Mr. Hamada’s Universe

Morpheus came to UNIS last weekend…

You remember The Matrix, right? (If you don’t, maybe we shouldn’t be friends. It’s only one of the best movies ever.) Morpheus shows up in Mr. Anderson’s life, dazzles him with some crazy out-of-this world stuff, and then offers him a choice:

Neo, this is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Jeff Utecht dazzled the UNIS Middle School/High School staff with some pretty out-of-this-world stuff: wikis, podcasts, chatrooms used to take class notes, Chris Lehmann’s Ignite Philly presentation, interesting new brain research (and lots more) as well as, most importantly, a vision of what education can (must?) become in order to remain relevant.

I’m excited to see how many of my colleagues are taking the red pill. The Twitter population at UNIS has quintupled with people willing to give it a try. People are buzzing about external wikis and blogs (as opposed to our in-house SharePoint wikis and blogs). I don’t know how many have been created over the last 24 hours. I’m planning on hosting another “Tablet Support Group” meeting this week to allow people time to debrief and reflect. (While we did try to build in some reflection time in our days a la Learning 2.008, it just wasn’t enough!) There is a flame that has been lit and I’m hoping it turns into an uncontrolled Five Alarm Fire that consumes classrooms and students and teachers.

Of course, there will always be those content to take the blue pill and continue believing that what they are doing (which is the same thing they were doing 2, 5, 10, 20 years ago) is relevant and best-practice. What do we say to them? What can we say to them?

I wish, in this poor metaphorical exercise, I could say that I was Neo. I doubt that I am. I’m probably more like Tank or Dozer. But I’ve got my eye on a few who could be The One…

I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came to tell you how it’s going to begin. - Morpheus

(In future posts, I hope to dissect my role in presenting a few session at our PD weekend. I also reserve the right to use “Edu-Matrix” in the future, just in case. I just like the sound of it: Welcome to the Edu-Matrix.)

I’ll admit it: I missed the boat on this whole blogging thing. 

But now that I’m here, I got some questions that need some answers. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s all I could write while my Grade 8s were taking their Algebra Skills Assessment:

1. How do I use those footnotes like dan?
2. Are there any support groups for my addiction to Google Analytics and ClustrMaps?  (Note: I’m not blogging for the numbers, I just like the cool visuals.)
3. What are the benefits to self-hosting as opposed to using Edublogs? How much would it cost me?
4. Other than ‘borrowing’ Jeff Utecht’s list, is there a decent primer on how to use all these cool widgets, tools, plug-ins, etc.? What are all the cool kids doing?
5. How many widgets, plug-ins, etc. does it take to cross over into the “excessive” and “distracting” categories? Is there a general school of thought on blog design and layout akin to using PowerPoint?
6. How much time do you put into writing/editing/uploading content?
7. Is Twitter the blogging equivalent of methadone?
8. How do I explain my newest interest to my wife?
9. Where do you find the time?

NOTE: a version of this post first appeared on an internal blog at our school as was inspired by a post by Jeff Utecht.  This post is also cross-posted at Pockets of Change, a new blog that I co-author with my colleague Adrienne Michetti.

With all due respect to Gil Scot-Heron… 

True revolutions are not created or planned. They are organic: they arise when the needs of the masses (students, teachers, and even administrators) outstrip what the dominant establishment (the monolithic entity of ‘Education’) is able to supply.

We are on the precipice of a revolution.  There is a growing number of teachers who realize there is a better way.  There is a change in the demographics of both teachers and administrators as innovators and early adopters of these new technologies take up positions of responsibility within schools. There are groups of students who are becoming more aware of the vast educational possibilities that collaborative technologies allow.

There are two ways for this revolution to be truly initiated: either a watershed event a la the Boston Tea Party, or through a methodical plan of actively searching out the agents of change, slowly proselytizing by example and converting whoever we can whenever we can.  In either case, the goal is to create the critical mass necessary to evoke true reform and revolution in the sphere of education.

Once 50% +1 of a school or even a department are using collaborative technologies in a meaningful and productive way, can the remaining population afford not to? Once the teachers in these trailblazing departments or schools move on to their next destination, as is always the case in international schools, will they willingly go back to the way things were?  These teachers then become the messengers of change as they enter their new schools, bringing with them their expertise and the power of their personal network.

This revolution will be a grass-roots, bottom-up shift from teachers who understand the power of Web 2.0. There should not, can not, and will not be shift in educational philosophy decreed by the powers. That’s not the way revolution works.

Photo Credit: localsurfer