always learning

This past weekend, I was honored to be a part of the first-ever Apple Distinguished Educator Asia Institute, here in Bangkok, along with my fabulous colleague here at ISB, Justin Medved. This first “class” of Asia ADE’s had around 50 teachers from local and international schools from Bangkok to Beijing. It was so inspiring and empowering to sit in a room with these amazing teachers – from the university level to kindergarten, local schools with minimal budget, to international schools with every resource you could imagine.

Our team leaders, Maxx Judd and Rae Niles, always referred to the ADE’s as our “new friends” and developed a very collaborative and supportive environment for our long weekend of Mac-mania. The main focus of the institute is to work in teams to develop a project for the Apple Learning Interchange (ALI). As could be expected, I was on a superstar team, including my good friend, Clay Burell, and my two new friends Adriaan van Wijk and Jeff Plaman. We had a great time developing our project: GASP: The Global Action Sustainability Project – soon to be posted on the ALI.

Although I enjoyed the extensive coverage of Apple education products, and the quick presentation by Google (!), the best part about the weekend was spending time with my group, developing the project, and touring around Bangkok compiling multimedia resources to support our work. I love the way that the ADE Institute focuses on the process of creating an exemplary project in a collaborative environment and supports the development of quality resources for all teachers to use. I must admit that haven’t looked at the ALI recently, but after seeing the absolutely amazing work that came out of this 4-day institute from all of the new ADEs, I’m definitely going to be promoting it as a superior resource with all of my teachers. I highly recommend checking it out today!

Tags: network, PLN, 21stcentury, learning, global, educator, PD, ADE, adeasia2007, apple, Bangkok, Thailand, ALI, clayburell, jeffplaman, adriaanvanwijk, justinmedved

We often complain about the “echo chamber” effect out here in the education blogosphere. Sometimes it seems like we’re a group of technology cheerleaders enthusiastically shouting our successes to each other over and over – to the point that I often feel like I don’t have much to add to the conversation because it’s all been said before. But, over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that although we may be a vocal group online, the kinds of experiences we’re cheering about are truly few and far between.

A few weeks ago, I presented at the Teach IT! conference at Singapore American School. There were over 300 teachers at the conference, most teaching in international schools in Singapore, but a few from other schools in Asia. Over the course of the day, I spoke to dozens of educators who were excited about using technology in their classroom but either didn’t have access to the tools, didn’t have access to technical or pedagogical support, or didn’t have administrative support or expectations to move forward. Many of these teachers were working in complete isolation in their schools and had no one to inspire them, help push their thinking forward, or just support their ideas.

I got the distinct impression that they were excited about what I presented, but were already thinking back to their individual schools where they clearly would struggle to implement some of the ideas. Of course, this is what a personal learning network is all about, and of course I shared my contact info and gave examples of how they could connect with other educators, but I know that overwhelming feeling. The feeling that you want to make a change, but that you’re all alone, and it’s going to be harder than you expect – so why start?

After being constantly connected to my personal learning network, and being constantly exposed to new and challenging ideas about education, I realize I had started to fall under the illusion that most schools and educators were thinking about the same kinds of things I’ve been thinking about. After hearing the struggles and problems my colleagues here in southeast Asia are facing, I realized that for many teachers, these ideas are new.

My network of online contacts seems close, but in actuality we’re only a small group surrounded by our colleagues in the real world, some of whom might not even know about the ideas that keep getting bounced around our online “echo chamber.” Although it’s easy to get wrapped up in this progressive online environment, I’m realizing that I need to pay careful attention to the understandings and expectations of my colleagues here in the physical world in order to meet the very real needs of teachers that are not a part of this community.

Each of us needs to ensure that we are vocal not only online, but also in the real world, and in trying to communicate our ideas to wider audiences in order to make a difference in our own schools.

Obvious as it may be, I sometimes find myself getting caught up in the exciting opportunities and ideas we discuss online, but it’s important to remember that our individual schools might not be ready for all these things, and we need to help each individual we work with construct their own understandings, and that can take time and careful effort. I sometimes need to remind myself that the most critical part of my job to inspire change in the real world, not just within our connected group of educators. The reality is that those of us hoping to be voices of change need to make sure that we’re not speeding ahead on our own, but must always work to bring everyone else in our school environment along with us.

Images from: B Tal, Ben McLeod

Tags: network, PLN, 21stcentury, learning, TeachIT!, global, educator, slideshare, PD, Singapore