing in technology I know we are ahead of other school systems in the state with our use of technology. How does your school compare to other schools in the district where you live? Across your state? Can we do more with the technology resources we currently have? I think so and it’s up to all of us to learn new technology skills and strive to teach the content while reaching out to our students in a more creative, productive way using technology and helping all students gain 21st century skills.

Seven Skills Students Desperately Need

Recently eSchoolNews had an article by Tony Wagner about the seven skills that students desperately need to acquire before graduating high school. Several groups have been offering advice as to how federal policy makers and state and local education leaders can transform education and help students obtain 21st century skills through technology.

One misconception is the fact that a lot of people think the skills that students need for the workforce and the skills needed to be good citizens are two separate things, but they’re not. Students who become successful in the global workforce will also be successful people at life. Employers want people who can ask good questions and people who can engage others in thoughtful conversations.

Employers know that technology changes so fast that they are not concerned if their employees know the latest version of software when hired, they want employees who know how to think. Teaching to the test is not helping the future workforce achieve success in the job market. The future workforce needs to be able to see a problem and come up with a way to fix the problem and not wait for the employer to tell them how to fix a problem. If students are not taught how to think beyond multiple choice answers and to find solutions to problems then the future employees for America will not be able to compete with the global market.

Many teachers who feel pressured to cover a lot of material to teach to the tests are not allowing students the time needed to search and work through problems, finding the answers on their own. The pressure is to cover “x” amount of material in so many days and prepare the students to take a standardized test. Many students today who graduate high school don’t have the skills to make it in college or the workforce.

The article states that education needs to move from content standards to performance standards and that education stakeholders need to think of ways to start assessing 21st-century skills. I think teachers need to teach the content and allow students to show what they have learned through performance standards. We need to design assessments that measure the performance and 21st century skills of the students. Many students who are bright are being turned off from AP classes and other accelerated programs because of all the testing. Students should be encouraged to study subjects they love but many times the subjects they love require too much testing which turns them away from the more challenging courses.

Today’s students are multi-taskers, who like visually stimulating websites, who want to be in constant contact with their friends who also use Web 2.0 tools and they enjoy working in collaboration with their peers. What we as educators need to do is find a way to motivate them to learn using Web 2.0 tools and the technology already provided by the school or through the technology the students use every day. Just going to the computer lab to type up a paper is not using technology. We need to teach our content while reaching out to our students in a more creative, productive way using the technology the students are using.

Here are the seven survival skills that students need by the time they graduate from high school:
1. Problem-solving and critical thinking
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship
5. Effective written and oral communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination

I agree with Tom Wagner’s quote from the article –
“We are making [Adequate Yearly Progress] at the expense of failing our kids at life. Something has to change.”

Website to access the complete article –
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=56127