i had the wonderful opportunity to chat with david wiley about the projects he is working on.
david is associate professor of instructional psychology and technology at brigham young university, chief openness officer of flat world knowledge, and founder of the open high school of utah. he was formerly associate professor of instructional technology and director of the center for open and sustainable learning (COSL) at utah state university.
so the conference wasn’t too spectacular, but what was absolutely breath-taking was visiting high tech high school with my pepperdine classmates. what an amazing realization of all of the learning theories we have been learning about. the high tech high design is all about problem-based learning (PBL), collaboration, personalization, student engagement, real-life application, and innovation.
from the moment we walked into the doors of the original high tech high, there was a different feel than all other schools i’ve been in. the students were happy, they were engaged, they were self-monitoring, they were confident and proud, they were LEARNING! their artwork and projects were everywhere and it was beautiful.
high tech high is a charter program in san diego, california that is currently comprised of 5 high schools, 2 middle schools, and an elementary school. 100% of their graduates are admitted to college. whoa. the thing i LOVE is that these are not privileged, affluent, uppity kids. the enrollment is by lottery and the only prereq for entering the drawing is being a resident of california and having a method of getting to the school since there is no bus system. the schools do not track and so there is no such thing as isolating or mainstreaming… they’re all in it together. the classes are small… 25-27 at most and every student is known by an adult through an advisory program that goes throughout the whole 4 years. the teachers teach interdisciplinary subjects and collaborate together for all kinds of cool real-world projects. the students have published books and are exhibiting their artwork on blood at a real art gallery next month. i could literally go on and on about the exciting things they are doing there.
we were given a tour of high tech high international by a student in her junior year and she was amazing. so poised, confident, and intelligent. you can hear her talk in this awesome video made by my classmate terry who could possibly be the coolest teacher i have ever met:
we also had a chance to visit explorer elementary and these are some pictures i took there. the knowledge tree is especially inspiring. click on it to see a larger view.
tree of knowledge
peace
dogs by elementary kids
aren’t these wonderful? as you can tell, i had a lovely time just seeing how school can be done and was so inspired to see it working and working well. yay for people who think outside the box and challenge the status quo.
so i’m listening to this panel of corporate old-schoolers basically talking about how web 2.0 doesn’t have a place in the large business environment. what makes me so mad is that they think about this concept as just facebook and myspace. they all talk about how things need to be closed and shouldn’t be shared and how hierarchy is needed.
they miss the whole point about collaboration, sharing, and making things transparent. they have yet to embrace the reality that there could be a different business culture that is not about power and hierarchy, but about a shared vision and purpose.
not to be an age-ist because i know a lot of really innovative and seriously cool older people, but is it surprising that they’re all old? no. is it surprising that all the old people in the audience are nodding their heads in agreement with them? no. is it surprising that the young people are standing up to question the lack of thinking outside the corporate box? no.
lave and wenger’s idea of displacement -continuity contradiction is so coming into play here. these old-timers are feeling threatened by the newcomers who come in and want to bring about change. however it is only through change that the practice or the company will be able to stay relevant and in existance.
so far, beside the keynote speaker, i have been pretty unimpressed with this conference thus far. hopefully it will get better in the next two days.
i’m here in san diego attending the CSCW (computer-supported collaborative workspace) conference and listening to the keynote speaker cory ondrejka, the cofounder of second life. second life is the crazy online alternative reality.
so cory just shared a story about craig, the founder of craigslist. he showed a picture of craig standing next to this really high uppity guy from the ny times with like a bajillion pulitzer prizes. to the ny times guy, craig was like a baby seal… totally harmless, soft, cute and fluffy. however, in just a short time, ny times classifieds lost a huge, huge sum of money while craig’s list grew to be the largest classified ad medium in the world.
craiglists’ ceo told wall street people that craigslist has “little interest in maximizing profit, instead preferring to help users find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates.” wow what a concept. just helping people for the sake of helping people, not to make money. just sharing for the sake of sharing, not to make money. it really is a paradigm shift in this day and age i think.
so what do we learn from craigslist? as cory put it, ny times… “don’t f*** with baby seals.” love that.
just got back from orlando today after giving a seminar at educause 2008. i co-presented with terri bays (executive director of the OCW consortium) and dan carchidi (publication director of MIT OCW). it was an awesome experience getting to know these folks who are doing so much for the OCW movement. i had a chance to interview both terri and dan and will be posting it in the coming days.
our seminar was 3 hours long and in a nutshell, we talked about how ocw can help universities not just help other people, but also help themselves: open sharing, local payoff. we talked about how OCW can help fulfill a university’s mission as well as its explicit and implicit goals.
this was my first time at educause and i was blown away by its huge scale. all the big names in IT were there trying to sell their goods to the higher ed public. the best part was walking around all the booths and getting free stuff and free food. overall, i had a wonderful time and learned a lot!
