10 Disruptions that could Transform Your Classroom

So I’m not in Doha any more….

I’ve made it to the iTSummit, and luckily, before the end of the day.  I’m sitting in Dean Shareski session on disruptive technologies.  He’s acknowledging that the word disruption is not necessarily a seductive term to educators.  But let’s face it…  Handouts are at http://delicious.com/sharski/disruptions.

Dean is using CoolIris for the presentation.  Jeff Utecht told me about using it for presentations a while back, but this is the first time I’ve seen it happen.  It sorta like the geography of Prezi, without leaving the structure of a slide deck. 

We were just asked to talk for a few minutes about what excites us and what scares us about education in the next fivt to ten years.  I’m talking with Cathy Cassidy.  What scares me is what our children will be resisting 15 years from now, that we aren’t even imagining today.

Disruptions

1. Smart Phones — There’s a school near by where a corporation gave Blackberries to a class of 8th graders. 

   Dean is showing a video, probably a dramatization, of a school where all the students have iPhones.  Students are doing things like collaborating, voting in classes, and forming groups — all over their iPhones.  Graphing calculators are $149.  You can get an app that does the same thing for $0.99.  Now he’s showing a video of an app that’s not out yet, that you aim it, as you’re going through the store, and it pops up windows telling you about the things that are present.  That’s pretty cool!

   Now using Poll Everywhere.  Lots of Ahhhhh’s!

2. Low Cost Computing — Re: One Laptop Per Child

   Netbooks are $250, what the kids might be spending on their sneakers.  Is this a way to get to 1:1.  Maybe with this, we can rely on the students to bring them in (not sure about that). 

   With all the newspapers going out of busines, “Giving every subscriber a free Kindle e-reader, and then deliverin the paper through the Kindle, at today’s subscription rates, it would cost 50% less than they’re spending now.  Would love to have the citation for this.

3. Cloud Computing — A lot of schools are looking at Google Apps.  Says he things that Regina Schools are looking at this.
4. Live Streaming — Lots of conferences are Ustreaming presentations, and, according to Dean, it has some interesting implications for the classroom.  Now showing Brian Cosby’s video of a student in his class who is home-bound because of illness.  She’s attending the class via Skype.

   There is a classroom where the teacher is UStreaming all day.

   Back Channeling — Happening more and more in classrooms.  There is a presentation on the K12 Online Conference about back channeling in the classroom.

5. Microblogging — Nough said! Read it for a few minutes, and it looks like blather.  Pay attention for a day, and it starts to look like a short story.  Pay attention for a month, and you have a novel.  That’s pushing it a bit, but I certainly happens.
6. Immersive Environments — Video games and virtual worlds.  Showing a video of a teacher talking about her class in Second Life Teen Grid.

   Shareski says “It’s like social glue.”  I like that.

   Dean just asked which of the tech are a long way off.  I think It’s all close.

   The Next Pertain more to Pedagogy

7. Privacy — Who do we deal with so much of our lives is going online.  Referring to U.S. school where the decree was laid that no teacher under any condition should come in contact with students via social networks.
8. Time shifting — Dean’s question is “What’s face-to-face good for?”  Talking about California teachers who are recording their lectures for students to watch at home.  I asked some students about this in Edmonton, and they didn’t like it.  They said they’d much rather watch lectures face-to-face.  It’s certainly worth trying.
9. Open and Connected — MIT has course on line for everyone.  It isn’t just software.  Also Academic Earth, talks from the top people available to us for free.
10. Outsourced Instruction — Clarence Fisher is doing a project that he calls Thin Wall Classroom, where he and another class somewhere team teach.  I get it now.  It’s about me being asked to deliver a lecture for another class.  May be a future in this.

Tags: iTsumit, warlick, conference, disruption