Lausanne Laptop Institute - Live Blogging - Scott Kososky keynote

At the Lausanne Laptop Institute in Memphis. Hearing a presentation from the superintendent of the American School of Bombay. ASB is featured in the tablet PC of 2nd edition of my laptop book. Shabbi Luthra is the director of technology and she and ASB have a large cohort attending, including at least one recent graduate (Sunny) who wrote a very articulate piece for the tablet chapter of laptop book (to be published in Spring 2009) on what it's like to be a student in a tablet school. Getting ready to hear the keynote speaker in a minute.

Over 80 attendees at Laptop institute from outside the U.S.

Discussion on the bus with someone from an independent school in Kentucky in their 4th year of a program. Issue becomes after time, once the issues are solid, what will you do with 1-to-1?

Scott Kososky has said "technology is just a tool." First thing for me to disagree with (have written about this - laptop as a digital assistant, not "just a tool.") Tool idea, in my opinion, is too limiting. A tool has one or possibly two uses, a computer has far more.

His son changes the material the same percentage that he changed his "research" from what he found from the library except he did his with Google and found the material in 15 minutes instead of in about 3 or 4 hours. Good point!

Number 2 advertiser in the world is now Google. Drastically changed advertising. Google knows what you do and where you go online, can advertise things you have bought or looked into. Apple, not music industry company, becomes #1 seller of music in the world. When needs exist, needs get filled, not necessarily by the industry or the people you expect to fill the need. This could be the case for education - who might fill the need for education? Laptops are a rock pile until someone looks at it with a vision. Cathedral made of rocks, rocks don't have value, it's what's made from it.

Three leverage points to improve school he says:

• Learn the better "see" the future - we think too short term (agreed!) - we think of performance on the short term
• Understand the impact of technology (how does it change people, what they do, how they learn, how they digest information.

• Evolve how you teach with new tools. Teaching the same way and enabling is not the quantum leap forward, is just faster. Same report on Ghandi in 15 minutes that he took hours to do. Was anything learned? Both taught the same way and both learned as little

High beam theory - if you can only see a year ahead of time, won't see far enough, think long term enough. We'll always be polaying catch up if we don't think far enough ahead.

SecondLife mentioned. A virtual world created in China for Chinese citizens. Google mixing GoogleEarth with virtual world - when you walk into the building, turns into a virtual world. Will they merge together? Idea of making the meeting room better than the room world, move people from agree to disagree so that people move from their opinion. Some walk on, some move, speaker can see this. Give visual clues where people feel. For schools can be Understand and Don't Understand. Students move over. A way to see what is going on for the speaker/teacher. (What I LOVE about this idea is that it is the idea that technology improves something that exists in another way!)

If you are going to create value, you must infuse progress that will be relevant in the future.

How to create your community - blogger notebook about ecommunity. Young people are assembling their ecommunity to assemble their community. It is going for us to start connecting. He recommends Plaxo, Linked-In and Facebook as the starter systems to become their eCommunity. Says NetWork is not NetFun NetVisit NetPlay. It's work. You have to work at building a network.

On the grid and off the grid - people start expecting you are always working. Sometimes you need to go off the grid. Not take the cell phone.

The idea of a grid profile. First thing - check grid profile. Tools (IM, Twitter, email, where are); where you are - proximity (GPS); status - busy,invisible,available, invisible,emergency - I'm on the grid but you can't get me but I can get you, emergency you can reach only emergency; groups; how represented - avatars, profiles; best communication methods (e.g., don't call but send me email.) Think of how this will change how we communicate with each other. People call just to ask a question, when texting/IM/email might be better.

He suggests when you can call, here are the ways to link to me. How to communicate. OR click on my grid profile.

He says this is where we're headed. Is very natural for us to do.

Cloud computing - software served by others. All software can be rented. Applications untethered. Don't even need hard drives. Just need input device and a stream. Already seeing Google docs in the business world because graduates are used to collaborating on their documents. Graduates came out of college with all their cloud-based computing tools knowledge and entering the business world but hitting against standards and non-understanding of the potential.

If you can't see the world the way students see technology, with empathy, have to see the world the ways they see the world, in order to teach this generation.

Never before have there been so many tools in this world, we live in a blessed time. Let's not waste this chance and these opportunities. Don't want to waste it. Do something to use our technology skills.

Lausanne keynotes Ian Jukes, Will Richardson (will at left)

Yesterday, Ian Jukes cajoled, inspired and scared us a bunch.  Gesticulating, sometimes wildly, Ian gave a presentation that sure didn't look like Powerpoint (lots of pictures, things to make us think, pithy comments, etc.)  The future is coming and it ain't stopping for the faint of heart! And, schools still look like and act like the past.  Favorite quote from Ian's presentation: "Changing the course of history is easier than changing a history course."  (full attribution to follow - soon)

The exponential growth of hardware and bandwidth along with the lowering of prices at least for hardware (Moore's law), the Internet along with InfoWhelm are what we need to fully consider, as educators.  What does this mean for the classroom - that looks the same and acts the same as it has for maybe the past 40 years or so.  Information fluency, not information literacy.

The group at our table wanted Ian to talk more about discerning information and how important our task as educators is to be sure kids don't accept everything coming at them as okay and meaningful.  (Maybe this is what he meant by information fluency.) But he made every one of us think and continue to think.

Now listening to Will Richardson and here is his Wikispaces with handouts and backups for what he's saying.  Wow - I didn't know about the Obama campaign which is allowing people to put their own blogs up - this is brilliant.

Camera phones/Treo's, etc., how something can be put up online immediate, with a photo and with words.  Music is changing, digital rights, how do we exist when it is so easy (albeit not always legal) to share.  Journalism now has comment section; newspaper readership dropping, how to change the model.  (Personal note: even content - NYT magazine with article on Williams syndrome had a link to a video of a 19-year girl with Williams.)  "Cluetrain Manifesto" recommended.  People can look at their opinions somewhere on the product or the book, etc., people can read the comments before purchasing.

Problem: as Ian said - education is not changing.  We are not responding like other structures.  Something like 65% of kids have MySpace, 75% have Facebooks.  How many educators?  Maybe 15%.  Information is going to continue to grow. There is still a digital disconnect, and when there are kids, they can't compete.  Kids have really taken off and we're not in sync, we need to move with them.  

Recommendations: creating networks for teachers and students to sustain learning.  Blogs as a starting point - blogs as a conversation - blogs as a learning environment/community.

Many teachers using these technologies to publish and not to maximize as a network.  Cluster map show where people are coming to read Will's blog.  He is humbled by this, but has learned from this.

Kids are also beginning to build networks - fan fiction (note: my daughter does this extensively on the Harry Potter site and HP is the biggest site.) The learning is available anytime, you can connect to the people.

MySpace - who is teaching it?  One teacher raised her hand.  How to leverage the space.  Meg Cabot who wrote "Princess Diaries" has a great MySpace and it connects her to the people who love her book.  Why should Will's daughter memorize the capitals of the U.S. - where in the curriculum is it taught to get on her cellphone and find out information - what happens when content shifts.  (Note: this is our discussion at our table last night - picking out what information is most relevant and important and how to find the important information - yes!) 

MITOPENCOUSEWARE - wow, what is available here, for free, as podcasts, as video, etc.  You don't get the credit but you don't get the bill either.

Wikipedia - we need to teach it.  Will told about a kid who didn't want to do a project so just posted a sparse page on it on Wikipedia and then just waited for everyone to correct. Corrected so quickly.  In last minute 500 changes to Wikipedia.

IM, collaboration, on the fly.  We need to teach this.

Plagiarism is getting blurry, we need to talk about it.  Biggest problem - being editors in this environment, being skeptical consumers of information.  

How many people teaching kids to read and write in hypertext environments.  Yet this is how they will be working in the future.  There is a literacy here.  If links connecting people are not part of what they are doing, they are not learning what they need to know.  

If we have an Internet connection, we are no longer the smartest person on the room.  Our job becomes to connect us to the smartest people in the world.

The shift - the conversation - reaching others to engage in the conversation - finding the strong and the weak ties and how we can expand our knowledge and our conversations - flat classroom project.

Friday folder from classes - things sign - what is the engagement in this paper - yet we can have do meaningful projects in real worlds.  Example,  Radio WillowWeb - 1st graders, regular podcasts, thousands of listeners.  Marco Torres and a video done by his kids - (note: I have yet to see Marco but have heard amazing things about him and his work.)  

Will says every day he is learning something new, the networks of learners are what is important, making everyone information literate is vital, kids will be at risk from information if they are not discerning, we need to be different teachers in this environment, we must connect.

Here are my questions: what happens when people go back to their schools with these new ideas and the "zero sum game" becomes operational - can we have "and" and not just "either" and "or" - not traditional learning or 21st century learning.  How to bridge the gap.  We must, obviously, we must.