Pairadimes for Your Thoughts | David Truss Blog Archive 05-25-2010

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Contents

1 2008 9
1.1 March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Hello world! ’Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts’ ﬁnds a new home! (2008-03-24 08:24) . . 9
The purpose of a system is what it does. (2008-03-26 00:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
crisis = danger + opportunity (2008-03-26 22:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology
(2008-03-27 21:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Pizzas and Paperclips (2008-03-27 23:12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Stone Soup (2008-03-29 18:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Christopher D. Sessums’ ”Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform”
(2008-03-30 15:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Three Quotes- Servant Leadership, Creative Tension & Vision, Knowledge Sharing in
Schools (2008-03-31 02:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Candy Cultures - Reﬂections on a leadership activity (2008-03-31 20:32) . . . . . . . . . 22
1.2 April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Alan November and Authentic Audience (2008-04-02 02:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Enthusiasm (2008-04-02 22:14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
A Story About A Tree (2008-04-03 00:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
David Warlick’s K12 Online Conference Keynote 2006 (2008-04-03 01:22) . . . . . . . . 29
Square Peg, Round Hole (2008-04-04 01:14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
”the use of blogs to learn not just to teach” (2008-04-05 05:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Synthesize and Add Meaning (2008-04-05 07:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Tribute (2008-04-05 08:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Blog Rules - Respect, Inclusion, Learning and Safety (2008-04-05 10:18) . . . . . . . . . 47
The digital native, the digital naive, and the digital divide. (2008-04-05 14:12) . . . . . 49
Acceptance of Mediocrity, Web 2-point-oh-oh! (2008-04-06 00:05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Sharing and Engaging: Web 2-point-0h-Yeah! (2008-04-07 23:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Numeracy & Problem Solving: Process Producibles (2008-04-08 01:01) . . . . . . . . . . 61
Articulate Your Thinking... (an e-mail correspondence) (2008-04-08 01:46) . . . . . . . . 66
Learning Conversations (2008-04-08 21:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
School 2.0 Participant’s Manifesto (2008-04-09 07:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3

Online Connectivism Conference: Healthy Discord (2008-04-09 21:30) . . . . . . . . . . 80
”The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids” (2008-04-10 02:32) . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
ASK [for help] and Ye Shall Receive, SEEK [the right questions] and Ye Shall Find [the
right answers]. (2008-04-11 20:29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Promoting a Spirit of Inquiry (2008-04-12 16:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
A Whole New Book Club (2008-04-13 10:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Portal Needed to Connect Classrooms to the World: Global Citizens can Share Talents
and Skills with Students (2008-04-13 13:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Kidnapped! (2008-04-13 23:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
SUPER TAGS and TAG WEEDERS: It’s time for blog tags to grow up! (2008-04-13 23:57) 106
Licensed To Pill: We live in an over-prescribed (and over-labelled) society.
(2008-04-14 00:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Marking What Counts and Reporting on Report Cards (2008-04-14 01:52) . . . . . . . . 109
it brought tears to my eyes (2008-04-14 02:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
The Web2.0 Prophecy: An Adventure (2008-04-14 23:48) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
SUCCESS(full) Presentation (2008-04-15 21:23) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Reflections: Visit Counts, Technorati, Comments and Ego: A Good, Bad, and (almost)
Indifferent Post (2008-04-16 02:37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Assessment & Rote Learning: Math Conundrums (2008-04-17 22:14) . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Vandals, Vulgarity and Victims (2008-04-18 01:21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
on being a blogger... (2008-04-18 22:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
WOW: Bringing Science Alive! (wiki) (2008-04-19 10:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
”I’m a mop not a sponge”: Metaphors all the way down (2008-04-19 20:36) . . . . . . . 152
Phosphorescent Posts: metaphor surfing for bright ideas (2008-04-22 03:10) . . . . . . . 155
”Some Assembly Required” (2008-04-23 05:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
A Giant Teaches Me About SUCCESS: a “what are your secrets to a successful life” meme
(2008-04-24 00:25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Start Your Own Blog (2008-04-24 22:01) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
”Who Have You Helped Today?” - Developing Empathy (2008-04-25 00:10) . . . . . . . 174
$3,881.65 for one night’s work (2008-04-26 11:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
School 2.0h no, not yet... (2008-04-26 14:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
More than one face to Cyberbullying in the classroom (2008-04-26 16:41) . . . . . . . . 187
Wikis in the classroom: a reflection. (2008-04-30 01:47) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
1.3 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Blogging with students requires biting your [digital] tongue (2008-05-01 00:26) . . . . . 201
Statement of Educational Philosophy (2008-05-02 02:13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
How to Prevent Another Leonardo da Vinci (2008-05-02 21:56) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
bRinging tools to class (2008-05-03 23:49) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
The Capacity to Lead (2008-05-04 10:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
4

Reflections: Stirring in the crock pot (2008-05-05 01:09) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Transitions, Transformations, and Transgressions (2008-05-06 01:32) . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Presentation Week (2008-05-07 02:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Start with Innovative Schools... (2008-05-09 01:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Digital immigrants or digital natives? A discussion of digital competence... A spectrum,
not a dichotomy! (2008-05-11 02:53) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
K12 Online Conference 2007: Playing with Boundaries- (at your leisure) (2008-05-14 01:54) 241
FieldFindr: Using Ning to Connect Teachers to Volunteers (2008-05-15 00:24) . . . . . . 243
Opportunities, Access & Obstacles (2008-05-16 02:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
INDEXED - a ’graph’ is worth a thousand words (2008-05-17 15:09) . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Two ’stuck’ posts, a borrowed post with an added rant, and a few questions.
(2008-05-18 00:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
“Release the Hounds” by Chris Harbeck (2008-05-18 13:12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Employability Skills 2000+ or 2000-? (2008-05-18 15:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Halloween Scavenger Hunt on Ning (2008-05-19 02:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
The Flickering (Never)Mind (2008-05-22 21:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
The Lowest Common Denominator (No, this isn’t about Math) (2008-05-24 15:44) . . . 265
Making a Difference (2008-05-25 02:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
November Podcast Highlights: Pink & Resnick Interviews (2008-05-27 00:28) . . . . . . 279
November Learning (2008-05-27 23:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Most Influential (2008-05-31 04:02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
1.4 June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Evaluating a Journey (2008-06-02 19:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
”I speak digital” :: Digital Exposure (2008-06-03 05:20) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
”You can’t go back now, can you?” (2008-06-03 22:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
What did I do B.G. - Before Google? (2008-06-07 15:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Instantaneous (2008-06-07 17:17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
And finally, I will leave you with this: (2008-06-07 18:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Do not go quietly into your classroom (2008-06-07 22:29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Ripples and Tidal Waves (2008-06-08 01:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Harnessing our advantage (2008-06-08 11:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Something from Nothing (2008-06-16 06:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
What comes around (2008-06-17 06:44) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Edupunk or Educational Leader? (2008-06-19 01:24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Inaction is action (2008-06-20 07:04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Kids say the darndest things (2008-06-25 03:44) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM… (2008-06-27 03:58) . . . . . . . . . . 322
1.5 July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
5

Presenting... (2008-07-03 03:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Overloaded and Unplugged (2008-07-05 16:53) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Alan November’s BLC08 pre-conference (2008-07-15 13:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
This, my blog has taught me - Presentation 1, BLC08 (2008-07-16 08:28) . . . . . . . . 334
Learning Conversations -Presentation 2, BLC08 (2008-07-17 05:51) . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Canadians... this is scary! (2008-07-20 10:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
defragging my brain after BLC08 (2008-07-22 22:29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
1.6 August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
hidden pain (2008-08-09 19:45) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
Are You a Catalyst for Change? (2008-08-14 04:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
beg for foregiveness (2008-08-16 22:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Great Expectations (2008-08-29 07:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Lessons from 100 Weddings (2008-08-31 02:07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
1.7 September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
By Design: Please keep the toilet seat in the upright position! (2008-09-02 05:23) . . . . 354
1-to-1 presentation (2008-09-12 03:54) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
A Brave New World-Wide-Web! (The video version) (2008-09-14 09:50) . . . . . . . . . 359
Who are the people in your neighbourhood? (2008-09-16 03:02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
What ’we’ want for ’our’ children (2008-09-19 07:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
Connectivism, Relationships and Balance (2008-09-25 01:56) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
TLITE Presentations (2008-09-30 06:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
1.8 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Facing Facebook (2008-10-05 12:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
VOTE! (2008-10-13 23:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Get Oﬀ Your Butt (2008-10-19 02:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
POD’s (2008-10-21 02:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Hargreaves and the 4th Way (2008-10-27 01:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Let’s Talk About Sex (2008-10-30 03:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
1.9 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Interviewed on Seedlings (2008-11-07 08:07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Two Wolves (2008-11-11 05:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
1.10 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
YouTube Generation (2008-12-01 03:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Edublog Awards Nomination (2008-12-03 03:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
The Pedagogy of Play (2008-12-11 08:10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Girl Power (2008-12-17 04:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Unintentional Bias (2008-12-19 04:01) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
6

2 2009 417
2.1 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
7 things, 3 tags and 1 confession (2009-01-04 04:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and the Ant (2009-01-13 04:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Digital Teachers (2009-01-23 22:18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
An Open Letter to the Fraser Institute (2009-01-29 02:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
2.2 February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Students, Information and Schools (2009-02-06 08:05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Best Practice is still Practice (2009-02-12 01:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Pfffffft! The Pitfalls of Presenting at Pro-D (2009-02-21 13:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Share your Gr8Tweets for the month of March (2009-02-25 16:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
2.3 March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Students Today (2009-03-16 02:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Is the tool an obstacle or an opportunity? (2009-03-24 01:47) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
My blog is my PhD (2009-03-30 07:13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
2.4 April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
A Gr8Tweet-ing Experience (2009-04-03 03:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Black and White Education (2009-04-16 02:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Hargreaves and the 4th Way [Part 2] (2009-04-28 07:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
2.5 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
The Road Less Traveled (2009-05-13 08:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Collaboration, Contributors and a Comment on Classroom2.0 (2009-05-16 11:48) . . . . 470
”Chasing the A” (2009-05-29 06:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
2.6 June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
Learning in Louisiana (2009-06-09 03:13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
2.7 July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
The Rant, I Can’t, The Elephant and the Ant- On SlideShare (2009-07-20 22:40) . . . . 479
2.8 August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
The POD’s are Coming! BLC09 (2009-08-03 12:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
A letter to friends (2009-08-15 13:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Destinations and Dispositions (2009-08-18 02:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Variable Flow (2009-08-23 05:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
2.9 September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Bubble Wrap (2009-09-21 12:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Blogs as Learning Spaces (2009-09-24 16:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
2.10 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Openness and Acceptance, Mr Deng and his Allegories of Windows, Flies and Coloured
Cats (2009-10-05 15:24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
7

Facebook Revisited (2009-10-11 02:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Caring across the curriculum (2009-10-14 15:49) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
2.11 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Cassie and Katie have blogs! (2009-11-01 00:47) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
moments (2009-11-16 02:41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
My 2009 Edublog Awards Nominations (2009-11-27 16:36) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
Convergence, Coﬁno and a Connected World (2009-11-30 11:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
2.12 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Shifting Education (2009-12-06 06:36) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Nominations, Appreciation and Inquiry (2009-12-13 12:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
Holiday-Christmas-Concert (2009-12-25 05:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
T’was two nights after Christmas... A story of lost innocence. (2009-12-28 10:55) . . . . 538

3 2010 543
3.1 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Broken Presentations and Broken Photocopiers (2010-01-14 12:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Augmented Identity (2010-01-15 22:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
3.2 February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Olympic and Blogging Fever (2010-02-06 10:13) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
The Trap (2010-02-07 09:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Google Buzz and George Costanza - Worlds Collide (2010-02-21 20:38) . . . . . . . . . . 551
3.3 March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Warning! We Filter Websites at School (2010-03-06 01:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555
Teachers as Lead Learners (2010-03-11 05:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
Product You (2010-03-13 03:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
The Role of a Principal (2010-03-17 22:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Shifting Learning (2010-03-27 16:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
My 4th blogiversary - Reﬂections and Appreciation (2010-03-29 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . 570
3.4 April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
iPads are for iConsumers (2010-04-05 06:37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
Great things in the classroom (2010-04-07 19:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
A Culture of Caring (2010-04-10 16:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
Choose Your Battle (2010-04-20 01:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Shifting Attitudes (2010-04-24 06:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
3.5 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Math can be beautiful! (2010-05-05 21:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
Photosynthesis and Learning: a learning metaphor (2010-05-08 08:24) . . . . . . . . . . 592
Bring Your Own Laptop to School (2010-05-20 23:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
8

Chapter 1

2008

1.1 March

Hello world! ’Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts’ finds a new home! (2008-03-24 08:24)

[1]
A few years ago, a friend sent me an invitation to join him on a social network and start something called
a blog. I signed up and my first post, ”The purpose of a system is what is does” set the metaphoric tone
for my ideas and thoughts that will fill this space. Essentially, I think many students are square pegs
that we try to put into round holes (my personal schooling experience included). I think we have a lot
still to learn about education and learning, and I also think that technology might provide some bridges
to help make effective pedagogy come faster, and easier.

With this in mind I now move ’pair-a-dimes’ to it’s new and final home. It started at elgg.net which was
confusing to some since elgg is an [2]open source software [3]platform as well as an open source blogging
platform. So the name was changed to Eduspaces.net. Now Eduspaces will be managed by [4]Taking it
Global - and we were told the address would change again. Today I checked to confirm the new address
and low-and-behold, [5]Eduspaces is being kept in tact... too little, too late to keep me there! On the
bright side, my old links will stay live.

So here I am, making the move out on my own. I am using a [6]WordPress publishing platform hosted by
[7]BlueHost. I’ve had some issues with transferring my blog and so now I will move my blog post-by-post
over to this site. I’m taking advantage of this ’problem’ by reading, reflecting, (and fixing old links) as I
go.

Once again, I bring you my thoughts and reflections on education, technology & learning. I invite
you to join in the conversation and add your ’couple of dimes worth’. Or, challenge yourself to use tech-
nology in a transformative way in your classroom. Or, ask yourself why we are stuck in a paradigm that
suggests changes to education need to be slow and progressive? Be part of the conversation, be part of
the solution, be an active learner who shares ideas with others. Do so, and I thank you for contributing
9

to my learning!

Dave.

Think Good Thoughts,
Say Good Words,
Do Good Deeds.
1. http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/pair-a-dimes1.jpg
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgg_(software)
4. http://www.takingitglobal.org/home.html
5. http://eduspaces.net/dtruss/weblog/
6. http://wordpress.org/
7. http://bluehost.com/

gabriela sellart (2008-03-24 15:43:53)
Dave, the new home of ”pair a dimes” looks so elegant! The old one meant a lot to me last year. I read posts which
were really enlightening, which broadened my mind making me think on new possibilities I had never thought
about. I agree with you when you say that schools try to fit students into a matrix. Too often they just won’t fit
and they are regarded as a failure. This needs to change. I still don’t know to what extent technology will play
its part in this change. What I know is that it certainly gives students more possibilities than the limited ones
they had before, when we, teachers, could build a wall around their access to knowledge. I also know that when
we start to use technology we start to question ourselves about our practice in general, and that’s the beginning
of a change. And certainly our global network is providing new perspectives. But educational institutions tend
to be conservative. Institutional changes will surely be slow. However, that shouldn’t prevent us from changing.
We’ll always find gaps. Best of luck in your new home. Is there a ritual for blog lauching? Like breaking a bottle
of champagne against the screen? no, I don’t think that would be a good idea.

Dave Truss (2008-03-28 02:07:51)
Thank you Gabriela! I obviously need to work out a few kinks yet... like setting up alerts to let me know that I
have a comment:-) The only blog launching ritual I can think of is celebrating my first comment! A blog is only an
online journal until there is interaction and engagement between writer and reader, as participants in a ’learning
conversation’. You have been someone I owe thanks to, for both following my blog, and being my teacher as well.
There is a still-unwritten post on ’Netiquette’ that you have inspired me to write. But first, I have some reading,
reflecting, and posting to do in order to bring my current, and hopefully final, blog location up to date. Thanks
again for contributing the first comment on my new blog! Dave

The purpose of a system is what it does. (2008-03-26 00:16)

Stafford Beer coined the term [1]Cybernetics.
He was a brilliant man who, among other things, wrote a novel about a very wise but forgetful wizard.
This excerpt tells you what he thinks of our education system. The title alone- referring to the Education
Minister- should give you a hint of what is to come.

Excerpt from: [2]Chronicles of Wizard Prang by Stafford Beer

From Chapter Two: A Pompous Man
The pompous man lowered himself into the visitor’s armchair.

10

”I have the honour to be the Chairman of the Education Committee in our little town,” he said.
”As you know, education is the hope for mankind.”

Wizard Prang raised an eyebrow, but waited politely for his visitor to continue.

”It has come to my attention,” the pompous man said, ”that you are the possessor of some very
advanced knowledge. Our Committee has therefore passed a resolution Inviting you to give the School
Prizes away on Speech Day this year and to give us a little address telling us all about it.”

…The wizard cleared his throat.

”In a hundred years or so, everyone now alive in the whole earth will be dead - is this not so?”

The pompous man was relieved. He could follow that. He nodded sagely.

”It would therefore be possible for the human race to run its affairs quite differently, in a wise
and benevolent fashion, in a relatively short time.”

This way of looking at things appealed to the Chairman of the Education Committee. It had an
optimistic ring, so different from the doom-laden pronouncements of most so-called clever people.

He leaned forward. ”And so?” he asked encouragingly.

”The purpose of education,” said Wizard Prang, ”is to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

The pompous man was thunderstruck.

”Look here, Sir,” he said, ”please remember who I am. Not only do I have civic responsibilities -
I am also a Pompous Man. You can’t say things like that, you know.”

The wizard was under the Impression that he just had said it, and looked around anxiously to
see If anything was wrong. But things looked much as usual.

”Young people today are lazy and good-for-nothing,” declared the pompous man. He resounded.
He was on familiar ground. ”They sit around listening to pop music and taking drugs. What they have
to do is learn more things, apply themselves.”

”No, that’s not correct,” the wizard explained, ”they have to unlearn things.”

”How can that possibly be?” The pompous man was lost.

”Well,” said Wizard Prang, ”we can teach only what we know. Now what we know is how to
devastate the planet, kill its inhabitants, and starve two thirds of the rest. Seems a bit silly to teach
people to do all that.”

”Ridiculous!” shouted the pompous man. ”That is not the intention at all, and you know it.”

The wizard looked reflective. ”The purpose of a system is what it does.”

Originally posted: March 29th, 2006
11

Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting:

It seems fitting to me that this was my first ever blog post. If I
were given a magic wand and provided with an opportunity to change
just one thing about institutional learning, I would wish for a
dynamic system that charged forth, innovatively leading the way with
new ideas and attitudes towards what it means to be an intentional
learner. I wouldn’t worry about ’What has been done in the past,’ or
’How we always do things around here’. However I am not going to go
off on a diatribe... this is about a new beginning.

This first post set a tone for my blog. It was a metaphorical
opening of a window, allowing a breath of fresh air into my teaching
and into my experience as a lifelong learner. As I approach the two
year mark since first blogging this, I can honestly say that becoming
a blogger has been absolutely transformative! I feel like I’ve learned
more in the past 2 years than I have in 22 years of one kind of
institutional learning or another.

We are embarking on a new era for schools. Technological tools and
the world of Web2.0 are helping teachers and students leave Clay
Burell’s [3]Schooliness behind. But it won’t be an easy ride! Many
people treat the technological tools as a means to do ’[4]old things
in new ways’.

What I think makes this new transformation more meaningful is that
we can no longer ’hold students back’. Dave Sands, a friend and
mentor, told me years ago, "Do you know what will change education?
Students will!" They will indeed, as the metaphorical window is open
for them too. They can, and will, lead the way and we need to decide
if we want to help guide their learning path beyond the walls of our
schools, or if we want to hold them back... have them fill in a
multiple choice answer here, and a fill-in-the-blank question there?

’The purpose of a system is what it does.’ What do we want our
schools to do?

1. http://www.cybsoc.org/contacts/people-Beer.htm
2. http://www.chroniclesofwizardprang.com/contents.htm
3. http://beyond-school.org/2008/03/04/what-is-schooliness-overview-and-open-thread/
4. http://www.edutopia.org/adopt-and-adapt

Andreas Auwaerter (2008-03-26 14:27:00)
Hi Dave, so it seems to be moving time all over! ;-) I had to switch the url - from www to userpages - seems to
be a little change, but ﬁnally its more like a ’digital suicide’ - because of all the subscribers! ;-) So great to hear
from you again and have fun @ your now ’self hosted’ blog. Andreas

12

crisis = danger + opportunity (2008-03-26 22:11)

The first time I read that the Chinese word for ’crisis’ included components or elements of the words
’danger’ and ’opportunity’ was in [1]James Lovelock’s ’Gaia- A New Look at Life on Earth’ over 20 years
ago, (see the wiki for [2]Gaia Theory or a review of [3]The Ages of Gaia). I have heard this reference
literally hundreds of times since, and I have also perpetuated this idea countless times.

Well, chalk this one up as a fallacy or urban legend!

According to [4]Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Department of East
Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania ...”crisis” (w?ij?) consists of two syllables
that are written with two separate characters, w?i and j?.

The j? of w?ij?, in fact, means something like ”incipient moment; crucial point (when something be-
gins or changes).” Thus, a w?ij? is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things
start to go awry. A w?ij? indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary. It is not a
juncture when one goes looking for advantages and benefits.

But j? is mistakenly believed to signify opportunity because j? added to huì (”occasion”) creates the
Mandarin word for ’opportunity’ (j?huì). However by itself j? does not mean ’opportunity’. If j? can be
interpreted as ”incipient moment” or ”crucial point”, then the j? in ’opportunity’ can also be a crucial
point. So in both j?huì and w?ij? there are crucial points, but there is no ’opportunity’ found in the
Chinese word ’crisis’.

The problem here is that despite the fallacy, I think that this is such a powerful metaphor to live by!

On the other hand, Mair thinks that this muddled thinking, ”is a danger to society, for it lulls people
into welcoming crises as unstable situations from which they can benefit. Adopting a feel-good attitude
toward adversity may not be the most rational, realistic approach to its solution.”

Although I agree that ’looking for’ or ’seeking out’ a crisis in order to find an opportunity is not healthy,
(I think here of hostile takeovers as an example), there is an inherent element of ’good’ in looking for
hidden opportunities when you find yourself in a crisis.

”When life feeds you lemons, make (and then sell) lemonade!”

Originally posted: April 2nd, 2006


I spend a lot of time examining and using metaphors in this blog. I
think storytelling and the use of metaphors are grossly underused in
teaching. The ’Truth’ behind a story or a metaphor is far less
important than the meaning that we can get out of a well-timed
example, a colourful description, or an off-the-wall comparison that
brings a teachable moment alive. I think it is healthy to see the
silver lining in a gray cloud or to look for the opportunities a
crisis may present.

13

1. http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/lovebioen.htm
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory_%28science%29
3. http://gaianation.net/gaia.html
4. http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html

Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology
(2008-03-27 21:57)

[1]Application of Constructivist Principles to the Practice of Instructional Technology By [2]Bonnie
Skaalid

I found this while procrastinating on finishing my masters paper.

Disgusted with how this has transformed from a labour of interest and love to one of ’hoop jumping’ that
is just what I Googled... along with ’education’. This is just what I was looking for:

Instructional Strategy Development

• Distinguish between instructional goals and learners’ goals; support learners in pursuing
their own goals. Ng and Bereiter (1991) distinguish between (1) task-completion goals
or hoop jumping,” (2) instructional goals set by the system, and (3) personal knowledge-
building goals set by the student. The three do not always converge. A student motivated
by task-completion goals doesn’t even consider learning, yet many students’ behavior in
schools is driven by performance requirements. Constructivist instruction would nour-
ish and encourage pursuit of personal knowledge-building goals, while still supporting
instructional goals. As Mark Twain put it: ”I have never let my schooling interfere with
my education.”

...no they do not converge and no I do not feel nourished... and I should really listen to Mr. Twain!

So can technology come to the rescue?

• Allow for multiple goals for different learners. ID often includes the implicit assump-
tion that instructional goals will be identical for all learners. This is sometimes necessary,
but not always. Hypermedia learning environments almost by definition are designed to
accommodate multiple learning goals. Even within traditional classrooms, technologies
exist today for managing multiple learning goals (Collins, 1991).
• Appreciate the interdependency of content and method. Traditional design theory treats
content and the method for teaching that content as orthogonally independent factors.
Postmodern ID says you can’t entirely separate the two. When you use a Socratic
method, you are teaching something quite different than when you use worksheets and
a posttest. Teaching concepts via a rule definition results in something different than
teaching the concept via rich cases. Just as McLuhan discerned the confounding of
”media” and ”message,” so designers must see how learning goals are not uniformly met
by interchangeable instructional strategies (see Wilson & Cole, in preparation).

So we should be spending our time ’designing’ learning environments... I need to look up ’hypermedia
learning environments’.
14

I like the focus in this next section:

• Think in terms of designing learning environments rather than selecting instructional
strategies. Metaphors are important. Does the designer ”select” a strategy or ”design” a
learning experience? Grabinger, Dunlap, and Heath (1993) provide design guidelines for
what they call realistic environments for active learning (REAL); these guidelines reflect
a constructivist orientation:
– Extend students’ responsibility for their own learning.
– -Allow students to determine what they need to learn.
– -Enable students to manage their own learning activities.
– -Enable students to contribute to each other’s learning.
– -Create a non-threatening setting for learning.
– -Help students develop metacognitive awareness.
– Make learning meaningful.
– -Make maximum use of existing knowledge.
– -Anchor instruction in realistic settings.
– -Provide multiple ways to learn content.
– Promote active knowledge construction.
– -Use activities to promote higher level thinking.
– -Encourage the review of multiple perspectives.
– -Encourage creative and flexible problem solving.
– -Provide a mechanism for students to present their learning.
• Think of instruction as providing tools that teachers and students can use for learning;
make these tools user-friendly. This frame of mind is virtually the opposite of ”teacher-
proofing” instructional materials to assure uniform adherence to designers’ use expecta-
tions. Instead, teachers and students are encouraged to make creative and intelligent use
of instructional tools and resources.

There is so much room for creativity, the use of metaphors, and problem solving... meeting multiple goals
for individual learners... as long as we invest time in making the learning meaningfully relevant, and in
designing flexible learning environments.

The hardest bone to swallow here, the one that sticks in my throat as I sit here gnawing on the sparse
backbone of higher learning, is that this freedom is what I desire for my own learning, but how much of
it do I offer to my own students in my classroom?

How many of them are jumping through my hoops?

Originally posted: March 29th, 2006


It was wonderful reading this again! It shows what I was looking for,
as both a student and a teacher, 6 months before fully jumping into
the world of web2.0.
These key guidelines make me think of [3]Chris Harbeck’s
15

[4]Unprojects: Extend students’ responsibility for their own
learning. Make learning meaningful. Promote active knowledge
construction. They also remind me of my inspiration for creating my
[5]Brave New World-Wide-Web slidshow that I put together for a
presentation to student teachers. I’ll leave the last word on this
post to my friend Gary Kern. Gary invited me to start blogging and
left me my first comment. His words are always thought provoking!

Metaphor change - we are constantly looking for the "right tool"
for the job. Once we find it, every kid has to use it! Technology
"liberates" us from the world of tools and provides for us an
"environment" where students can use ANY type of tool they require.
They can pick the tool that matches their learning goals, or their
learning style, or whatever they want. The learning outcome is the
purpose and whether a kid makes a movie, powerpoint, podcast, blog
entry or makes a diarama doesn’t matter! I don’t care how you show
me you deserve your masters - just that you show me you deserve
your masters! Now get back to work!

1. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/Skaalid/application.html
2. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/Skaalid/index.html
3. http://makeitinteresting.blogspot.com/
4. http://www.slideshare.net/charbeck1/unprojects-125206
5. http://www.slideshare.net/datruss/brave-new-www

Alec Couros (2008-03-27 22:08:23)
I remember reading Bonnie’s paper and thinking something similar. I can’t remember which hoop I was on at
the time, but I can tell you this, even after you thought you’ve been through your last hoop, there’s another one
around the corner. Let’s stop this together ... no more hoops!

chris Harbeck (2008-04-16 19:10:09)
When students are set loose and allowed to be ”creative” they set their limits almost all achieve higher results. Be
those results academic or personal. When I start unprojects I set few guidelines and set them free. All students
from the weak to the strong do better because of choice. Thanks for the mention Chris

Pizzas and Paperclips (2008-03-27 23:12)

I am combining two short posts here:

—————————————--

Ordering a pizza in in the near future.
Turn your speakers on for this one... a little dark humour about living in a wired world. [1]Ordering
from Pizza Palace.

Originally posted April 6th, 2006

16

—————————————--

One Red Paperclip
We live in a wired world where a man with a blog, and a little PR, can turn [2]One Red Paperclip into
some Real Estate.

Originally posted April 17th, 2006

—————————————--


Pizza: The Big Brother potential is highlighted by this spoof. In a
later post I show just how much Google already knows about me... the
potential is both scary and exciting!

Paperclip: My first hints at the power of the web, and of networks.
A group of friends couldn’t make this happen but a network could. This
is a great feel-good story:-)

1. http://aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf
2. http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/2005/07/one-red-paperclip.html

Stone Soup (2008-03-29 18:38)

From the introduction of:
[1]The Teaching Moment:a learning metaphor by Mia Lobel, Michael Neubauer, Randy Swedburg

The Internet is saturated with distance education claims about learning environments, ef-
fective pedagogies, teaching modules, skill training techniques and community building mod-
els. Typing into Google: “online teaching training distance education” nets one 265,000 hits.
Typically, efforts to deliver educational content and to construct knowledge online seem to be
asynchronous. The synchronous teaching ‘engagements’, either attempt to incorporate high
tech features like sound and/or video into their delivery method, while others seem to use
Java based synchronous chat modules which only allow interacting in simple ASCII text. In
general, one presumes that at least some portion of the teaching effectiveness claimed by this
vast community of practitioners is predicated on long-term preparation, research, and expe-
rience. However, what this preparation may involve, on what specific data the opinions are
based, or what the actual teaching really looks like, remains largely unclear.

“The Stone Soup” is an Eastern European folk tale. At the end of the war, a group of
bedraggled soldiers come upon a devastated village. The inhabitants, having hidden the little
bit of food they still had left, watched as one soldier made a fire, another fetched water in a
cauldron, while another removed an ordinary looking stone from his pouch and placed it into
17

the boiling water. Having accomplished this task, the soldiers settled around their campsite
and began talking enthusiastically about their anticipated meal. The first soldier said: “Yes,
stone soup is my favorite, but once I had it with cabbage, and that was delicious!” Hearing
this, the bravest of the villagers, approached the cauldron and threw in his cabbage. The
second soldier said: ”Ah, yes, but when you add a bit of beef, well…” Next, it was the village
butcher who added a piece of meat he has been hoarding to the soup. Eventually, everyone
sat down together to partake of the best soup the villagers have ever had. Before they left,
the soldiers gave the magic stone to the villagers, reminding them that the stone’s power is
actually in their cooperation.

Like in the children’s folk tale “The Stone Soup,” there seems to be a famine of empirical
information about how learning actually takes place in the synchronous distance education
village. Everyone seems to agree that knowledge is being delivered and the practitioners have
found the delivery methods that serve them. The content of the knowledge being delivered
is largely known, and often, grounded in theory. What seems to be missing is twofold: what
are participants saying and how are they saying it? How is the learning task accomplished,
and how are the group’s dynamics facilitated to allow the learning to unfold? This paper
is an attempt to make transparent the process of experientially constructing knowledge in a
real-time eClassroom, which has been described in Lobel, Neubauer, & Swedburg (2002).

The following account may be viewed as offering that which is invited: namely, other prac-
titioners with whom to dialogue, and share the ingredients involved in creating the content
and process of facilitating online real-time learning. The particular ‘teaching moment’ offered
here seems apt in several ways. It demonstrates how people with different points of view,
sharing their perspectives, can and do create a common pool of knowledge, where the lowest
common denominator is raised to the highest one. The learning segment presented in this
paper includes and makes visible the elements sought above: namely, the preparation, the
research and the experience used to design, deliver and process a learning sequence. Like in
the story, the Instructor provides a “stone” by posting a pictographic ambiguous image. As
each villager brings her own unique contribution to the interaction, the resulting synergy-rich
“soup” belongs to everyone. Could not any community, including one of teachers and learners,
dialoguing in this manner produce the same result?

Essentially, teaching begins with the belief that “The way of the teacher is a practice in
trust” (Arrien, 1998). The trust involved in this case study is supported by decades of observ-
ing the learning process, and is anchored by theories of learning and of group development to
active practice and risky experimentation. “Trust the process” and “Be open to outcome,”
accurately describe the value-base of the primary Instructor’s teaching approach. In keep-
ing with “the Stone Soup” metaphor, the teacher brings the cauldron, builds the fire, puts
the “magic” stone into the boiling water and trusts that eventually the audience will engage
enough to bring their own hidden ingredients to the process.”

---

This really makes me think about [2]The Tao of Leadership because of the feminine, nurturing way
that the soldiers show their leadership. This book is my ’Leadership Bible’ that I go to time and again for
inspiration and guidance. It really is ’process’ oriented and focused on fostering leadership from within.

This Stone Soup metaphor fits well with my thinking around having students develop the curriculum
around their interests, or more aptly, their tastes. Students as leaders and creators of content for learn-
ing, as opposed to just being passive receivers.

18

Originally posted: April 22nd, 2006

Reflection upon re-reading and re-posting: In a way this blog has
evolved into its’ own kind of Stone Soup! It is put together not only
with what I have come up with, but more importantly the ideas of so
many others. The ingredients come from outside sources, and people,
that add to the richness of this blog. It is my ingestion of (and
reflection on) the ’ingredients’ others have shared that make it the
primary source of nourishment that I feed off of (as someone engaged
in my own learning). The very nature of the many social networks we
find online are about what we share with others rather than what we
hoard and keep to ourselves. I guess what I’m really talking about are
the principles of [3]Wikinomics: : Being Open, Peering, Sharing, and
Acting Globally. These principles are key to preparing our students
for the future. Things are moving and changing too quickly to be using
stale ingredients (textbooks) and hand-me-down recipes (photocopied
resources). We need to be connected to the tastes and ingredients the
world has to offer. It is exciting to see Educators participating and
creating their own Stone Soup!

1. http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/NOV02_Issue/article01.html
2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0893340790?ie=UTF8&tag=davidtrcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=
9325&creativeASIN=0893340790

Christopher D. Sessums’ ”Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform”
(2008-03-30 15:39)

A great article:[1] Competing Paradigms and Educational Reform that asks,

What has this dominant paradigm actually done for public education except manufacture
a crisis?

Not only does it list initiatives and consequences of this paradigm (read the post!), it also suggests a
paradigm shift with the following perspective:

• Human freedom and empowerment are more critical than accountability and punish-
ment.
• Life is about relationships, not acquisition.
• School is a democratic experience.
• Caring and trust for each person is the center of any truly professional activity.
• Schools are to improve society as a whole, not providing competitive advantage to the elite.
• Curriculum is best derived from the needs and interests of the learners.
• Developmental appropriateness should supersede national assessment.
• School failure is the result of a variety of political and economic causes.
19

”Supporters of this alternate perspective maintain that education is a process based on trust,
not doubt and suspicion (Bryk & Schneider 2002). The crucial elements that will sustain
school improvement is not high-stakes testing, standards, or reactionary accountability pro-
grams – “it is simple human trust… that rests on four supports: respect, competency, integrity,
and personal regard for others” (George 2006).

”Real education is built on meaningful relationships. We do not learn things in isolation
from each other. The core components of education are based on learner-centered values, a
respect for diversity and complexity, tolerance, and empowerment. The developmental needs
for learners are widespread and cannot be easily or meaningfully reduced to a pencil-based
exam.”

This ﬁts so well with where my thinking has been of late. To add to Christopher’s idea that the shift
will come from the grassroots/bottom up, I am reminded of Dave Sands comment that, ”Students will
change education.”

Originally posted: May 1st, 2006


Sessums was a great influence to my writing when I started blogging.
He was the first blogger that I followed... before knowing anything
about RSS feeds. After somehow finding this post, I added him as a
friend on elgg and I would periodically check the ’friend’s blogs’ tab
that the blogging software offered.

Standardized tests do NOT measure a school’s success. As Wesley
Fryer says, [2]Reject Rigor: Embrace Differentiation, Flexibility, and
High Expectations. How do you reduce success to a percentage, when in
your classrooms a ’B’ can be an utter embarrassment for one student
and a glorious success for another?

In our district, we put special needs students on IEP’s - Individual
Education Plans. Doesn’t every student deserve an individual plan?
Gary Kern, when he was my Vice Principal, asked me, "Why is it that we
teach in groups and manage behavior of individuals, when behavior is a
group thing and learning is an individual thing?" Something worth
thinking about!

1. http://elgg.net/csessums/weblog/8200.html
2. http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2006/08/31/
podcast79-reject-rigor-embrace-differentiation-flexibility-and-high-expectations/

20

Three Quotes- Servant Leadership, Creative Tension & Vision, Knowledge Sharing
in Schools (2008-03-31 02:52)

This one is on [1]Servant Leadership - providing students with capacities and competencies...

“Through their programs schools can provide the opportunity for the development of capacities and
competencies, that enable young people to get started on the path of acting with a sense of civic re-
sponsibility. Through programs of community and “service” learning, student leadership programs, peer
mediation and coaching, mentoring programs, and student decision-making groups, schools can provide
the opportunity to students to develop a sense of commitment to others and a sense of service to further
the interests of all groups in society.”
Page 431 Quote from International Handbook on Lifelong Learning, Chapman & D. Aspin , Edited by
David N Aspin, Judith Chapman, Michael Hatton, Yukiko Sawano, (2001) Hingham, MA: Kluwer Aca-
demic

(I look at [2]Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness by
[3]Robert K. Greenleaf starting on pg. 15 of [4]My Master’s Paper. Here are some [5]Student Leadership
Lessons, and some wonderful [6]Teaching Metaphors.)

-----
[7]Peter Senge writes on Creative Tension and moving from Reality to Vision.

Leadership in a learning organization starts with the principle of creative tension. Creative tension
comes from seeing clearly where we want to be, our ”vision,” and telling the truth about where we are,
our ”current reality.” The gap between the two generates a natural tension. Creative tension can be
resolved in two basic ways: by raising current reality toward the vision, or by lowering the vision toward
current reality. Individuals, groups, and organizations who learn how to work with creative tension learn
how to use the energy it generates to move reality more reliably toward their visions.
Peter M. Senge, [8]The Leader’s New Work: Building Learning Organizations , Sloan Review, Fall
1990. p. 9.

-----
[9]Michael Fullan on Knowledge Sharing - we have a ways to go in Education.

It is ironic that schools systems are late to the game of knowledge building both for their students
and for their teachers. Most schools are not good at knowledge sharing within their own walls...”
M. Fullan (2001), [10]Leading in a Culture of Change .San Francisco John Wiley & Sons. (p. 104).

Originally posted: May 7th, 2006


Until my blog address changed from elgg to eduspaces, this was the
most Google-searched link on my blog. The idea of Servant Leadership
is an incredible way to get students involved in their school, in
their community, and with the greater world at large. The selfless
nature of this kind of leadership is something we should all aspire to
pass on to our students. Recently teachers in our district have
started using [11]Kiva, and I have worked with [12]Free the Children.
It is wonderful when we can get students to show compassion on a
21

global scale!

- - - - -

The idea of creative tension is interesting when looking at technology
integration. I think there are shifts in the tide between the current
reality of what can be done using the resources and technology
available, and the vision of where things need to go. Waves of
[13]elation and [14]frustration flow through the blogosphere.

- - - - -

Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration! Whether it is within the
walls of our schools or not is unimportant. What is important is that
we don’t waste valuable time and energy reinventing things that are
easily shared. Teachers are not islands! Why is it that I have a more
intimate understanding of what some teachers around the world do in
their classes, (thanks to their blogs), than I know about the teaching
practice of someone I taught across the hall from for 6 years?
Trustees, Superintendents, Administrators, Teachers... make more time
available for collaboration

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Greenleaf
4. http://www.davidtruss.com/leadership_paper.htm
5. http://davidtruss.com/leadership_lessons.htm
6. http://davidtruss.com/teachingmetaphors.htm
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Senge
8. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MZVAF2?ie=UTF8&tag=davidtrcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=
9325&creativeASIN=B000MZVAF2
9. http://www.michaelfullan.ca/biography.htm
11. http://www.kiva.org/
12. http://www.freethechildren.com/index.php
13. http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/
14. http://aquaculturepda.wikispaces.com/Al+Upton

Candy Cultures - Reflections on a leadership activity (2008-03-31 20:32)

For a number of years I have used [1]The Candy Cultures Activity, first as a multiculturalism activity,
then as a leadership activity. I had a chance to experience it on two other levels recently. First, I ran the
activity at our Pro-D with staff a week ago. I also shared it with the Student Leadership Council (SLC)
Executive and, this week, they ran the activity at their first meeting with about 60 students participating.

In the activity members of a specific culture greet and chat with members of other cultures. One culture
consists of ’close talkers’ who like to make physical contact when talking, others like their personal space.
22

Some cultures feel subservient and/or superior to other cultures. Participants mingle and a funny social
’dance’ begins.

With the staff: After running this activity with students for so many years it was wonderful to run
it with adults. I was impressed with the involvement of my peers, they really engaged in the activity.
What I enjoyed most was listening to the meta-analysis of the activity during the debrief. I didn’t have
to lead the conversation anywhere, it simply flowed from why we did it as a staff, to why to do the
activity with students, to how it relates to our school beliefs...etc. I ended the debrief talking about how
sometimes in a meeting we might all have the schools’ best interest in mind, but yet because of a defensive
tone, or because of someone taking a different approach, we end up seeing each other in adversarial roles.
We misinterpret ’delivery’ with ’intent’. I then pointed out that in 9 years at the school this is the first
time we have almost all of the staff back. We know each other, and don’t need to do the ’cultural dance’
we do with new people, so we really have the potential to have a great year.

With the SLC, (student leaders representing each Middle and High School in the district): I have never
had the opportunity to casually observe this activity without being involved in some way. The approach
taken was very good, and what I really liked was the debrief questions they came up with.

• 1. Describe your frustrations/challenges.

• 2. How do you improve communication?

• 3. Relate the experience to school.

Question one is about the experience students went through. Question two asks students to look inward
and improve their own experience. Question three asks students to look outward at their school experi-
ence. The discussion went very well and it was great to see students pulling this off so eloquently with
their peers.

Originally posted: October 1st, 2006


I didn’t add a blog post for 6 months before this, and quite
honestly would never have considered myself a blogger at the time of
writing this post. It would be another 2 months before that
metamorphosis occurred.

Empowering students is something I get great pleasure out of as my
[2]Master’s Paper and [3]Student Leadership Resources demonstrate. It
was only after I saw how technology could liberate students as
learners that I delved into the world of web2.0 that I am so deeply
entrenched in now. What I wasn’t expecting was how much it transformed
me as a learner.

1. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2413465/Candy-Cultures
2. http://www.davidtruss.com/leadership_paper.htm
3. http://www.davidtruss.com/leadership_lessons.htm

23

tgidinski (2008-05-04 16:11:20)
Thanks for this idea, Dave! Another teacher and I used this activity with our 6/7 classes to start our Holocaust
unit. As we’re going through the [1]activity (from the Shoah Foundation) and discuss how the Jewish people were
treated diﬀerently in Europe, we refer back to the diﬀerent relationships between the candy cultures and discuss
how quickly they decided which cultures they were able to communicate with easily and which ones they thought
were, in their words, ”weird.”

1. http://college.usc.edu/vhi/pyramidofhate/vhfmain.htm

1.2 April

Alan November and Authentic Audience (2008-04-02 02:08)

I heard [1]Alan November speak tonight and although there were many great ideas, one key idea hit a
cord with me.

”Students will work harder for an authentic audience than for a grade”...”Students will do more if they
leave a legacy beyond a grade.”

The technology is there! I remember for a couple weeks after my On-line [2]Renassance Fair
Davinci Project, students were coming up to me saying they still went home and checked the site to
see if anyone posted something new. When Alan told us about his course that ended months ago and
students are still blogging, I had to wonder, Why didn’t I keep mine going? The students had a voice...
and an audience.

Think of how you would change what you do when your audience changes:

Making dinner for yourself vs making dinner for a new friend.

Thanking someone personally vs thanking them in front of 100 people.

Teaching a class vs teaching peers at a Pro-D.

...Our audience matters, wouldn’t it make sense that this is true for our students too?

And the audience is out there on the web... from experts to parents to peers to billions of inter-
net users.

On a fun side note, think about the boy sitting in his basement lip sync-ing [3]Numa Numa -
hundreds of versions are on the net, millions have seen it! More people have seen this than some
Multi-Million dollar movie productions. Furthermore his fans have now copied this guy, here is a version:
[4]Lego Numa Numa (Over 250,000 views for this copy alone!).

I’ve seen some really bad, poorly made video clips on google video and YouTube that have had
over 15,000 people see it... there is an audience out there, and if that helps motivate students, if it gives
them a legacy or a global voice as Alan suggests, well, what are we waiting for?

-------

I added a [5]clustrmap to this blog on Nov. 23/06. What a great tool show kids that they have
24

a global audience!

Cheryl Oakes posted [6]How Many Hits Has Your Refrigerator Had? on TechLEARNING.com-
have kids post their work on a ”worldwide refrigerator”, rather than the one at home.

Originally posted: October 20th, 2006


I’ve said it time and again, "Audience Matters". One thing that I have
been very poor at has been ’leaving a legacy’. Other than my
[7]Science Alive project most of my students’ work has been on private
networks. That said, even an audience of the whole class changes
things from handing something in just for the teacher. This post picks
up on a theme that I keep coming back to... if it works for me as a
learner, shouldn’t I offer my students the same opportunities?

On that note, seeing the comment about the clustrmap, I dug up the
archive:

My first clustr map archive.

I’d be lying if I said this didn’t change my writing in some way!

1. http://www.anovember.com/
2. http://eduspaces.net/davet/weblog/14829.html
3. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6377855743675143177&q=numa+numa
4. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7898868502605770693&q=numa+numa
5. http://clustrmaps.com/
6. http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2006/12/how_many_hits_has_your_refrige.php
7. http://sciencealive.wikispaces.com/

Enthusiasm (2008-04-02 22:14)

It costs nothing to be enthusiastic...

2 Questions to think about:

1. How much enthusiasm do I show at the front of the room?

2. How much enthusiasm do I inspire and/or expect from my students

[1]The unlimited power of enthusiasm

25

[2]Seth Godin, Nov 01, 2006 20:18:54 GMT

Normally, people just show up. They show up at work, or at a conference. They show up on vacation or
even sometimes they show up at home.

They aren’t doing anything special, they’re just doing.

Well, I spent the day with several hundred enthusiastic people.

This group, led by Jennifer Young, didn’t just show up. They arrived. They were purposeful and positive
and prepared and in a hurry... but in a good way.

It didn’t cost anything. It didn’t take any more effort (in fact, it probably ended up being less of an
effort.) They got more out of me, more out of each other, more out of the day.

Enthusiasm has a lot to be said for it

Originally posted: November 4th, 2006

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will
find; knock, and it will be opened to you." We hold so much power with
our attitude towards who we are, what we do, and what we are capable
of.

1. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/11/the_unlimited_p.html
2. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/

A Story About A Tree (2008-04-03 00:00)

Not long ago, if a group of ’gamers’ got together for Dungeons and Dragons, people saw it as strange.
Teenagers bonding by getting together and creating alter egos, or characters and living out a fantasy.
Role Playing Gamers were sometimes perceived as a ’fringe’ group of lost souls that lack a full grip on
reality.

To me, Raph Koster’s ”[1]A Story About A Tree” is about how the gamers of the past are find-
ing refuge on-line. But what used to be a ’fringe’ activity is now mainstream. Communities are growing
on-line with a multitude of interests, well beyond gaming. Pick an interest and you can find like-minded
individuals seeking a group to belong to. And now role playing is something we all do to some extent.
How many alter ego’s do you have on the net? (e-mail names, e-bay, pogo, Flickr, elgg, blogs) How many
’conversations’ have you had with someone in another country or half-way around the world, having
never met them, or even known their given name? How many conversations will you have with them
before you call them a friend... care for them... plant a tree in their memory?
26

Benefits to this: A chance to find a community that you feel you ’belong’ to regardless of age,
sex, race, looks, nationality, disability, obesity, personality... Someone alone without anyone to love,
or be loved by can connect, create friendships, relate, orate, pontificate, debate, find a date... and
subsequently mate. Escape.

Costs: Human touch, a real smile :-) , a disconnect with the ’real’ world, even a dissatisfaction
with life. Other potential costs can include a group of acquaintances rather than friends, a child being
preyed on, or hate groups making connections and recruiting. More directly, a lack of exercise, apathy,
obesity, complacency, indecency. Escape.

Long gone is the era of Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, neighbourhood barbecues, family picnics, going
to church, or even helping thy neighbour. We still have sports teams, but what about the unathletic,
uncoordinated, and uninterested? What do we have for them now?

What we have is a [2]Second Life where you can watch [3]virtual ’reality tv’ ! In this virtual life
you can fly, look better, find friends, share time... even talk, (or rather type). Who would pass up such
an opportunity when the alternative is an unresponsive television or the realization that ”I have nothing
else to do”.

This started out as a story about a tree, and it will end with the planting of some seeds...

How will we use the community building aspects of the internet to foster learning in schools?

How do we make schools into ’modern day’ learning communities?

How do we get students to engage rather than escape?

- - - - - -

Useful links:

[4]High Tech, Forget the High Touch
-read this as well as the two contrasting editorials it links to.

[5]Passively Multiplayer Online Games for Schools?
-Learning as a game -watch the video, monitoring your web-life and ’measuring’ it like you would
measure skill sets in Warcraft and other multiplayer games - ”myware” not spyware.

[6]Second Life by Bethany aka Old Man Dragonfly (doesn’t that fit well with my alter ego comment)
-Good summary of many ideas (including mine:-) A lot of links I should explore!

[7]Second to None by Jonathan Dunn notes that on-line friends are becoming as meaningful to people
as their real-world friend. It has links to research as well as to this BBC article [8]Virtual pals ’soar in
importance’.


27

I used a little poetic license with my choice of words on this post!

A lot is still relevant here. Some things have changed, such as how
many places most of us can be found online... feels to be nearing
countless for me! Also, I can’t imagine what I would have thought of
[9]Twitter back then? And probably would have laughed at you if you
told me I would be contributing to it 2 years after posting this. The
power to meaningfully connect is incredible... We truly are a global
village now!

Do read Raph Koster’s "[10]A Story About A Tree"! Here is a great
quote:

In the end, the social bonds of the people in a virtual environment
make it more than just a game. They make it Real. Sometimes it takes a
moment of grief to make people realize it, and sometimes people just
come to an awareness over time, but the fundamental fact remains: when
we make a friend, hurt someone’s feelings, suffer a loss, or
accomplish something in an online world, it’s real. It’s not "just a
game."

I think one of the biggest issues today is the power of our online
words and actions to hurt others: I’ve been the victim, I’ve even been
the invoker (unintentionally, and apologetically). I’ll comment on
this more in future posts, but will make my view clear here:

If we (educators and parents) don’t participate with students online,
then we run the risk of having misguided or inexperienced friends, or
worse yet bullies, becoming greater influences than us in their lives.
Gordon Neufeld calls it ’peer orientation’ in his book: [11]Hold On to
Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers . This does not
mean that we get ’chummy’ with our students online... we are simply a
significant adult presence, modeling appropriate behavior, and
connecting with them in a meaningful, respectful way. The internet is
no place for an unsupervised playground!

1. http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/essay1.shtml
2. http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/11/13/second.life.university/index.html
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6122140.stm
4. http://ubiquitousthoughts.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/high-tech-forget-the-high-touch/
5. http://elearning-global.blogspot.com/2006/11/passively-multiplayer-online-games-for.html
6. http://oldmandragonfly.blogspot.com/2006/11/second-life.html
7. http://marcomedy.wordpress.com/2006/12/03/second-to-none/
8. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6158935.stm
9. http://Twitter.com/
10. http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/essay1.shtml

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David Warlick’s K12 Online Conference Keynote 2006 (2008-04-03 01:22)

Here is the gem I took from David Warlick’s Keynote ”[1]Derailing Education”. Warlick is referring to
[2]Friedman’s ’Experts’ and ’Adaptable People’... from [3]The World Is Flat.

”These are the kinds of people that need to be coming out of our classrooms, people who know how to
make themselves an expert and people who can learn, and unlearn, and relearn very easily.

”This is why the foundation of education systems today should not be the rails, but it should be the side
trips. It should not be the central standard curriculum, but it should be those directions that students,
that learners, both teachers and students, can navigate to on their own. We have the ability to do that
today.
I really like what Warlick says here, and as a classroom teacher I know how much fun those ’side trips’
can be. A great metaphor here, on the theme of learners navigating on their own, is the teacher as the
compass. We point in a direction, (not necessarily the direction that the student is going), and we are
a reference point or guide to the learning. As students sail (rather than ride the rails) they must choose
their destination, (what they want to learn), and tack and adjust their path as they go... using the
teacher as a compass that keeps them on their ’learning’ course.

Challenges

• Students and teachers need to know how to sail- they need to be literate in these new ways of
learning and communicating. They must be adaptable, willing to course-correct as they go.

• Students and teachers need to seek out other sailors- communities of learners, online this too could
be considered a literacy issue . (Note [4]my last blog.)

• Students must bring their own sails- and not all sails are created equally, the metaphor can work
with sails being competency (skills), motivation, handicaps (the ability to function physically, emo-
tionally, intellectually (not everyone has the same sized sail), and technically (the ’new’ literacy
issue again)).

• Teachers need to let students steer- it will take a while for many teachers to give up the steering
wheel and become the compass.

• Teachers need to be ’useful’ compasses- ”Don’t confuse the pointing ﬁnger with the Moon” comes
to mind here... also think of using technology for learning rather than using technology to teach. If
students steer themselves, they will take us into uncharted water, and we need to be able to point
the way even when we may not know the best course of action. (It isn’t about ’right’ answers, it
is about the journey- this goes back to Warlick’s [or rather [5]Toﬄer’s] idea that learners (students
and teachers) need to learn, unlearn and relearn all the time.

• Schools provide the boats, (and some have holes!)- resources, technology, and structure. You can
also think of the boats as the curriculum, the (way too big) frame used to support (or should I say
slow down) the learning.

OK, so I may have gone a little too far with the metaphor. However it makes the point that there are a
lot of challenges to providing a meaningful education in this day and age. Having said that, I am keenly
aware that it is my practice, my willingness to be a lifelong learner, and my knowledge of how and where
to ’point’ that limits what can happen in my classroom.

Consider this: Ten years ago I could only type using the ’hunt and peck’ approach. Six years
ago I had an Apple Macintosh, with turtle-slow internet access, in my classroom. Less than a year ago I
had never built a web page. I still struggle with a lot of the terminology at sites like [6]Techcrunch, and
29

it still takes me over an hour of tinkering to do something any ’techie’ could do in 20 minutes.

The learning curve is huge, and the gap of what I know and what I need to know is growing ex-
ponentially. The fact is, teachers are no longer capable of being the ’keepers’ and ’distributors’ of
knowledge. In fact, our generation of teachers are less equipped than students to keep up. I come from
the Batman era, adding items to my [7]utility belt while students today are the [8]Borg from Star Trek,
assimilating technology into their lives.

In late March of this year I started on this website with a blog titled [9]The purpose of a system
is what it does. But our current system is currriculum driven, and it can be difficult to take side trips,
(in fact it is outright impossible in some of the advanced classes with Provincial Exams). However, if we
really want our students to be the future Experts and Adaptable ’sailors’ of the world, then not only do
we need to stay abreast of the ’new literacy’ but the structures in our classrooms, and our schools need
to change.

-----

On a related topic, Warlick’s ideas about Geography changing is also good. [10]Marcie T. Hull
does a succinct summary of Geography becoming more like time.

-----

A well said rant on the problems with rote learning and why we need creative thinkers:

[11]Why Malaysia needs creative thinkers

by: [12]Suresh Gnasegarah

-----

Jan. 17th, ’07 - I found a wonderful post by Subbaraman Iyer:

[13]The education and learning approaches

The Education paradigm emphasizes acquiring a body of knowledge, “right” information, once
and for all.

The Learning paradigm emphasizes on learning how to learn, how to ask good questions, pay at-
tention to the right things, be open to evaluating new concepts and having access to information. It
emphasizes the importance of context.

The Education approach is to treat learning as a product, a destination; and the learning ap-
proach is to treat learning as a process or a journey

The Education approach consists of a relatively rigid structure and a standard curriculum and a
prescribed approach to teach, whereas the learning approach consists of a relatively flexible curriculum
and belief that there are many different was to teach a given subject.

(I want to quote the whole post!)...[14]Read the rest of this at his site!

30


I’ll add just one more aspect to my sailing metaphor: Standardized
testing is the anchor we are dragging behind us!

It was for this post that I created the quote: "I come from the Batman
era, adding items to my [15]utility belt while students today are the
[16]Borg from Star Trek, assimilating technology into their lives."
I’ve used it, dissected it, rejected it, and come back to it since.

1. http://k12online.wm.edu/k12online2006_optz.mp4
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman
4. http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/a-story-about-a-tree/
5. http://quotes.zaadz.com/1906/the_illiterate_of_the_21st_cen/by_alvin_toffler
6. http://www.techcrunch.com/
7. http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/282/
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29
9. http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/the-purpose-of-a-system-is-what-it-does/
10. http://ecram3.blogspot.com/2006/10/david-warlicks-keynote-k12online-2006.html
11. http://gnasegarah.com/2006/12/10/why-malaysia-needs-creative-thinkers/
12. http://heartz.wordpress.com/
13. http://subbaiyer.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/the-education-and-learning-approaches/
14. http://subbaiyer.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/the-education-and-learning-approaches/
15. http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/282/
16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29

Digital Magic #15 « ‘Practic-All’ (2008-10-19 16:53:43)
[...] (after it was over) in 2006. That’s when I watched David Warlick’s Keynote and wrote a blog post about it
(when I was just starting blogging). I hope that you will ﬁnd something here that you think is [...]

David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts » Shifting Learning (2010-05-01 23:21:22)
[...] the teacher, and into the hands and the minds of the learner. But I’ve written time & again & again about
that. Worthy of mentioning as well is Subbaraman Iyer’s post that looks at [...]

Square Peg, Round Hole (2008-04-04 01:14)

A composition of other people’s thoughts and ideas... with a theme.

[1]How to Bring our Schools Out of the 20th Century by Claudia Wallis, Sonja Steptoe, Time Mag-
azine cover story Dec. 18, 2006

”For the past ﬁve years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests
and closing the ”achievement gap” between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation.
This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that
will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get ”left behind” but also
31

whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t
think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or
speak a language other than English.”
-----

[2]An Alien in an Alien[3] World by David Warlick,

”I wonder how many natural mathematicians, engineers, artists, composers, story tellers and innovators
we are wasting, when we measure our schools almost exclusively on their ability to produce good test
takers.

How many natural born leaders are we squandering as we teach them to listen, watch, follow direction,
regurgitate facts, to sit down and shut up. How many leaders are we losing when we teach them to be
taught — in stead of teaching them to teach.

How alien are our classrooms?”
-----

[4]Do schools today kill creativity?

[5]

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system
that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

”Truthfully what happens is that, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the
waste up. And then we focus on their heads, and slightly to one side...”

“My contention is that all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.”
-----

[6]The eternal question... Why? by Kris, a 15 year old I had the pleasure of teaching.

Here it is from a student who will be a lifelong learner, dare I say... despite her schooling. She is
the one that sent me the time article above, which got me thinking about compiling this post.

”To the adult readers out there: this is how public education is contributing to your child’s success. We
list the qualities we have in one column, the qualities we don’t in another, and write about how the qual-
ities we have will make us nice, successful white collar workers someday, coupled with a post-secondary
32

education and a Graduation Portfolio with bureacratically-documented evidence (signed in triplicate) of
us kissing the toes of their shiny black shoes.

Of course, like every student who hopes of one day becoming a successful, white collar worker, the answer
I intend to put down is a lot less sarcastic and a lot more Ministry-friendly. There is satisfaction in
lashing out at public education on a blog, and there is self-preservation in doing exactly what they tell
you on the work you hand in. I have a hunch the Ministry won’t like it, but I still wonder, as I hope
others will: “Why?”
-----

[7]Adopt and Adept by Marc Prensky

”...technology adoption... It’s typically a four-step process:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways.

...Some people will no doubt worry that, with all this experimentation, our children’s education will be
hurt. ”When will we have time for the curriculum,” they will ask, ”and for all the standardized test-
ing being mandated?” If we really offered our children some great future-oriented content (such as, for
example, that they could learn about nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience in
neat interactive ways from real experts), and they could develop their skills in programming, knowledge
filtering, using their connectivity, and maximizing their hardware, and that they could do so with cutting-
edge, powerful, miniaturized, customizable, and one-to-one technology, I bet they would complete the
”standard” curriculum in half the time it now takes, with high test scores all around. To get everyone to
the good stuff, the faster kids would work with and pull up the ones who were behind.

In other words, if we truly offer our kids an Edutopia worth having, I believe our students will work as
hard as they can to get there.

So, let’s not just adopt technology into our schools. Let’s adapt it, push it, pull it, iterate with it, exper-
iment with it, test it, and redo it, until we reach the point where we and our kids truly feel we’ve done
our very best. Then, let’s push it and pull it some more. And let’s do it quickly, so the twenty-second
century doesn’t catch us by surprise with too much of our work undone.

A big effort? Absolutely. But our kids deserve no less.”
-----

[8]Animal School- by R.Z. Greenwald... Curriculum: Running, Flying, Climbing, and Swimming

[9]

33

(Click this button in the link provided to view this movie/slideshow)
Schools do not make accommodations for individual talents and learning styles. A slide show of a story
I read a long time ago... still priceless!

-----

[10]Creativity Killer: Discouraging creativity in children, © Leslie Owen Wilson, 1997, 2004

”It is perhaps ironic that within our culture we insist that we place such value on creativity and then
blatantly try to steal it away from children in the contexts of their educational experiences and their
upbringing. As a culture we need to ﬁnally decide what we really want for our children and then carefully
design and monitor experiences which provide those things we value.”

This has links to 3 versions of [11]The Little Boy by Helen Buckley.

-----

[12]Why does engineering/math/science education in the US suck? by Kathy Sierra

-----

Where do we go from here? We can keep looking at [13]Kathy Sierra for the answer!

34

-----

I started this blog with a post titled, [14]The purpose of a system is what it does, and I started this
post with a ’Time’ (or perhaps ’Timeless’) article that states in the second paragraph,

”American schools aren’t exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life,
our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents
once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks
that are out of date by the time they are printed. A yawning chasm (with an emphasis on yawning)
separates the world inside the schoolhouse from the world outside.”
Incremental changes will not take us where we need to be. Standardized testing, outdated curriculum
and unwired classrooms won’t get us there. Teachers using a white Smart Board to simply replace the
green chalk board, which replaced the blackboard, won’t get us there.

What profound change is needed? I don’t think one teacher at a time can do it. What is going to
get us over the Big Frickin’ Wall?

Note my ”[15]Articulate Thinkers” post, Jan. 29/07, based on an e-mail ’conversation’ I had almost
three years ago...

-----

Dec. 18. It has been a while since [16]I looked at Christopher D. [17]Sessums’ Weblog. He just added
me to his friends list here on eduspaces and I visited his blog again. I found [18]his post with this apple
commercial... which pays tribute to the misfits/the crazies/ the ’Round Pegs in the Square Holes’.

[EMBED]

It reminded me of the main reason I wrote this post, which I alluded to, but didn’t really mention.
Many of the Square/Round Peg Students (that don’t fit into our other-shaped schools) are the future
thinkers/dreamers/innovators that are going to meaningfully change our world. We need to recognize
their future value... We have an obligation to nurture them, and to develop their enthusiasm for learning.
It isn’t just about not stifling creativity or not making schools so alien... it is about creating an environ-
ment where every child can thrive... Not making the misfits fit, but rather helping them create a space
that fits them. [I think that the technology is now available to make this easier!]

35

Pairadimes for Your Thoughts | David Truss Blog Archive 05-25-2010

Pairadimes for Your Thoughts | David Truss Blog Archive 05-25-2010

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Pairadimes for Your Thoughts | David Truss Blog Archive 05-25-2010