I have written quite a bit this past week on educators’ professional learning, and how we are experimenting with extending these conversations, using technology to engage more people. I have also written, here and here, two posts on backchanneling during the recent BCSSA Fall Conference.
There are a couple of more reflections I want to pick up on before moving on:
1. School District borders matter less and less when it comes to professional learning
This really struck me on Monday night. I came home, went on my computer at about 8:00 and saw a post on Twitter that an online session was starting at 8:15, entitled Blogging First Steps, hosted by Lesley Edwards from North Vancouver. This is part of the LAN: Learning Is Social series that is coordinated by staff in the North Vancouver School District. There were 12 of us who participated from a variety of districts. I don’t know everyone on the elluminate (this tool is available free to B.C. educators) session, but I know there were participants (trustees, administrators, teachers) from North Vancouver, Vancouver, and Coquitlam. In my just over three-year tenure in the West Vancouver District, on the North Shore, I have not attended a professional development session in North Vancouver. That said, there was nothing that could have felt more natural than sliding into the session on a Monday night.
We still have lines on the map for School Districts, but when it comes to our professional learning, these are blurry and less, and less, important. We are finding ways to connect and engage online that has very little to do with geography.
2. Ideas, not roles are dictating the people I connect with
There are still many traditional structures where we gather in role-alike groups. There are sessions for teachers, administrators, support staff, parents, the community, and sometimes we bring these groups together. What I am finding online is that roles are almost inconsequential. It is the ideas that matter. I did an interview with Janet Steffenhagen on Monday, and we talked about how technology has really had a dramatic effect on realigning the power structure in education.
I find that I don’t follow topics, I follow interesting people. I also find that while I am still attracted to voices from afar like Philadelphia Principal, Chris Lehmann, and edu blogger and presenter, Will Richardson, I am increasingly more attracted to local voices who share a somewhat familiar context.
It is always dangerous to make a list, knowing I will miss some key people, but some of those within B.C.’s education system who are influencing my thinking right now include: David Truss (a Coquitlam principal currently working in China), Chris Wejr (an elementary principal in Aggasiz), Cale Birk (a secondary principal in Kamloops), Brian Kuhn (technology director in Coquitlam), Gino Bondi (a secondary principal in Vancouver), Gordon Powell (coordinator for library and information services in Richmond) and David Wees (a teacher in Vancouver).
I want to finish this post by coming back to the students, and looking for guidance from my experiences as an adult learner, with how students learn. I think what I take from this is student learning will continue to be less hierarchical, less about the teacher being the keeper of knowledge, and more about the teacher helping students make sense of content, and connecting them to other experts. Schools will be less bound to discussions within the walls of a building, and connections will be made across schools, communities and beyond. School will continue to look less like an activity that happens between nine and three from Monday to Friday.
This is a great time for a transition in how educational professionals learn, and it is this transition that is also changing the game for how our students learn.
cultureofyes.ca 
Two very salient points Chris!
I wonder if you’ve seen this by Alec Couros: Visualizing Open/Networked Teaching
When I started on Twitter, it was something I could only do with people out of district and mostly out of the Lower Mainland as I couldn’t find anyone local using it. It was great to see more and more people I already ‘knew’ joining in, but also more and more people that were local that I didn’t know, and got the pleasure of meeting digitally. Because of twitter I learned about and went to a LAN meeting in North Vancouver shortly before moving to China, and I felt more like an honoured guest than a visitor. I got to see Alec Couros via Video Skype and Lesley Edwards even put me to work helping out in a breakout session after Alec spoke. You may not know this, but Lesley Edwards is ‘retired’… 10 years ago, her wisdom would have left with her, but now here she is continuing to share, to learn and to lead.
Today most of my personal learning came from a conference in Japan where Alan November was presenting and where Kim Cofino was sharing links, tweets of wisdom, and information on a Google document (during her second session with Alan). Afterward I said to Kim, ‘Thanks for sharing,’ and her response was “Of course! :)” Kim has been an idea leader that I’ve ‘known’ for several years now although I’ve never met her… but I know her. Her default learning practice is to share. On Twitter, I have a selected list that I pay special attention to and indeed it is ‘Ideas, not roles are dictating the people I connect with’.
To add to your list, I’ve also found it valuable to intentionally connect to those with the same roles as me, in order to find mentors and thought leaders with relevance to my current position. In my company (rather than district), all the other principals are High School leaders with completely different needs that what I have. In a typical Skype conference call with our Superintendent there might be 30% of the information that is relevant to me, with the rest being important information about provincial exams, etc. that don’t concern my school. But on Connected Principals I’m surrounded by mentors and advisers that share very relevant ideas and information.
Less borders, idea rather than roles, and then also ideas from within a shared role… We live in a truly connected and amazing world, and we are all moving towards making it amazing for our students too!
You do make a good point about the value of some connections in similar roles. It is why I am so pleased to see some others BC Superintendents (e.g. Steve Cardwell from Vancouver and Keven Elder from Saanich) on Twitter.
Chris, I honestly don’t know where you get the energy to stay so connected and be so influencial. Must be because you’re younger than I 🙂
Seriously though, I think one of the primary attributes I appreciate about you, is that you do connect around ideas and thinking, not positions or roles. This is so refreshing. Not being an educator myself, but being in the K12 “business” for almost 20 years I must say I always found it frustrating how role and hierarchy oriented education “used to be” and how difficult it was for me to connect on an intellectual level with educators.
This has and continues to change, for the better, where more people such as yourself are more interested in ideas then positions. We all have great ideas to contribute to the whole don’t we!
Good on you Chris! Please keep pushing my thinking. And help others that may be still viewing the world of connections through a traditional lense…
Thanks Brian for your comments. I always like hearing you described as “someone who thinks like an edcuator.” I am quite sure that is meant to be a compliment 🙂
I am finding that I am not only looking across roles and geography but also outside of education for influence.
It is great how we are actually sharing more ideas likely now through powerful new technologies, than we did when we worked together.
One day we will have to reunite the band!
Great post Chris
Ideas as the constant and location as the variable – very similar to what we expect from our students (achievement as their constant and attendance – in terms of where the learning takes place – as their variable)
It’s no secret that how we view the acquisition of knowledge – global, open, transparent, non-hierarchical, interactive, and real time – is changing students’ and our professional expectations. As an educator with ideas (not just a person with the title of Principal) I realize that social media deepens my connections within a global (no boundaries) learning community in two significantly new ways:
1. It allows me to engage rapidly and simultaneously with peers (and especially my students) in the same transparent and direct way that they expect from everyone in their lives;
2. The plethora of social media dialogues I engage in give me the opportunity to learn from instant information and unvarnished feedback.
I like how, in the end, you ‘bring’ your message back to our students. As there are no boundaries for us in terms of our learning, so too should we appreciate the idea that a schools’ primary identity being linked to a building from 8 to 3 is becoming an anachronism. Schools, like the conversations you cite, should become diverse mechanisms where information is accessed, mastered and used.
As our professional learning has changed vis a vis points of access (as David so wonderfully illustrates) so too should our schools. Paul Hill and Mike Johnston (In the Future, Diverse Approaches to Schooling – PDK Nov. 2010) bring this point home:
“The process of information gathering is diffuse, infinite, and without any physical home, it is managed entirely by the user and not the physical provider. The notion that in the year 2040, all 12-year-olds will be boarding a school bus and riding to a comprehensive public school building to learn how to read and write from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. is now as preposterous as presuming that in the year 2040 that same student would be riding a bus to the public library to flip through the card catalogue for books on snakes.”
Yes, you’re right, this is great time for a transition and how exciting that the conversations which will impact education in the year 2040 are happening right now . . . right here!
While like you, I am certain 2040 will be different – I also need 2015 to be different. Part of my urgency is the urgency of my own kids. My kids begin to graduate in 2020 – I need the system to prepare them for the world that so many of us are talking about.
Hi Chris,
Thank you (and all the others) for the Twitter back-channel at the BCSSA Conference. Being the member of a, “lesser permission group”, (ie; a humble teacher) there’s no way I’d ever have the time, money or invitation to attend an event like this. That’s why I’m ecstatic that more and more conferences have an online component. For example the ATLE (Alberta Technology Leaders in Education) Conference last week used Elluminate to broadcast the keynote speaker’s address. As a result, I heard Dean Shareski deliver a powerful presentation on what should be kept and what should be scraped in 21st Century education. (I can’t wait for that recording to become available).
That’s just one of many workshops, keynotes and presentations I’ve attended – virtually – all around the world. It’s also given me the opportunity to ask questions of and interact with some very interesting people such as Dr Alex Corous, Bernie Dodge, George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and many others. Pretty heady stuff for a humble teacher who is on absolutely no one’s list.
So, in response to your first point, “School District borders matter less and less when it comes to professional learning”, IMHO – they matter not at all. I don’t think I’ve attended a district event (except as a presenter) in almost a decade. Yet hardly a week goes by that I am not attending (virtually) some on-line session, workshop or conference thanks to notifications on the blog and twitisphere.
The world (both in terms of technology and education) is changing too fast and the availability of great minds willing to share is too great to rely on locally delivered pro’d. Just as the teacher is no longer the sole font and source of knowledge in the classroom, the district curriculum department is no longer the sole or even primary dispenser of curriculum/pro’d wisdom to teachers.
If technologies like the Internet will allow students to expand their horizons beyond the 4 walls of a classroom, why shouldn’t the same technologies allow teachers to expand their horizons, their learning beyond the confines of a district?
As for F2F pro’d, the one of two yearly regional or provincial conferences I do attend (usually on my on nickel, which is why I always try to go as a presenter – keeps the cost down) I enjoy immensely, not only for the sessions but as a chance to connect with new friends and reconnect with old ones. After all, there is that social component to learning.
Thanks again for being my eyes and ears in places I could never hope to go. It is much appreciated.
Great comment – you and I seem to have similar approaches. I like to present because I can usually get free admission. I also like to go a couple times a year to events to connect face-to-face but like to spend the rest of my PD time at my own time and pace, participating and connecting virtually – my own personalized learning.
Chris, it is an honour to be mentioned by you as your blogs and tweets are often referenced by me in our district. I, too, have noticed a recent increase in the number of local people that I can connect with and learn from.
I like your thought on connecting with people not based on roles but based on similar ideas and interests. Twitter and blogging has introduced me to so many people that have fueled my passion for assessment and student motivation but also those that have challenged me to be a better educator.
I attended the BCPVPA conference this year and it did not have a hashtag as I think there were less than a handful of us on Twitter. The networking was definitely lacking but I am thrilled to have linked up with so many admin since then that I think 2010 will be the last principals conference that will be put on without a backchannel.
Thank you for modeling reflective conversations are student learning. I look forward to continuing the meaningful dialogue with you and the so many other people I learn from.
I have really seen an amazing change – the birth of the back channel is BC education. It was great following the #BCCT2010 and I suspect the BCSTA event next week will also have a Twitter conversation. I look forward to following future #bcpvpa events – as more people use these tools, and find value through conferences (which I think is one of the big easy wins) I susepct the number of BC educators using Twitter is going to grow quickly.
This was a great post. I am just starting to learn the power of twitter. The most exciting future conversations will be regarding how to engage our students to use technology as a tool for their own professional development – just as we as professionals use it.
Hi Karen,
Thanks for the comment. It is exciting to see how we can use social media with students to connect them across schools, districts and beyond. Nice to connect with you on Twitter. I look forward to hearing more about what you are doing.
[…] about this a lot lately in the context of our work in the digital world. I wrote recently (here) that while I continue to be influenced by many thinkers outside of British Columbia and Canada, […]