iPads in Chinese Classrooms

We just finished with our second professional development with educators in China. This time it was an elementary school that would like to be part of our long term project. The plan was for 20-25 teachers that have been identified as leaders. Over 40 showed up. Every event like this is fraught with difficulty: bandwidth, technology on both sides but more than everything it is the physical and cultural distance. It is hard to get a read on a large crowd through distance and it is almost impossible to get the personal commitment that would drive change.

I started with a very short theoretical foundation. We then used Socrative as a demonstration of a way to engage participants.  Jason Wilmot proceeded to discuss the Flipped Classroom and Krista Barnhouse showed a few apps she uses in her classroom. It then turned into a mini app shootout. Overall it was a successful if stressful session with Ji at the helm producing the event, Dandi translating and Qizhen as a backup/ backchannel discussant. It is a fairly big team but it probably is the only way we can manage that.

This is an evaluation of the effort through our back channels (edited version so I take full responsibility):

         "There were a total of 43 teachers and two principals joined our conference physically. There were three teachers joined our conference online. According to the responses, teachers who participated in online felt more engaged than those who joined physically. This is because those teachers all had a one-on-one technology person sitting next to them solving the technical issues, such as installation and registration. All teachers love our apps introduction but some of them suggested to get rid of theory section because they all know the theories. Moreover, teachers asked us to bring real-time classroom instructions rather than only introduction. 

I talked with a couple teachers yesterday and they said they need the conference but they all indicated that Chinese teachers will never integrate technology into classroom unless principals force them to do so. A teacher stated that there is only five who want to learn among 100 teachers in similar trainings in China, meaning those teachers did not get engaged. The lack of quality of motivation, will hinder them to learn."

I do not share the morbid evaluation. At the heart of it, it seems that teachers in China are like teachers everywhere. They want to change but know it is hard and are afraid that it might not work. Change if any will be slow and will depend on our ability to deliver tailored information and on-going support. It is true with the schools we work with at LPS, it is true with pre-service teachers, and it si true when we work with Chinese educators. Heck based on a faculty meeting last friday, it is also true with our teacher education faculty.

Our Chinese experiment will continue!

Conferences, Engagement, and Ethics

I am on my way to the American Educational Research Association meeting in San Francisco. This is one area that even the best of current technologies cannot compete with. Despite the best of technology an online conference experience is still far removed from the real deal. In a way its like the idea of a pilgrimage. We need the physical distance and separation to create enough space in our goal system to allow full engagement with the conference. For online conferences to be as successful there is a need to simulate among others that separation.

Figuring this out is not a minor concern, as research and information become globalized we have to travel great distances to present and hear. This limits our ability to interact effectively, engage scholars from less affluent communities and to do so with lower impact on the environment. This important for professional development as well.

I often participate in webinars, hangouts and other digital formats and the expereinec for me is not even close. Mostly I am in my hometown, my office or home and all the daily distractions and goals are still ever present taking away from my engagement and making the experience less satisfactory.

So what can be done, well perhaps the key is creating a blended experience. First scholars and professionals in each of the locations need to be both consumers and producers of presentations. Participants are sequestered during the day in a separate location with peers say a hotel with meeting rooms. Each location can have a moderator and a tech staff making sure that tech problems do not become an obstacle to a good experience. Online informal meeting rooms can be set up for chats. Social can be used just as it is in F2F conferences to help direct traffic and enhance the participant experience.

This version of a virtual conference is considerably less cost effective than a series of webinars or Google plus hangouts- but it would be far more engaging and deeply interactive.
Until then I will enjoy San Francisco seeing old friends and my overpriced hotel room.

Teaching Art Online

A prospective graduate student came by a few weeks ago. His goal as he stated it is to minimize damage to rural students by providing quality arts instruction online or through distance education in other means. I worry.
I told him that I worried, arts education is a field that requires demonstratin, proximity and more than anything else mentoring. This kind of mentoring is extremely hard to reproduce at a distance. I think that the ability to look at the dancers moves from multiple perspectives, the painters brush strokes or the guitarist hands are crucial elements that cannot be done at a distance. I teach distance courses and Ithink some of


them are great- but not in arts education or arts integration.
My second concern was that by creating online replacements we urge districts that have stuck by their specialists and invested in them to stop. If the quality is there, they might say, why not save a bundle. So what can be done instead?
Here are some ideas:
1. Train classroom teachers in arts integration and enhance their understanding through studio experiences with local artists and museum resources.
2. If online lessons are created integrate them with rich artist in residence programs- mandated not just as an option. The experieneces must be bundled and truly integrated.
3. Educate school boards and administrators about the importance of the arts.

Do not let rural schools do without arts....

Boots on the Ground

Our project is challenged by working in two very different contexts. In California we work mainly with generalists (classroom teachers) while in Nebraska the work centers on the collaboration between specialists and generalist. Further complicating this issue is the geographical distance of 1500 miles. The Department of Education have asked us to present about ways we resolve the conceptual and geographical distance effectively.
This is where technology is enormously helpful, and I am always technology happy. Experience have taught me though that technology can have only a supporting role in a project like ours. I believe very strongly that professional development can be most successful when we understand each others context and practices. Further, there is no way to understand context and practice without sharing the same contextual space, seeing students, classrooms, and interactions.
As a former soldier it is a "Boots on the Ground" approach. Beyond understanding the context I believe that deep professional development the kind we know makes a difference is about relationships of trust shared experiences and even friendship. Such relationships can only happen in face to face meetings.
We travel from site to site for more than just a 4 hour PD we visit classrooms, and when budgets allow we take teachers with us so they can learn from the different contexts and practices.
Technology used on top of that can help maintain the relationships created during face to face meetings but not replace them.