Shifting sands, shifting paradigms: Challenges to developing 21st century learning skills

Vance StevensPetroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAEPresenting at CALICO 2010, Amherst

June 10, 2010

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

The challenge

To prepare students for careers as knowledge workers in jobs not invented yet, teachers must• Transition from one mindset to another on ten fronts

simultaneously, each involving a substantial break with past thinking

• Grasp how a baker’s dozen of unfamiliar tools and concepts can further learning in the emerging paradigms

Cannot be done in one step… only in many SMALL steps

SMALL = Social Media Assisted Language Learning

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Ten Paradigm Shifts

1. Pedagogy - shift from didactic models of “teaching” to constructivist ones of learning

2. Networking –connectivism: learning as a social vs. isolated activity

3. Literacy –from reliance on print to functioning in multiliteracies

4. Heuristics – from client-server to peer-to-peer

5. Formality – from hierarchical power centricity to informal learning and F.U.N.

6. Transfer - applying social networking skills and concepts from personal life to professional

7. Directionality – from push to pull dissemination of knowledge

8. Ownership – proprietary vs. open source, OER, and fair use

9. Sharing – from guarded copyright to creative commons

10. Classification – taxonomic to folksonomic systems

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Baker’s dozen of skills, concepts, tools, and genres for the 21st Century

1. Web 2.0 and social networking2. RSS and feed readers3. Podcasts

– Harvesting them, through RSS– Also producing them

4. Blogging– Multiliteracy skills – Following via RSS

5. Microblogging – Twitter– Edmodo, Yammer, etc.

6. Push/pull technologies 7. Aggregation via folksonomic

classification (tags)

8. Digital storytelling and applications of multimedia to new literacies

9. PLNs (personal learning networks)– Communities of practice– Connectivism

10. Informal / just-in-time learning11. Synchronous communications:

instant messaging, online presentation venues incorporating interactive whiteboard, voice, and video

12. Asynchronous collaborations tools: blogs, wikis, Voicethread, Slideshare, Google docs and similar collaboration tools

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Making IT happen (Freedman, 2006)

Article on change agency advises:

• Careful preparation • Anticipate counter-arguments• Avoid evangelicalism• Plan steps beyond acceptance of your idea• Request specific action when approaching

administrators• Assuming doubters are trying to do their best

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Making IT happen (Coffino, 2008)

Several conditions for making "the shift to a 21st century learning environment" happen:

• Make clear why change is needed• Clear vision and expectation that change will happen• Dedicated support person to

– Ensure that models for change are embedded in curriculum

– Ensure the infrastructure is in place– Set out clear roles for each staff member– Publicize success

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Organizing teachers to use Web 2.0

• Tapping into PLN’s– Microblogging

(Twitter)– Ning and alternatives– Listservs– Facebook

• Cloud collaboration in – Google Docs– Wikis– Etherpad clones– Delicious and Diigo

Get them familiar with project organization and collaboration online:

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Design materials to train teachers while teaching students

Simple, practical, hands on exercises in:

• Cloud collaboration in Google Docs (i.e. wiki)• Reading blogs (before creating them)• Following blogs via RSS

– Via blocks added to LMS / CMS & other aggregators– At a more advanced stage, in Google Reader

• Tagging in Delicious (and/or Diigo)– Organizing bookmarks in the cloud– Using Delicious to communicate through tags– Expanding Internet searches

through suggested alternate key words

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

F.U.N. with tags and backchannels

Play tag games with:

• Spezify and Addictomatic

• Flickr and TagGalaxy• Writingmatrix

Backchannel tools

• Lists in Twitter• Edmodo• Wallwisher• Voicethread

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Class-roots professional development

Students and staff must

• Recognize potentials of social media for learning

• Model best practices for one another

• Refine skills by training one another

Training

• Not just through reading about IT and attending lectures or workshops

• Necessary to “do” it. • This requires PLN of

peers who will interact and scaffold one another

Vance Stevens CALICO 2010 Amherst

Making the shift happen

Teachers as“master” lifelong learners must:

• Move toward greater socialization in their learning environments

• Become aware of and incorporate 21st Century skills and paradigm shifts

• Seek out, and become, models of best practices

Vance’s presentations are always online

http://slideshare.net/vances http://tinyurl.com/vance2010calico

Sorry, no “handout” but …