Case Study: Coallition of the Willing
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Coalition Of The Willing from coalitionfilm on Vimeo.
This video is an interesting example of a few different things that I think we’d like to see in our classrooms. While it’s true that this was produced by a network of some of the best people working in motion graphics, it is still the result of an ethically motivated, thoughtfully engaged, and entrepreneurial group. It is a product that we can point to as being both a learning experience and an active statement.
We have the technology available for our students to create such videos and networks. I would say that the vast majority of them are already very capable with the collaborative tools and networks necessary to participate*. Our job, to paraphrase Mr. Holland’s Opus, is to give them something to collaborate about.
* I should note that I am not just concerned about making videos. I am interested to see teachers creating opportunities for students to develop skills, knowledge, and values via problems posed by the real world (see Inquiry Method).
Just Because
I was going to try justifying posting this trailer because some of my students are reading the Scott Pilgrim series and I want to make a connection between graphic novels and their often flimsy film adaptations. The fact of the matter is that I do not believe that this film adaptation will be flimsy and I am just excited about it because it’s awesome.
Enjoy.
G-Portfolios – My Two Cents
I regularly love posts from Will Richardson’s blog Weblogg-ed, but one that George Couros tweeted today is particularly prescient. Will’s post, called “The G-Portfolio,” is exploratory inasmuch as he is seeking feedback about the subject of online portfolio management for students. He intends to write an article with the help of the responses he receives via his blog. The conversation has caught my eye because my school is looking seriously at having all students leave our school with an electronic/Google-able portfolio. Here are my two cents with regards to the questions posed in the blog:
- What types of literacies should be displayed in this Web portfolio?
This is hard. The trick will be to not have a student’s portfolio be a container for everything he or she creates in school; it’s more important to have the students choose their best work based on criteria that are relevant to their career goals*. Without going on forever, the literacies demonstrated by the portfolio ought to be the ones that are the most relevant to areas of interest or aptitude as selected by the youth and critical advisors (teachers, counselors, parents). The bottom line is that the portfolio must demonstrate the best examples of a student’s work (and students need to be taught the ability to constructively critique their own work).
- What role will this play in “reputation management” or the personal brand of the student?
The portfolio doesn’t play a role in this; the portfolio is reputation management. When a person takes ownership over his or her web presence, that person is making a commitment to cultivate the message sent by all content online that is associated with their names. It’s a big step but it’s worth noting that a digital footprint will exist for everyone anyway, so you might as well be in control of what yours looks like.
- What are the challenges and complexities of the process?
The biggest challenge for me is logistical. There are a million things to do in your senior year. Unless a student has time set aside to dedicate to cultivating his or her portfolio, it very easily gets shifted to the back burner (don’t roll your eyes…when was the last time you updated YOUR portfolio or CV? 
). Time needs to be built into peoples’ days or weeks for students to critically consider their content.
- To what extent should educators have their own “g-portfolios”?
My answer to this is connected to my previous answer. As lovingly as I speak it, the truth is that educational pros are among the worst out there for saying, “do as I say and not as I do.” It is difficult to sell the importance of personal brand management when we don’t pursue it actively ourselves. I would say that regularly examining one’s own portfolio (electronic or otherwise) is as necessary to professional development as flossing is to dental hygiene (when was the last time you did THAT?).
- What are the best tools, sites, etc. to create and organize these portfolios?
As with all things, the tool is best chosen after you know what you want to do. But, for my ease of use and flexibility, I would look to WordPress as the glue for this. It’s just dead easy and free. It can be connected to a million things and easily display images and video.
* I am writing this with a prejudice towards secondary education. This is not to say that portfolios aren’t a good idea for younger students. In fact, a lifelong and “evergreened” portfolio would actually be the best of all results in our web-focused world.
Inspiring Education in Alberta: The Way Forward
This is exciting: a great, informed educational plan from the Alberta Government! What’s exciting to me is that the focus for the future of Alberta Learners is going to be about these three E’s:
Engaged Thinkers
Entrepreneurial Spirits
Ethical Citizenship
In order to attain these graduates from Alberta’s schools by 2030, the steering committee report identifies three shifts that need to take place in our schools:
1) Schools need to establish partnerships within the communities they serve to create relevant and realistic learning opportunities.
2) The needs of each student must be the ultimate objective of any learning or assessment strategy.
3) Interdisciplinary study in the form of inquiry and discovery learning must be used to ensure that students can demonstrate competence in the “attitudes, skills, knowledge, and values required for lifelong learning” (Steering Committee Report, June 2 2010).
What does that mean for our school?
Educational stakeholders across the province are asking themselves this question in the wake of this long-term vision. What does it actually mean for our school to be suddenly shifting its focus to “community involvement,” “student-focused” decision making, and “competency-based” assessment? Many educators reading the report and hearing the discussions may feel that these things are already taking place in their schools (and they may be correct). So what does this really mean for your school?
Some of the things I have featured in past posts play very well into this vision of Alberta’s learning future. Dan Meyer’s TED talk about real-world mathematics is a great example of how a teaching strategy can create a situation for real “hands-on” experiences for youth. Jane McGonigal talks about how we can use games to really go to where the students are spending a lot of time and use gaming for transforming the world. Greg Ferenstein discusses how a community connection like Twitter can increase engagement among students if used at appropriate times. These are just some of the great ideas that people are employing to make the 2030 learner a reality today.
For my part, though, I need to step once back from the tools and look at what is really going on. This report represents for me (admittedly just one teacher out of thousands) an understanding that real learning must come from having experiences and reflecting on them. I am so excited to read in a report from the government that the teacher’s role is one that must shift from being one of “knowledgeable authority” to one that is an “architect of learning.” Hearing that there should be less focus on content and more focus on competency with content is like music to my ears because it means that, finally, we will focus on what students can be and can do rather than what they can recall and recite.
Is 2030 here yet? No. What could kill this vision is a failure to follow through on the development of assessment practices that continue to demand students to remember and recite things. Worse yet, however, is for educational stakeholders to blithely say, “oh…student focus? We do that already…” without taking the time to examine their practices with a critical eye. Talking with people in the community, discovering where learning is due for some disruption, and sharing what you learn in the process are all part of this. It’s time for us to take risks with our practice and to, as Sir Ken Robinson says, create a “learning revolution.”
We must no longer see ourselves as intellectual gas-jockies; we must now become experiential curators.
Cheers!
S