May 26, 2008
Transparency
I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole concept of transparency in terms of my own business. The Map of Future Forces Affecting Education is about trends in education, health-care and the global marketplace. It is valuable to us as a business, because the more we can emulate these things in our practices as a company the more it will set us apart from other companies. Some of the things that I’ve been thinking about improving with our clients are under Open Economy Principals: “Build transparency and trust” and under Community Value Networks: “Map and make visible tangible and intangible assets (like knowledge, trust, reputation, loyalty) to create richer relationships of exchange”. However, before we can do these things with our clients, we must first be able to be able to do these things among ourselves.
May 22, 2008
New Plans on XO
I just saw this article on plans for the next version of the XO http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22648 .
May 18, 2008
The Ongoing Debate of Assessment Practices in American Education
During our recent trip to DC a lot of our discussions centered around NCLB and High Stakes Standardized Testing. Cardre Mate, Brett Schneider, a vice principal of an alternate high school in New York brought up the point that the current administration does not respect many of the assessment methods that are more performance based as valid as the High Stakes testing associated with NCLB.
A good overview of the types of performance based assessments Schneider was referring to was done in an online video, entitled Assessment Overview: Beyond Standardized Testing.
Right after I returned from our trip I heard two stories on NPR The first story was called Seattle Teacher Rejects State's Standardized Tests, on NPR about a teacher who refused to give standardized tests to his students. The second story was called Teacher Opposed to Standardized Tests Reconsiders.
During our trip we met with Hanna Skandera, at the US Department of Ed. She brought up an interesting point. She talked about the fact that in the current American Educational system we have the freedom to both. I have been thinking a lot about this. While, we do have high stakes testing, we do have the freedom to develop our own local performance assessments. Many Districts only focus on "The Test", but actually teachers do have the authority to use formative assessments to help them inform their teaching. In order for Districts to embrace these types of assessments it takes strong leadership and professional development to make this happen.
A week later I was in a conference call with ISTE reviewing a policy document. It was interesting that the document was organized by National, State and Local Policy. I think the most powerful one of all was the reforms that can happen at the Local Level. For the first time instead of thinking about all of the things being imposed on education from the National and State Level I started to look at it differently in terms of all of the freedoms and powers we are lucky to have in education at the local level.
A good overview of the types of performance based assessments Schneider was referring to was done in an online video, entitled Assessment Overview: Beyond Standardized Testing.
Right after I returned from our trip I heard two stories on NPR The first story was called Seattle Teacher Rejects State's Standardized Tests, on NPR about a teacher who refused to give standardized tests to his students. The second story was called Teacher Opposed to Standardized Tests Reconsiders.
During our trip we met with Hanna Skandera, at the US Department of Ed. She brought up an interesting point. She talked about the fact that in the current American Educational system we have the freedom to both. I have been thinking a lot about this. While, we do have high stakes testing, we do have the freedom to develop our own local performance assessments. Many Districts only focus on "The Test", but actually teachers do have the authority to use formative assessments to help them inform their teaching. In order for Districts to embrace these types of assessments it takes strong leadership and professional development to make this happen.
A week later I was in a conference call with ISTE reviewing a policy document. It was interesting that the document was organized by National, State and Local Policy. I think the most powerful one of all was the reforms that can happen at the Local Level. For the first time instead of thinking about all of the things being imposed on education from the National and State Level I started to look at it differently in terms of all of the freedoms and powers we are lucky to have in education at the local level.
May 12, 2008
On Saturday, I team taught an advanced podcasting workshop with Joan Roehre. Participants in the workshop were really interested in Twitter. Twitter is like a real time blogging tool. Joan shared a Common Craft Video to explain what Twitter is.
I had a Twitter account, but hadn't really done a lot with it. Next, we all got a twitter account and started exploring and twittering with one another. Soon we had other people not at the workshop following us and interested in what we were learning about.
Tammy Lind who was teaching in the other room twittered to us. She asked, "Why do I care?" Joan said this is a valid question and that in order to make Twitter meaningful, you need to build your network. She also said that she thinks of it as "a help desk of your peers".
Toward the end of the workshop someone asked us what the difference was between XML and RSS. We weren't sure, so we posted it to our twitter accounts and sure enough not long after we received an answer. Not long after that someone Twittered the question of was there a program like Garage Band for the Mac for PCs. I was able to Twitter back that Audacity is like Garage Band and can work on a PC or a Mac.
I'm going to play with Twitter some more. If you are interested in following me, my twitter name is tstephens.
I had a Twitter account, but hadn't really done a lot with it. Next, we all got a twitter account and started exploring and twittering with one another. Soon we had other people not at the workshop following us and interested in what we were learning about.
Tammy Lind who was teaching in the other room twittered to us. She asked, "Why do I care?" Joan said this is a valid question and that in order to make Twitter meaningful, you need to build your network. She also said that she thinks of it as "a help desk of your peers".
Toward the end of the workshop someone asked us what the difference was between XML and RSS. We weren't sure, so we posted it to our twitter accounts and sure enough not long after we received an answer. Not long after that someone Twittered the question of was there a program like Garage Band for the Mac for PCs. I was able to Twitter back that Audacity is like Garage Band and can work on a PC or a Mac.
I'm going to play with Twitter some more. If you are interested in following me, my twitter name is tstephens.
May 9, 2008
The Human Network
Last week I saw a lot of posters in the DC subway system about Cisco's new human network campaign. When I came home I was catching up on some streamed episodes of The Office and they had on a commercial from Cisco on the human network. I absolutely loved the commercial and feel they have captured the convergence culture we are living in. The audio is:
Welcome.
Welcome to a brand new day.
A new way of getting things done.
Welcome to a place where maps are rewritten and remote villages are included.
A place where body language is business language.
Where people subscribe to people not magazines.
And the team you follow now follows you.
Welcome to a place where books rewrite themselves.
Where you can drag and drop people wherever they want to go
And a phone doubles as a train ticket, plane ticket, or lift ticket
Welcome to a place where a wedding is captured and recaptured again and again
Where home video is experienced everywhere at once
Where a library travels across the world
Where businesses are born, countries are transformed
And we are more powerful together than we can ever be apart.
Welcome to the human network.
We will be exploring many of these themes at the Milwaukee Digital Media Conference this summer July 28th-31st. Come join us!
May 5, 2008
Frameworks for the Future
Last week I went to Washington DC as part of a policy course I am taking in my doctoral degree at Pepperdine University. We visited a lot of public offices and non-profits during the week. I was struck by the number of times we were exposed to and spent time pouring over new frameworks and debating them.
At the Department of Labor, Gay Gilbert shared a map of future forces affecting education for 2006-2016. This map shows some of the drivers of change in our society and how that is playing out in families, communities, markets, education and tools and practices that are emerging in society.
Tim Magner, head of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, shared a framework called School 2.0. The framework centers around a Learning Ecosystem Map . Mr. Magner envisions stakeholders in a school district physically cutting and laying out their own Ecosystem maps to help them in their strategic planning for technology. This process is not unlike what The Stephens Group does in its strategic planning processes for Information and Technology.
In our meeting with ISTE, Ana Balboa Gunthner, one of my classmates from Pepperdine, shared her vision that maybe instead of having NETS (National Technology Standards) it is time for GETS (Global Educational Technology Standards).
Allison Powell, the vice-President of NACOL (North American Council for Online Learning), and also a Pepperdine classmate from Cadre 10, talked with us about the standards they have developed for quality online courses and for quality online teaching.
Theresa Stanley, another Pepperdine classmate, set up a meeting with Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow and the Director of PFF's Center for Digital Media Freedom (CDMF), from the The Progress & Freedom Foundation. In a recent publication, Parental Controls & Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools and Methods, there was an interesting framework on page 88 showing Gregory Smith's 8 Step Plan to Protect Children from Online Risks that caught my attention.
I spent a lot of time thinking about these frameworks this week as well as collaborating on a few more for professional development for one-to-one computer programs with Jeff Lee, another Pepperdine classmate this week.
I think the reason we are seeing so many frameworks right now is because the upcoming Presidential election coupled with recent economic strains in the US in part due to globalization and technology allow space for and demand that education change. In one of our meetings someone stated, "We've reached a peak in our existing model for education. What is the next educational model?".
Frameworks are powerful tools for innovation. They allow leaders with vision for what education in the future could look like a way to map out an implementation plan of how to get there.
At the Department of Labor, Gay Gilbert shared a map of future forces affecting education for 2006-2016. This map shows some of the drivers of change in our society and how that is playing out in families, communities, markets, education and tools and practices that are emerging in society.
Tim Magner, head of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, shared a framework called School 2.0. The framework centers around a Learning Ecosystem Map . Mr. Magner envisions stakeholders in a school district physically cutting and laying out their own Ecosystem maps to help them in their strategic planning for technology. This process is not unlike what The Stephens Group does in its strategic planning processes for Information and Technology.
In our meeting with ISTE, Ana Balboa Gunthner, one of my classmates from Pepperdine, shared her vision that maybe instead of having NETS (National Technology Standards) it is time for GETS (Global Educational Technology Standards).
Allison Powell, the vice-President of NACOL (North American Council for Online Learning), and also a Pepperdine classmate from Cadre 10, talked with us about the standards they have developed for quality online courses and for quality online teaching.
Theresa Stanley, another Pepperdine classmate, set up a meeting with Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow and the Director of PFF's Center for Digital Media Freedom (CDMF), from the The Progress & Freedom Foundation. In a recent publication, Parental Controls & Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools and Methods, there was an interesting framework on page 88 showing Gregory Smith's 8 Step Plan to Protect Children from Online Risks that caught my attention.
I spent a lot of time thinking about these frameworks this week as well as collaborating on a few more for professional development for one-to-one computer programs with Jeff Lee, another Pepperdine classmate this week.
I think the reason we are seeing so many frameworks right now is because the upcoming Presidential election coupled with recent economic strains in the US in part due to globalization and technology allow space for and demand that education change. In one of our meetings someone stated, "We've reached a peak in our existing model for education. What is the next educational model?".
Frameworks are powerful tools for innovation. They allow leaders with vision for what education in the future could look like a way to map out an implementation plan of how to get there.
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