eLive 2006 Keynote 2 - Will Richardson

eLive 2006 – Keynote 2
Will Richardson

The most powerful learning experience in Will’s life has come from his blogging activities. Learned about people, technology (yes), about education, ….

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originally uploaded by DavidDMuir.

Will pointed out that typing Will into Google makes him come up fourth! Beats Alan November :-)

It’s not about the technology! Take for example, One Red Paper Clip – a chap trying to trade his way from one red paper clip for a house! At the moment he has gone from a paper clip to a night with Alice Cooper! Imagination!

Imagination. See also anime mash-ups {Didn’t get the site… hopefully I’ll get it from watching the video later. - or from Ewan who was better at paying attention :-) Will talked about the Anime Music Video site.} More and more now, the Internet allows us to use our imaginations to explore.

One trillion links on the web… and it is in these links that you see the power. And that’s the “old” web. What about the read/write web? Not just about consuming the information, but about creating and sharing. Web 2.0 is a turning point (see quote from Tim O’Reilly). Remember, it is about the links. The blogsphere {hate that term! - DM} is experiencing huge growth. According to Technorati they are creating billions of links. Not just linking pages, but linking ideas.

The web is about conversations now. As an example, Will talks about how much he has learned from Ewan despite only meeting him face to face yesterday. The knowledge is in the network and the skill is finding the information in the network. {He demonstrated the network with a cool graphic from Touchgraph… will need to explore this further later! - DM} Also used GlobalVoices as a good example. People talking about themselves. Everybody has their own printing press – brilliant! We don’t yet understand how significant this will be.

Imagination: Hear Matthew Bischoff’s podcast and listen to the excitement. See also Tess Richardson’s Weather Recipe book on Flickr. It started as an exercise for grandparents but more than 800 people have looked at it. Aslo talked about Sandaig Otters and the excitement that a worldwide audience generates for the pupils. Children can teach… children can learn with this technology.

Drew on ACfE to show how this sort of technology fits with ACfE.

“Please stop thinking of your schools as four walls. Thinking and linking is what it is about.”

“It’s not about the technology, it’s about imagination.”

The read/write web might change the world. How might it change education? Firstly, moving from a closed content model to an open content model. Everything is not in the text book any more. The content is not only created, but it is being given away for free, See for example Coming of Age, or MIT Open Courseware. Now it is Rip, Mix and Learn. See for example Will’s H2O site on Martin Luther King. The teacher as DJ! For example Will’s class blog where he hooked his pupils up to authors of the books they were studying.

From some time learning to anytime learning. It is move from a push model to a pull model. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. {Goodies or The Goodies :-)}

From working alone to working together. The idea that children shouldn’t work together is daft. We live in a collaborative world. Wikipedia is a great example of this. Is this a model for how our pupils create knowledge? Whatever we think about Wikipedia, we can’t ignore it – our pupils are using it. Collaborate with peers around the world or collaborate with peers in the classroom!

From audience of one to audience of many. From “hand in homework” to “publish homework”. Think about the shift this means! Move away from grades! Think about Fanfiction site that Alan talked about yesterday – children don’t use their names so that their work is criticised, not them. Would we accept anonymous homework?

From experts to networks. E.g. RSS. We can track the research that others are doing without having to go and look for it. RSS collects it into the one place.

From know what learning to know where. The key thing is not learning the formulas, but learning where to find it – know how to use it. Our pupils need to know how to use their mobile phones to find information.

From information literacy to network literacy. How do you navigate the network, How do we work in a distributed collaborative network?

• What needs to change when our children can publish to a world wide audience?
• How does a teacher’s role change when we can connect our students to Pulitzer Prize winning journalists?
• How do we define literacy when we need to be able to read, create and publish content?

{Feel free to answer these questions. - DM}

Teachers must become content creators. Make us aware of the issues and model good practice. For example, children forget their Myspace stuff is out there – college entrance people and future employers look at them! Must be collaborators. Must be the change agents – at times this will mean being subversive. Model ethical uses.

The tools are not difficult to master, but we need to be imaginative. What are we willing to trade from our old classrooms?

In response to question on how to change Will suggested starting small. Introduce simple ideas to pupils and let it grow. We also need to start conversations about what these tools can do.

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