INclusion is not about bringing people into what already exists,
it is about making a new space, a better space for everyone.

(Dr. George Dei, Professor, Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, University of Toronto)

Inspiring Education: A Dialogue with Albertans shares a vision of success for each student in an inclusive education system.  This vision calls for a shift in our present concept of education to one that expands  beyond the school,  focuses  on the learner,   promotes life-long learning  and embraces  an inspiring, accessible curriculum based on competencies.    Empowering innovation and re-examining our definition of success are vital to achieving this vision.

Designing INnovative learning spaces begins with accepting the premise that learners in Alberta are diverse.  Indeed, advances in the fields of neuroscience clearly demonstrate that the notion of an “average learner” is a myth (Rose, T., 2012) and that learner difference lies along a continuum – there are individuals who are “gifted” and those who are “disabled” and every variation in between (Rose, D. and Gravel, 2012).  Diversity is the norm, not the exception.

If learners differ in an endless number of ways,  how can we define success?  Contemporary definitions of success consider the connection between the innate characteristics of an individual and the requirements of the environment.  This is apparent in the World Health Organization’s  definition of disability as a “complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives” (2001).   Applying this line of thinking to success in online environments,  Jutta Treviranus,  Director of the Inclusive Design Research Center in Toronto,  states  that ability is not a personal trait but ‘artifact of relationship’ between user and the resource or method of delivery.

We live in exciting times.  Advances in the design of multimedia technologies are allowing for a future where teaching and learning can be designed from the outset to be flexible enough to adapt to individual differences (Rose and Gravel, 2012). In a transformed education system, this speaks to innovative teaching practices and innovative learning  environments.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that emphasizes the design of learning environments to accommodate  the widest possible range of learners.   The framework and guidelines for making decisions about instruction are based on research and practice from multiple domains within the learning sciences. UDL encompasses three principles that address critical features of any teaching and learning environment:  1) the way information is presented to the learner,  2) the way in which the learner demonstrates what he or she knows,   and 3)  the means by which learners are engaged (Rose and Meyer, 2002; Rose, Meyer and Hitchcock, 2005).  The key is to provide options in the tools, methods or pathways to success.  Well-chosen options that take into consideration the abilities of the learner as well as the goals of the learning task create environments where diversity is supported.

Digital technologies used within the context of a UDL framework enable the effective customization of learning. New media have several advantages that increase the flexibility of both teaching and learning.   Digital media are versatile, transformable and dynamic.  Many technologies have built in supports, scaffolds and challenges to assist learners in understanding and engage with their learning environment.

The 2Learn.ca Education Society of Alberta recently introduced its new website 2IncludeMe which provides rich pedagogy resources to foster flexible learning environments which are more responsive to diverse learner needs.  Their Web 2.0 Tools website recognizes the fit between constructivist learning and multiple and flexible pathways to success.  Student learning strengths and preferred learning modalities can be capitalized on, boosting their motivation and promoting active learning.

INnovative learning spaces don’t just rely on technology.  Rose and Gravel summarize their article “Curricular Opportunities in the Digital Age” by stating that learning environments are ultimately about building and enhancing relationships; computers and other on-line tools and programs are not equipped to do this profoundly human work.  Instead, this responsibility lies in the hands, heart and mind of the teacher.

With digital technologies and innovative teachers, better learning spaces are created for everyone.

References

Rose, D.  and Gravel, J.: Curricular Opportunities in the Digital Age. The Students at the Center Series.  Jobs for the Future. (2012)

Rose, T., Variability Matters, (2012) http://bit.ly/I7WPvW

World Health Organization (2001)  http://www.who.int/classifications/icf/en/

Treviranus, J. Inclusive Design Research Center, Toronto http://bit.ly/IQMzw8

Rose, D.  and Meyer, A. (2002) Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning.  Alexandria, VA: Association for  Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Rose, D.,  Meyer, A.  and Hitchcock, C. (2005). The Universally Designed Classroom:  Accessible Curriculum and Digital Technologies.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard Education Press.

Stephen Downes works for the National Research Council of Canada where he has served as a Senior Researcher, based in Moncton, New Brunswick, since 2001. Affiliated with the Learning and Collaborative Technologies Group, Institute for Information Technology, Downes specializes in the fields of online learning, new media, pedagogy and philosophy. Downes is perhaps best known for his daily newsletter, OLDaily, which is distributed by web, email and RSS to thousands of subscribers around the world. Prior to joining the NRC, Downes worked for the University of Alberta as an information architect and has a decade of teaching experience both in person and by distance with Athabasca University, the University of Alberta, and Grande Prairie regional college.

Destination Innovation 2012 is pleased to announce a co-presentation keynote by Elliot Soloway and Cathleen Norris.

Elliot Soloway is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Dept of CSE, College of Engineering, School of Education and School of Information, University of Michigan. For the past 10 years, Soloway’s research has been guided by the vision that mobile, handheld – and very low-cost – networked devices are the only way to truly achieve universal 1:1 in schools – all across the globe. In 2001, the UMich undergraduates selected him to receive the “Golden Apple Award” as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year. In 2004 and in 2011, the EECS College of Engineering HKN Honor Society awarded Elliot the “Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award.” Elliot is a co-founder of GoKnow, Inc. Soloway is Chair and Grand Poohbah of ISTE’s Special Interest Group on Mobile Learning (SIGML), 2010-2012.

Cathleen Norris is a Regents Professor in the College of Information, Department of Learning Technologies at the University of North Texas. Cathie’s 14 years in K-12 classrooms – and receiving Dallas’ Golden Apple Award – has shaped her university research agenda: helping K-12 teachers move from the 19th century into the 21st century. Cathie has been President of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), the leading international organization for technology-minded educators, and the President of the National Educational Computing Association (NECA), the association that organized NECC, the premier conference on technology in K-12. Cathie is co-founder of GoKnow, Inc., a Dallas-based company that supports K-12 in using mobile learning devices.

The world’s education systems are in the midst of change (aka informed transformation) unlike any other time over the past century. It’s a historical moment where governments, teachers, parents and school communities are exploring visions of an education system that would embody innovation (technologies and pedagogy), increased flexibility (curricular and otherwise) and more individualized and self-directed approaches to student learning. Within this 21st-century tsunami of change, innovative teaching and learning practices that employ emerging technologies are sweeping into our collective imaginations with the broader goal to transform education. Too often, however, the space for dialogue about the truly innovative practices that learning and technology can enable is non-existent, superficial or uninformed, and thus more thoughtful considerations and questions remain unasked or answered.  This blog post is meant to share some of the perspectives and provocations around innovation, emerging technologies and educational practice.

Innovative teaching and learning with technology is a dynamic, challenging and creative act.  In assessing how digital technologies might be used appropriately to engender more innovative learning experiences, educators might consider using the well-conceived Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model (Koehler and Mishra 2009).  TPACK tries to reconcile the complexity and dynamics of student learning as it relates to technology and the multifaceted nature of teachers’ knowledge. Rather than conceptualizing content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and technology knowledge (TK) as isolated entities, TPACK focuses on the interplay between these knowledge sources. TPACK asks educators to consider how the various knowledge sources apply to a particular learning situation. No single pedagogical approach applies to every teacher or every student. The teacher must traverse the elements of content, pedagogy and technology and understand how they interact in the context of learning. A more thorough explanation of TPACK can be found in the thoughtful work of Koehler and Mishra (2009).

Technology should not, however, be considered the principal driver of innovative educational transformation (as technological determinists would argue), nor just a neutral and innocuous tool (as technological instrumentalists make claim). The reality is far more complex and it serves the profession of teaching well to dig deeper into the dialogue around innovation and emerging technologies in education.

On the more mechanistic side of the conversation related to innovation resides the technological deterministic view that envisions technology as the primary determinant of human experiences. As Selwyn (2011) notes, technological determinism has influenced discussions about innovative educational change for many years. In their day, filmstrips, radio and televisions were characterized as having the power to radically transform public education and offer the most innovative solutions to educational challenges. In the early 1920s, for example, Thomas Edison predicted that the motion picture was “destined to revolutionize our educational system and … in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks” (Oppenheimer 1997). This prediction was followed 40 years later with psychologist B. F. Skinner’s assertion that the dawn of the machine age of education had finally arrived and that “with the help of teaching machines and programmed instruction, students could learn twice as much in the same time and with the same effort as in a standard classroom” (Oppenheimer). In our contemporary setting the buzz is around the iPad or the ‘holy grail’ of digital textbooks vaunted as pedagogic panacea. The proliferation of motion pictures has not fully withdrawn the desire for educational print, and the teaching machines (whatever you imagine those to be) have not yet displaced the will for teachers and students to gather together to learn in inquiry oriented classrooms.  History offers perspective and provides us with at least two important insights: (1) there have always been, and always will be, strong and weak educational practices and (2) technologies in education, as Selwyn (2011) establishes, rarely live up to the utopian forecasts of their most enthusiastic advocates. Rarely is the imagined future of innovation accurate; more often than not the predictive space tilts heavily in either an overly optimistic or a deeply pessimistic direction.

More commonly, at the other end of the spectrum, lives the technological instrumentalists deception;  technology is just a “tool”; an innocent object; value-free and in the service of whatever subjective goals we chose to ascribe the device.  According to this view, technology is culturally neutral and innocuous (Kelly 2005; Levy 2001). Such a view ignores Marshall McLuhan’s (1964) caution that, just as we shape our technologies, so they subsequently shape our habits of mind and physical selves.  As educators champion the visible promise of technology to engage students and enhance their learning experiences, we must also recognize that technology is not neutral, nor is it “just a tool”.  The more invisible perils of pervasive media exposure and its psycho-social and physiological impacts are beginning to surface in the research on public health. With the developing minds and bodies of children and youth there is an increasing need to be cautious of the impact of online digital activities for offline health and mental wellbeing.  When implementing technology, teachers, as pedagogical leaders, should take into account such factors as the age, gender and education level of students, the socioeconomic status of the community and the beliefs that a student’s parents and peers hold about the value of technology both in and outside a school setting (McRae 2011).

School leadership, an important part of the visioning for how technology lives within a learning context, is constantly being (re)shaped in an era full of contradictions and paradoxes around emerging technologies.  A sea of questions are constantly ebbing and flowing for school leadership (broadly defined) around how to engage students with the innovative uses of digital technologies.  Some of the most pragmatic questions emerge for school leaders around how to effectively and efficiently navigate the costs, complexity, access and supports required to place information and communication technologies into the numerous imaginative learning scenarios put forward by parent communities, superintendents, students and teachers.  The most challenging systemic issues, however, reside in the larger context and include poverty and inequity, a lack of parental engagement (or conversely hyper-parenting), large class sizes and complex compositions that impede more personalized learning experiences, and student readiness to learn bound up in the numerous digital and popular culture distractions impacting society.

As we swim in a sea of emerging technologies and envision their power to transform our public education system we must not forget to ask ourselves what it is that we ultimately hope to achieve. Here are two questions related to innovation and emerging technologies as a force of educational transformation that I hope you may take up in professional conversations, at the Destination Innovation conference or perhaps even on this blog.

1) How might educators engage with digital technologies so that students can become empowered citizens rather than passive consumers? 

2) What technological innovations will help to create a society where people can flourish within informed, democratic and diverse communities, as opposed to a culture of narcissists that are fragmented by a continuous partial attention?

Note: This blog post is drawn from a new chapter I recently published in book entitled Rethinking School Leadership: Creating A Great School for All Students available at www.lulu.com (http://tinyurl.com/85xvrdq).

Dr. Phil McRae’s Biography, Research, Writing, Scholarship and Presentations: www.philmcrae.com

References

Kelly, K. 2005. “We Are the web.” Wired Magazine (8)13. Available at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html(accessed March 20, 2012).

Koehler, M J, and P Mishra. 2009. “What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge?” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 9(1): 60–70.

Levy, P. 2001. Cyberculture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media. New York: Mentor.

Oppenheimer, T. 1997. “The Computer Delusion.” Atlantic Monthly 280, no 1 (July): 45–62.

Selwyn, N. 2011. Schools and Schooling in the Digital Age: A Critical Analysis. London and New York: Routledge.

The Educational Technology Council of the ATA is encouraging its member’s to attend this event and are providing a bursary to help cover some of the expenses. This is the information related to this bursary.

You must be a certificated teacher and a full member of ETCATA.
Lead presenters for Destination Innovation 2012 are not eligible for this bursary.
If co-presenting at Destination Innovation 2012, the recipient must acknowledge this bursary in his/her opening remarks.
The application form will ask the applicant, “What do you expect/hope to learn from this conference that will improve the teaching & learning process in your classroom?”
The expectation would be to write a 500 word article to be submitted to ETCATA for potential publication in Bits & Bytes and/or on the website. The article could relate to something learned at the conference and/or how technology is being used in the classroom.
The bursary would be paid on a 50/50 basis – 50% when awarded the bursary and 50% when the article was received.
Applications deadline would be March 15, 2012. Successful applicants would be informed by March 29, 2012.
To apply for this bursary please complete the form at this address.

Mark Edwards, Ed.D. currently serves as superintendent of the Mooresville Graded School District (MGSD) in Mooresville, NC. Previously, Dr. Edwards was superintendent of the Danville, and later, Henrico, VA school districts. He was Virginia Superintendent of the Year in 2001 and was named a Harold W. McGraw Prize In Education recipient in 2003. As eSchool News Magazine’s 2002 Tech Savvy Superintendent, Dr. Edwards is considered a pioneer of 1:1 computing in public schools. He is currently leading his second district 1:1 laptop initiative, equipping more than 5400 students in the Mooresville district with 21st century tools via laptops, interactive boards, and iPads.

Cheryl Lemke serves as the Practice Leader for Metiri Group Policy Consulting. Prior to launching the firm, she was the executive director of the Milken Exchange on Education Technology for the Milken Family Foundation. Ms. Lemke specializes in public policy for K-12 learning technology, working at many levels with governors, legislators, superintendents, business leaders, and teachers. Most recently, she authored the definitive work on 21st Century Skills that was published by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory and the CEO Forum.

Dr. Howie DiBlasi was recognized as “Vocational Teacher of the Year” for the State of Arizona and nominated as a finalist in the “Top Secondary Leaders in America”. He has been featured in several magazines as “A CIO that really thinks outside the box”.

He is a published author , “Change Agent” , Educational Technology consultant and the Producer of the “DID YOU KNOW “ You Tube series. He was recently recognized by the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration with the “Pinnacle Award” for outstanding Professional Development Programs. Dr. DiBlasi has extensive experience in the education field, (20 years) business leader, (10 years) and as a C.I.O (14 years).

His emphasis is on Digital Technology, multi-media, Interactive Video Conferencing and 21st Century Learning. He has presented to thousands of Educational Leaders, administrators and teachers from Bangkok to Boston.