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PLN? What’s that?

“Personal learning network,” you say.

Well, OK, but it feels a bit like saying that my legs are my personal locomotion appendages. They ARE that, of course, but the locution is off-putting and I’m not sure what’s gained by it.

But then I’m likely in a somewhat different situation from most of the people hanging out in this Connected Courses floating seminar. Though I once had a university post, that was long ago, before the web, though not before the Internet. I’m an independent scholar, not completely by choice, but the independence means more than that I’m not on a faculty somewhere. I also means that I’m free to go boldly where none have gone before and THAT, as much as anything, is probably why I’m not on a faculty somewhere.

In any event, the emergence of the web afforded me an intellectual life I thought I’d never have. Mind you, it’s still far from ideal, but I can meet people and get the word out and do so more effectively than I could from within the academy.

I’ve already written two longish posts about my online publishing activities, so I’ll try not to repeat much of that here. Publishing is a way of participating in an intellectual community or communities and the online environment has made that easier, more varied, and more fluid.

My first venture onto the web happened in the 1990s when I hooked up with Bill Berry to work on an online community initially called Meanderings, after an occasional newsletter Bill wrote, and then called Gravity. We decided “new savanna” would make a good domain name, as humankind got started on the savannas of Africa and now cyberspace represented a new savanna. Bill has retained the name, the remains of our work still exist there, and I’ve used the name as the name of my blog, New Savanna (which is where we are now). That’s the center of my online world and has been for the last several years. That name thus represents real continuity in my online activities, a philosophical and personal continuity.

Gravity was conceived as a hangout for people interested in African-American culture. We published monthly articles by members of the community, did collaborative coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial with Vibe Magazine, and had an interactive discussion area that Bill coded up. The venture lasted two years before Bill had to go back to work. I see him around on Facebook (FB) and have kept in touch with other members of that community in various venues.

I don’t recall the exact chronology and it doesn’t matter at the moment, but sometime after Meanderings/Gravity got started Salon Magazine went live and set up their discussion forum, Table Talk. I spent a lot of time in Table Talk, concentrating on a few discussion areas. There was a thread called Mysteries of Black Folk (aka Mo’Beef) where I spent time. Met some of those people F2F and remain in touch with some, again through FB. I also spent time in discussions of music and of film, and some other things here and there, such as the folks who discussed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and set up The Phoenix Board when Table Talk went pay to play.

Sometime before the turn of the millennium, or at any rate, before 9/11, one of the ex Gravitarians, Michael Cobb Bowen, introduced me to Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms, and I became an active member of that community. I’ve spent a good deal of time there, though more time in the first few years of the millennium than now. These days my major contribution to Brainstorms is to post photographs regularly, though I’ll occasionally make an entry in a personal diary there and I’ll comment here and there on other matters.

I met Howard there, and then met him F2F several years ago when he came to New York City (I live in Jersey City, just across the river). I have occasional communication with Howard outside Brainstorms as well.

None of this is particularly academic. The point is simply that I’ve meet people online whom I’ve kept in touch with over the years. We’ve done online projects together, and we’ve met F2F on occasion.

And I haven’t even gotten to the blogosphere yet. That’s when things really blossomed. I’ve already told that story in Academic Publishing, A Personal History, Part 2: To the Blogosphere and Beyond. Suffice it to say that I’ve done A LOT of long-form blogging over the last half-dozen years and participated in lots of conversations through it. And, yes, I’ve met people and established relationships.

At the same time I’ve also reached out to various academics and thinkers whose work interests me and exchanged papers and comments with them. After I published Beethoven’s Anvil, my music book, back in 2001, I entered into correspondence with the late Mary Douglas, who’d blurbed the book for me. She got me interested in ring-composition, to which I’ve devoted considerable effort. I was also emailing Charlie Keil, who’d been an intellectual hero since my undergraduate years. I struck up a correspondence with Michael Barrier, an independent scholar who’s perhaps North America’s premier historian of “Golden Era” cartoons and animation. And so on.

Over the past four of five months I’ve concentrated on the so-called digital humanities, doing extensive blogging in the area, having email chats, and I’ve finally started cultivating my Twitter account. I’d set one up several years ago, but never did much with it. But it’s a good way to keep in touch with these digital humanities folks.

The interesting thing, though, is that over the past two or three years the online world has become increasingly important to me as a way of keeping in touch with my local community. Several venues are involved, including, of course, Facebook. I find out about local events, but also share photos I’ve taken in the area.

So, yes, I’ve got this personal learning network thing going in spades. It’s inextricably woven through and through my online life. And, given that I am a thinker and writer, my online life is a major part of my life.

It is, after all, the 21st Century.

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One of the most valuable lessons I learned from playing basketball was to “Practice How You Play.”  Practicing at 50% or even 75% of game intensity would not prepare me for an actual game; simulating an actual game environment during practice whether it was drills or running through plays was an essential part of preparing for the game.  In teaching, you can’t immediately get that 100% intensity of learning without laying the foundation and working to maintain an environment conducive to meaningful learning.  When you plan to integrate any kind of new tool, particularly technology, into your teaching or training, you should walkthrough the lesson in exactly the way you want students to experience the technology.

This week, I began learning how to manage the game environment and experience in MinecraftEdu.  If you plan to use MinecraftEdu with your class, it is incredibly valuable to spend time in the game, playing and learning how to move and build. “MinecraftEDU helps alleviate some of the technical burdens of bringing the game into the classroom” (Watters, 2012). Working in teacher mode allows you to design and control the game play for students depending on your objectives in the game.  I had a fairly good grasp of what could be possible with the game but actually playing and having to follow instructions to build and find items gave me a deeper understanding of the possibilities for teaching with MinecraftEdu.   As with any lesson, always assign specific tasks and give clear instructions.  You’ve given directions before so it seems simple enough but assume you are the student who knows nothing about this game; students need you to set expectations and provide clear instructions that help guide them to complete the tasks.  “How a teacher chooses to interact with a class is such a personal decision” (Levin).  Understanding how the game is played can help you create a learning environment that meets your objectives for the lesson.

Regardless of your subject, to demonstrate meaningful learning, here are some suggestions on how to use tools and strategies within and outside of the game:

  1. Use an Information Center – create a website, blog, or online group to keep students connected outside of the game.  This can be your most important tool for managing the lesson and staying organized; you can provide announcements and project instructions as you assign them and post all information and resources relevant to the lesson.  Students can start there at the beginning of each session to review their tasks and get relevant information.  It also serves as a place for students to document their progress and reflect on their experiences (some great opportunities for journaling or daily writeups.  They can even use the site to share strategies, upload screenshots of their work (another great tool), report issues they are having in the game, and access great guides and tutorials you provided at the beginning!
  2. Repeat, Review, and Reinforce - Provide tasks and instructions in several places and formats that are easily accessible by students.  Give them a paper handout, post the latest task on the bulletin board, provide tasks and instructions in the game (using information and sign blocks), and update your class blog or website to keep students in the loop. Have students review or reflect on your guidelines and instructions after their first time in the game; incorporate their feedback, make corrections, and provide positive reinforcement to encourage their work.
  3. Suggest Guides and Tutorials - again, always provide information so that the least experienced student has access to knowledge that other students might have already mastered.  Review helpful guides and tutorials and make a recommended list that can help students with the tasks specific to your lesson.  You may even want to incorporate these resources into your introduction or beginning activity to ensure that all students know that they are available and can access them later.
  4. Set Boundaries & Control Time and Space (Yes you can!)- there are special blocks that allow or disallow students to build in a specific space or area; use them so students understand where to build and help you find them easily.  Fences easily keep students from going beyond the space you designate for them; this is a great tool if you want students to work “alongside” each other but not be able to access other workspaces during the project. You can even change the weather to simulate days and nights.  You might also consider giving them a timeframe to work on each task – within the class period, by the end of the week, or assign tasks in sequence, each completed task leads to another task.
  5. Be the Eye in the Sky - in teacher mode, you have the option to check in on students where they are building and fly around in the spectator mode if needed to get an overview.  The chat tool is great for guiding, asking questions, or talking to students if necessary (we’ve all tried talking to someone when they are staring at a screen).  Supervising within the game is important so they can be immersed in the experience and learn to communicate with others in the game.  You can enable them to chat with you or disable it when you just want them to focus on their building.
  6. Teleporting - as the “all-powerful” teacher (don’t let it get to your head!), you can teleport individual or all students where you need them to be at any time; so useful when students are lost or you want them to start or finish in the same place. Try having them start in the same place at the beginning and then traveling to their building areas or a new area that you designate to demonstrate that they can navigate or follow directions.
  7. Provide Tools and Clues -  in the teacher mode, you decide what materials students can build with to simplify the choices they make, on the other hand, you can also provide a range of choices, if part of the task is choosing the appropriate tools to use.  You can leave information in books, on information blocks or sign blocks, or you can create objects that will attract or direct your students to look at something because it stands out or is out of place in the game environment.  You can also have students leave clues or comments about what they have built as a marker or summary of their work.
  8. Level Up & Reward Progress - Don’t forget to incorporate elements of difficulty and challenge as the game progresses.  If relevant to your goals, add some twists and turns to keep students guessing.  You can even have them build on an earlier task with a new or more complicated challenge.  And earning a badge is always a fun incentive (maybe even have a progress or leader board on the Information Center), but you can also reward students with increased privileges or access in the game as well as new materials or decorations in their inventory!
  9. Encourage Creativity & Collaboration- provide details of what you want students to build but don’t micromanage their process.  This is a game to use your imagination, so tell your students that outside of your specific instructions, they should use creativity in their building AND in their process.  MinecraftEdu is a perfect game for collaborating and strategizing; provide opportunities for students to work in teams or to have several groups working together.
  10. Increase Access - not all students will have access to the game outside of your classroom; make practice times available for those who may need more time to learn how to move and build.  You can even have students who are expert players teach their peers the fundamental skills and tips needed to navigate the game.  Some students need practice to build confidence and expertise to be able to experience that 100% “intensity” of the game experience, you play a key role in helping them get there!

References:

Levin, J. (Unknown date).  Trending Topic:  Structured vs. Unstructured Play.  Retrieved from  http://minecraftteacher.tumblr.com/post/18912962011/trending-topic-structured-vs-unstructured-play

Watters, A. (March 15, 2012).  MinecraftEdu:  Minecraft for the Classroom. Retrieved from http://hackeducation.com/2012/03/15/minecraftedu-minecraft-for-the-classroom/


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As we get closer to the launch of the Data, Analytics, and Learning MOOC, one of the ideas we are trying to bring to life is a Visual Syllabus. The instructors expressed concern with the “wall of text” that many learners run smack into when reading a syllabus. That is a very valid concern, so the idea was born to make the syllabus more visual and narrative.

Below is the rough draft of the flow of learner tools that will be used in the course. The idea is that learners will be able to click on each area and get an in-browser pop-up with a brief description of each along with a link to start using the tool. I would love to be able to put together an animated gif of this (time permitting).

dalmooc-tool-flow

Two quick notes: this is for the learner tools, the tools that the learners will use while learning, as compared to the analytics tools they will be learning about (Tableau, RapidMiner, etc). Secondly, the random pill images are connecting a metaphor that I am thinking about weaving throughout the syllabus (based on choosing the red pill or blue pill in The Matrix; except both represent reality, just one learners are used to and the other that they aren’t). Everything here is subject to change, including the dualistic metaphor.

The general idea is that all learners will get a kick off email for the week, setting out the main idea for that week. Learners will then choose to go down the blue path (towards an instructivist path they are accustomed to) or the red path (towards a connectivist path they may not be accustomed to).

Those on the blue path will enter the EdX course content to view videos, read text, perform activities, etc. As they encounter issues or concepts they need help with, there will be in-context help buttons to click on to get customized help (but still cooler than that, I am just being vague because this will be new tech that is still being worked on). They will also be put in groups of 3-5 by a new technology to work on specific problem-based learning activities (again, new tech that will be detailed later, but trust me its cool). Some of the course work will be highlighted in daily email updates. Learners can repeat parts as needed or even cross over to the red path at any point they wish.

Those on the red path will enter ProSolo (embededd in EdX). This is a new suite of technology that basically enables learners to set their own goals, connect with others that have similar goals, and work to create proof that they have met those goals. If you remember many of the calls to create a tool that fosters true Personal Learning Networks, this is basically that tool. ProSolo will be used in this course and is another cool new thing we are trying. More details on that one to be announced soon. The learners will then go to the Problem Bank (or whatever we name our installation of the ds106 Assignment Bank tool) to find and / or submit problem ideas to work on. They would then connect with their PLN (Internet on the diagram) and work on the problems. Then they would submit artifacts back to the bank. Their blogs, tweets, videos, and other various artifacts will be collected for the daily email updates. Learners can repeat parts as needed or even cross over to the blue path at any point they wish.

The learners will repeat, crossover, and work on various activities until the week is over or they are finished and then repeat for the next week.

All of this is just the rough draft. If you are interested in seeing how it all works out, I would recommend at least lurking in the upcoming #dalmooc :)

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In 2012 I was preparing to graduate from college at the age of 23 after five changes of major and one ill-considered effort to transfer universities that I thankfully decided against at the last minute. When people ask me about this, normally I answer with a smile and a practiced statement about how changing majors so many times gave me the opportunity to experience all the trajectories that I might have been interested in pursuing before I began my degree in English Education. But the truth is that at the time, I still felt a significant amount of confusion surrounding “what I wanted to be when I grew up.” In the five years that I had been in college, I had watched all my friends struggle, grow, mature, and leave me behind as they finished school and relocated to different areas or jobs in their field, while I was still mired in the mud that is choosing a vocation. But as the theme of this weeks connected course will surely highlight, these questions were all firmly planted in the what — What do I want to be? What job do I want? What should I do? What’s the next step? Were all questions that swirled in my head on a delightful daily basis.

Ironically, it wasn’t until after I applied to grad school that I started asking myself “why”. Even that came as a happy accident. When I finally started working to get my degree in English Ed, my entire attitude towards school took a very visceral shift. I wanted to go to school. I was excited about my teachers and my budding experience as a writing mentor, and this was reflected in my GPA. After finishing college I decided against applying to a credential program since I had decided that what I wanted to be was not a high school teacher. Based on the rumors I’d heard about people not ordinarily getting denied to grad school and the fact that I worked with/for many of the people who granted admission I figured I’d be fine.

I applied to several grad schools and got accepted to them all except for the only one that I actually wanted to go to — CSU Chico, my alma mater and place where I thought I had the best chance. I remember not even thinking twice when I friend told me that the committee had only denied one application that semester, because it was such an alien and ludicrous thought at the time to believe that one application was mine. It wasn’t until several days later when my inconsiderate roommate came home and brought me a letter from the school that I learned otherwise. He handed me the letter with a glib smile and told me that “it feels pretty light to be an acceptance letter” as he chuckled over his shoulder. But he was right. It was a rejection letter that thanked me for my application, but suggested that I reapply later or elsewhere. This was four days before my graduation ceremony, and once more I found myself back in the mud surrounded by what questions. What should I do now? What can I do? What did I do wrong? What do I want?

I found it impossible to sleep from that day forward so I spent my nights trying to figure out how or if I even wanted to circumvent the decision, and I spent my days trying find someone to help or advise me. Unfortunately I suddenly found myself walled off or stonewalled from all the people I had come to rely on for support or advice and told repeatedly that there was a protocol for how these things work, and that this protocol had to be followed. This protocol stated that I had to talk to the coordinator, who told me that I had to present new evidence for why this decision should be reconsidered or overturned. This left me back at square one as person after person told me they couldn’t or wouldn’t be my sponsor in this appeals process — as these people, all of whom I I had come to respect, idolize, model myself after, and aspire to be like one day, turned me away I began to grow bitter and irate. Luckily one person agreed to meet with me (even though I don’t think they were technically supposed to) and in the midst of my juvenile effusion about the whole ordeal, he asked me two questions that I’ll never forget.

The first question he asked after listening to me explain the situation when we first met. He sat there kindly and patiently until I was done and told me that it was clear that I could articulate the reasons that my rejection letter had laid out for my rejection, but asked me why I thought they hadn’t accepted my application. “Based on the criteria given, you meet all the stipulations for this program but you didn’t get in. Why do you think that is” he asked.  The second question he posed as an interruption to one of my overwhelmed rants about the protocol for appeal: “So why do you want to go to Grad school then?”

It took me a couple of days before I could start to answer these questions. Why grad school? Why here? Why didn’t I get in? One day we were going over yet another draft of my letter for appeal, trying to eloquently write the reasons why I should be reconsidered before I could actually articulate them myself when finally I just blurted out “Because I can fucking do this! Helping students do college writing makes me happier than anything else I’ve ever done, and I want to dedicate my life to it.” He just smiled a small smile and turned back to the letter. Later that night, I recounted the story to my friend of seven years and I noticed the same small smile that I had seen earlier creep across his lips as I finished the tale. He said I seemed different somehow now, and that he couldn’t help but smile as he thought about the kind of teacher I would turn out to be after I got accepted. He said the people who had ruled against me were probably right to do so but even they hadn’t witnessed the effect it was having on me. “You know your path now, but nobody said it was going to be easy.” Only your best friend is really allowed to tell you things like quit your complaining or get out of your own way doofus, but when they do it seems to have such a magnified effect, and it did. I spent the entirety of that summer writing, rewriting, and revising that that letter of appeal and showing it to anyone and everyone who could or would give me feedback. That same faculty member wrote a recommendation letter for me as did another person who had first made me realize my interest in teaching several years prior. Augmented by these letters, my appeal was accepted and I was admitted into the program which I am now preparing to graduate from this coming spring.

But in retrospection, that cavalier kid wasn’t ready for grad school and there’s no way anyone should have let me in if that’s the kind of student I would have continued to be. That rejection forced me out of the what and into the why. And today I have no trouble answering the question of why I am in grad school: Everyday I get to wake up and do the thing I love most — the thing that makes me happier than anything else, and I get to become just a little bit better at it each day. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.


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I teach because I am enthusiastic about what my discipline offers and want to share it with others.  Sociology is about seeing and understanding the connections that link us as individuals to groups, institutions, and social forces.  It is also about the socially constructed nature of these connections, which is a revolutionary idea if taken seriously: people create the social world and they have the potential to change it.

These basic insights lead to asking the universal “why” question:  Why are things the way they are?  So, though obviously informed by the disciplinary context in which it occurs, my primary goal in teaching is not content-specific.  Instead, it is the cultivation of a perspective and attitude that sees connections (thinking beyond individualistic answers) and asks “Why?” about everything from the mundane social norms of daily life to the deep structural inequities that divide societies.

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It started with an email to Jon Naar: Let’s meet. Naar, as you may recall, did the first book on graffiti. He took the photos back in '72, found a publisher, and his publisher coupled him with a writer, Norman Mailer. Cay 161 gave Mailer a truth, “the name is the faith of graffiti,” and from that truth a book title was born: The Faith of Graffiti. The book went on to become the “bible” of graffiti.

In his reply, Naar copied graff writer EKG. In my reply to both, I told them about American Heartache, a nice sized roller in an abandoned building in Jersey City:

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EKG says, that was by Droid907, I’ll let him know. Thus it was that I got an email from Droid907 asking for a mailing address so he could send me his latest book. A day or two ago the book arrived in the mail: Sick of Society, a collection of fisherman’s tales and doctored photographs. And with it, three stickers and a decal:

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Zines have been around at least since Plato. That’s not what they called them in ancient days, but that’s what they were, artisanal books, hand crafted and NOT hot off the presses. There were no presses back then, just scribes, writing away, one at a time. Zines aren’t scribal, but you know a human hand touched each page.


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Up until not so long ago, a zine is what you did when you wanted to get the word out but weren’t mainstream enough to attract a legit publisher and didn’t have trust fund money or stock options to cover the cost of self-publication. Photocopiers, mimeographs, silk screen, and staplers, that’s how you worked. Type the pages yourself, lay them out, photos here and there, copy and staple. Small runs, obscure distribution networks.

In these days of the internet and cheap print-on-demand anyone with modest computer skills and a decent eye can lay out a slick book and have it bound in boards or paper, looking ‘professional’, looking commercial. Now the artisanal zine is a deliberate choice & probably more work than slick print-on-demand.

Why?

For want of a better word, authenticity.

What a concept! Authenticity. In a world where Coca-Cola tells us “It’s the real thing” damn near anything can be faked. Including especially authenticity. But then, when Coke Labs cooked up a super-slick better tasting New Formula, the people rebelled, didn’t they? Didn’t want this new-fangled improved scientifically engineered Coke. Damn if there wasn’t a ‘real thing’ in the world of Coca Cola and the company missed it by a mile.

I KNOW Sick of Society is the real thing. How? Because this:

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That’s the “American Heartache” roller I flicked earlier this year. Notice the snow on the floor, so we know it’s winter and, if I didn’t know the building was falling down because I’ve been there, well then, you could infer that because how else would there be snow on the inside? And it’s late afternoon, too. See that bright square below the “ea” right of center? That’s a window. If you look immediately to the right you’ll see where light streams through that window and hits the wall under the “ch.” the sun has to be low in the sky for the light to stream through and that window’s on the west side of the building so it’s got to be afternoon, not morning.

Technically, it’s not much of a photograph. But that’s surely deliberate. Maybe it’s one of those doctored photographs. Truth in labeling.

And then there’s the man with the roller–Droid907? So this is a photo of the process unfolding. And that brings us to Mana Contemporary, where their “mission is to display the art-creating process and the people behind it.”

Went to their open house last Sunday (14 Sept 2014). I was particularly impressed with the 5th floor exhibit of George Condo (from the Pellizzi Family Collections) but not so impressed with the Sante D’Orazio Priests series. The Condo is authentic, the D’Orazio is high-class kitsch.

The concept is simple: photograph your artist friends dressed up as priests. But what’s the point? The concept is so obvious as to be uninteresting, at least in D’Orazio’s execution, large (4 or 5 feet) beautifully done B&W prints. The man takes technically excellent photographs. Big deal. Black and white, how arty. Now if he’d taken on the challenge of doing them in color, he’d have had to really work to get something out of his subjects. As for those subjects: Damien “jump the shark” Hirst? Jeff “my pretty balloons” Koons? Gimmie a break! Better yet, gimme' a Coke Classic, the Real Thing.

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From Sick of Society:
"whats going on back there?" an old security guard from the XXXXXX building demanded to know, shining his mag light into our faces from the other side of a tall cyclone fence. "do you have permission to be painting back there?" "yes." UFO answered. "from who?" the guard played along. "just letting you know, im calling the police." giving us the heads up. as he turned to get on his cellphone, i approached the xxxxx fence to plead with him. "hey man, im not trying to stop you from doing your job, but if you just give us twenty more minutes we will cover up all this shitty graffiti with a really beautiful piece. theres like swastikas and bullshit on this wall. let us cover it up and we will leave, promise. no problems." the guard shined the light up at our piece and back in my face. "alright ill be back here in a half hour, if you are here youre going to jail. just finish up and be quiet." and with that, he vanished back into the bushes, and we finished up.
If you want a copy, take yourself over to Carnage NYC. $18.00, edition of 400 copies, and you get three hand-drawn stickers too.

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* * * * *

For connected courses folks. I don’t currently teach, haven’t taught in years. But THIS is why I’m going to teach. Graffiti is the most important movement in the contemporary art world. Taken together with street art, they are laying the foundations for a 21st century transnational artistic culture. Can you get a college or university course that lays it out like that? I bet not or, if so, only here and there. So, starting early next year I’m going to host an online floating seminar for those who want to begin working it out. We’re going to examine graffiti and street art in the context of world culture: cave art to the future!

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Embrace. Leverage. Elevate. Learning.

Check. Check. Check. And, Check. It’s a whole new world as Princess Jasmine & Aladdin expressed flying on a magic carpet. Well, this blog is my magic carpet as I take a ride from the normal daily grind to try and hang out, mess around, geek out via this blog. Thanks to my work environment in higher ed, specifically in careers and mentoring, I am practicing what I preach to students through leveraging this great Connected Learning course. Hope this whole new world elevates my connected learning.


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12 orgs transforming K-12 edu
It’s true — teachers help transform education every day, but they can’t do it alone. With the support of administrators, parents and local communities, teachers are able to provide a well-rounded education to K–12 students. In order for students to succeed in their environments, however, it’s important that they have access to a quality education and enriching community resources and activities.

It’s in this spirit that the following 12 organizations are improving K–12 education.

  1. Pencils of Promise


    2. In 2008, Adam Braun founded Pencils of Promise after having a conversation with a child in poverty in India. Braun asked the boy, “What do you want most in the world?” The boy replied, “A pencil.” This is a for-purpose organization that trains teachers, builds schools and awards scholarships. The organization is transforming education by building schools in under-served communities across the globe. Every 90 hours, Pencils for Promise breaks ground on a new school site.

    “Pencils of Promise is transforming international education by focusing on outcomes rather than outputs. This means that we don’t just build a school and move on; we monitor and evaluate every project we undertake. We also train teachers and fund student scholarships to grow progression rates. Thus far, every school we’ve opened is fully operational and educating students daily.”
    – Pencils of Promise

  2. Roadtrip Nation

    3. Roadtrip Nation
    Roadtrip Nation first began in 2001 when four college friends, who were unsure of their futures, painted an RV green and set out on the open road to interview strangers about what fueled their passions. The organization provides schools with resources and curriculum materials designed to inspire students to create their own paths in life. They are transforming education by bringing real experiences, community resources and 21st-century tools into the classroom.

    “Roadtrip Nation Education transforms education by taking a new approach to developing college and career-readiness skills: an interest-based approach. By giving students access and exposure to thousands of individuals who have forged lives doing what they love, students are able to ‘see’ themselves in others, and think critically about how they can link what they love to what they are learning in school. Additionally, by replicating the Roadtrip process — which includes making cold-calls to inspiring adults and conducting their own interviews — students develop a growth mindset in which they can imagine more concrete possibilities for their futures. In turn, they develop the self-efficacy, self-awareness, and tenacity needed to make decisions about college and careers that align with who they are as individuals.” – Roadtrip Nation

  3. 826 National

    4. 826Valencia

    photo via 826 Valencia

    In 2002, educator Nínive Calegari and author Dave Eggers cofounded 826 Valencia in San Francisco, the first center of what has grown to be the 826 National network. This organization offers eight writing and tutoring centers across the nation. 826 National is transforming education by working with underserved 6- to 18-year-olds and helping them improve their writing skills through individual tutoring and creative strategies. They strive to encourage young writers by helping them build functional skills for future success.

  4. Smart Girls at the Party

    5. SmartGirlsattheParty

    photo via Smart Girls

    Amy Miles, Amy Poehler and Meredith Walker developed a Web series, “Smart Girls at the Party,” and offer online resources, advertising campaigns and summer camps to educate and strengthen young minds. Currently, the group is transforming education by empowering young girls and women to feel comfortable in their own skin and get involved in bettering their communities.

  5. UPKNYC

    6. upknyc

    photo via UPKNYC

    The UPKNYC campaign was inspired by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to enforce a small tax on New York City’s wealthiest residents to fund preschool for all children and narrow the achievement gap. UPKNYC is devoted to New York City’s grassroots campaign to provide full-day preschool and after-school programs to all. This group is transforming education by rallying families and community members together to gain access to free, quality programs for their children in an area where these programs are in limited supply and offered at exorbitant costs.

  6. National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP)

    7. NGCProject

    photo via NGCProject

    The idea for NGCP first cropped up in 2002 when the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology started the Northwest Girls Collaborative Project (NWGCP) in Washington and Oregon. NGCP is transforming education by breaking barriers and encouraging more girls to pursue future careers in historically male-dominated sectors. This organization unites groups devoted to providing STEM (science, technology, math and engineering) education opportunities to girls.

    “NGCP is working to transform education by bringing programs together to share resources and increase opportunities for collaboration. High levels of collaboration among educators and programs engaging girls in STEM increases the efficiency, effectiveness and overall capacity of programs serving girls, and therefore improves opportunities and experiences for girls in STEM.” – National Girls Collaborative Project

  7. Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship

    8. NFTE

    2014 Regional Finalists and Business Plan Judges via NFTE

    In 1987, South Bronx math teacher and former entrepreneur Steve Mariotti established NFTE to inspire his most at-risk students to stay in school and embrace entrepreneurship. NFTE works with teachers at predominantly low-income schools and trains them in engaging students. NFTE is transforming education by giving teachers the skills necessary to keep students from dropping out and enabling them to pursue successful futures.

  8. Black Girls Code

    9. Kimberly Bryant founded this program after her own isolating college experience as a young, African-American woman with a passion for coding. Black Girls Code offers workshops and after-school programs to encourage marginalized African-American females to learn computer programs. The organization is transforming education by helping underserved girls become the programmers of tomorrow through the use of high-interest programming languages like “Ruby on Rails” and “Scratch.”

  9. Edmodo

    10. edmodo screenshot

    photo via Edmodo


    Edmodo was founded in 2008 by two educators, Nic Borg and Jeff O’Hara, with the vision of bridging “the gap between how students live their lives and how they learn in school.” Edmodo connects teachers and students beyond the classroom walls by providing a virtual platform for classes, discussions and unique opportunities to engage with other learning communities and educators around the world. Similar to social media, Edmodo allows teachers to connect with other professionals online and learn from them while also sharing educational content with students.

    “Edmodo’s mission is to connect all learners with the people and resources they need to reach their full potential … These powerful capabilities enable teachers to personalize learning for every student. Edmodo is free for teachers and students and always will be.” – Edmodo

  10. Sesame Workshop

    11. Sesame Workshop

    photo via Sesame Workshop


    Sesame Workshop was established in 1966 when Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett asked the question, “Can television be used to teach young children?” Soon after, a study was conducted with the support of the Carnegie Corporation, and Sesame Street was born. This nonprofit devotes funding toward domestic and international projects, as well as child research and resources to promote the health and development of young children. The organization is transforming education by offering media resources that tackle tough issues like loss, poverty, obesity and HIV.

  11. Google Teacher Academy

    12. Google Teacher Academy

    photo via Google Teacher Academy


    Google offers a free, two-day academy for teachers to become Google Certified. Anyone can apply to attend, and 50 educators are chosen to become Google Certified teachers “based on the merits of their online application.” The Google Teacher Academy is transforming education by training teachers to implement innovative classroom technological tools and become part of a community devoted to making a true impact in education. The Google Teacher Academy is supported by Google for Education, which offers the latest tools for the classroom for free.

  12. K12

    13. K12

    photo via K12

    K12 offers free online public school for kindergarten to 12th grade
    students. K12 is transforming education by offering an alternative to the traditional classroom, allowing children to receive a high-quality education from their own homes in multiple formats that appeal to multiple learning styles.
    K12 was conceived in an effort to assist frustrated parents “whose children’s needs were not being met by traditional education models.”

    “With K12, students experience education that’s tailored to their unique needs as individuals. They can focus on mathematics lessons on Monday and then focus on science and social studies on Tuesday. They can manage their own learning while always knowing what is expected. Being in a virtual school means students have responsibility for their own learning and can feel well prepared for the challenges that college holds. At graduation, families shout with joy when their child walks the stage and receives his or her diploma, just like a brick-and-mortar experience. The journey to the end is different, but the triumph at the end is the same.” –Margie Jorgensen, K12′s Chief Academic Officer

Are you interested in transforming education through your organization? We just launched an online doctorate degree in Education — could be a good place to start!

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42 women leading in education title card
Today we would like to recognize 42 women leading in education. Even though 84 percent of K–12 public school teachers are female, there are still many avenues of our culture in which women are marginalized or discriminated against.

According to a Forbes article, in areas where there were long-serving female leaders, parents were 25 percent more likely to have higher goals for their daughters’ educations. Women leaders are crucial for the future of our country, and there are more of them now than ever. There are female administrators, principals, professors, kindergarten teachers, nonprofit leaders and more, who are leading organizational change and staunchly standing up for women’s rights in the classroom and beyond.

The following 42 leading ladies have paved the way in their academic fields as educators, pioneers, entrepreneurs and presidents of organizations.


Follow these women on Twitter to stay in the know about the latest education news and to see for yourself how they are leading in education. Want to learn more about leading in education? Check out our new online Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership program.


Hillary Andrlik and Theresa McGee


Co-Founders of The Teaching Palette
@theresamcgee | @hilland

These two innovative elementary art teachers from the Chicago area, both with their fair share of awards and recognitions, created The Teaching Palette, a website dedicated to advancing art education. It is meant for art teachers to collaborate, generate feedback on classroom management and integrate music and art.


Sarah Alavrez


Associate Director of Teaching Programs in Dept. of Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago

After traveling the world, conducting archaeological excavations in Crimea and Israel and studying art in Italy, Alavrez became the museum’s assistant director of adult programs, where she generated connections between the corporate world and the visual arts. She focuses her lectures on the art of Egypt, Greece and Rome.


Diana Albanez


First Grade Teacher at 24th Street Elementary School
@DianaAlbanez

Diana Albanez, named by PBS Learning Media as a 2014 Digital Innovator, grew up in a Spanish-speaking community populated with low-income families and saw her peers suffer due to their lack of opportunities to obtain post-secondary education. She utilizes creative learning techniques in the classroom and mixes teaching with technology to prepare young minds for the digital world.


Katie Beck


Chief Operating Officer of 4.0 Schools
@Katie__Beck

4.0 is a community of passionate educators and leaders looking to mold the future of education, piece by piece. The company, based in New Orleans and New York, recruits people who are looking to enact change and solve problems in education. Aside from her role at 4.0, Katie Beck won Forbes’ “30 under 30” award, and most recently worked for Teach for America as regional director of strategy and innovation.


Jamai Blivin


Founder and CEO of Innovate+Educate

Blivin helped co-found the groundbreaking Innovate+Educate program, which researches and creates strategies designed to help close the national skills gap, reform national policy and promote community service.


Kimberly Bryant


Founder of Black Girls Code
@6Gems

Bryant, who was named the 2014 White House Champion for Change, is the founder of Black Girls Code, a program that encourages black girls to write computer code by reaching out to communities via after-school programs and introducing young black girls in at-risk or underrepresented communities to try their hand at programming.


Janine Campbell


2014 PBS Digital Innovator, Art Teacher
@campbellartsoup

This innovative and inspiring art teacher from Michigan teaches her students both 2D and 3D forms of media in art and proudly displays their work in various competitions and exhibitions. She runs a class blog and class art gallery, seamlessly using technology in education.


Alice Chen


Technology Coach and English Teacher
@WonderTechEdu

Alice Chen is a Google Certified teacher, Microsoft Innovative Educator Trainer and two-time recipient of UCSD’s Outstanding High School Teacher Award. She promotes 1:1 iPad education, collaborative learning and the power of student blogging. She runs her own blog, Alice in WonderTech, and is passionate about connecting her students with international classrooms via the power of technology.


Joiselle Cunningham


Teach for America, 2013 U.S. Department of Education Teacher Fellowship Recipient
@JoiCunn

An award-winning educator with experience both nationally and abroad, Joiselle Cunningham currently teaches fifth grade reading in Harlem, New York. She is a firm believer in equal opportunity education, and seeks to constantly find various ways to meet her students’ needs.


Catherine Cushinberry


Director of Research at Girls Inc.
@girls_inc

Girls Inc. is an organization that inspires young girls to be bold, strong and smart, to aspire to become leaders, to confront challenges and to seek out nontraditional ways to gain an education or employment. Dr. Catherine Cushinberry, directory of research, develops informal education programs based on collected data that encourage girls to take academic risks and strive to achieve excellence in categories previously deemed only suitable for males.


Hasmik Danielian


Superintendent at Brawley Union HS District

Dr. Danielian left her post as associate superintendent in charge of secondary schools in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District in order to take her current position. She spent the last six years enacting change and calling for reform, and imploring teachers, students and parents to get involved in their communities to push for a higher quality of education.


Vicki Davis


Edublog Award Finalist for the Best Teacher Blog, Educational Instructor
@coolcatteacher

As a Google certified teacher and Discovery S.T.A.R. educator, Vicki Davis is a full-time teacher and focuses her work on providing teachers with the tools to teach with better student outcomes. She has written two books on the subject, emphasizing the benefits of using technology in the classroom.


Sara DeWitt


Vice President of PBS KIDS Digital
@saradewitt

PBS provides various and multi-platform content for children and families alike, and Sara DeWitt manages all of the day-to-day development of such projects. It’s safe to say she plays a large part in what the children of our country are exposed to when they turn to PBS, a renowned learning resource. She is in charge of all of the daily PBS projects, including the Kidscreen and Webby award-winning PBSKIDS.org.


Amanda A. Ebokosia


Founder and CEO of The Gem Project, Inc.
@Ebokosia

Ebokosia is a Nigerian-American woman who founded the Gem Project when she was a sophomore at Rutgers University. The Gem Project has helped over 1,200 young people (ranging in age from 4 to 24) give back to their local communities via enrichment programs that stress community service, including filming public service announcements and other innovative activities.


Susana Fernandez-Poyatos


2014 PBS Digital Innovator, Spanish Teacher

A creative and well-rounded Spanish teacher in Livingston, New Jersey, Susana Fernandez-Poyatos serves as her school’s National Spanish Honor Society adviser and exam trainer. She specializes in education technology and how to use it when teaching Spanish as a second language.


Nancy Flanagan


Digital Organizer for IDEA, Board-Certified Teacher
@nancyflanagan

Nancy Flanagan frequently contributes to the Edweek blog, “Teacher in a Strange Land.” She is a teaching consultant who focuses on leadership and has spent 30 years in a K–12 music classroom in Michigan. She has been named “Michigan Teacher of the Year” and is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network and critically analyzes the U.S. education system.


Yolie Flores


Board of Education Member, LAUSD

After starting her career as a social worker and dedicating her work to advocating for impoverished children and families, Yolie Flores became a member of the LAUSD Board of Education in 2007. Her passion for giving underprivileged children access to the same quality education as any other child is fueled by her history as a low-income student born to parents that immigrated to the United States.


Karen Symms Gallagher


Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education
@USCRossierDean

As dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, Karen Symms Gallagher has led the school to the No. 18 spot among all education graduate schools in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s national rankings. She has spent much of her career transforming educational institutions to successfully achieve their goals. Dean Gallagher has been an active national speaker and thought leader on the emergence of online learning models, and in 2009, USC Rossier launched its online Master of Arts Teaching program, the first of its kind from a major research institution under her watch.


Kaya Henderson


Chancellor for D.C. Public Schools
@HendersonKaya

Kaya Henderson stepped into a position as chancellor for D.C. public schools during a tumultuous time and brought the district together by uniting teachers, administrators, parents and students. She also helped to create a professional development and assessment system that guarantees every teacher in her district is an effective one. She draws inspiration from her late mother, who was also an educator and a public school principal.


Sue Khim


Co-Founder and CEO of Brilliant
@SueKhim

Sue Khim’s Brilliant (known as a “talent identification tool for STEM scholars”) generates new sets of problems for gifted students based on their performance on previous problems, creating a specific and individualized approach to education.


Wendy Kopp


Co-Founder and CEO of Teach for All, Founder and Chair of Teach for America
@WendyKopp

Wendy Kopp founded Teach for America in 1989 to fight educational inequalities in the United States — now the program boasts 11,000 members. Teach for America has proven to be an absolute force of education reform and a source of long-term leadership and change. After moving to the position of chairperson at Teach for America, Kopp founded Teach for All, which is a network of 34 organizations around the world (including Teach for America) that is constantly growing. She has been named one of Time magazine’s “10 Most Influential People” and is a renowned author and award-winning public servant.


Vicky Loras


Co-Founder of The Loras Network
@VickyLoras

With an educational blog, The Loras Network, that boasts over 95,000 views and has received fifth place worldwide in the 2011 Edublog Awards, Vicky Loras is a pioneering English teacher who specializes in teaching English as a foreign language. Her blog offers events, referrals and a bookshop as well as resources for fellow educators.


Courtney Macavinta


Co-Founder and CEO of The Respect Institute
@TheRespectInst

Courtney Macavinta is not only an award-winning orator, author and life coach, but she is also an integral part in the creation of The Respect Institute, a program that gives adolescents and their educators the tools to end cycles of disrespect and generate new definitions of respect and self-respect. Her work with families, communities and adolescents has helped mold our youth into respectful, understanding and open-minded individuals. She has won numerous iParenting and IPPY awards for her outstanding job and thought-provoking speeches.


Hilda Maldonado


Director of Multilingual and Multicultural Education Department at LAUSD
@MaldonadoLAUSD

Hilda Maldonado’s role as director of the Multilingual and Multicultural Education Department for the Los Angeles Unified School District requires her to reach out to those learning English as a second language and make their educational experience easier and more welcoming. As a former English learner, Ms. Maldonado understands the struggle of the non-native English speaker, and her perspective allows her to better assist ESL students.


Margery Mayer


President of Scholastic Education and VP of Scholastic, Inc.
@Scholastic

Margery Mayer oversees marketing and sales for the Scholastic Education division of the renowned Scholastic company. Her division at Scholastic, Inc., includes Education Technology and Services, Curriculum Publishing and Professional Development, all of which seek to improve education practices and educators and to provide teachers and children with high-quality materials for learning.


Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana

USC Rossier PhD ’95
Senior Administrator, LAUSD – Beyond the Bell Branch

USC Rossier alumna Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana was recently named senior administrator to her district, and she currently oversees Beyond the Bell, a division that controls after-school programs and other educational functions. She has also worked as the director of education and workforce development for the mayor of Los Angeles, where she focused on bridging the gap between education and job training. She has crafted a legacy in which she strives to engage parents and students with their community and has won several awards for her work.


Roshni Mirchandani


Technology Integration Specialist at The Highlander Institute
@RoshniMirchi

Named one of the 2014 PBS Digital Innovators, Mirchandani dedicates her work to technology in education. She strives to present material in interesting and creative ways, utilizing 3D modeling, coding and more in her eighth grade math classroom.


Diana Neebe


2014 Outstanding Young Educator
@dneebe

Diana Neebe has taken technology and education and merged the two together into a seamless, perfect union. As a high school English teacher and an instructional technology peer coach at an Apple Distinguished 1:1 Program school in Silicon Valley, Neebe focuses on using the benefits of technology, embracing its uses instead of shunning it, choosing to ignore apps and gadgets and use the wonders of the digital age to personalize her teaching approach and feedback for others.


Michelle Obama


First Lady of the United States
@FLOTUS

As founder of Let’s Move!, an organization that strives to raise healthier children in America, Michelle Obama has been a huge proponent in healthy eating habits and lifestyle choices for our youth. Prior to her position as first lady of the United States, she was a leader in education at the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services and brought in a large amount of volunteers during her time as vice president of community and external affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center.


Jennifer Pahlka


Founder and Executive Director of Code for America
@pahlkadot

Jennifer Pahlka recently served as the U.S. deputy chief technology officer in the White House Office of Science Technological Policy after spending much of her early career in the nonprofit sector. She is well known for an extremely popular TED Talk, “Coding a Better Government,” and has won several awards for her work. Code for America encourages individuals to take an active role in their community and government and bridges the gap between government staff and their constituents.


Cheryl A. Redfield


National Board Certified Teacher in ELA
@Caredfield

Redfield left behind a career in broadcasting after spending two years as an instructional aide working with students who exhibited behavioral difficulties and devoted herself to teaching. She focuses on developing 21st-century skills in every one of her students — skills that include efficient communication, a globalized mindset and critical inquiry.


Michelle Rhee


Founder of StudentsFirst
@MichelleRhee

Formerly the chancellor of Washington, D.C., Public Schools, Michelle Rhee formed StudentsFirst in 2010 after she noticed a demand for better educational facilities and systems in America. The grassroots movement seeks to bring together parents, teachers, students and administrators who want to devote their time to create and produce new ideas and tangible results in their local communities and on a national stage.


Ariel Sacks


8th Grade English Teacher in Brooklyn, NY
@ArielSacks

With 10 years of full-time classroom teaching under her belt, Sacks has developed a diverse portfolio, working in Department of Education schools and a public charter school. She has written a book entitled Whole Novels for the Whole Class: A Student-Center Approach, which emphasizes teaching literature as art instead of tools to teach reading comprehension.


Maria Santos


Deputy Superintendent, Oakland Unified School District

Maria Santos has dedicated her career to ensuring that the needs of English-language learners are recognized and met in childhood education and aren’t swallowed up in the district’s adoption of Common Core State Standards.


Beth Schmidt


Founder of Wishbone
@schmidtea

Wishbone is a service for students with specific passions who wish to further engage themselves in their areas of interest. Students are invited to apply to a program that fits their needs. Wishbone will then fundraise and help the students study their passions. Students share their success stories on the site.


Debbie Sterling


Founder and CEO of GoldieBlox
@debbieblox

Debbie Sterling created GoldieBlox, a groundbreaking company that seeks to inspire young girls to break into the engineering industry — a section of our workforce that is predominately male. Shirking the typical “pink and fluffy” aspects of young girls’ toys, GoldieBlox are construction toys designed from a female perspective, meant to inspire a generation of female engineers.


Melora Sundt


Executive Vice Dean and Professor of Clinical Education at the USC Rossier School of Education
@melorasundt

Melora Sundt specializes in online learning and instruction, innovation in higher education, diversity issues and violence prevention and awareness. She also supervises program directors and chaired the design teams that created the USC Rossier Master of Arts in Teaching online program and the Global Executive EdD. In addition, Sundt is helping to develop a new USC Rossier offering — the Doctor of Education in Organizational Change and Leadership. She teaches in various programs at USC, conducted a 10-year U.S. Department of Justice-funded campus violence prevention program and was a research associate at RAND.


Shelly Terrell


Founder of The 30 Goals Challenge, Co-founder #Edchat, Teacher Trainer
@shellterrell

Shelly Terrell is the recipient of countless teaching awards. She instructs thousands of teachers and their students across the nation via online and in-person education events and has co-founded various programs including #Edchat, #ELTChat, The 30 Goals Challenge and more. She is a renowned educator and valued voice in the world of education.


Marisa Urrutia Gedney


Director of Operations and Programming, 826LA

Marisa Urrutia Gedney has spent over six years working for Dave Eggers’ 826LA, a nonprofit organization that focuses on supporting K–12 students with their creative writing skills and giving teachers the tools to inspire. The program helps more than 30,000 students every year.


Linda Yaron


2012 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Fellowship Award
@LindaYaron

As a Nationally Board Certified teacher of English language arts, Linda Yaron sees education as a gateway for endless possibilities and a way out of poverty for many children. She has worked in inner-city communities in Los Angeles and focuses on giving students the tools to succeed.


Elena Yoo


2014 PBS Digital Innovator, Japanese Teacher
@goyogini

As the Japanese language teacher at Saint Louis School in Honolulu, Hawaii, Yoo integrates traditional textbook teaching methods with technological teaching methods, and strongly advocates for such integration. She is the webmaster for the Hawaii Association of Teachers of Japanese and has taught Japanese for the past nine years.

These 42 women all blend technology, empathy and a keen understanding of a student’s mind and the difficulties they face to offer the nation with innovative, creative and groundbreaking ideas to improve the education system. Whether these women are an inspiration to you as a teacher, administrator, student or learner or you are just hearing about them, it’s safe to say we can all appreciate strong, passionate women who are effecting change.

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1970ish
Ticker tape, piles of the stuff, full of holes flung out in a skip..no sense in it, if you ask me.

What they called a 'computer', the school computer was hidden somewhere above the chaplain's study.

From hearsay, I imagined  it looked like some sort of barbaric type-writer on steroids. Only advanced maths types got to play with the aforesaid, I was happy that maths stopped when I was fourteen.

1982ish 
I was hooked.

I spent one day and one night on my maths-literate brother's Sinclair ZX Spectrum, playing 'The Hobbit'. I couldn't tear myself away from the thing when I was rewarded with a faint line drawing of the door to Moria and a dwarf that understood if I typed at him.

The measure of my motivation was a desire to go beyond a rubbery touchless 'key'boardy affair.  I could talk to Gandalf, he understood me...up to a point.

That was my first and only addiction to video games.

It lasted about 24 hours. Fortunately, I left to go back home the following day.

1985ish
Alone in an office in Kentish Town, for my first 'proper job', all I had for company, for about two weeks, was a  aerial-less TV and a BBC computer with accompanying instruction book.

After two weeks of painstaking effort, I managed to make a red line go across the screen at mid height and a green line to slant annoyingly.

I decided computing was not for me. No sense in it if you ask me.

1985ish two months later
It was called an Apple Macintosh. It was small, friendly looking, it had something called a mouse.

After about half an hour of messing around, I was producing pictures on Macdraw.

I was hooked, I quickly did another drawing just to make sure that it wasn't a fluke.

Pictures made sense to me.

1996ish
I bought my first computer, an IBM (remember them?), with Windows 95.

Pretty much like a Macintosh, but cheaper, coming in at a reasonable 8000 francs. I could work with it, I could do stuff which made sense to me.

It had an annoying habit of freezing for no apparent reason. I was terrified, what could I have done to break it?

I spent about two weeks poring through the reference manual, I decided that it wasn't dead.

I proceeded to do what they called a reformatting of the hard-disc. It seemed to take a long time. It talked in a language which I didn't understand, that was scary.

Eventually after much praying (something I only ever do when I am desperate as I am a convinced atheist) a Window(s) of meaning reappeared.

Annoyingly I had to do the bloody reformatting carry-on about six times in the next six months.

IBM Lazarus...a miracle
A student, who had come round for some help with his English looked on aghast.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?"

"I'm reformatting." I replied knowledgably.

"Why?"

"Well, if Windows freezes, you do this..." I reached over for the IBM bible.

"Well," he ventured, "I can show you a shorter way."

"Go on..."

With a swift two handed finger combination (which I later learnt to be Ctrl Alt Supp) he made my IBM come back from the dead.

"Bloody hell!" I exclaimed, "How did you do that?"

He showed me his magic trick.

CTRL ALT SUPP
A new world opened up to me. I was an insider. I could speak computer...with a very limited vocabulary.

From that moment on I gained confidence, I wouldn't break the computer.

It was forgiving. 
We could get on, I could forgive it its inability to communicate properly when it was under stress, running through its lines, reformatting.

Anxiety I understand.

RAM (random access memory)
I quite get a kick out of being able to understand a few phrases of HTML, it's like the tourist in a foreign country who is able to show off to his friends that he knows how to order a beer. Wow!!!

I do however get those BBC Acorn moments.

I accept computers because they enable me to do things I love to do.

I do get panic atttacks still.

"The f****ing thing, what's it doing now!" 

I can fully appreciate my colleagues fear, loathing, and annoyance at the thought that somehow they should learn to use these tools better.

Honestly they would rather stick to chalk.

I get that.

It is a horrible feeling when you feel stupid in front of people when you would rather not draw attention to your short-comings.

Learning to deal with RSS
All this brings me to the trigger for this reflection, a comment of Alan Levine on my last post about how being part of a community enables you to overcome technical problems and to learn from obstacles.

I f**ked my blog syndication, as the result of an over-eager #hashtag sowing.

David Hale and Alan helped me sort out the mess.

Alan commented that it was no bad thing that the syndication process was a bit clunky as I got to learn something about RSS.  I agree Alan...up to a point.

However, I am absolutely sure that my colleagues would run away from any connection at the mention of RSS or blog or Twitter.

I have read much written by those who suggest that kids should be taught to code.

I am pretty sure that if I had learnt coding with Scratch, I might have made sense of it.

I am pretty sure that Minecraft might have made sense to me... like the Hobbit.

It's all a question of where we put the entry point, the difficulty of the obstacle for the individual to overcome before they can make sense of what they are doing and enjoy playing and feeling a sort of mastery. I am sure that that depends on the person.

Personally, I feel that no obstacle must be put in the way of people who need to connect to a community who can help them learn.

There are a number of critical moments along this learning path that enabled me to get this far to write this post.

It would be a shame to let people's fear of breaking stuff stop them meeting people who might reassure them that they will be OK.

Thanks Alan.

Epilogue.
The f***ing PC's battery packed in just as I was about to post this.

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"23rd October 1868. Shanghai. Had a discussion with a man about the religion of Jesus, his retort was we had bought opium. 

He was met by the reply that we bought the gospel to counteract it. It certainly taxes the missionaries' wisdom much to reply to such a charge."

I am a child of Empire, I am a child of evangelists. 

In 2010, after 142 years I heard my great grandfather's voice for the first time. He was 24 years old, he was on a ship bound for Nagasaki. He was to be the first Anglican missionary to Japan.

It had taken years of research to track down his ship's journal hidden in a database in a university library somewhere on the internet amongst an enormous archive of missionary society papers, unread except no doubt by specialist historians.

On receiving the facsimile of his journal, I was met with a shock, it was illegible. 

Of course, fountain pens were not to be patented until twenty years later, I was translating quill.

To leave to Japan, just after the defeat of the Samurai without speaking the language, to go to convert the Japanese to an alien religion while knowing that missionaries had only recently been massacred must have required unimaginable courage.

What movement was my ancestor participating in?
What can one say about connecting those (un)fortunate Japanese converts to our Empire faith?
Where did he imagine he was heading?

2008, my Facebook experiment had been a great success. 

A student wrote eloquently about his impressions of connected learning, here is a translation from the original French:

"Creating social networks in education could reveal to be a major development...As a student, I know one of the attractions of the university is the notion of Freedom, Free-will, Motivation, Equality.

Paradoxically the major problem is that of Free-will. I often hear students around me say 'What do we have to do?' 'We have to do...' I rarely hear students say, 'I want to do something.' I have the impression that we have less and less will to take our lives in our hands, we look rather for paths which are traced out for us. But I think this sort of site (Facebook) could help us by bringing together students around affinities, allowing us to connect with researchers in our fields, to work on common projects."

Over a period of six years, I have been working to enable this students' vision to come to fruition. I have been using Google's tools for over five years now. I am asking myself more and more questions as to the ethics of this.

Gradually, my work is having an effect on students, teachers, and researchers within my institution and others that we are connected to.

I started with missionary zeal.
I still believe that I must go in this direction.
I have over the years become much more critical.
I no longer have the same faith.

Into what Free world am I leading my students? 
For whom am I enabling them to be digitally literate?  How will their paths be traced on the internet for whose ends? What is my responsibility in opening my students to a world through the lens of a globalised world vaguely glimpsed on a screen, where culture is squashed into bits through a browser?


What of the dark areas on the heat map of connection? What do they tell us? Shall we talk of a digital divide of those unfortunates to who we must bring the light? Shall we see those who are not trackable via their wifi signals as poor savages?


It is too late now for me to head back, the connections have already been made, I am lost en route to this globally connected state, a connected educator. 

I shall however go forward with my questions.

I shall share those questions, those doubts with my fellow learners. 

I am not sure my friends that I will not lose my faith. 

My great-grandfather, sailed the trade routes, opened up a port of call for Christians, he is buried in Gibraltar, a monument to a lost or perhaps a remodelled Empire. 

His voice lives with me, and haunts my doubts. 

A few months ago, I posted a theme on Dave Cormier's rhizomatic learning course.  It was to be week 12 1/2 of 6. Here is some of the words I wrote:

We are pushing frontiers...
But are we misled, misguided?
What if we were simply well-meaning missionaries for a neo-liberal colonisation of education, the necessary social glue for the message of Massive (profit)?
George Siemens has blogged his views on neo-liberalism here. enter link description here
Richard Hall responds in his blog here. enter link description here



In Africa, the Colonists grabbed the land, the missionaries brought the bible. 

They learnt to pray with their eyes closed. 

China got Hong Kong back, their power stretches daily... 

Dearly beloved brethren and sisteren let us learn with our eyes wide open as to our possible destinations...






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