Be Kind Rewind: Our Kids are Different

[Learning 2.008 Conference]

Kids today are different. Period. But just how different are they? There have been many theories about immigrants and natives, about Google making us stupid and about how students don't even know how to read anymore. Is this true? Is any of it true? What kinds of classrooms are kid friendly? How can we organize learning spaces and places to promote the kinds of learners we want our students to become?

Presenter: Clarence Fisher
Room: MS203

[Blair Peterson]

Danah Boyd Quote - "In practice, social software is about a movement, not simply a category of technologies... It has to do with attitude."
underground apprenticeships - kids who look to build skills with the help of web 2.0 and individuals anywhere in the world. These are experiences that they do not receive at school.
social communication has changed dramatically. Kids on computer in room may seem unsocial to the adults, but they are actually communicating with others online.
look for talent show video on YouTube showing a girl who berates another girl in a theater. Relates to how kids communicate online.
Role of teacher - helping kids network with individuals. "Network Administrators" Classroom as a studio. group critique of work. students are legitimate contributors.
BG = before Google, Where did we go for answers to questions before Google?
"audiences drive by, community members stop in."
Have kids keep a record of ways that you show what you know.

[Clint Hamada]

Effect of societal change on kids and response on/by classrooms.

What kind of changes do we need in the classroom?

To kids, if you can't interact with it, you lose them fast. They want a customized experience to meet their needs.

"That's not a behavior that anybody under 30 has had to unlearn" -Shirkey

Our culture is becoming one of participation
Henry Jenkins - proponent
It allows us to participate in the debate.

Kids receive their info in a fractal way. This is a good thing but we must acknowledge that this exists. Producer + Consumer = Prosumer.

Scratch community
-download the code, reverse engineer, and change it
-fan fiction: participating with books

"In practice, social software is about a movement, not simply a category of technologies. it has to do with attitudes." -Danah Boyd

The Lighthouse Ad

Redefining Teachers - becoming network administrator; main job is no longer providing content but networking with content, people, info. Help kids find their network

Classroom organization - studio style. A lot happening simultaneously. Master would supervise apprentices, giving more and more responsibility as they mature. Group critique

How does this look in a math classroom? Does it lend itself to this creativity shift?

Students can work within a public network and make a positive contribution to knowledge.

Just in case v. just in time learning.

Audience leads to sensationalism. Must be careful with kids! Community is more important than audience.

What does assessment look like?
Turn outcomes into kid friendly language, create rubric, samples of work for each level, create a book for future reference.
Ongoing, built-in steps, formative (journal, checklist, discussion board, wiki entry)

[e-mail]
remoteaccess.typepad.com

Thanks Clarence!

[Danka Kulikowski]

Food for thought:
- Look at wikipedia hits for different topics like World of War Craft verses World War II.

- Fantastic picture in one of the slides of a woman in a hijab with glasses, holding a nikon camera! Lots of discussion possibilities with this photo.

- Prosumer- a new word used to describe the concept of a producer and a consumer. We get the tools to create our own stuff.

- Scratch- comes out of MIT. Check this out! I just found the link: http://scratch.mit.edu/

- Funny video from a Starbucks commercial; worth checking out.

-"Social software is about a movement, not just a category of technology."

Thinking of the classroom changes:
- As a teacher your role becomes network administrator
- Classroom as a studio. Students are working on different projects while the "master" goes around helping with people with small tasks.
- Interesting thought- think of teachers as creators not as information passers.

More food for thought:
- Community verses audience- be careful of having students think of putting their work on the web just for the sake of getting an audience. This leads to sensationalism.
- Clarence gives students all of his standards and benchmarks for the English curriculum. Then he asks the students to put it into kid friendly language. They then come up with rubrics and exemplars for standards and put it in a book. Very interesting, but this task seems huge! I would love to see an example of the book the students put together.

Clarence's contact info:
[e-mail]
remoteaccess.typepad.com

[Clarence Fisher]

The slides for this presentation can be found here:

http://www.slideshare.net/glassbeed/be-kind-rewind-presentation/

Please feel free to use them as you need to.

[Bron Narsiman]

Clarence
Thanks so much for the amazing presentation and for posting your slides.
Cheers
Bron Narsiman -
ISKL - Kuala Lumpur