While the democratization of knowledge and unlimited access to information are laudable goals, and perhaps approaching reality, I wonder about the role of expertise, specifically that resulting from “paying dues” in the learning process. Will culture contine to survive and civilization progress if everybody is equal and education is reduced to “looking stuff up” online?

Information access is no substitute for education.

Is this an educator endorsed expansion of anti-intellectualism?

Magazine editors and network executives make writers cut references and words they think most people won’t know — even though everybody has Wikipedia. We are becoming a country that believes the rich have earned their money but the well educated have not earned their intellectual superiority. This leads to a nation that idolizes Kardashians.

Antielitism is a cancer waiting to metastasize in any democracy and one that Alexis de Tocqueville worried about for the U.S.

I always get a bit queasy when I hear educators argue against education, including college opportunity, for all students. What do you think?

I was able to get in a few whacks against the visionless plan. Read my interview here

It now appears that “mine’s bigger” has been replaced with “mine’s cheaper.” The Indian announcement, like many of the “responses” to One Laptop per Child, appears to be more about a referendum on Nicholas Negroponte than improving the lives of children.

Like Negroponte or not, the entire high-tech industry swore that low-cost laptops were impossible until a handful of MIT visionaries and their friends proved them wrong.

The current line of attack seems to be, “Well that jerk wants to change the world with a $100 laptop, we will make it even cheaper.”

Nicholas Negroponte of One Laptop Per Child posted similar views here.

Incidentally, I recently celebrated my 20th anniversary of working in schools around the world where every child has a personal laptop computer.

Educators fortunate enough to attend Constructing Modern Knowledge 2010 got to withness an amazing conversation between two of America’s most provocative and accomplished educators, Alfie Kohn and Deborah Meier (watch this site for video in the near future). Mark your calendars for a mind-blowing Constructing Modern Knowledge 2011, to be held July 11-14, 2011. Registration details will be posted here in early September.

Sign-up for news from Constructing Modern Knowledge and the Constructivist Consortium

Kohn’s article begins with:

Programs with generic-sounding names that offer techniques for measuring (and raising) student achievement have been sprouting like fungi in a rainforest: “Learning-Focused Schools,” “Curriculum-Based Measurements,” “Professional Learning Communities,” and many others whose names include “data,” “progress,” or “RTI.” Perhaps you’ve seen their ads in periodicals like this one. Perhaps you’ve pondered the fact that they can afford these ads, presumably because of how much money they’ve already collected from struggling school districts

and then continues to list six questions that need to be asked…

1. What is its basic conception of assessment?
2. What is its goal?
3. Does it reduce everything to numbers?
4. Is it about “doing to” or “working with”?
5. Is its priority to support kids’ interest?
6. Does it avoid excessive assessment?

As always, Alfie supports his arguments with research-based evidence and common sense. Given the load of horse manure recently published by John Merrow and echoed by Grant Wiggins in a shocking display of contempt for teachers, Alfie Kohn’s column could not have come at a better time. Please share it widely.

Perhaps you’d like to leave a few copies around at Back-to-School Night along with his small book, The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools.

Share your comments below!

Alfie Kohn & Deborah Meier at CMK 2010

The seminar is intended for all P-12 teachers, tech directors, computing teachers, university students, parents and administrators.

You may register online here. Please pass this information along to colleagues & friends!!

A poster may be downloaded here.

Maps and location information may be found here.

The Best Educational Ideas in the World: Adventures on the Frontiers of Learning

Contemporary discussions of school improvement focus on the creation of obedience schools for poor children or utopian governance schemes. Neither approach does much to amplify the natural curiosity, expertise, creativity, passion, competence or capacity for intensity found in each child. A leading educator serves as your tour guide for a global exploration of powerful ideas and exemplary teaching practices.

The artificial boundaries between art and science are blurred as children engage in authentic activities with real materials, create sophisticated artifacts of personal and aesthetic value and become connected to ideas larger than themselves. Collegiality, purpose, apprenticeship, complexity, serendipity and “sharaeability” are a few of the common values. Each approach either requires digital technology or may be dramatically enhanced by it. Lessons learned en-route our tour create productive contexts for learning in which students construct the knowledge required for a rewarding life. An ample Q&A session will follow the presentation.

Stops along our tour may include:

• Personal fabrication
• Reggio Emilia
• Constructionism
• El Sistema
• 826 Valencia
• Generation YES
• One Laptop Per Child
• and even reality television!

About Gary S. Stager, Ph.D.
Since 1982, Gary Stager, an internationally recognized educator, speaker and consultant, has helped learners of all ages on six continents embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression. He led professional development in the world’s first laptop schools (1990), has designed online graduate school programs since the mid-90s, is a collaborator in the MIT Media Lab’s Future of Learning Group and a member of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s Learning Team. Mr. Stager’s doctoral research involved the creation a high-tech alternative learning environment for incarcerated at-risk teens. Recent work includes teaching and mentoring some of Australia’s “most troubled” public schools. Gary was Senior Editor of District Administration Magazine and Founding Editor of The Pulse: Education’s Place for Debate. He is currently Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University, an Associate of the Thornburg Center for Professional Development and the Executive Director of The Constructivist Consortium. In 1999, Converge Magazine named Gary a “shaper of our future and inventor of our destiny.” The National School Boards Association recognized Dr. Stager with the distinction of “20 Leaders to Watch” in 2007. The June 2010 issue of Tech & Learning Magazine named Gary Stager as “one of today’s leaders who are changing the landscape of edtech through innovation and leadership.”

Dr. Stager was a keynote speaker at the 2009 National Educational Computing Conference before an audience of more than 4,000 educators. He was also a Visiting Scholar at The University of Melbourne’s Trinity College during the summer of 2009.

Recently, Gary was the new media producer for The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project - Simpatíco, 2007 Grammy Award Winner for Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Dr. Stager is also a contributor to The Huffington Post.

Register online here!

While you’re there, you might consider voting for my tricky little pal, Chris Lehmann’s session at SXSW. He and I share common values and several honors. He’s an excellent urban high school principal who is walking-the-walk 24/7. Vote here for Chris’ session, Building School 2.0 - Creating the Schools We Need. But don’t forget to vote for me too!

The voting deadline is August 25th, so act today!

How Not to Use Computers to Teach Kids from Gary Stager on Vimeo.

Anyone interested in the use of computers in education should watch this meticulous chronicle of a typical classroom “project,” complete with missteps, trivial computer use and questionable teaching.

Brian is no opponent of computer-use in school. In fact, he has written four of the best computer science texts for young people ever AND has been a leader in the movement to teach children programming since the 1970s. He also created the free and open-source UCB Logo (Mac/PC/Linux) which is the basis for MSW Logo.

You may also download PDF and HTML versions of Brian’s fantastic three-book series, Computer Science Logo-Style, texts. A free version of Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright’s Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science, is also available.

Lately, Brian has been excited about Scratch, a new drag-and-drop programming language for kids from MIT. He has also been working with Jens Mönig on BYOB 3, an extended version CCC Four Seasons Ballroom 2/3
Gary Stager, Pepperdine University
Digital-Age Teaching & Learning : Project, Challenge, & Problem-Based Curricula

20 Lessons from 20 Years of 1-to-1 Teaching CCC 205/207
Gary Stager, Pepperdine University
School Improvement : One-to-One Initiatives

I’ve also been invited to yuck it up with my old (geologically old) friends on Tuesday at one of ISTE’s most popular sessions!

LOL @ ISTE: Bring Popcorn and an Open Mind CCC 505/506
Saul Rockman, Rockman Et Al Inc with Michael Jay, Heidi Rogers, Ferdi Serim, Gary Stager and Elliot Soloway
Professional Learning : Student, Teacher, and/or Administrator Leader Preparation

One of the best pieces of news I received this week was that Chris Lehmann, Principal of Science Leadership Academy is coming to CMK as a participant. It takes a mighty great educational leader to dedicate four days to learning in public!

There are still spots available and time to register. Don’t miss out!

Now, it’s 2:50 AM!

Yesterday, I received a copy of Playing for Keeps: Life and Learning on a Public School Playground, co-authored by Deborah Meier, Brenda S. Engel and Beth Taylor. In the spirit of Vivian Paley and Jonathan Kozol (both of whom blurbed the book), Meier and co. give voice to the spontaneous voice and learning of children in their care.

Two particular passages jumped out at me:

In the process of turning schools into competitive institutions, “racing to the top,” we end up threatening the spirit of childhood. Because of our own limited histories and the generally accepted language around schooling - “grade level,” “ahead or behind,” “competent or deficient,” “differentiated learning,” - we begin to lose sight of what education means. These become the only words for describing children in school - children like those we observe playing in this book. “Knowing children well” becomes a matter of looking at test data. (page 107)

Leaving no time or space in education for children’s “playful” efforts to make sense of the world risks the future of only of poetry and science, but also our political liberties. The habits of playfulness in early life are the essential foundations upon which we can build a K-12 education that would foster, nourish and sustain the apparent “absurdity” of democracy. (page 68)

Check out all of Debroah Meier’s stunning books on teaching, learning and school reform here at the Constructivist Consortium Bookstore. If you haven’t already read the classics, In Schools We Trust or The Power of Their Ideas, put them at the top of your summer reading pile.

While we’re on the subject of summer, there is still time to register for Constructing Modern Knowledge, July 12-15, 2010 in picturesque Manchester, NH. There you can actually work, play and learn with Deborah Meier, Aflie Kohn, James Loewen, Peter Reynolds and a bunch of educational computing pioneers!

EDUCATOR KEYNOTES FOUR NATIONAL CONFERENCES ON THREE CONTINENTS IN NINE MONTHS

- Dr. Gary Stager was keynote speaker at major national conferences in the USA, New Zealand, Qatar and Australia –

Torrance, CA, June 1, 2010 – Veteran educator, speaker, journalist and consultant Gary Stager has enjoyed a remarkable year of speaking at several of the world’s leading educational technology conferences. Recently, Dr. Stager was the keynote speaker at national conferences in Qatar and Australia. This spring’s “around-the-world” trip was quickly followed by a presentation at the National School Boards Association national conference and a keynote address delivered at the Villanova University annual Tech Expo. The June 2010 issue of Tech & Learning Magazine named Gary Stager as “one of today’s leaders who are changing the landscape of edtech through innovation and leadership.”

Dr. Stager was the keynote speaker at the following national conferences since June 2009:

1. The National Educational Computing Conference, Washington D.C., June 2009. Stager participated in a keynote debate moderated by Robert Siegel of National Public Radio before 4,500 educators at one of the world’s leading educational technology conferences.
2. uLearn 2009, Wellington, New Zealand, October 2009. Dr. Stager delivered the keynote address, Ten Things to Do with a Laptop: Learning and Powerful Ideas.
3. ICT Qatar 3rd Annual ICT in Education Conference, Doha, Qatar, March 2010. Dr. Stager delivered the keynote address, The Best Educational Ideas in the World before an audience of Qatari educators and Heir Apparent - Minister of Education, Chairman of the Supreme Education Council Crown Prince Sheikh Tamin Bin Halmad Al Thank. This was Dr. Stager’s third working trip to Qatar in the past two years.
4. The Australian Computers In Education Conference, Melbourne, Australia, April 2010. Dr. Stager delivered the keynote address, You Say You Want a Revolution, at this biennial national conference.

The Australian (ACEC) conference was of special significance to Dr. Stager since it marks the 20th anniversary of his work across Australia, including leading professional development at many of the world’s first “laptop schools.” “ACEC is very special to me because it was the first conference I ever keynoted, back in 1992, and provides an opportunity for to reflect upon my twenty years of work in such a wonderful country. I remain moved by the innovative nature and hospitality of Australian educators,” Stager said.

For more, visit www.stager.org or e-mail gary@stager.org. Follow Gary Stager on Twitter at @garystager or join the Constructivist Consortium at constructivistconsortium.org

About Gary S. Stager, Ph.D.
Since 1982, Gary Stager, an internationally recognized educator, speaker, journalist and consultant, has helped learners of all ages on six continents embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression. He led professional development in the world’s first laptop schools (1990), has designed online graduate school programs since the mid-90s, is a collaborator in the MIT Media Lab’s Future of Learning Group and a member of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s Learning Team.

Dr. Stager’s doctoral research involved the creation a high-tech alternative learning environment for incarcerated at-risk teens with his colleague MIT Professor Seymour Papert. Recent work has included teaching at-risk students in the United States and Australia. Gary was Senior Editor of District Administration Magazine and Founding Editor of The Pulse: Education’s Place for Debate. He is currently Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University, an Associate of the Thornburg Center for Professional Development and the Executive Director of The Constructivist Consortium

In 1999, Converge Magazine named Gary a “shaper of our future and inventor of our destiny.” The National School Boards Association recognized Dr. Stager with the distinction of “20 Leaders to Watch” in 2007. He is featured in the recent documentary, imagine it!² The Power of Imagination. In commemoration of its 30th anniversary, Tech & Learning Magazine named Gary Stager as “one of today’s leaders who are changing the landscape of edtech through innovation and leadership.”  The list of thirty honorees announced in June 2010 included, US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan; Segway inventor, Dean Kamen; MIT Professor Mitchel Resnick; Harvard Professor Chris Dede; Stanford Professor, Linda Darling-Hammond and financier/philanthropist Michael Milken.

Gary was the new media producer for The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project - Simpatíco, 2007 Grammy Award Winner for Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Dr. Stager is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He leads his own annual professional learning institute, Constructing Modern Knowledge, in the United States.

About The Constructivist Consortium
The Constructivist Consortium represents unprecedented collaboration between six publishing companies committed to children, creativity and constructivist learning.

Veteran educator Dr. Gary Stager serves as the executive director of the Constructivist Consortium. “Working together, the six companies can increase their visibility in a chaotic marketplace,” said Stager. “These companies recognize that computers are important instruments in the lives of kids and all support an unprecedented variety of learning experiences expressed through personally meaningful projects. Computers don’t need to be used in passive ways or to reinforce outdated classroom practice.” This common mission unites the six Founding Member companies.

The Constructivist Consortium’s collaborative marketing and advocacy efforts are intended to celebrate classroom innovation. The Constructivist Consortium’s companies see it as part of their corporate and civic missions to give voice to creative educators and create venues in which they may be refreshed, inspired and feel less isolated.

The Constructivist Consortium sponsors the popular Constructivist Celebrations and annual Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute.

Member companies produce products designed to inspire classroom creativity and place children at the center of the learning process. Those companies are Tech4Learning, Schoolkit, LCSI, Inspiration Software, Generation YES & FableVision.
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By the time I got to college, I took Algebra every time I needed to satisfy a math requirement and understanding as little as during my previous attempts. School often made me feel stupid, yet I also realized at a very young age that school was a cosmic farce I would somehow overcome.

Against that backdrop it’s difficult to imagine that the first time I ever spoke at a conference was at MIT. The occasion was Logo ’85 - The International Logo Conference. (Back then, edtech conferences had no exhibit hall and were held at places like MIT)

When this twenty-two year-old halfway through my 7 ½ year undergraduate studies, exited a taxi on the MIT campus, a group of people greeted me with, “Come on. Join us for dinner!” One of my dinner companions was Dr. Cynthia Solomon, now an irreplaceable member of the Constructing Modern Knowledge faculty.

Cynthia Solomon is a giant in our field despite her lack of recognition and absence from the lists of important edtech folks. That’s a real shame, especially when women and minorities are so underrepresented in our field. I am honored to have known Cynthia for twenty-five years and am deeply indebted to her for her participation in Constructing Modern Knowledge for the third consecutive year.

Cynthia Solomon Teaching at CMK 2009

So, who is Cynthia Solomon. She’s a computer scientist, educator and the inventor of the Logo programming language for children. That’s right, Cynthia Solomon, Wally Feurzig and Seymour Papert are responsible for creating Logo back in 1968. For the next two decades, Cynthia was engaged in much of the foundational research on children constructing knowledge with computers.

Check out the paper, Twenty Things to Do with a Computer, that Cynthia and Seymour published in 1971. How does what your school does with computers thirty-nine years later measure up?

Long associated with the MIT Artificial Intelligence and Media Labs, Dr. Solomon went on to lead the Atari Cambridge Research Laboratory in the 1980s. Alan Kay led the Atari Lab on the West Coast. (Check out the amazing historic videos she has assembled from that period) After that she was a founder of Logo Computer Systems, Inc. and earned a doctorate in education from Harvard. Until just a few years ago, Cynthia was a full-time school computer teacher.

Solomon’s doctoral dissertation is the basis for the seminal book, Computer Environments for Children: A Reflection on Theories of Learning and Education. If you haven’t read it, you should. She is also coauthor with Allison Druin of the book, Designing Multimedia Environments for Children.

In the late eighties I organized a distinguished speakers series for NJ school leaders and Cynthia Solomon was the first person I hired. Since then we’ve worked together with the MIT Media Lab Future of Learning Goup in Mexico City and at the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

One of life’s great gifts is having the privilege to meet and get to know extraordinarily smart and talented folks like Cynthia Solomon. What a pleasure it was to watch Cynthia, Deborah Meier and Lella Gandini discuss David Hawkins at last year’s CMK.

Through Cynthia, I’ve met people like Marvin Minsky (who led fireside chats the past two CMKs) and Stephen Wolfram. Cynthia seems to know all of the smartest scientists and mathematicians of the past half-century. Now, participants in Constructing Modern Knowledge get to know HER.

My greatest joy comes from creating opportunities for educators to learn from and interact with smart, talented and innovative people. That’s why Cynthia Solomon is part of the remarkable Constructing Modern Knowledge faculty and why you should attend.

* My Ph.D. in science and mathematics education is the best revenge.

To help spread the word, we have posted several compelling clips from Alfie’s last conversation at Constructing Modern Knowledge.

• Alfie Kohn on Constructivism
• Alfie Kohn on Teacher as Facilitator
• Alfie Kohn on Learning from the Inside Out
• Alfie Kohn on Assessment
• Alfie Kohn on Motivating Students

There is still plenty of time to register for the best professional learning event of the year. Where else can you engage in conversations with the likes of Alfie Kohn, Deborah Meier, James Loewen or Peter Reynolds and design exciting creative high-tech projects with support from Sylvia Martinez, Brian Silverman, Gary Stager and John Stetson? Exciting social events are planned as well!

Don’t miss out!

Here is my Desert Island List of My Top Ten Jazz CDs of all-time. It is quite absurd that there are no CDs by Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Harold Mabern, Woody Shaw, Lee Morgan, Betty Carter, Charles Tolliver, Kenny Dorham, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Billy Higgins, Jackie Mclean, Hank Jones, Barry Harris, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Barron, Lester Bowie, Duke Ellington, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Phil Woods, Count Basie, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Heath or many others on the list. Many of these folks perform on the recordings listed below.

There is also no room for my current favorite musician Dianne Reeves (every one of her albums is a gem); my brilliant pals, Brian Lynch, Carl Allen or Branford Marsalis or my all-time hero Roy Haynes in the top ten.

Branford Marsalis’ recent album, Metamorphosen, will surely be remembered as one of the great recordings and bands of the early 21st Century.

I was beyond honored to work on Brian Lynch’s project with Eddie Palmieri, Simpatico, which won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. This record gets better with each listening.

Gary Stager’s Top 10 Favorite Jazz CDs (in no particular order)

• John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
• Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Buhaina’s Delight
• Bobby Hutcherson - In the Vanguard
• Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage
• Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra - New Life (I know I should say, “Consummation.”)
• Cannonball Adderley - Somethin’ Else
• Sarah Vaughan - Crazy and Mixed Up
• Dexter Gordon - Gettin’ Around
• Thelonious Monk - Live at the It Club
• Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil

Classical entry - Takacs Quartet - Borodin - Smetna

Pop entry = Luther Vandross - The Best of Love OR Stevie Wonder - Natural Wonder

Al Green should be on this list too!

Someday, I will list more and assemble a gallery of the photos of me and the great jazz musicians I’ve met over nearly 30 years.

]]> http://stager.tv/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1241 http://stager.tv/blog/?p=1229 http://stager.tv/blog/?p=1229#comments Mon, 17 May 2010 17:02:47 +0000 gary http://stager.tv/blog/?p=1229 In March I had the great honor of being the keynote speaker at the 3rd ICTQatar ICT in Education national conference in Doha, Qatar. That was my 3rd trip to Qatar over the past couple of years.

Following my keynote, a nice young gentleman asked if he could interview me. I was happy to oblige and we found a vacant lounge area on the college campus where the conference was being held. That’s when the hijinx began.

First of all, the interviewer didn’t have a tripod. I convinced him that going handheld was a bad idea and helped him prop the camera on top of a camera bag. Then midway through the interview, one of his colleagues inexplicably walked into the lounge, headed to the light switches and cut our lights. After we objected, the guy spent a few minutes trying to turn the lights back on. After failing to do so, he shrugged and said, “Go somewhere else.” Eventually, the lights were turned on and a tripod emerged.

Despite these technical difficulties, I believe that the interview came out quite nicely and I was able to explore some issues in-depth. You might think of it as my “UnTED Talk.”

If you have 42 spare minutes, you might wish to watch this video. Pleae not be put-off my the incredibly unattractive poster image displayed in the static video player below.

Many thanks to ICTQatar for the terrific job of putting the video on YouTube.

Watch Stager Webinar Now!

A few nights ago, I led a webinar for old friends in the State of Victoria (Australia) as part of an online course/seminar/learning community focused on issues surrounding effective 1:1 computing. The course is called 1 to 1 Next Steps. My webinar was entitled, “Creative Computing and the Case for Project-based Learning.”

You may now watch and listen to a recording of that webinar here.

The digital handout I created to accompany the webinar and stimulate further discussion may be found here. It is hardly exhaustive. I wanted to provide educators with just enough information to inspire their imaginations and generate discussion.

For those of you who have heard me speak before, there are indeed some familiar themes in this webinar. However, there are some new ideas expressed as well. Many of these ideas frame my work as a teacher educator, speaker, teacher and consultant.

As always, your comments are always welcome.

Enjoy!

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About Gary Stager

For 28 years, Gary Stager, an internationally recognised educator, speaker and consultant, has helped learners of all ages on six continents embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression.

ACEC 2010 marks Dr. Stager’s 20th anniversary of working in Australia. He considers Melbourne his second home and first keynoted ACEC in 1992. Gary led professional development at the world’s first laptop schools in Melbourne and Queensland in 1990 and since that time has worked with countless schools across Australia. He has worked closely with the Victoria and ACT Departments of Education and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne.

In addition to his two decades of 1:1 leadership, Gary has designed online graduate school programs since the mid-90s, was a collaborator in the MIT Media Lab’s Future of Learning Group and a member of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation’s Learning Team. A long-time colleague of Dr. Seymour Papert, Stager’s doctoral research involved the creation a high-tech alternative learning environment for incarcerated at-risk teens. He is a Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University where has taught across six graduate programs and Executive Director of The Constructivist Consortium and Founder of Constructing Modern Knowledge.

In 1999, Converge Magazine named Gary a “shaper of our future and inventor of our destiny.” The National School Boards Association recognised Dr. Stager with the distinction of “20 Leaders to Watch” in 2007. He is featured in the recent documentary, imagine it!² The Power of Imagination.

Gary was the new media producer for The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project - Simpatíco, 2007 Grammy Award Winner for Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Dr. Stager is also a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. He leads his own annual professional learning institute, Constructing Modern Knowledge, in the United States.

He barracks for the mighty Richmond Tigers and the equally mighty New York Jets.

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Resources for before the webinar

Ten Things to Do with a Laptop keynote address presented at uLearn 2009 in Wellington, NZ - October 2009.
(69 minutes)

Hard and Easy: Reflections on my ancient history in 1:1 computing (2009)

Three articles on effective project-based learning (2009-2010) PDF file

Computing and the Internet in Schools: An International Perspective on Developments and Directions (1996)

Seymour Papert’s Computer As Material: Messing About with Time (1988)

Selling the Dream for 1:1 Computing
Advice and talking points for school leaders interested in building support for 1:1 computing.

Laptop School Self-Assessment (2000)
This was written on the 10th anniversary of 1:1 computing in Australian schools. How does your school measure up?

The Best Way to Make Enemies (2008) - Lessons learned from One Laptop Per Child

The Most Important Computer-using Educator in the World (2010)

Recommended Books

Laptop articles and Resources

Post Webinar Resources (more to be posted soon)

Gary Stager’s Blog, Stager-to-Go

Gary Stager’s Articles and Papers

1.    I like new gadgets
2.    I like Apple products (since 1985 – prior to that I preferred Commodore)
3.    It’s my job to keep up with emerging technology
4.    My best friend has one
5.    I’m an adult with disposable income

I didn’t wait for the 3G model because I don’t want yet another stinkin’ AT&T bill. Had they come up with a fair plan for multiple devices, I would have jumped at it. I won’t even complain about 3G costing an extra $130 making the 64gb iPad the same price as a MacBook.

I harbored no illusions that the iPad would change my life like my laptop, iPhone or even iPod have done. Yes, the iPad is beautiful. Yes, the battery life is great. Yes, I feel less neurotic about losing or breaking it, as I do with my laptop. Now, I just have to figure out what to do with the iPad.

Go ahead. Call me an old codger, but I’ve been around eBooks/interactive books since the late 1980s. I still own a bunch of the groundbreaking Voyager Expanded Books. The Society of Mind, MacBeth, Who Built America?, The Rite of Spring, Poetry in Motion, Beethoven’s Ninth and Dazzeloids represent few of the examples of true commercial digital art ever created. It’s hard to think of any digital media that is better since those Voyager titles from nearly twenty years ago.

In 1991-92, I led countless workshops for educators on how to create their own interactive books using the Voyager Expanded Book Toolkit. Digital books would soon be widespread, right?

That said, I did not buy a Kindle because the design is ugly and I expected Apple to produce something better, an iPad perhaps? I love books. My house is filled with them. Had Amazon offered me the option of paying $2 extra and getting a digital copy of the physical book I ordered, I would have bought a Kindle. I recognize the value of carrying lots of books around in one device and the power of personal digital annotation. Whispernet is brilliant too. Anyone can use it, anywhere.

So, now I own an iPad. Oh, how I would love to use it as my primary way to read, but alas – not so fast!

Here are some of the reasons why Apple iBooks currently disappoint. I hope they get better quickly.

Steve Jobs is contemptuous of print

Mr. Jobs can be like that when he assesses the competition.

Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” (1/15/08)

Further evidence of Jobs’ contempt for print is the fact that iPad owners have to wait for their iPad to ask them, “Would you like to download iBooks?” before the application is on the device. Why doesn’t the iBooks app come pre-installed?

I won’t even raise the specter of Jobs banning books from the iBooks Store because he disagrees with the content as he has done in the physical Apple Stores.

The iBooks catalog is pathetic
Although I hope that every book ever written will soon be available for download, the Apple iBooks store doesn’t even have relatively popular recent publications in it.

I know that I can (and did) download the Kindle App for iPad, but I didn’t buy an iPad to get a Kindle. Switching between two different book readers is a drag. Sheesh!

I eagerly await word from Apple that they are just as serious about publishing books for the iPad as they were in encoding YouTube videos for the iPhone.

Jobs must know how craptacular the iBooks Store is or otherwise he would have given Amazon the “Adobe-treatment” and forbidden a Kindle app for iPad.

Jobs hates Amazon.com so much that he’s letting publishers punish us
One of Steve Job’s greatest accomplishments was getting tough with the music and video companies and forcing them to charge a fair price for audio and video via iTunes. He single-handedly broke the cartel that was raising CD and DVD prices to absurd levels.

So, what’s the first thing Jobs does regarding written content? He tells publishers to go ahead and charge anything they want, not just the reasonable $9.99 per book pricing instituted by Amazon.

iBooks cannot be annotated
I hope this obvious omission will be rectified soon via a software update.  Surely, Apple would like to offer functionality customers came to expect from Hypercard 20+ years ago.

There are no magazines for subscription in the iBooks store
Surely, Apple knows that this is a potentially fertile revenue stream. I’d love to save some trees.

Amazon’s Kindle Store offers too few magazine currently. That’s still better than zero magazines available  from iBooks.

Are the books I purchased backed-up in the cloud?
Unless I’ve missed it, Apple has not indicated where my purchased books reside in case something goes awry with my iPad.

Why can’t I subscribe to a podcast on my iPad?
For a super-dooper mobile media device, I would expect that I could download audio and video podcasts directly to my iPad without requiring syncing with my laptop. Why can’t I do so? Shouldn’t the iPad make me less dependent on an old-school computer?

One more funny iPad observation… Apple is a company famous for protecting its intellectual property. Therefore, it seems peculiar that iTunes automatically copies my iPhone apps for use on my iPad as well. I know that I MAY have the legal right to maintain the software of two computers as long as I’m only using it on one, but how did Apple miss the opportunity to make me buy the same software twice?

Recommended reading: Ken Auletta’s 4/26/10 New Yorker article, Publish or Perish: Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business?

I apologize for waiting so long to announce this to the world. I’ve been way too busy friending people who beat me up in high school.

Now I have an entirely new venue in which to waste time.

A high school English teacher from Iowa who incorporates everything from singing to Facebook in her lessons has been recognized by President Barack Obama as the nation’s top teacher.

Obama introduced Sarah Brown Wessling on Thursday in a ceremony in the Rose Garden.

“Her students don’t just write five-paragraph essays, but they write songs, public service announcements, film story boards, even grant proposals for their own not-for-profit organizations,” the president said, adding that one of Wessling’s students reported that learning in her classroom was never boring.

“I’m not sure I could have said that when I was in school,” said Obama. (original article)

…The Council of Chief State School Officers selects the recipient of the annual honor and cited Wessling’s passion and innovative approaches, including incorporating Facebook in her classes.

So, congratulations are in order for Ms. Wessling and for every teacher in America who can now go tell their school “network nazis” that the President of the United States wants them to stop blocking the Web. Blocking Facebook and other web sites is unpatriotic!

Thank you, Mr. President!

Take advantage of the Lifelong Learner Package by registering Constructing Modern Knowledge and receive free registration to the June 27th Constructivist Celebration - all for just $575. That’s five days of professional learning for only $575.

If goal is raising opportunities & achievement for all kids, isn’t RACE for the top an unfortunate metaphor? (1 winner, many losers)

Engaging in critical debates about Federal education policy in 140 characters is a challenge, but not impossible.

The following are the other questions I “tweeted” to Secretary Arne Duncan (in reverse chronological order) via NPR’s TOTN:

How would Sect. Duncan to respond to the report card given him - A for efficacy and D for policy?

Isn’t firing all of the teachers and charterizing public schools a right-wing utopian fantasy?

Where does Sect. Duncan think the magical teachers & perfect schools will come from after he fires teachers and closes pub schools?

Did you ask Duncan what he thinks of Diane Ravitch’s research disproving the basic assumptions of Obama education policies?

Given the Gates Foundation’s expensive school reform failures, why do they have so much influence within the Dept. of Education?

If you’re a parent in Harlem, should be concerned that nearly all of the local public schools have been turned into boutique charters?

Why should public school facilities be surrendered to private charter school operators?

Which is true: a) The Chicago Public Schools are a mess & failing children b) We should trust Sect. Duncan to do the same for America?

Should Americans be alarmed that most major city districts and the Dept. of Ed are now run by unqualified non-educators?

If goal is raising opportunities & achievement for all kids, isn’t RACE for the top an unfortunate metaphor? (1 winner, many losers)

Why has a “Labor” administration worked so hard to bust the teacher unions across the nation?

Earlier today, I enjoyed the great privilege of sharing the stage at the Australian Conference on Computers in Education with two of my favorite educators, Geoff Powell of St. Hilda’s School on the Gold Coast of Queensland and Steve Costa of Methodist Ladies’ College, Kew. The following is a tribute to Steve Costa, a truly gentle man with a wicked jump shot and the gratitude of the countless young people he has inspired for decades.

Stephen Costa, Deputy Head of the Methodist Ladies’ College Junior School may be the most important and overlooked educator in the world today. Steve emigrated to Australia from the United Stated in 1974 during a period in which the nation was recruiting young teachers. He fell in love with the woman he would marry and with Australia - in those days requiring him to surrender his U.S. citizenship. By 1981, Steve was teaching primary school girls at MLC to use computers. Around that time he read Seymour Papert’s, Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas, and became inspired to teach his students to program in Logo.

A little known milestone in the history of educational computing is that Steve Costa began teaching an entire class of year five girls each with a personal laptop computer in 1989. He is Patient Zero when it comes to the use of laptops in education. If you are an educator anywhere in the world - from Manhattan to Melbourne to Mumbai teaching in a 1:1 setting or contemplating the eventuality of truly personal computing, you owe a debt of gratitude to Melbourne’s own, Mr. Costa.

It is not often that you have the privilege of knowing “the person who started it all,” but Steve Costa is not an artifact found in a museum, he continues to teach kids and his colleagues every day of the school year TWENTY-ONE YEARS after he embraced laptops as an integral part of the learning process. Steve Costa has been teaching with a laptop per child for more than a generation.

When I first met Steve in 1990, I was impressed by his energy, curiosity, dazzling teaching skills, calm demeanor and love of children. He was always willing to “have a go” and try any crazy idea I might throw at him and “his girls.” He has been invaluable to me as a colleague who could inject a dose of classroom reality into a scenario without ever using such current “reality” as an excuse for not trying to do better - to push the envelope. Steve is unafraid to learn alongside students allowing them to lean about learning by his example. Anytime you want someone smart for a panel discussion or extremely competent in a workshop setting, Steve tops my list.

Countless, perhaps thousands of educators have visited Steve’s classroom over the past twenty years, become inspired and gone back to make their schools better. Steve Costa should be famous. He should be traveling the world hailed as the father of 1:1 computing. He should be running the national education system, but instead Steve Costa does the hardest, most important work of all. He teaches children every day.

David Loader gets much of the deserved credit for pioneering 1:1 computing in schools, but that effort at MLC would be a long-forgotten experiment if it were not part of the daily excellence displayed by Steve Costa. Steve Costa’s contribution to modern education and computers in education puts him on a par with Seymour Papert, Alan Kay and David Loader.

At an edtech conference such as ACEC, it is worth noting that unlike so many ICT professionals whose curriculum is technocentrically focused on the hot new toy or latest fad, Steve Costa still teaches children to program in Logo (MicroWorlds). He does so because it affords learners countless opportunities for self-expression, problem solving, debugging and to think about thinking. Too many educators succumb to peer pressure and abandon “hard fun” or sound educational practices as the spotlight shifts. Steve is not one of them. He continues to learn, grow and develop his own personal computing fluency while embracing new technologies that increase learning opportunities for young people. He is not only a master teacher, but a master learner as well - unafraid of technological advances that amplify human potential.

There is no honor sufficient for my friend Steve. One would think that a grateful nation engaged in a “digital education revolution” would put its original revolutionary, Steve Costa, on a postage stamp. They would do so if they loved their children (and their children’s teachers) half as much as Steve cares for the children in his care.

Steve Costa led a silent revolution that changed the world the year Milli Vanilli topped the charts and continues to lead every day. Since the education community tends to be short on memory, we need to learn from Steve Costa today and honor his contributions for many years to come.

Memo to ISTE: I realize that Steve’s proposal to share wisdom gained over 20 years of teaching in 1:1 environments was rejected for the NECC 2009 program. Perhaps that was an oversight. Isn’t it about time you featured Mr. Costa at your annual conference and in your publications?

Downtown Doha from Museum of Islamic Art

I just landed in Doha, Qatar after almost 24 hours of travel. I’m in Doha to be the keynote speaker at the 3rd Annual ICT in Education Conference in Doha, Qatar on March 27th. My address is entitled, “The Best Educational Ideas in the World.: Tickets to Constructing Modern Knowledge”

New Museum of Islamic Art by I.M. Pei

This is my third trip to this amazing country and I am quite honored to share my thoughts on teaching and learning with a young nation eager to create an educational system for the future.

From Doha I travel to Bangkok via Cairo for a few days of exploration. I’ve never been to Thailand before and am glad that the airlines are forcing me to stop there.

From Bangkok I fly to my adopted second home of Melbourne Australia where I’ll be keynoting the Australian Conference on Educational Computing Conference (ACEC). My keynote address is being created especially for this occasion and is called, “So, You Say You Want a Revolution.”

You can also register for a special “Breakfast with Gary Stager” workshop on April 6th.

I’ve keynoted this event a couple of times before, but this year’s biennial conference is quite special.

The first conference I ever keynoted was ACEC 1992 coincidentally in Melbourne and 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of me working with schools and educators across more than 40 trips Downunder. In 1990, I had a paper accepted for the World Conference on Computers in Education in Sydney. I accompanied Seymour Papert to Sydney, where he gave a magnificent keynote address, and I met fantastic educators seriously engaged in changing the world.

Three weeks later, I was invited back to Australia to lead professional development activities in the world’s first two “laptop schools.” That wa followed by work with dozens of schools, plus consultation with state governments and lots of of workshops and keynotes over two decades. I also earned my Ph.D. in science and mathematics education at the University of Melbourne and have been a Visiting Scholar at Trinity College.

Here is the cheeky video I made for ACEC 2010.

The organizers of the conference asked me for a video advertising my participation. It ain’t Scorsese, but here it is.

Gary Stager’s ACEC 2010 Video from Gary Stager on Vimeo.

Description
ACEC Keynote Address: You Say You Want a Revolution?

This keynote will explore the notion of the digital learning revolution and its assumptions while addressing such questions as, “What happened to the last digital revolution in Australia?” Were there lessons learned? If not, why not?

Who are the combatants in this latest revolution? Will children, democracy and creativity be the first casualties.

Gary Stager will reflect upon his experiences of working in Australian schools for the past twenty years and insights gained from similar top-down “reform” efforts being imposed across the United States.

Gary will remind ACEC attendees why he is still excited by the potential of computers in education as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression and challenge the audience to raise their game in order to realize the opportunities computing affords learners. This of course will be accomplished with humour, candor and provocative examples of student learning.

You may also download, read and share the entire issue of The Creative Educator magazine here.

You might also enjoy reading two articles I wrote for previous issues of The Creative Educator about effective project-based learning.

Download and distribute:

1. What Makes a Good Project?
2. Raising Our Standards - Developing Projects that Endure

click article to download

Seymour Papert on Capital Hill

C-Span has now made 23 years worth of video, everything they have broadcast - 160,000 hours, available online. (Read NYTimes article) That means that some of my favorite public policy discussions, author interviews and political fireworks can be accessed and shared on-demand. The entire programs may be embedded in other web pages and an awful lot of the programs may be edited via a browser for embedding excerpts in blogs and web pages.

This is an amazing resource for teachers, learners and citizens. From time to time, I will share some of my favorite C-Span moments via this blog.

In October 1995, the House Committee Economic and Educational Opportunities and House Science Committees held a nearly three-hour hearing to examine “technological advances in education.” The first two hours or so of the hearing are a real hoot (as the kids on Capital Hill say).

The first panel consists of the father of educational computing, Dr. Seymour Papert; Alan Kay, the inventor of the term “personal computer” and many of its accompanying technologies; an Wall Street guy who gave a lot of money to the Clinton Campaign; and Chris Dede.

Papert starts off like he was shot out of a cannon. Alan Kay says that he agrees with Seymour and then throws gasoline on the fire. The Wall Street stiff decides to argue with Dr. Papert while the Congress bangs the gavel in an attempt to restore order.

The discussion is well worth two hours of your time if you care about the edtech or the future of education.

I remember seeing the hearing when it first aired and have cherished a 3rd generation VHS recording. Now I can share it with you and my students via the Web!

When I originally saw the hearing, back in 1995, I remember thinking that the members of the Congressional Education Committee may not be our nation’s best and brightest. Watch the hearing today and you can’t help notice that naughty underage male Congressional Page sexting aficionado, Mark Foley, and convicted felon, Duke Cunningham, interrogating some of the most thoughtful educational thinkers in the world.

If the video does not appear, please use this link.

2010 marks my twentieth anniversary of working in Australia, beginning with the introduction of laptops into schools and ACEC was the first conference I ever keynoted back in 1992, coincidentally in Melbourne.

I’ll also be presiding over a “Breakfast with Gary Stager” workshop in which we’ll explore some of the “Best Educational Ideas in the World” on April 6th. You may register at http://acec2010.info

The organizers of the conference asked me for a video advertising my participation. It ain’t Scorsese, but here it is.

Gary Stager’s ACEC 2010 Video from Gary Stager on Vimeo.

While I disagree with some of Maher’s conclusions and the “evidence” he cites, he must be applauded for challenging the “magical thinking” required to believe that firing “bad” teachers will magically transform the system.

The free market is not going to solve our educational issues, especially when poverty is the single greatest predictor of educational attainment!

Where are all of the “great” teachers to come from? There are major US cities without a supermarkets or movie theater. Who is going to build all of the fabulous private, I mean charter, schools to occupy those communities and rescue the children who don’t look like us from the grasps of the evil teachers who are deliberately suppressing standardized testing scores?

Who wishes to teach in joyless schools jerked around by political whim or in which the curriculum is scripted and interactions with students are micromanaged?

Yes, America has found its new boogeyman to blame for our crumbling educational system. It’s just too easy to blame the teachers, what with their cushy teachers’ lounges, their fat-cat salaries, and their absolute authority in deciding who gets a hall pass. We all remember high school - canning the entire faculty is a nationwide revenge fantasy. Take that, Mrs. Crabtree! And guess what? We’re chewing gum and no, we didn’t bring enough for everybody…

…Firing all the teachers may feel good - we’re Americans, kicking people when they’re down is what we do - but it’s not really their fault.

Bill Maher, March 12, 2010

Fast forward to the 2:27 mark in the YouTube video below to hear what Maher has to say about the despicable recent Newsweek cover urging the wholesale firing of American public school teachers. The video is a lot more entertaining than the text AND it’s may not be suitable for children or the workplace.

If the video above doesn’t work, try this clip below. The teacher stuff starts immediately.