Generation YES Blog

Last week I was the closing keynote at NEIT 2008, the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) Education and Information Technology conference. It was an “unconference” and used a structure called “Open Space” to plan and manage the meetings. Other than the two keynote “anchors”, there were no planned sessions.

Open Space Technology is “a simple way to run productive meetings, for five to 2000+ people, and a powerful way to lead any kind of organization, in everyday practice and extraordinary change.”

At NAIS 2008, I found it very successful, and at the same time, a powerful metaphor for learning.

At the beginning of the conference, everyone is free to step up and propose any session they want. Not just ones they want to present, but anything they want to know more about. And then as these suggestions begin to fill the slots, more ideas come forward. After a few sessions, you have another meeting and fill more slots, propose more ideas. (More about how this works)

When it started, it seemed like there were way too many open spots and not enough ideas. People worried that voting would help sort out what to do, that their ideas wouldn’t be popular, that they would miss things, or that we would run out of ideas. But as we heard the Open Space Four Principles and One Law it started to make more sense:

Four Principles

• Whoever comes is the right people
• Whenever it starts is the right time
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
• When it’s over, it’s over

The one law is The Law of Two Feet, meaning, if you want to be somewhere else, do it - just don’t waste the time.

How it worked
Sure enough, most sessions had enough people. Part of the success was due to the facility having many small rooms, enough to accommodate all the proposed sessions. Some had projectors, some didn’t but it all worked out. When we re-gathered for the next planning sessions, people were energized, more sessions were proposed, people decided to continue or repeat a session, and slowly the open slots were filled

I’ve been to other unconferences, and this one was different. Because there was no voting, there was no competitive element and no hidden message that only the most popular ideas or people are important. While I understand that often the physical space is a limitation, I think there must be ways to acknowledge that everyone can contribute.

As I went to various sessions, people were passionate and focused. It’s the first conference in years where I went to every session and wished there were more. Lots of people said the same thing. You know when you go to a conference and the best part is the conversation in the hall? This was all hall.

The kids in the room are the right kids
But really, isn’t this what we hope for classrooms, especially project-based learning environments? Sometimes it’s hard to explain project-based learning. It’s hard to convince others that it actually works, because it’s hard to “see” the learning when the teaching is not continuous direct instruction. You have to trust the process, design situations that will engage students, and then give students time to become immersed in them. You have to trust the students and allow them to take risks, make mistakes, overcome frustrations and work through momentary distractions. You have to believe that your kids are the right kids, that you are the right teacher, and that when it all works, it will be magic.

I took a risk too, I didn’t prepare my keynote presentation until the night before. I felt I wanted to honor the process and trust that the experience of the conference would provide support for my topic of leadership vision to action, especially student leadership. And it did. I liked what I came up with, and the audience seemed to as well. It was videotaped, but apparently only the audio worked. Oh well!

I knew I wasn’t going THAT far out on a limb; I have enough videos and examples that I can pull together fairly quickly. But the theme of trusting the process and the participants ended up providing the perfect context.

Your kids are the right kids, you are the right teacher, and now is the right time. Trust them, trust yourself, trust the process. Now let’s get busy.

Sylvia

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The other day I blogged about “Gizmo High” - a teacher’s opinion piece of how technology was forced on his school to the detriment of learning. As I read some of the reaction to the story and to my blog, I realized that I wasn’t clear about what the point of my post was. I “buried the lead” as they warn beginning journalists not to do. In fact, I buried it so deep it was completely missing.

So here’s my point. Forcing technology on a school won’t work and will likely result in resistance and resentment. To match that mistake, teachers, the community, and even students can resist change simply because it’s different. There are so many ways for technology integration to go wrong, and this story simply illustrated one of them.

So where’s the magic balance? What’s the secret of success? I thought a lot about it and have a theory to throw out here in the form of a chart.

• The horizontal axis represents collaboration and goes from the most authoritarian system (one person or group has complete say in what happens) to maximum consensus.
• The vertical axis represents control - by which I mean steering towards a vision, sort of like having a rudder. It goes from the bottom, where there is absolutely no vision about what to do to the top where someone (or a group) has a perfectly formed vision of the future.

I’ve labeled the quadrants with what I think happens with these combinations.

1. Resistance, resentment (top left) - this is where Gizmo High falls. Somebody with an extreme vision forced it on everyone else. That vision was something like “the one with the most goodies wins.”
2. Successful change (top right) - where everyone would like to be. The perfect storm of a shared, guiding vision and just enough process and consensus building to get everyone on board as it happens.
3. Paralysis (bottom right) - When there is so much consensus building going on that nothing of significance ever happens, it means that the vision is missing. The engine is running but there’s no one at the rudder.
4. Status quo (bottom left) - There’s not even a vision of change and there are plenty of people who feel passionate about keeping things just as they are.

Successful change is more than just gaining consensus from the participants about “what they want” without first establishing a vision of change. People can’t choose a future they’ve never seen before. Many times I think technology integration is considered successful if the teachers “feel comfortable” with the technology. Often this means that they are using technology to do the same old things with new gizmos.

So where does the vision look like? I can’t tell you — that’s exactly the point. My solution wouldn’t work for you, because that’s just a recipe for a “Quadrant 1″ style Gizmo High disaster. No one can come in and tell you what your vision of the future should be; you can’t follow someone else’s dream.

But you can stand on the shoulders of giants. One place I find my inspiration is by reading great thinkers about education like Dr. Seymour Papert. He painted a picture in the very early days of computers of how students could program computers, instead of computers programming children. He worked to create a programming language for children that would directly connect to math in a natural way. This language is still in use in schools around the world today and is the backbone of new ones like MicroWorlds and Scratch. His constructivist theories of how students learn are the basis of the One Laptop Per Child Initiative.

But don’t take my word for it. Read him, read others, and find your own.

Sylvia